When Michael S. Ryan, best known as one-half of The Town Heroes, received a song commission over Instagram, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. However, when a cheque was “accidentally” cut for $3000 it immediately raised some red flags and Ryan nearly became the latest victim in a scam that has recently targeted several East Coast musicians.
Michael S. Ryan is a fairly googleable fellow; his band, The Town Heroes have won multiple East Coast Music Awards and he’s currently in the running for this year’s CBC Searchlight competition. Which is to say that should a scammer decide to specifically target East Coast musicians, they wouldn’t have to go too far down the search index to find Ryan.
This particular scam involves reaching out to musicians to commission a song for a special event. Once the initial details are hashed out and it comes time to pay the piper, a cheque is then “accidentally” written out for an amount ten times the initial price with simply no way to correct it. With no additional cheques on hand and no conceivable alternative methods of payment, the scammer asks if they might simply trust the artist to complete the transaction and refund the excess amount.
Of course, the money was never really there and, if the process has managed to make it that far, the scammer makes off with the artist’s very real money while the initial cheque later proves to be bogus.
“My wife, Kristen Herrington, and I do a project where I write a custom song and she does a custom painting for people. I’ve been doing these custom songs for a while,” explains Ryan. “So, initially, the message felt like every other one I got.”
The amount of detail offered in the request—an integral part of commissioning a bespoke song, in any case—makes it all the more convincing:
“Okay nice, His name is Michael, and you can also say something about cat boy in PJ mask(cat boy is a character in his favorite cartoon show called PJ mask)
He likes Spider-Man too, his favorite food is pasta
I sometimes have to carry him so he can shoot his imaginary web and climb walls haha. He likes playing soccer and he’s getting really good at it
And also his puppy Mylo loves playing with him a lot
He’s smart and funny
He has grey eyes.
I don’t wanna narrow your imagination, yes an audio file would be just fine.”
Ryan says that the Instagram account that the message came from was fully fleshed out, complete with photographs and nearly a thousand legitimate-looking followers.
“Initially, I had zero reasons to believe it was fake,” says Ryan. “The grey eyes kind of confused me… but I don’t have kids, so I don’t know what colour kids’ eyes can be. Red eyes? Sure!
“It was normal, up until the money started to be tossed around. I have a personal policy that I have to get a portion of the money up front if it’s a stranger. So, I said I need at least half up front.”
Ryan says that’s the point when the red flags started going up:
At that point, Ryan’s sense of skepticism fully kicked in, he blocked the scammer and reported them not long after.
“It’s weird because it’s obviously a scam, but there’s the aspect of him sending me the 3k. If I actually got the money… it couldn’t be a scam, right? Obviously, I’d never get it,” says Ryan.
More Artists Targeted
Ryan isn’t the only East Coast musician that this scam has reached.
Kristen Martell of Mahone Bay says that a year ago she had completely fallen for it until it came time to take care of the details. She even has a questionnaire document for potential clients to fill out when they request a song. It was when the scammer failed to follow through on it that Martell realized something might be up.
“I like to establish a rapport with folks so I can deliver a solid end product. I need to know what they are looking for,” says Martell who was prepared to go so far as to create a video slide show for their prospective client. “Once I sent them the questionnaire, they started acting weird and saying they just want a simple song and ‘can’t you write something with what I gave you?’.”
Rather than fill out the form, the response Martell received was nearly the exact same story that Ryan had heard, Spider-Man and all. After a little digging, Martell ascertained the offer likely wasn’t a legitimate one and declined on the grounds that they were simply offering too little information.
“I got the request again three more times from three different accounts. By this time I knew what to look for and ask and I kindly told them where to go!”
For Prince Edward Island-based musician Brielle Ansems it was a very near miss. In November of 2020, Ansems says she received a similar offer and had gone so far as to cash their cheque before realizing what was happening.
“I managed to stop it before I lost any money, but it was very close,” says Ansems. “I had a stressful week with my bank and pretty much my entire account was on hold until it got sorted.”
“The scammer ‘accidentally’ sent a cheque for $2000, and before it cleared, they wanted the excess sent back. The cheque was flagged as fraudulent, of course. I learned from my bank that there is no such thing as a ‘mobile cheque,’ which would have been helpful to know.”
Ansems was then directed by her local bank to contact their main branch to clarify the situation, in case they mistook her for trying to pass off bad cheques herself.
“I could have had my account suspended and faced some heavy fines.”
What You Can Do
Karl McCarthy, Branch Manager with BMO – Bank of Montreal in Saint John says that this form of scam is a common one that has persisted because it continues to work for fraudsters.
“This is an old, and very familiar scam, usually used on Kijiji. ‘Buyer sends seller too much money for the goods, the seller deposits the cheque, sends the difference, the fraudulent cheque returns, etc.’,” says McCarthy.
McCarthy explains that, rather than any technical or financial sorcery, this scam boils down to people rushing to “return” funds prior to checking their bank balance to see that the money has ever made it into their account in the first place.
“The recipient of the cheque will be responsible for the full amount of the cheque deposited if they withdraw any funds prior to allowing it enough time to clear, which is generally just a few days. Fraudulent cheques are usually ‘returned’ quickly, even sometimes the following business day.”
When it comes to online transactions there are signs that you should look for to keep yourself safe. There are even ways that you can protect yourself, should you find yourself already a little further down that path than you’re comfortable with.
“First red flag, nobody is ever going to mistakenly pay too much for a product, or service, ever,” says McCarthy. “Somebody paying by cheque is a red flag, why don’t they just e-Transfer the funds? Customers should only accept cheques from somebody they know well, and trust.
“The best way to protect themselves is to allow the cheque to clear prior to withdrawing the funds. If the cheque returns, but no funds have been withdrawn, there is no loss.”
March is known as Fraud Prevention Month, and despite it already being June, it’s never a bad time to learn how to protect yourself against fraud. The Government of Canada has some quick facts about what you can do to prevent finding yourself in this situation and how to get out of it.