Response to Help with a sketchy e-mail!

[unknown-user]

Most of these are spam and they simply are trying to obtain your personal information. I get most of my real harp student through email, and it is easy to tell the difference.

The spam mail usually is looking for a teacher for a limited time frame. They usually live very far away and are planning to visit my country and want lessons while they are here. They want me to send info on how much I charge so they can pay for the whole thing in advance. (I suspect it would turn out to be a scam where they send a check for more, and I mail them the difference, turns out they have a bad check, etc)These often have unusual elements in the request like desiring three lessons per week, or includes instruments I don’t play. One person wanted me to teach them yoga which could have been an interesting double scam!! (They’d leave me penniless, I’d leave them pretzeled) 🙂

The real emails usually address me by name, mention where they found my name, have details about their background and desire to learn harp, describing the harps they own, etc. They usually include a phone number for me to contact them, and they usually live in driving distance from me.