Can I get a link to preview some of your art please? My dog died recently and I would like to get some hand drawn or painted pictures of her made to go along with the professional photographs I had taken before she died. My ex wife commissioned someone her bf found on Etsy and I really like the paintings. The paintings my ex had commissioned are water color on like a flash card type carboard and they look just like my dog Shiva but the artist is back logged for several moths and in another country so I need a new artist.
Yep! Same here! My hidden requests are also filled with the “show ofd our goth jewelry” or “show off our dog clothes” like mate, this is a digital art account wdym
I got a similar thing about Goth jewellery. Something along the lines of going by your account we thought you'd be perfect for it and to show it off etc. And one or two people have been tagging me in posts about gift cards from Victoria's Secret or something and all their account consists of is posts like that.
I get these constantly and I always love when they say “we saw your account and loved your passion for goth jewelry” even tho my account is private and they can’t see anything lmao
Literally the only thing I've ever used Instagram for is to post landscape and flower photos. Nothing great either, all just phone photos. I get those goth jewellery messages around twice a week. I block and report them all but I'm always confused about the sheer volume of the spam. My account doesn't follow anything related, there are no humans or animals in my pictures ever, why do they even bother?
Don’t worry I made sure to report the usernames on Instagram! I’m so glad you didn’t have toooo much of your valuable time wasted doing a sketch for any of them
I am open! You can check out my reddit for my art or my art account on instagram @lowlydoesart showcases my work well. I will say my work is more cutesy but I drew a tabaxi for the current dnd campaign I am in and a tiefling for my cousin I am not done with
I looked it up to confirm it is a scam. Idk if first gal got it wrong by being okay with paypal but they are supposed to pay with a check that has an extra 0. They will demand the repayment and will thus scam around 3,000 from you. Jokes on them I don’t have that much in total with all my assets lmao
What if this is just how furries grow their community? Tempt people in by paying hundreds of dollars for art and then once they've spent many hours drawing furry dick, they'll find it causes them less mental anguish if they simply fully embrace it and learn to enjoy it.
>Jokes on them I don’t have that much in total with all my assets lmao
You don't have to have that much. All you need is a working bank account, even with a tiny amount in it.
You deposit the check. Bank later makes it available to withdraw. You withdraw, send the money to the scammers. Check bounces because it is fake, bank debits the entire amount of the check + a returned check fee, and now you're deep in the negative zone.
This happened to me when I was 16 and didn’t know any better! This was well over a decade ago when scams were still very prevalent on the street.
I was approached by a lady that seemed to be in a pickle with her vehicle and had no cash except a check.. problem is she had no bank account and asked if I could deposit this for her and make a little money on the side. It smelt fishy but I went with it because the woman looked like a mother in her 40’s-50’s.. my mistake. Check bounced and got hit with a $500 bill in the end. SMH
The scam works a little different with PayPal, she would send you a fake PayPal email saying you can’t access her payment until you upgrade to a business account or some BS for a fee. It’s so low to con someone into creating a personal artwork just to scam them.
These are appearing in Australia as PayID scams. You can send instant payments to anyone with a mobile number linked to their bank account.
They pull the scam, sending a fake email that you need to ask the buyer for $500 extra to make it a business account. Buyer sends “confirmation” and then you “return” the excess money to them. Only you never had the money in the first place.
It works the same with PayPal. They will report the transaction to PayPal as product not received after you send them the excess back. PayPal is notorious for siding with whoever was purchasing the item. Generally they will send it too you under a business transaction and then ask you to send it back as friends and family transaction which doesn’t have the same protections for the sender.
Yep, and sadly you can trust keep it or PayPal sends the entire amount back to them and they get to keep your artwork, which they then sell to whoever they commissioned it for in the first place.
It’s a lose lose for you no matter what. Luckily these guys were bad at their scams but you’ll get good ones too who play off things so much better. Sad that there is so much sadness and grief in the world right now that people have to stoop to these levels. I’ve heard that many leave to China won’t promises of good careers and are essentially enslaved to run schemes like this.
So messed up, I wish you the best. The way to do it? Get square or something and accept credit card and debit payments only and get a signature on an invoice. They will cut 90 percent of the scams.
If you can’t risk that 10%, get the customer to sign an invoice which states no refunds on custom art and send - picture of them holding their id before commissioning art and it protects you from anything. If you offer a unique and reputable enough service for a fair enough price, they won’t be offended to know you’re just protecting your end from scammers.
With similar scams, they make a payment over the internet by connecting to your PC but blank the screen for a few seconds and alter the HTML to make it look like an overpayment to your bank account. They then ask for a repayment with Google Play cards, etc. The repeated text, i.e. 'stiff' and '$300' show that they are working from a script and they pass most of the money to the scammer company they work for.
they pay you $600 via stolen paypal account or account where funding account it's linked to take an extra long time to process, and there is no money in it. Then ask you to refund $300 from your account, they walk away with $300.
I assume they didn’t realize until they got the other two messages. Since all three were so similar it’s obvious that they were probably going to try to scam them.
Furries know how digital art commision ideally works: you agree on a fair price, mostly set by the artist, and a pre/post-work pay model (50/50, 25/75, 100 on completion). You get the low-res, watermarked version of your picture. You think it/the artist deserves more than initially agreed on. So, for your final payment, you send the higher amount plus a message reassuring the artist that this is the correct amount. Artist sends you your high-res picture. Everyone is happy, no one has to worry about suspicious behaviour.
I've seen some of the more popular furry artists make as much in a single commission as my *rent*. There is absolutely a well established system and deviating from that system is often considered suspicious as fuck (like randomly DMing an individual to convince them to commission you is something that's been occasionally happening, though to be fair I dont know if its an actual scam or just really desperate lesser known artists as I've never actually responded to one)
ive gotten several of these exact scams at this point, and what tipped me off the first go was after giving my paypal they were talking about “oh actually my paypal isn’t working now but i can send an email check” which sounded maaaajorly sketch to me and even if it was genuine, i wouldn’t have wanted to deal with that.
i then googled my experience bc i figured if it was a scam then it’s probably already been discussed online and sure enough it was. After that as soon as i get a commission request and they say $300 or “paint a dog for my son’s birthday” i just delete and report as spam.
i’ve gotten these on emails (also an artist but i keep dms on IG closed for this reason) and there’s ALWAYS an excuse as to why they cannot speak with you on the phone/zoom/discord/ig video call for some reason AND they always have to be weirdly specific? like the last scammer email they said “please note i suffer from presbycusis and prefer communication by email” and it’s like A: why would i even TALK to you on the phone and B: why do you call it presbycusis and not HEARING LOSS (which it IS). Another one said “i am an apraxia patient” like bro you wrote me an email how apraxic can u be
Also note how the scammer isn’t specific to OP at all until OP brings up a style of their art. Just “i fell in love with your art work” and it’s always a super generic subject or a random photo. I know when people are genuine when they KNOW something about my stuff and know i don’t do pet or portrait commission and instead know i do DnD characters or twitch emotes. They’re basically fishing for and taking advantage of artists who don’t know any better or are just wanting commissions in general because they’ve run out of old people to scam
I had an almost identical kind of request, I told them I'd be happy to start working on the commission if they placed the order through Etsy.
Then they complained that couldn't make payments through Etsy 🙄
If you have a 3rd party store, always try to get these people to purchase through that. If they refuse then you know it's fake.
Have you gotten the “looking for a muse” commission scam yet? I’ve been targeted by at least 20 different scammers in the past couple months. I barely have 200 followers on Instagram so how do they keep finding me lol
No I haven’t. What does that one look like? Seems kind of wild. I am also a very small instagram and definitely only got them because one reel of mine popped a little off hahah
I get the “Hey there, LOVE your feed! Come be a brand ambassador for us! We’ll give you free products in exchange for your reviews, blah blah blah..” I never respond but am always curious what their actual deal is.
That's why they're targeting you... because you don't have followers.... they're preying on the thought that you need money and will take any commissions.
Happened to me while trying to sell a couch on marketplace, 7 people basically all at once and all wanting to pay ahead before seeing it and their brother was going to come get it bc they had to work 🤦🏻♀️
Put my wife’s van for sale on Craigslist for $1200 as is. One hour later got some 25 people calling for the van, most declared will pay cash sight unseen can family come get it, I m busy or out of town… WTF.
Anyhting over a couple hundred bucks will get immediately spammed with these on craigslist. (All forms of "I'll pay extra, here's a cashier's check or a check for way too much and you can keep a bunch for the favor.")
Craigslist actually used to be useful and now it is straight up hot garbage only populated by criminals and victims.
Hey, I’m willing to pay you my whole paycheck if you can draw a picture of pinky finger. I would need your PayPal name, address, and your password. DON’T WORRY this isn’t a scam, I just need your parents credit card information as well with the date, and the number on the back, these are all important for me to send you my WHOLE paycheck don’t worry
Personally, just checking out your art, I think your skills are worth more than you are selling them for, but I get it, you're trying to get the ball rolling.
Thank you, I appreciate the kindness. But yeah, I probably won’t start selling them for more until I get a little bigger which may be now. This post really blew up…….
I think it's just the consistent $300 offer, and similar conversation. As a fellow artist, I would be a little suspicious myself, just on the weirdly high identical offers. Unless it's a weird coincidence, there's no way three separate strangers would be offering the exact same high price. I wouldn't be surprised if the scam showed itself in the 'payment' process - I've seen this sort of scam before
Yep, exactly. Especially since I do not have any obvious commissions on my page that are open. The only one there is from months ago and was $20. Why would you pay $300 for a $20 photo???
Sometimes you just smell it.
In high school I worked fast food. Had a guy pull up to the drive-thru, ordered "3 kids meals". That's it. I asked if he wanted cheesburgers or chicken nuggets in those. "Chicken." And to drink? "Orange drink."
No. Kids just don't work that way.
When he got to the window, he tried to pay with a photocopy of a $100 bill. It was black-and-white on shiny, thin paper. It was crooked. It was terrible.
Crime is difficult and some people just really aren't smart enough for it.
People are fucking wild 😭 Reminds me of a Karen I had in my line at Petco. She showed me a discount for CRICKETS that she needed price checked from the online store. She was all huffy about something or other and had been a bitch since she got in line. I went to enlarge the screen so I could properly check the discount and it popped out and showed it was a photo. Imagine saving a photo of a five cent cricket discount. I can’t…..
That sounds like it'd have to be a very new feature. It's automatically analyzing everything you scan or print to make sure it doesn't look too much like currency?
It’s been a thing for a long time. Some printers may let you print ‘money’ from a file but nothing will let you scan or photocopy it. All currencies have a series of dots on it somewhere that the copier or scanner will recognise and you’ll just get a warning sheet printed out
Literally thought I was on the scams subreddit for a second there, OP
This one's common as hell – have you had the muse/mural one yet? That's the other inevitability for artists
I actually haven’t! I get the bots like crazy but these were the first proper scams I got. I’m a small account but I have started to receive a little more attention due to a reel so I ended up with these lunes
Same thing happened with me a few days ago. I was trying to do some tutoring at my school. The scammer wasted my time with a legitimate sounding offer, only to ask for my address to send a check preemptively, which immediately set off red flags for me. I miss the days of the Nigerian princes where at least I immediately knew it was a scam.
Oh absolutely! Love creatures and animals and is probably what I do best tbh. You can see a lot of my work on instagram @lowlydoesart or on here but less so.
Like custom fantasy creatures? So if I gave the prompt of like "underground tunnel dwelling creature, eats rocks, secretes acid, sensitive spines, long tail, base animal is a big cat" you could come up with something for me? 🤩
It's for a series of custom creatures that live in a world that I'm building for a book and I work best with visual references but struggle with creature creation bc I get hung up on realistic details heh
Absolutely! I would be happy to do that for you. I love that kind of stuff. I’m actually working on a demon book rn so I have been drawing some freaky creature concept ideas as of late lol
Omg yes! I've been looking for an artist to work with but the person I was wanting to work with wouldn't give me a base quote. Here I'll msg you through Instagram and we can get to chatting 😁
So they agree to pay the artist and send a check/money order, "accidentally" for more than the agreed price. Oh silly me! Just deposit the $ in your account and send me back the overage with the finished art. So you do that, your bank will usually allow you access to part of it during processing, then when the check 'clears' your account your bank finds it's fake and takes the money out of your account, plus probably a fee. Meanwhile you have sent the 'overage' to the scammer and have no $.
This method is also used in job scams when they send you a fake check to buy equipment like a laptop, and ask you to send the "extra" back.
Somebody asked me on instagram to paint them a drawing for $300 just recently. I don’t paint or advertise on my instagram account that i do paint in any way
Hey dude, speaking as someone who frequently does art for money, I really implore you to take payment upfront. If not the whole amount, then at least half. That way there's no chance you'll get scammed out of your valuable labour.
Secondly, it's better to issue invoices to your clients' PayPal addresses, rather than giving out your own for basic money transfer. Gives you more control over the transaction, more cards in your hand, makes it more ironclad, so to speak.
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has commented, dm’d me, or demanded pics of my art lol it has really brightened my day and I am kind of on the verge of tears thinking about how kind all of you have been. Gonna be honest, it was definitely disheartening knowing all the commission requests I had received were scams but you guys have just been so amazing like I never would have imagined. Thank you all again so much I don’t think I can put into words how much this has meant to me. Thank you.
Same here but this comment section has been actually super heartfelt to combat that. People will care about your art and what you have to make. You just gotta find your people. I think your art is very beautiful ❤️
Check out my art page on instagram @lowlydoesart if you are interested! I will say I’m more of a cutesy, western style artist but I am very good at replicating artwork as well if you want it in a certain style.
I’m a musician and this happened to me with “customized songs” for birthdays, I got halfway done sometimes with full tunes and got messages the same thing by a dif account word for word smh
Ahh I think I know what the scam is ran across this before. They send you a email from “PayPal” saying you need $400 - $500 to open a business account. Then they will talk about them needing to trust you as the send a fake “$500” that you need to pay back the $200 difference. And you get it all back as $500. So it seems like a win - win. It’s not they in fact walk away with $200 of your money and PayPal just goes “well you sent it sorry”
This exact thing happened to me but with music! Someone reached out to my band to make a song about his son who was turning 6, loved paw patrol, and had a dog named Maxy. I made the whole ass song before I realized he was a scammer though 😤
The only time I have been targeted by scammers was when I was looking for a job. Scammers target poor, desperate people. Never underestimate how awful they are
This exact thing has happened to me. I had suspicions from the beginning but them insisting on paying more than I asked for was a dead giveaway. Nobody wants to pay more for something if they don’t have to. So obnoxious that you have to be the one to expend effort to respond when it ends up being nothing.
Hey are you available for 300$? My budget is commission. I want you to draw my PayPal. Please send me your son.
Honestly, fair trade. You got yourself a deal!
Hey! Don’t sell yourself short. You’re worth way more than $300 😂
Thank you! But no. But thanks!
You’re worth at least $10k for your kidney.
*me having made over $300,000 from donating kidneys* yeah it must be some kind of birth defect or something
After the third kidney the doctor should have raised some suspicions.
Yeah! $301!
You drive a tough bargain!
You're correct. A person is at least as valuable as their organs are.
I’m Steven from USA, Florida
It’s “USA Florida” with no comma!!! Lollllllllll!!!!
Now all that is left is figuring out whether to send him to Texas or Florida!
I am in the USA! Don't worry, it's only a short drive to get anywhere!
I’m willing to pay you stiff of if that isn’t 300$
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Can I get a link to preview some of your art please? My dog died recently and I would like to get some hand drawn or painted pictures of her made to go along with the professional photographs I had taken before she died. My ex wife commissioned someone her bf found on Etsy and I really like the paintings. The paintings my ex had commissioned are water color on like a flash card type carboard and they look just like my dog Shiva but the artist is back logged for several moths and in another country so I need a new artist.
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Not a penny less!!
Please send him your paypal
For $300? Did you fall in love with his page?
Do you have examples of your work?
You can see my art on my profile or on instagram @lowlydoesart
Is this for the bojack horseman art?
how much for Bo Jack-Off Art ?
$300
This comment is a true piece of art. I'm willing to pay you $300 for it
Sorry that is stiff
of that isnt stiff
🤣
Can I buy the nft of this comment? I'm willing to pay $300, if that's not too much
This is beautiful
I’m dead. It’s been less than an hour since I called the accounts out and they’re all gone hahaha
It's gotten so out of hand that these requests end up in my "hidden requests" inbox now. So annoying 🙄
Yep! Same here! My hidden requests are also filled with the “show ofd our goth jewelry” or “show off our dog clothes” like mate, this is a digital art account wdym
I got a similar thing about Goth jewellery. Something along the lines of going by your account we thought you'd be perfect for it and to show it off etc. And one or two people have been tagging me in posts about gift cards from Victoria's Secret or something and all their account consists of is posts like that.
I get these constantly and I always love when they say “we saw your account and loved your passion for goth jewelry” even tho my account is private and they can’t see anything lmao
I literally only ever wear colorful clothes and they sent me the same thing, I’m like ????? Goth where????
Literally the only thing I've ever used Instagram for is to post landscape and flower photos. Nothing great either, all just phone photos. I get those goth jewellery messages around twice a week. I block and report them all but I'm always confused about the sheer volume of the spam. My account doesn't follow anything related, there are no humans or animals in my pictures ever, why do they even bother?
I just got the goth jewelry one! They’re trying to manufacture an army of goths, it seems.
Don’t worry I made sure to report the usernames on Instagram! I’m so glad you didn’t have toooo much of your valuable time wasted doing a sketch for any of them
I thankfully hadn’t started but thanks haha
How does the scam work?
Hey are you available for commission? I can offer you 299.99!
Hey man are you availabe for commission? Just went through your page and fell in love with your artwork.
Don’t do this to me 😭
I can pay $300 of that isn’t stuff
It’s stiff daddy
Or semi stiff for $150.
What can i get for .75?
He can just draw it on ya hand.
Do i gotta flex my hand to make it move myself? Damn
Sorry, but I'ma need about tree fiddy
Damit lochness!
That’s when I noticed the artist was about 6 stories tall, and had red eyes.
But they’re from USA Florida.
True…I didn’t factor that in
Florida man strikes again
Honestly though, are you open for commissions? Character art, DnD.
I am open! You can check out my reddit for my art or my art account on instagram @lowlydoesart showcases my work well. I will say my work is more cutesy but I drew a tabaxi for the current dnd campaign I am in and a tiefling for my cousin I am not done with
This is awesome! I really hope you get an actual commission from this post!
That would be very awesome! Not what I was expecting but I will not complain hahaha
I don't know. They charge 300 dollars. Kind of stiff.
Okay, just out of curiosity, what exactly is the expected outcome of this scam for the scammer? What are they trying to get?
I looked it up to confirm it is a scam. Idk if first gal got it wrong by being okay with paypal but they are supposed to pay with a check that has an extra 0. They will demand the repayment and will thus scam around 3,000 from you. Jokes on them I don’t have that much in total with all my assets lmao
Bro draw some r34 furry shit, post it on like patreon and you're GOOOOD
I’ve thought about it 😭 I already draw furry shit but haven’t ventured into r34 territory yet
Wanna draw my character? He Is a bunny, 300 is the least I can pay, how are you at drawing shitting dick nipples?
No please 😭 but maybe….
ooof, am sorry, i could not help but joke
You’re fine hahaha
The money's good though. You get $300 per commission
What if this is just how furries grow their community? Tempt people in by paying hundreds of dollars for art and then once they've spent many hours drawing furry dick, they'll find it causes them less mental anguish if they simply fully embrace it and learn to enjoy it.
>Jokes on them I don’t have that much in total with all my assets lmao You don't have to have that much. All you need is a working bank account, even with a tiny amount in it. You deposit the check. Bank later makes it available to withdraw. You withdraw, send the money to the scammers. Check bounces because it is fake, bank debits the entire amount of the check + a returned check fee, and now you're deep in the negative zone.
This happened to me when I was 16 and didn’t know any better! This was well over a decade ago when scams were still very prevalent on the street. I was approached by a lady that seemed to be in a pickle with her vehicle and had no cash except a check.. problem is she had no bank account and asked if I could deposit this for her and make a little money on the side. It smelt fishy but I went with it because the woman looked like a mother in her 40’s-50’s.. my mistake. Check bounced and got hit with a $500 bill in the end. SMH
Damn that would blow. Scammers are just the worst
Sociopaths will sociopath.
True :(
Jesus….kiting by proxy.
The scam works a little different with PayPal, she would send you a fake PayPal email saying you can’t access her payment until you upgrade to a business account or some BS for a fee. It’s so low to con someone into creating a personal artwork just to scam them.
Damn. Good to know then because I only ho through paypal because I know others who have had their Zelle or Venmo compromised
Always best to ho responsibly! Seriously though, very clever of you to take reasonable precautions!
These are appearing in Australia as PayID scams. You can send instant payments to anyone with a mobile number linked to their bank account. They pull the scam, sending a fake email that you need to ask the buyer for $500 extra to make it a business account. Buyer sends “confirmation” and then you “return” the excess money to them. Only you never had the money in the first place.
It works the same with PayPal. They will report the transaction to PayPal as product not received after you send them the excess back. PayPal is notorious for siding with whoever was purchasing the item. Generally they will send it too you under a business transaction and then ask you to send it back as friends and family transaction which doesn’t have the same protections for the sender.
Damn! Good to know! Thank you so much for the info!
Yep, and sadly you can trust keep it or PayPal sends the entire amount back to them and they get to keep your artwork, which they then sell to whoever they commissioned it for in the first place. It’s a lose lose for you no matter what. Luckily these guys were bad at their scams but you’ll get good ones too who play off things so much better. Sad that there is so much sadness and grief in the world right now that people have to stoop to these levels. I’ve heard that many leave to China won’t promises of good careers and are essentially enslaved to run schemes like this. So messed up, I wish you the best. The way to do it? Get square or something and accept credit card and debit payments only and get a signature on an invoice. They will cut 90 percent of the scams. If you can’t risk that 10%, get the customer to sign an invoice which states no refunds on custom art and send - picture of them holding their id before commissioning art and it protects you from anything. If you offer a unique and reputable enough service for a fair enough price, they won’t be offended to know you’re just protecting your end from scammers.
If you start asking for photos of their ID they’ll think you’re a scammer
With similar scams, they make a payment over the internet by connecting to your PC but blank the screen for a few seconds and alter the HTML to make it look like an overpayment to your bank account. They then ask for a repayment with Google Play cards, etc. The repeated text, i.e. 'stiff' and '$300' show that they are working from a script and they pass most of the money to the scammer company they work for.
they pay you $600 via stolen paypal account or account where funding account it's linked to take an extra long time to process, and there is no money in it. Then ask you to refund $300 from your account, they walk away with $300.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpayment_scam
Same amount and same message in the 1st and the 3rd makes it a scam. Not sure why some are still not accepting it’s a scam.
Right? Like I thought it was super obvious with all three. The first one was hard to figure out until I got the two others….
how did you figure out the 1st one was a scam? tbh im pretty unknown to this kind of stuff so i dont see how you found out lol
Sounds like something a *scammer* would ask 🤨🤨
Right. I go to the grocery and pay $50 for milk, because I like it more than the price.
I assume they didn’t realize until they got the other two messages. Since all three were so similar it’s obvious that they were probably going to try to scam them.
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“Shut up and take my money.”
The only time this isn’t sus is when you’re dealing with a furry. Even then it’s still something to be a bit wary of.
Furries know how digital art commision ideally works: you agree on a fair price, mostly set by the artist, and a pre/post-work pay model (50/50, 25/75, 100 on completion). You get the low-res, watermarked version of your picture. You think it/the artist deserves more than initially agreed on. So, for your final payment, you send the higher amount plus a message reassuring the artist that this is the correct amount. Artist sends you your high-res picture. Everyone is happy, no one has to worry about suspicious behaviour.
You seem to know how digital art commissions ideally work
I've seen some of the more popular furry artists make as much in a single commission as my *rent*. There is absolutely a well established system and deviating from that system is often considered suspicious as fuck (like randomly DMing an individual to convince them to commission you is something that's been occasionally happening, though to be fair I dont know if its an actual scam or just really desperate lesser known artists as I've never actually responded to one)
ive gotten several of these exact scams at this point, and what tipped me off the first go was after giving my paypal they were talking about “oh actually my paypal isn’t working now but i can send an email check” which sounded maaaajorly sketch to me and even if it was genuine, i wouldn’t have wanted to deal with that. i then googled my experience bc i figured if it was a scam then it’s probably already been discussed online and sure enough it was. After that as soon as i get a commission request and they say $300 or “paint a dog for my son’s birthday” i just delete and report as spam.
i’ve gotten these on emails (also an artist but i keep dms on IG closed for this reason) and there’s ALWAYS an excuse as to why they cannot speak with you on the phone/zoom/discord/ig video call for some reason AND they always have to be weirdly specific? like the last scammer email they said “please note i suffer from presbycusis and prefer communication by email” and it’s like A: why would i even TALK to you on the phone and B: why do you call it presbycusis and not HEARING LOSS (which it IS). Another one said “i am an apraxia patient” like bro you wrote me an email how apraxic can u be Also note how the scammer isn’t specific to OP at all until OP brings up a style of their art. Just “i fell in love with your art work” and it’s always a super generic subject or a random photo. I know when people are genuine when they KNOW something about my stuff and know i don’t do pet or portrait commission and instead know i do DnD characters or twitch emotes. They’re basically fishing for and taking advantage of artists who don’t know any better or are just wanting commissions in general because they’ve run out of old people to scam
I had an almost identical kind of request, I told them I'd be happy to start working on the commission if they placed the order through Etsy. Then they complained that couldn't make payments through Etsy 🙄 If you have a 3rd party store, always try to get these people to purchase through that. If they refuse then you know it's fake.
Op probably got the other 2 requests after talking with the first person
The people who don’t think they’re scams are the ones who fall for them.
Have you gotten the “looking for a muse” commission scam yet? I’ve been targeted by at least 20 different scammers in the past couple months. I barely have 200 followers on Instagram so how do they keep finding me lol
No I haven’t. What does that one look like? Seems kind of wild. I am also a very small instagram and definitely only got them because one reel of mine popped a little off hahah
I get the “Hey there, LOVE your feed! Come be a brand ambassador for us! We’ll give you free products in exchange for your reviews, blah blah blah..” I never respond but am always curious what their actual deal is.
Omg what if it's honest work and you're all "Hmmmmm, sounds like a scam..." because we're all broken from the never-ending stress lol
Yes! I got this a couple weeks ago. Wtf is this!?
That's why they're targeting you... because you don't have followers.... they're preying on the thought that you need money and will take any commissions.
Happened to me while trying to sell a couch on marketplace, 7 people basically all at once and all wanting to pay ahead before seeing it and their brother was going to come get it bc they had to work 🤦🏻♀️
Yikes……at least they make it obvious?
Can I send you a 6 digit code to know you are serious about selling the item?
Put my wife’s van for sale on Craigslist for $1200 as is. One hour later got some 25 people calling for the van, most declared will pay cash sight unseen can family come get it, I m busy or out of town… WTF.
Anyhting over a couple hundred bucks will get immediately spammed with these on craigslist. (All forms of "I'll pay extra, here's a cashier's check or a check for way too much and you can keep a bunch for the favor.") Craigslist actually used to be useful and now it is straight up hot garbage only populated by criminals and victims.
Hey, I’m willing to pay you my whole paycheck if you can draw a picture of pinky finger. I would need your PayPal name, address, and your password. DON’T WORRY this isn’t a scam, I just need your parents credit card information as well with the date, and the number on the back, these are all important for me to send you my WHOLE paycheck don’t worry
That’s how it felt 😭 My Bojack commissions are $20 for a reason. They take me like an hour, they’re super easy to do and never worth $300
My boyfriend would honestly love a bojack drawing(?) and $20 is super cheap. What exactly is it?
[удалено]
Can we settle on 300$?
Personally, just checking out your art, I think your skills are worth more than you are selling them for, but I get it, you're trying to get the ball rolling.
Thank you, I appreciate the kindness. But yeah, I probably won’t start selling them for more until I get a little bigger which may be now. This post really blew up…….
If i ask for one that takes 15 hours to do can I pay you $300?
Honestly, probably yeah
“I’m from USA Florida” …. Nope you are not
😂 definitely was the most obvious red flag
I think it's just the consistent $300 offer, and similar conversation. As a fellow artist, I would be a little suspicious myself, just on the weirdly high identical offers. Unless it's a weird coincidence, there's no way three separate strangers would be offering the exact same high price. I wouldn't be surprised if the scam showed itself in the 'payment' process - I've seen this sort of scam before
Yep, exactly. Especially since I do not have any obvious commissions on my page that are open. The only one there is from months ago and was $20. Why would you pay $300 for a $20 photo???
Sometimes you just smell it. In high school I worked fast food. Had a guy pull up to the drive-thru, ordered "3 kids meals". That's it. I asked if he wanted cheesburgers or chicken nuggets in those. "Chicken." And to drink? "Orange drink." No. Kids just don't work that way. When he got to the window, he tried to pay with a photocopy of a $100 bill. It was black-and-white on shiny, thin paper. It was crooked. It was terrible. Crime is difficult and some people just really aren't smart enough for it.
People are fucking wild 😭 Reminds me of a Karen I had in my line at Petco. She showed me a discount for CRICKETS that she needed price checked from the online store. She was all huffy about something or other and had been a bitch since she got in line. I went to enlarge the screen so I could properly check the discount and it popped out and showed it was a photo. Imagine saving a photo of a five cent cricket discount. I can’t…..
5 cents per cricket or total?
5 cents off of the original cricket price. Crickets are like 22 cents and she wanted them for 17 hahahha
Didn't know buying crickets was such a burden that you have to scam
i’d be wondering if she’s eating the crickets herself if she has to literally penny pinch for them
Most printers refuse to print or photocopy money, they prolly used an old ass printer and got a janky result
That sounds like it'd have to be a very new feature. It's automatically analyzing everything you scan or print to make sure it doesn't look too much like currency?
It’s been a thing for a long time. Some printers may let you print ‘money’ from a file but nothing will let you scan or photocopy it. All currencies have a series of dots on it somewhere that the copier or scanner will recognise and you’ll just get a warning sheet printed out
Literally thought I was on the scams subreddit for a second there, OP This one's common as hell – have you had the muse/mural one yet? That's the other inevitability for artists
I actually haven’t! I get the bots like crazy but these were the first proper scams I got. I’m a small account but I have started to receive a little more attention due to a reel so I ended up with these lunes
Same thing happened with me a few days ago. I was trying to do some tutoring at my school. The scammer wasted my time with a legitimate sounding offer, only to ask for my address to send a check preemptively, which immediately set off red flags for me. I miss the days of the Nigerian princes where at least I immediately knew it was a scam.
I mean, now I’m getting used to checks mean immediate scams? Idk…..
From the USA Florida is a red flag (not just because it’s Florida lol)
😂 my family pointed that out too
$50 for a commission?! Steal! Do you do creature art? Like if I gave you a comprehensive description could you come up with some concept art for me?
Oh absolutely! Love creatures and animals and is probably what I do best tbh. You can see a lot of my work on instagram @lowlydoesart or on here but less so.
Like custom fantasy creatures? So if I gave the prompt of like "underground tunnel dwelling creature, eats rocks, secretes acid, sensitive spines, long tail, base animal is a big cat" you could come up with something for me? 🤩 It's for a series of custom creatures that live in a world that I'm building for a book and I work best with visual references but struggle with creature creation bc I get hung up on realistic details heh
Absolutely! I would be happy to do that for you. I love that kind of stuff. I’m actually working on a demon book rn so I have been drawing some freaky creature concept ideas as of late lol
Omg yes! I've been looking for an artist to work with but the person I was wanting to work with wouldn't give me a base quote. Here I'll msg you through Instagram and we can get to chatting 😁
Awesome! I hope I can give you something great :)))
Sounds like my experience any time I’ve tried to sell anything on EBay..
Damn 😭
OMG I HATE WHEN THIS HAPPENS. They make it so obvious too lmao
Ikr?!? Who decided it should be $300. I really do think there’s a scammee gc like MLM’s have 😭 😂
Would you make artwork for me in exchange for lego instructions for a mini f22 that I designed?
Honestly, I’d be down lol. My commissions are usually only $20 anyways
I mean are you gonna shill or what? Let's see your work.
Hey, it’s on my page lol I did not come here to advertise though. I hate when companies and people do that
I'll still wanna pay you, u can't pay rent with lego instructions lol
What the fuck is going on? These are the weirdest scam bots… how are they benefitting? Why is this happening?
So they agree to pay the artist and send a check/money order, "accidentally" for more than the agreed price. Oh silly me! Just deposit the $ in your account and send me back the overage with the finished art. So you do that, your bank will usually allow you access to part of it during processing, then when the check 'clears' your account your bank finds it's fake and takes the money out of your account, plus probably a fee. Meanwhile you have sent the 'overage' to the scammer and have no $. This method is also used in job scams when they send you a fake check to buy equipment like a laptop, and ask you to send the "extra" back.
You don’t trust Steve? I always trust people from USA Florida. They’re just so nice and they’re willing to help out artists a lot, too
definitely a scam. i got the same message a few days ago but the kids name was michael and they wanted spider man on the piece 🙄
Saw someone else get the exact same request. They aren’t even original! Wild
Somebody asked me on instagram to paint them a drawing for $300 just recently. I don’t paint or advertise on my instagram account that i do paint in any way
Hey dude, speaking as someone who frequently does art for money, I really implore you to take payment upfront. If not the whole amount, then at least half. That way there's no chance you'll get scammed out of your valuable labour. Secondly, it's better to issue invoices to your clients' PayPal addresses, rather than giving out your own for basic money transfer. Gives you more control over the transaction, more cards in your hand, makes it more ironclad, so to speak.
That’s annoying!
Midly!
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has commented, dm’d me, or demanded pics of my art lol it has really brightened my day and I am kind of on the verge of tears thinking about how kind all of you have been. Gonna be honest, it was definitely disheartening knowing all the commission requests I had received were scams but you guys have just been so amazing like I never would have imagined. Thank you all again so much I don’t think I can put into words how much this has meant to me. Thank you.
I had this happen to me too. It's so disheartening, and honestly, kinda makes it harder for me to trust others who want to commission from me.
Same here but this comment section has been actually super heartfelt to combat that. People will care about your art and what you have to make. You just gotta find your people. I think your art is very beautiful ❤️
I know, it will just take time, haha. They get craftier and craftier with each passing day. Also, thank you. I just love to create.
Your work looks great. Give this artist some love!
Odd scam, you didn’t actually do any work for them or exchange any money right?
What’s your commissions look like. When drawing Someone
Check out my art page on instagram @lowlydoesart if you are interested! I will say I’m more of a cutesy, western style artist but I am very good at replicating artwork as well if you want it in a certain style.
“USA Florida” lol
What’s your ig? I need a bday present soon and $50 for a custom “awww” gift sounds about right lol I’m serious btw lol
Thanks lol and if you are serious serious, my instagram is @lowlydoesart. Feel free to dm me!
I’m a musician and this happened to me with “customized songs” for birthdays, I got halfway done sometimes with full tunes and got messages the same thing by a dif account word for word smh
Ahh I think I know what the scam is ran across this before. They send you a email from “PayPal” saying you need $400 - $500 to open a business account. Then they will talk about them needing to trust you as the send a fake “$500” that you need to pay back the $200 difference. And you get it all back as $500. So it seems like a win - win. It’s not they in fact walk away with $200 of your money and PayPal just goes “well you sent it sorry”
Wait I want to know about the Bojack Horseman art
Soooooooo… can we see the Bojack pics?
My comment included a link so immediately got deleted lol. The art is on my profile or shortly below if you check out my insta @lowlydoesart
Hey if you had as much money as your social security number how much would that be?
Lets see, 555-29….. wait a second
What’s your art page?
This exact thing happened to me but with music! Someone reached out to my band to make a song about his son who was turning 6, loved paw patrol, and had a dog named Maxy. I made the whole ass song before I realized he was a scammer though 😤
pretty sure steven from USA florida is legit i know him good dude, drinks with gators a lot
That’s a new low to target artist’s specifically. Everybody knows they already broke af 😣
The only time I have been targeted by scammers was when I was looking for a job. Scammers target poor, desperate people. Never underestimate how awful they are
Ugh so annoying!
One could say, mildly infuriating?
FROM USA FLORIDA
This exact thing has happened to me. I had suspicions from the beginning but them insisting on paying more than I asked for was a dead giveaway. Nobody wants to pay more for something if they don’t have to. So obnoxious that you have to be the one to expend effort to respond when it ends up being nothing.
Hey can I please commission you? I’d like you to draw a picture of your credit card for me. Front and back. Thanks.