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Artist Scam - Look for the Red Flags During these difficult economic times where it is already a challenge to sell art, I do not need anyone to scam me for free art. If I want to give my art away for free, I will donate it to a charity I believe in. Recently I received an email on a request for additional information on my art. This happens on a regular basis, but something on this email raised a few red flags. I changed the scammers' email address in the article. Addition: I received another scam request the day after I wrote this article. It has similar qualities with the other scam emails and I added the email correspondence to the end of the article. Once you start seeing a pattern, you will be more protected if you every receive one of these scam requests yourself. (First email I received) -------------------- Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 4:04 AM, DAVID NUTTER My name is David Nutter, i will like to order for some piece of your work from your studio as gift for my parent are celebrating their wedding anniversary, so i will be glad to have your reply as soon as possible, i will be glad if you can send me your website address to choose or send me four of your product via email that is available for me to choose. Waiting to read from you today.so that we can make some progress. I will be waiting to read from you at you convince time. Thanks. David Nutter ----------------------- So what is a red flag? For me it is anything that makes me more careful with my potential art buyer. This does not mean it is a scam, but to remind me to take certain precautions. Red flag 1: Bad English or grammar. You cannot expect perfect English if your customer’s countries first language is not English but many scams are from out of the country. One area that is known for many scams is Nigeria in Africa. Red flag 2: Why is David asking for my website address? In most cases, if one finds me on the web where my email address is listed, it also lists my website address. It is implied from the email that he has already decided to purchase my artwork, but he had not been to my website to see the art or prices yet. Red flag 3: Implying a sense of urgency is also a red flag. The wording “as soon as possible” for a wedding anniversary could come into play to send the order out soon not leaving enough time to determine if the money order or cashier’s check is actually good. It may take two weeks or up to a month for certain countries to determine if these checks clear the bank. The bank may put the money into your account right away, but when it does not clear, the bank will just take it out again. If you already mailed out the artwork, you would have not received any compensation for your art. At this time, I would give the potential customer the information they asked for but I may asked them what country they are from and state that all money orders or cashier’s checks will need to clear before any art can be shipped. (Here is my email response) ---------------- On Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:22:30 +0530 wrote David, My website is www.bobestrin.com. If you are located outside of the United States, please state your country since I will need to determine any shipping costs based on destination. Bob ---------------- (Email response from customer) DAVID NUTTER Loading...8:51 PM (12 hours ago) Hello Bob, Thanks for your reply concerning my order, I am OK with the once below. Now i want you to get back to me with the total price of the once below. And i am sure that my parent will love your great works. Hoodoos Under the Stars Agaist the Wall Dancing Bears Quack Erosion in Motion Stairway to Excellence Meanwhile, I don't want you to bother your self concerning the shipment i have a shipping company come for the pickup in your gallery also they will be the one to make the packing, just get back to me with the price of the art work so that we can make some progress. Thanks Regards, David Nutter ---------------------------------- Big red flag 4: If the customer wants to hire a private shipping company to pick up at your house, just do not do it. If the customer hires the shipping company, they have their name on the shipping account. They will simply call up the shipper and ask for the bogus delivery address to be changed during transit. The artist has no idea that this can be done and the shipper will not inform the artist of an address change since the buyer is really the shipper’s customer and not the artist. The art is shipped to the new address and you later find that the check did not clear the bank. If the out of the area customer wants to have a friend pick up the art from your house, gallery or studio that is also a clue of the same scam. The private shipper may also not really exist and the customer will request that you send a money order to the fake shipper (really the customer and not a shipper). It is common that they order many pieces so that the weight and shipping amount will be high and the scammers make money off of the shipping money you send them with the money order. The art is never picked up by the fake shipper. If you made a custom order such as in photography or did custom framing, you are still out some money from the cost of your supplies even if the order was not sent out. Big red flag 5: The customer did not request a selected photograph size which may not be needed for a painting but I offer my photography at different sizes. The size is needed for me to give the requested price quote. Anything really out of order from your normal situations should stand out as a red flag. Red flag 6: While I often get large art orders, they have always have come from customers that I have talked to in person and for commercial building project. This large order was a personal purchase for an individual. I would have to have my customer’s phone number and give them a quick call for any large order like this even if in the United States. I normally require a deposit of 50% for larger orders and that deposit check would clear before I ship the order. Big red flag 7: You probably noticed that the customer never answered my question of what country he was from. Since the customer was on my website, I could see the country location of recent visitors to my website using website tracking software. Check out what country the customer was emailing from, listed below. If the customer would of told me his country, I would of compared if different from the origin of his email order request.
VISITOR ANALYSIS Referrer http://www.bobestrin.com/ IP Address 41.217.65.13 Country Nigeria Region Lagos City Lagos ISP Zoom Mobile Nigeria Ltd 18th July 2010 08:48:12 PM Visit Length 2 mins 12 secs -------------------------------------- Once an out of country customer makes the order and it is not from a credit card, I let them know about the need to have the check or Western Union, or money gram clear before sending the art. Also in this case, I need to ship the order myself. After the following email is sent, I would expect to not hear back from them if it is a scam and I did not. I probably would not have even responded with my email shown below if I noticed that the customer was in Nigeria, Africa before I sent it. -------------------------------------- (Email to customer) 9:42 PM (12 hours ago) David, I only ship by Fed Ex and the order has to be shipped by me. Any payment that takes time to clear will need to totally clear before shipment. Bob -------------------------------------- Other things to look out for: In reality, I would never personally accept payment by Western Union or money gram check since it can be counterfeited. I would also never send a customer or private shipper a Western Union or Money gram check since it is untraceable and can be picked up at many counties. Just because the customer says he's from London, does not mean he can't go to a Western Union store in Africa and cash it. Another scam to look out for is that the customer may want to pay you extra money or "accidentally" include a larger amount on a check than you asked for. Then the customer asks you to send them a Western Union check for the over amount. I can guarantee you that the original check your received will not clear. If you really need to take a cashiers check from another country, ask them to get one from a bank that you have also in your area. You can then go physically to the bank and ask the bank if the customer has funds in their account and the check should clear faster. Also, don't be afraid to ask your local bank if any type of check you get looks valid. They will not be able to tell you it will clear, but they might be able to notice a fake check. Also, you still need to be careful on large out of country orders made by credit card. If the credit card is stolen and even if the order initially passes a credit check, you could still get a charge back and the money previous deposited will be deducted from your account. For large orders, I not only would need to talk the the person on the phone but may wait a week to see if anyone reported the credit card stolen before I ship out the order. Large orders usually take a little time to prepare and send out anyway. Another thing to watch out for is if the customer wants only information from you, but is not willing to give you any private information such as their phone number or needed bank information. If you are suspicious of the information they do send you, use Google to verify what you can. Does a search find the private shipper, did you search the customers email address or name along with the word "spam" to see if anything shows up? The spammers are probably using free email accounts so the email address may not be used long enough to show up anything. Perhaps I was being a little picky to list so many red flags, but I was really trying to show my thought process. A few red flags does not mean much but a single red flag of having the customer wanting to use a shipping company you are not familiar with or want you to pay for shipping using Western Union or the shipping address is to Nigeria or anywhere in Africa is enough for me to discontinue the conversation. ----- It would be nice if we lived in a world where we could trust everyone. Art does not seem to be number one on a list of popular items to steal since it is harder to sell. I guess the scammer can still make a profit if it does not cost them anything or at most the shipping cost. I have never had a problem taking a credit card from someone I talked to on the phone with and did my own shipping. One would think most customers buying art from another country would also want the protection of purchasing using a credit card. Listed below is another sample email scam I received a few years ago. Notice that they also are asking for my web address and let you know that they want to pay by money order and that they have an urgent art order for me. Also the spelling and grammar is very bad for someone from Nevada. Most people believe money orders and cashier‘s checks are guaranteed but even if the bank looks at it and says it looks legit, if it ends up being fake, they are not worth the paper they are printed on. -------------------------------------- (From customer) Art Order billjohnson_xx@highdesert.com show details 4/15/07 Hi Sales how are you?well i am mailing in regards to placing an urgent art order from you. i just relocated from Nevada USA to United Kingdom which is my new business home and i want to decorate my home with some artworks,so i am intrested in your works due to your creativity and i am willing to have some of your works picked up,but before i can order the exact amount i need i am looking to ordering a sample of your work so please can you email me samples of your work of range from $300-$950 or send me a weblink that i can view them,so that i can order that as my sample order and if i am satisfied by the creativity viewing it i will be happy to order more. So please try to email me back in regards to my request and in regards to the payment i will be paying you with Money order in US dollars,so i hope this is ok with you.I will stay updated for you response. Regards Bill -------------------------------------- (Artist reply) Reply |Bob Estrin to billjohnson_xx show details 4/15/07 Bill, You can see my art at www.bobestrin.com. Any Money orders will need to totally clear my bank which would take at least two weeks once I cash it before any orders can go out. Bob ------------------------------------- As I expected, I never heard from them again. It is interesting that I got another similar email scam request the day after I wrote this article. I must of gotten myself on a list or something. I could see that they are also from Nigeria from my web statistics. I am showing it below. ------------------------------------- (Initial email from customer) On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 12:41 AM, Edward Smiles <edwardsmilesx@aol.com> wrote:
-------------------------------------- (Artist response) From: Bob Estrin <positiveimagestudio@gmail.com> Edward, My website is www.bobestrin.com. -------------------------------------- (Customer Response) Hello Bob,
(2)Got Milk Quantity...........5 units (3)Stone Swirl
Quantity...........10 units (4)Taking in the View Quantity...........2 units (5)Big Horn Sheep
Quantity...........7 units (6)Wolf at Pond Quantity...........4 units My store information
When you figure out the weight of the items kindly send to the shipper.find below information to contact my freight forwarder: The contact person For more information of the freight company kindly contact them they will get back to you with the necessary feedback you required.The freight company, has my shipping Regards, ------------------------------------- You can see the same type of pattern. 1. Large order with no effort on their part to list the photograph sizes wanted. Also large quantity of the same images. I have never had an order this size without talking with the customer about the project the artwork is for. If it seems to good to be true, be more cautious. 2. The customers own shipper. I could not find this shipping company listed anywhere. 3. They accessed my website from Nigeria, not Australia according to my web statistics. Just because they say they are from one country, that does not mean that they are not from another country. These are bad people and yes they lie. Once you mail an expensive check for the shipping cost to the fake shipping company, which goes really to them, you are out your money. They do not even need to receive your art for the scam to be profitable to them. 4. The time between my initial email response and the actual order was only a few hours. In all of my past large orders, the customers took much more time to order and then asks me to send them a detailed listing of the order with prices so that they can write up a purchase order. The customer would then send me a more formal purchase order on the companies letterhead for my records.
If you see too much red, let the seller beware. Bob Estrin
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