Quick Printing

I’ve heard several printers talk about a scam that’s been making the rounds lately. It has also been a frequent topic of discussion on a couple of print related listservs and chat sites. The thing about scammers is they don’t bother to research the companies they target. I guess that’s how the email wound up in my mailbox.

The email, which also included a PDF attachment titled “20571 LIVING BREAD MINISTRIES,” read:
Good day,
Please i need an estimate on this print work.

Fliers:QTY: 69,000 pieces of 11X17, printed on 70lb Gloss Text printed one side only in 3 colors on ink with the attached artwork, no bindery/folding.Exclude shipping/delivery charges.

Please let me know the quote or any questions, look forward to working with you on this project.

Thank you!
Steve MacDonald

I replied:

Mr. MacDonald,
Thank you for your inquiry. Quick Printing is a business magazine targeted to the owners and managers of quick and small commercial printers. As such, we do not produce printing jobs. Also, as such, we are quite well aware of the shipping scheme represented by your inquiry and the fact that you prey upon our readers. You would do well to fish in other waters.

Even though the email arrived in my Quick Printing mailbox, it appeared to be addressed to inquiries@rushpostcardprinting.com, which by the way, is a legitimate business. And a quick Google search uncovers at least two organizations called Living Bread Ministries. So if unsuspecting printers open this email and do a quick check on the Internet, they would probably be inclined to send the man a quote.

Nonetheless, this is a scam, and here’s how it works. If you quote on the job, you will be awarded the work, no questions asked, no quibbling over price. Everything will appear to be above board. And they will be very eager to pay you right away. You may get one or two phone calls, but the majority of your correspondence will be via email.

The next part may vary slightly, but this is how it most often goes. When the job is ready for pickup, they will send you an email saying that they have experienced a personal emergency and you will be asked to deliver the printing directly to the mission in Africa, or South America, or wherever. This is the whole point of the exercise.

The scammers will use some sort of ruse with either checks or, more often, credit cards so that it looks like the money is coming from them, but they will insist that payment be sent using Western Union — which means cash. Your cash. Naturally, when it all comes out in the wash, their “payment” turns out to be no good and uncollectable, and they will have disappeared into the synapses of the Internet with the money you wired them (usually about $10,000).

I seriously doubt the person posing as “Steve MacDonald” will be intimidated by my email. He probably won’t even finish reading it past the point where I tell him we don’t provide printing. But sometimes you just feel like you have to throw a pebble at the dragon that’s harassing your village. Know what I mean?

I seem to have the same conversation over and over. Someone — usually an outsider or a person who isn’t familiar with our market — will make some dismissive statement about quick printers being too small for their interests. This is my cue to launch into a litany about the wide ranging capabilities and sophisticated services offered by QP’s readers. I explain that our readers may call themselves quick printers, small commercial printers, digital printers, or even marketing specialists. All the labels are self applied anyway, and what they choose to call themselves in no way limits their business. From the magazine’s standpoint, we figure anyone who signs up for a magazine called Quick Printing is probably operating the type of entrepreneurial business model we serve. So there!

Recently, however, I realized that I might need to have that same conversation with myself. While working on a project with NAQP, I was scrolling through a mailing list and recognized the name of a printer that I had seen just a few minutes before in a press release. The company had just installed, not one, but two Xerox iGen4 presses. When I first read the release, I thought, “That’s nice, but this guy is obviously not a quick printer.” Not five minutes later, I ran across his name on the NAQP mailing list.

Just as with people who subscribe to the magazine, I figure that anyone who joins NAQP would fit within our concept of a quick printer. Ergo, the fellow with the pair of iGen4s is a quick printer. Go figure!

This piqued my interest and I started comparing other press releases about installations against the mailing list. In no time at all, I found information about other NAQP members who had installed equipment that I would have considered either borderline applicable or just simply too much for our market. Installations included a Heidelberg CD 74 with a coater, a Heidelberg SM52 with the Anicolor inking system, and a Muller Martini Presto E90 saddle stitcher. Now who’s underestimating quick printers?!

So, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go explain to myself just how advanced and sophisticated some of our readers really are. I’ll have my argument all updated and ready to go the next time condescending soul says, “Oh, we just aren’t interested in a bunch of little copy shops.”

“Sign up for paperless billing and join AT&T in its efforts to be more earth friendly and environmentally aware. View and store your monthly bills online instead of receiving paper bills in the mail. Going paperless is safe, secure, and easy…and you will save time and money each month. Visit att.com/actgreen to learn more and enroll today. It’s free, and it’s green!”

The problem was that this well-intentioned message was given its own full-page of a nine page bill. It took up about a tenth of that page. Surely they could have fit it in somewhere in the other eight pages and saved some paper.

Right message, wrong presentation.