I Just found out… the first contact email I got after I renewed my membership is a scam.
The person said he found me on SILA directory and asked me to give him a quote for his project.
He was not very clear about the details… He wanted me to design 4 kids with a slogan on a banner. He was pretty pushy and wanted to get my reply right away and he promised to give me 50% upfront. He said he wants it to be done in 20 days but then I told him I am only available in June and then he is fine with it.

After I gave him the quote on Thursday… there was no response afterwards until today.
He just replied saying they made a mistake and sent me a $4500 check and wants me to refund the difference and send to another company.(??) Please see the following attachment for the original email content.
I already replied and told him I will discard the check and if he wants to give money to another organization he should do it himself.

I believe that it’s a scam that [is] targeting artists..and your directory is a good source for them to go after one by one. Maybe you guys can write a warning or something about art scams to members and hopefully no one really fall into this kind of trap.

(I……fell into an art scam trick 2 years ago and lost more than 1k .. 🙁 Scammers wanted to buy my art but then they asked me to pay the shipping to the company they prefer to use… it’s actually a shell company with all the legal info online… in the end I couldn’t get my money back because they were using a paypal loophole for the whole transaction. )

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Alex Greene <greenealex33@g———->
Date: Tue, May 24, 2016 at 7:41 AM
Subject: PAYMENT

Morning,

How are you doing today and how is the job job going on. It was brought to my notice by my sponsor that the check has been sent to you but there was a mistake with the amount on the check,the amount on check is $4500 so when you receive it go ahead and deposit it and after your account is credited you will take your 50% deposit i will give you instruction on how to send the difference

In spite of this, I will give you details where you will return the difference fund to because the surplus is need to help the victim of Earthquake in Nepal and fire in Australia also to provide cloth,food and shelter for less privilege kids.

I don’t want us to waste time so proceed when your account is credited. Am sorry for the inconvenience this might have cause you.

Awaits your mail soonest.

Best Regards,

‘Let’s Be Careful Out There” – Sergeant Phil Esterhaus via Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll