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-   -   Samuel Sapsford scammer alert, NC photographer (https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/news/8344-samuel-sapsford-scammer.html)

admin 12-08-2017 03:21 AM

Samuel Sapsford scammer alert, NC photographer
 
2 Attachment(s)
I don't take kindly to those that harm this site, or its members. Financial or otherwise. If you do us wrong, we're posting about it. We care about out community, about our members.

Situation:

On July 2 of this year, Mr. Sapsford registered for the forum as beatnik57. Later that day, he upgraded to upgraded to Premium Member. Logs show he visited the site several times in July. He never asked a question, just read lots of stuff. That happens. We consider Premium Membership to be a donation, and often members do too.

In September, more than 60 days later, he filed a fraudulent "did not authorize" Paypal claim. We responded with proof.

Weeks later, Paypal allowed the chargeback! I'm thinking that Paypal told him "no", so he went the CC route instead.

Not only did we lose his membership fee, but were hit with a chargeback fee larger than the membership cost itself. So this son of b!tch negated the funds paid by 2-3 paying members! And that's we we're making this post.

He never emailed us.
He never PMd us.
He never replied to emails.
He never replied to PMs.

Yet, just a few weeks later, on Facebook, he announced a "grand opening" of new photo services. What do you want to bet he came here to read a lot of our info (and probably other sites, too) to get what he needed for this "business". It happens, we know it does. But usually it doesn't directly cost us money.

A person like this should be entirely avoid. Scummy people do more than just 1 scummy thing.

Details on scammer:
This person is supposedly a photographer, though mostly scanning photos/negatives (and possibly with consumer Epson flatbed scanners, hardly pro work).

His site gives "Internal Server Error" for months now.

Not sure who "kathleen" is, but that email was attached to the official Paypal info.

Conclusion

It takes a special kind of asshole to do what he did. And for $20 of all things. :rolleyes: ... (And for us, $60. :mad:)

kpmedia 12-08-2017 03:44 AM

He emailed in July:
Quote:

beatnik57 (stsapsford1@gmail.com) is e-mailing you about
Interested in hosting, web design, re-design or SEO services
Message: Wow. An awesome website! I'm planning on starting a small photography business doing slide and film scanning initially. But plan on ramping up pretty quickly to include VHS to DVD copying and restoration. Then I'll be pursuing the artist in me by doing giclee printing and all the extra stuff. I've been floundering around picking up information here and there and wherever I can find it for a couple of years now. But I just stumbled across your site and found that you've GOT IT ALL! Thank you. I'm sure I'll be consulting with you routinely in the near future. But I would initially like to hear your thoughts on moving into this. I'm not looking to get rich. Just something creative I can do to make a little money
Looking forward to hearing from you.
S. Thomas Sapsford
DAS Harbinger LLP (Digital Archiving Service)
Contact Details: IP: 24.172.107.150
Seemed friendly at the time.

My reply:
Quote:

It's not easy. You'll need prior professional experience (or a decade of serious hobby experience) in video and photo. It's really easy to get in over your head.
Video work takes a long time. Video restoration is that much harder. If you don't have experience in restoration, it will be a time pit. I'd advise against doing that if you're not well versed in it.
Photo restoration is simple compared to video, and it also takes time.
It sounds like you want to pursue the art side anyway. Do that. Perhaps merge photo scanning and restoration with printing?
The problem is everybody thinks they know photo, because their smartphone shoots it. Or that $50 doodad from Best Buy claims to convert their videos (albiet it in pathetic quality, though they don't know that). The actual work will be easy compared to overcoming this obstacle. Hopefully you've done your market research.
And then nothing. No further contact.


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