My former partner, Victor Niederhoffer, is a connoisseur of cons. In his extensive library is an entire bookcase devoted to scams dating back 100 years.
I perused the old accounts, but there were plenty of current examples, too. In the early naughties, when we co-wrote hundreds of financial columns, Nigerian scams came regularly to our inboxes. In delightfully louche English, they invited us to execute wire transfers to release lost funds, with handsome rewards.
Eventually, these pitches became famous and ended up on federal warning lists. I hadn’t seen any for quite a few years. Until a couple of weeks ago.
It was pretty well done. The email was in decent, albeit imperfect, English. It came from a gentleman who asked me to play for his wedding in December.
He said a close friend had offered to pay my fee and that I should let him know when the check arrived.
I said I would be delighted to play at his wedding, and started preparing the music.
Yesterday, he said his friend had inadvertently included the photographer's fee in my check. Today, he phoned me as soon as the check dropped in my mailbox. He pressed in most urgently to deposit the funds, after which he would let me know the Zelle address of the photographer so I could forward him his portion.
It was almost plausible. Who targets wedding pianists? But my hours in Victor’s library, the bit about forwarded funds, and the fact that the supposed groom had never called me on the phone before put me in mind of the Nigerian scams of bygone days. I couldn’t quite see the rat, but the high pressure was enough to prompt me to tell the fellow that I would not play at his wedding.
I marched straight to the post office to send the check back, noting that check address was a Alabama PO box, but the package had been mailed from Florida.
When I picked my brilliant son up at school, he immediately identified it as a scam and said the check would have bounced. Not only would I have never seen a dime of my fee, I would have been out the photographer’s fee, about a year's average salary in Nigeria.
I can't help but admire the enterprise of someone who aspires to take a bite of the grand spending on Greenwich weddings. Still, it’s pretty low to target a hapless pianist.
At least I now have a repertoire of wedding music.
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