I have had an email from someone who says their children will be holidaying in my area ans he wants music lessons for them. The name sounds Eastern European. He says he has paid a music teacher already but they will pay me. That teacher has recently been widowed and doesn't want to teach them. He wants two hour lessons three times a week for two children over five weeks. I am primarily a singer teacher and teach most of my young pupils in half hour lessons. This just sounds dodgy to me but could be genuine. I replied with my half hourly rates and asked where he had got my email address. He said from a friend. Instinct tells me to stop here and not get any more involved. Am I right?

Whilst I don't know for definite if you're right, it certainly seems so. Six hours of tuition a week, for just five weeks?!

The standard scam here is that you'll receive a cheque for too much money, you refund the difference and then their cheque bounces.

Yeah unfortunately I get quite a few of those - I think because I advertise using google adwords.

People saying that their kids will be staying with relatives in London and want to travel to me several times a week - but they dont seem to realise quite how big London is....

Best just to ignore it

I can't say whether your instinct is right or not, but my instinct would be very similar.
It does sound a bit unlikely.

I would certainly proceed with caution if I proceeded at all. I would not agree to take on pupils where the money is to come from a third party. Do not give this person your bank or any other personal details at this stage. If you want to copy the text of the email and pm it to me I am happy to look at it and give you any further thoughts.

My instinct would be the same as yours country girl.

If they respond to your e-mail about rates then an e-mail back asking for information about how long they have been learning, what style of music they want to work on, what songs they have recently been studying, perhaps some more technical singing type questions - things that a genuine parent should know but are not easy to answer if you don't have a genuine story, may flush them out.

But I agree with Maggiemay's advice about caution, personal details, cheques etc.

I've never had an experience like this, but I wouldn't contemplate it unless I'd spoken to the people in person and saw the colour of the money in hard cash at the start of the lessons!

I get regular warnings from an on-line singing teachers advertising site about these scams. Usually it's a relative needing lessons from abroad, often bad English, several lessons a week, etc. If you persue it they will want to send you a cheque which is far too much for your fees, and then ask you to write a cheque for the difference. Theirs doesn't clear, of course.
I would be wary. I always delete these messages and block the sender.

I've read about this scam on other forums too.

Yes I've had quite a few like that as well.

Normally they start "Hello to you over there!"...then I hit delete

Thank you all think I've had one before and ignored that too...and will definitely do no more about this one.

I used to get a lot of these - they don't seem to have caught on to my latest email address. Some of them even used to ask what instrument I taught or what city I lived in!

Delete and block - this is definitely a scam; I've had hundreds of them! For the record, they're from Nigeria. What they want is your cash; they'll send you a cheque for too much and ask you to repay the balance asap. The cheque will then bounce. Or they'll ask for your bank details so they can rob your account. The money will be used for drug running and god knows what else - don't give a second thought - just block and delete!!!