Scammers are busy phishing for artists now. For the full story, wonderfully illustrated by Steven Weinberg, head over to Hyperallergic.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Scammers are busy phishing for artists now. For the full story, wonderfully illustrated by Steven Weinberg, head over to Hyperallergic.
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One of the crappiest aspect of this, for me, is that I do get legit inquiries via cold emails. So each one has be scrutinized because I don’t want to lose a potential sale.
Most artists who have active websites do. Steven addresses that in his illustrations, along with the fact that there are obvious tells with these particular scammers.
LOL. I got one of these that made me laugh. So first, to make the story clearer, what I do is take the hair from somebody’s pet horse and make stuff out of it for them -- a necklace, a bracelet, a key fob etc. as a very personal memento of that horse. So: somebody emails me, and says they would like 32 of my most expensive bracelet and that they will pay with a (no doubt stolen) credit card. 32! Made me laugh. So I wrote back, expressing astonishment and pleasure that someone would have 32 pet horses, and asked for a photo showing the owner with their 32 horses. Never heard back. HAHAHAHAHAHA freaking jerks…
32 extra special horses! My, my. Outside of my photo gallery, I don’t have an online presence for my work, so I don’t get these. But, I’d certainly raise an eyebrow over someone offering me 15K for a vague piece. :D It’s really mean spirited though, waving money like that in front of an artist’s face.
Kestrel…
32! Yeah that’s a pretty good tell.
Also, Your story reminded me of “back in the day” I used to make a little side money in middle school braiding hat bands out of horse mane and tail. I had access to a great many different colors (ranching country, everybody has horses) so could get pretty creative with even simple braids.
There’s a new scam: inviting artists to get a booth at a show. Pay in advance, of course.
I have the same problem, YOB. I get consulting enquiries, enquiries about soap, enquiries about stock photography -- it all comes to the same place. After the first time I spamboxed a prospective client I got more careful about how I train my spam classifier.
I’ve seen a lot of fake call for entries (with $xx jury fee) but not a show booth. Would you be willing to provide a bit more info so I know what to be on the lookout for?
I will, of course, do my own research but I trust you more than I do some random googled site.