A 'Sailor' at Sea and a Band That Never Picks Up: MonsterHibachi's First Scammer

In the past few months of running MonsterHibachi, I have generally responded seriously to inquiries on the website. This week, I received a particularly earnest client who was so serious that I ended up chatting with him for three days, only to discover that I was dealing with a scammer.

The whole situation was quite interesting and educational. I decided to write it down, both to keep a record for myself and to alert others who are also running small businesses and taking orders online. This type of scam isn’t new, but it specifically targets people like us: those just starting out, afraid of losing orders, and willing to go the extra mile for clients.

A Very Easy-to-Communicate Client

On October 14, the website received a message that essentially said: they wanted to book a bridal shower with us and asked if we provided live bands or if they could bring their own.

I replied with an email, asking a few standard questions: how many people, how many hours, where, and whether they needed drinks. The person identified himself as Mason Reed and responded quickly, with a well-structured email that seemed like it came straight from a template. He wanted a three-hour event at a lake-view venue in Austin and didn’t need us to provide drinks.

Then he added a sentence that, looking back now, was the core of the entire scam:

Regarding the Rick Trevino Band, please be sure to contact their management team directly via email at [email protected] to coordinate the setup. Also, please add the band’s fee to the final bill, and we will pay with a credit card together.

Rick Treviño is a real Texas country singer and quite well-known. It sounded reasonable for a client in Austin to want to hire him. So I followed his instructions and emailed that Outlook address.

In the meantime, I started looking for venues. We didn’t have any with a lake view, so I spent an afternoon checking out a few places for rent and sent him photos and prices: one in downtown Austin for $1,500 for five hours, and another at Lake Travis for $2,500 for five hours.

He hardly hesitated, saying, “Lake Travis works for me.”

Next, I combined the costs of the hibachi service, venue, and band and quoted him a total: $13,550 before tax, $15,107.91 if paid by card. He responded very straightforwardly:

I accept the total amount and would like to pay $15,107.91 by credit card. Please send me the payment link.

Anyone who has done business knows that a $15,000 order with no negotiation from the client is not a stroke of luck; it’s abnormal. But at that moment, I was still excited about the order, and I let that signal pass.

A Band That Only Accepts Wire Transfers and Doesn’t Answer Calls

Now, let’s talk about the band.

I emailed to inquire about their availability and pricing, and received a reply over an hour later, signed by John Fuller, with the title of PRO. The first line stated, “We are one of the best bands suitable for various common occasions.” He mentioned that they were already aware of the event, that they had a full five-member setup, and that they would bring all their equipment, only needing a space to set up.

The quoted price was $7,985.50. Then came the crucial part:

We receive a large number of inquiries every day. To secure this date and start discussing arrangements with you, we must receive payment first.

I asked if they accepted credit cards, and he said they only accepted wire transfers or cash deposits. I requested an invoice and bank information, and he replied, “I’ll give it to you once you’re ready to pay.” I suggested a phone call, and he asked for my number but then said he couldn’t get through.

The next day, he proactively sent me the bank information. The payee was not the band, nor John Fuller, but a company called Wayex Global S.A., with an address in Florida and a bank in Kansas City. He even included a string of alphanumeric reference numbers, stating, “This number must be noted.”

A well-known country band using a free Outlook email account and a payee account belonging to a company with a name resembling an offshore entity. By this point it was no longer suspicion; it was confirmation. But the moment I actually became suspicious came earlier, on the client’s side.

Three Changes in Payment Method

What really sealed the deal was Mason’s behavior during the payment process.

I sent him the Stripe payment link, and he said, “The link doesn’t open,” and requested that I switch to an Intuit QuickBooks link. I told him I didn’t have QuickBooks, only Stripe, and that I could access the link myself, sending him a screenshot. He insisted:

My card doesn’t work on Stripe. I’ve used QuickBooks to make payments before. If you can give me a QuickBooks link, even if it’s someone else’s account, I can pay immediately.

“Even if it’s someone else’s account.” This phrase was quite interesting. He didn’t care who the money was going to; he only cared about which channel it went through.

I suggested we just make a phone call. He said he was a sailor currently on a ship, so he couldn’t take calls.

That was the line that set off my alarm. A man spending $15,000 on a party had chatted with me for two days without once mentioning he was at sea, and only brought it up when the payment ran into trouble. Besides, “on a ship,” “on an oil rig,” “deployed overseas” are excuses online scammers have been using for over a decade, and they serve exactly one purpose: to explain why you will never see him or hear his voice. From that line on, I read every email he sent from a different angle.

I replied that we would have to cancel then. He immediately panicked:

I can’t let this be canceled. I think it’s a network issue at sea. I’ve already emailed the band and arranged everything. I hope you can help me pay the band first, and I’ll pay you the day before the event when I arrive.

At this point, the entire structure of the scam was laid out on the table.

How This Scam Operates

Looking at both lines of communication, the logic is clear:

1. The scammer poses as a client, seeking a small business willing to “coordinate third parties” for the client.
2. He specifies a “band” and provides the contact information himself. The band is, of course, him.
3. He instructs the business to add the band’s fee to the total bill, which he will “pay in one go.”
4. The business receives the money and wires the band’s portion to the “band.”
5. The money the business receives subsequently disappears: the credit card is stolen, and the cardholder initiates a chargeback; or it’s an ACH transfer, which can be reversed within 60 days; or there’s no payment at all, as in this case, where he wanted me to pay upfront.
6. The $7,900 sent via wire transfer cannot be recovered. The business ends up doing all the work for free and even incurs a loss.

One thing I initially didn’t understand was why he didn’t just use the stolen card to pay on Stripe directly. Later, I figured it out: Stripe’s fraud controls blocked that card. The payment setup I use has strict risk controls. Unusual cards, unusual locations, unusual amounts all get stopped, and most fraudulent transactions never reach me at all. QuickBooks payment links are far more lenient, and the same stolen card has a much better chance of going through there. That’s why he insisted on QuickBooks, and why he specifically said “even if it’s someone else’s account.” He didn’t want a link. He wanted a loosely guarded channel.

When QuickBooks didn’t happen, he switched to ACH. I checked with my bank on this one. ACH is not like a wire: the sender can reverse it within 60 days by claiming it was unauthorized, and the bank simply pulls the money back out of my account, no consent from me required. So his play was most likely this: send me an ACH from someone else’s hijacked bank account, I wire the band’s share out, then the real account owner notices and disputes it, and the bank claws the money back from me. Meanwhile the wire I sent to the “band” is gone for good. A wire is a one-way door.

From Stripe to QuickBooks to ACH to “you pay first,” every switch moved in a direction that was safer for him and riskier for me.

Notice that all the payment methods he requested had one thing in common: they were reversible. Credit cards can be charged back, ACH can be reversed. Meanwhile, the payment methods required by the “band” were all non-reversible: wire transfers and cash deposits. Money coming in could be reclaimed at any time, but money going out could never return. That’s the entire business model.

A Few Small Tests I Conducted

Since I figured it out, I decided to play along for another day to see how he would respond.

I told him the good news: the band said no prepayment was needed; they would accept full payment on-site. Logically, a real client would be happy to hear this. His reaction was to immediately ask, “Can I pay with ACH? That way everything goes smoothly; I don’t want to get stuck here.” He didn’t care whether the band wanted money; he only cared about how to get the money out of my hands.

I replied: ACH is fine, but once the money lands I have to wait 60 days before I can touch it. Then I added: you can also ACH the band directly, since you two are already in contact. He didn’t take that bait and circled back to say he could transfer from his bank account to mine, even offering to send me his bank details to “add to my account.” I told him: pay the band yourself; on my end, I still only take Stripe.

At the same time, the “band manager” emailed me:

I also received your client’s email, and I accepted it. He will pay half the amount the day before the event. So, will you make the payment now to confirm?

Two “strangers,” one on a ship and the other in the band, were coordinating as if they were one person typing. Because they were.

I finally replied to the band, “He hasn’t paid me, so I can’t pay you half upfront.” The conversation ended there.

In Retrospect, Red Flags Were Everywhere

• The client specified the vendor and provided direct contact information. A real client would say, “I want to hire a certain band,” not hand you the band manager’s personal email.
• For a $15,000 order, there was no negotiation whatsoever; the two venue prices differed by $1,000, and he chose the more expensive one in three seconds.
• There was never a phone call. One was on a ship, and the other “couldn’t get through.”
• The band used a free outlook.com email, and the payee account belonged to another company.
• The band’s first reply was all template language, asking no details about the event, with the first requirement being “payment must be made before we can start discussions.”
• The payment method kept changing: if Stripe didn’t work, switch to QuickBooks; if QuickBooks didn’t work, switch to ACH; if ACH didn’t work, then “you pay first.”
• The moment I mentioned cancellation, he panicked, and the panic was directed at “you pay first,” not “how do I pay you.”
• Time was tight, with only nine days until the event, pressuring me to decide quickly.

Any one of these points could explain the situation. When combined, there’s only one explanation.

So why did I take none of them seriously for the first two days? Because I wanted the order. A scammer’s best friend isn’t technology; it’s greed. A $15,000 order is a lot for a small business just starting out, and once you start mentally spending that money, you begin making excuses on the other party’s behalf: he doesn’t haggle because he’s rich, he can’t call because he’s busy, he wants a different platform because of a technical glitch. I explained away every red flag myself. A scam is never designed to hide the red flags from you. It’s designed to give you a reason not to look at them.

A Few Rules

This situation didn’t cost me a dime, but it made me rethink the order-taking process. Here are a few rules I will follow in the future:

Never pay any third-party fees on behalf of the client. No matter how urgent, sincere, or justified the client’s reasons are. If a client wants to hire a band, photographer, or rent a venue, the money can go through me, but it must be their funds that arrive first, confirmed as non-reversible, before I pay out. If that can’t happen, let them pay the vendor directly.

Independently verify any vendor specified by the client. Don’t use the email and phone number provided by the client. Search for the official website, find official contact information, and call directly. The real Rick Treviño has a booking agency; he doesn’t use Outlook.

Clients who don’t take calls are not clients. For a $15,000 order, if they won’t spend five minutes on a call, regardless of whether they’re on a boat, an oil rig, or in the military, that order should be avoided.

I will determine the payment method, not the client. Requests like “can you switch platforms” are normal once, suspicious after twice, and should be stopped after the third time. Above all, never open an unfamiliar, loosely controlled payment channel just to close a deal. A strict channel doesn’t block customers. It blocks scammers.

Be wary of clients who never negotiate. It’s not that good clients must haggle, but for a $15,000 expenditure to come with no questions asked is not typical behavior.

As I write this, I recall something. They reached out to me because the MonsterHibachi website looked like a legitimate small business willing to work for clients. In a sense, this is a form of validation. But this kind of validation, I’d rather have less of.