I find it's interesting that it doesn't matter what business you are in, the same type of scamming occurs. Up until last June, the XYL and I owned and operated a horse boarding ranch, just off of Interstate 40 in Northern Arizona. We took in horses on day, week, or month basis. Although some of those horses stayed with us for years.
We were always getting requests for someone that was traveling the US with a dozen horses and wanted to send us a big certified check for a month of boarding ($550 per horse), plus some extra. But the check would be much bigger and they wanted us to cash the check and send the the remainder to his wife's second cousin, twice removed, living in Podunk, Utah. We knew these were scams, but we were always polite and would just tell that that we already had 15 horses and 12 more would exceed facility's allowance.
Sometimes we would get a request by a Pooh-Bah of Somewhere, trying to move his herd of thoroughbreds from India to the US. They would be sending me a check for $50,000 to $100,000. It all looked very official. But it was worded very poorly. You would think that the Pooh-Bah would have peeps for that.
These people must have thought that "horse people" are rich and could take the hit. But with horses, the only way to make a small fortune, is to start with a large fortune.
Interestingly enough, traveling with a dozen horses is not that odd. We once had a group older women (>50) that had one of their trailers break down on the highway, which was about 2-3 miles away. They were relocating from California to some place in Iowa and had three trailers that contained 10 horses (mustangs). That didn't include the chickens, dogs, or goats. Of course, we took them all in and gave them a safe place for all of their animals. It took several hours to get them all moved from the highway. They stayed a few days, repaired their trailer, and continued heading east. They also paid in cash and were more than grateful.