Scams - has anyone received suspicious emails?

"Hope it is still in good condition, what’s the final asking price?"
Right.
Response to robbiedave124@gmail.com: You’re becoming well-known. Does anyone actually ever send you a painting? No need to respond–you have been blocked and reported.

Clown.
(If you have gmail, you can block a specific email address via the drop-down menu in the upper right hand corner of someone’s message)

I got the same email from the same guy. My answer was like yours, but he did come back and tried to convince me. I simply deleted the message.

He sounds pretty desperate. I will watch out. Thank you for alerting us all.

Hey guys! i GOT ONE TOO! rEPORTED rOBBIE dAVE TO SUPPORT AND THEN THOUGHT, MUST GO TO ART TALK AND DO THE SAME BUT YOU ALL KNEW ALREADY! Sorry, caps lock.

If its an attempt to get information, he/she/they will just get a new email address. One reason I’ll stick with PayPal.

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Watch out whenever the transaction proposed is unconventional. I don’t believe they’re after our art (sigh). My husband has had this type of offer presented to his non-art business. The scammer (for whatever reason they make up to tell you) offers a much larger than required payment that is deposited into your account with the condition that you will pay the excess funds to the 3rd party he has introduced (example in this case: courier). The 3rd party is of course either himself or his partner. They endeavor to establish trust by offering you such a generous over-payment (sometimes a forged cashier’s check) in the hopes that they can convince you that they have a lot of money, not that they are trying to steal yours. You forward the portion amount they designated, which is when they get your real money in hand, then the initial large payment sent to you ends up not going through. You are out whatever funds you paid the third party.

Fortunately my husband was suspicious from the beginning and asked all the right questions and the scam became very obvious. Watch out for “complicated” transactions!

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I just got an email with almost all of the same attributes of the latest scam on this thread, and I am very suspicous also.

  1. They are OK with Paypal, but would prefer to use a private courier “agent”.
  2. It is the most expensive piece in my inventory.
  3. There is alot of bad grammer in the email exchange.

But why would they be OK with just doing the PayPal amount requested like a normal custormer? Is it really true that they can take the money back out of your paypal account?

For jessgreen929 & others wondering about PayPal payments being a safety guarantee…

Below is a direct copy & paste from PayPal answering the question of how scammers can use PayPal to steal money from you:
Overpayment scam
A customer sends a PayPal payment that is more than the purchase price of the order, and then asks you to wire them the difference.
They may tell you that they accidentally overpaid you, the extra money is for the shipping costs, they’re giving you a bonus for your great service or the money is for the stress they’ve caused you.
They may even ask you to wire the shipping fees to their shipper.
This scammer may have paid with a stolen credit card, bank account number or checking account.
Just because a payment has been deposited into your account, doesn’t mean the money is yours to keep. If the legitimate account holder reports unauthorized activity, the money can be withdrawn from your account.
If that happens, you’ll lose the money you wired to the fraudster, the product you shipped, shipping costs and your payment.
How to avoid this scam
Don’t wire money to someone you don’t know. A legitimate buyer won’t overpay you for an order.
If a customer overpays you and asks you to wire them the difference, consider canceling the order—it’s very likely to be fraudulent.
Don’t wire money to the bogus shipping company—it’s part of their scam to get your money.

-Hope the quote above is helpful to all!
Link to check it out for yourself: PayPal Popular Scams

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The answer is yes, they can use PayPal to steal money from you even after it is deposited to your account and PayPal explains how here:
https://www.paypal.com/selfhelp/article/FAQ3022/1
Hope this helps!

I just got two emails from the email address Gabrella444antonia@hotmail.com and robbiedave124@gmail.com yesterday.
exactly like what you guys depicted and I am also very suspicious and don’t know what to do. After read all of your writing here I know how to do now. Thank you very much and enjoy your new years painting.

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I am glad to see that everyone who has posted to this conversation is savvy when it comes to these kinds of scams, however I am sincerely sorry that they are sent through DPW and any of our members have to waste their time on them.

While it is very difficult and unreliable to try to filter scam emails by content, after much thinking and analysis, I have implemented several new alternative approaches that should significantly reduce these types of emails being sent through DPW. I’d love to tell you what they are, however, I don’t want to tip off any would be scammers!

What I can tell you is I have put in place a fairly foolproof way of detecting scammers and blocking them from sending further emails. Additionally, there is now a link in the email you receive through DPW that you can click or tap to report the scammer to DPW, if one does get through. Doing so will notify me by text and have them be immediately blocked from sending further emails.

I have also added all the email addresses mentioned in this conversation, and many more, to the list of blocked addresses.

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Thank you David for your concern and prompt attention. I appreciate all the work you and your team invest in making our Daily Painting experience so enjoyable. Good wishes to you all for 2016.

Kind regards, Anne Wood.

Yes, my email is from Gabrella also. I am going to disregaurd it, I think it is exactly the scam we are talking about

Thank you David for all that you do for this community. I’m sure you guys already do so much behind the scenes hat we don’t even know about (like the filtering)- so thanks for that as well!

My first email from someone interested in my painting on here and it was a scam ‘Robbie Dave’ was the person supposedly. Said they wanted the painting, but through their own courier, then they said they couldn’t do it so could I forward the money to their courier and they’d add it on to the paypal payment. I then got a fake email that looked like a paypal email but wasn’t, the amount they said weren’t in my paypal and the whole fake idea of payment was that I’d then pay $250 elevated courier fees to the person they said was their ‘courier’. Luckily my wife is switched on as my first email of interest on here that I could have been naive.

AHA!! I knew my email from Gabrella sounded a little fishy. Now, do I want to play games with her … him … it, or just ignore the email? Hmmm, the possibilities are endless. :wink:

I sent them an email with a direct link to my Saatchi Art page for that piece and got an email back that said the link didn’t work for them. Highly unlikely since it’s just an ordinary link. They would have to click on the Paypal link there to get to the payment page.

Thank you for your efforts in waging war against these people. Maybe, someday, they will just stop! (Wishful thinking!) I think it’s great that this forum exists! Information sharing is one more way to arm ourselves!

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Yes, I believe I got one today with the name Robbie Dave. The ‘red flags’ were incorrect grammar and a change in shipping plans. They never clicked the Pay Pal button. Oh, well, on to another day.

I got it too. My day job is with a identity protection company and these types of scams are all too common. Unfortunately once the money is gone there is not much that can be done. Whenever someone asks to deviate from the way you typically do business alarm bells and whistles should go off. Of course never give out your personal information out to anyone if you are not absolutely sure who you are dealing with and even then be wary. As artists doing business on the internet we are especially vulnerable to these types of scams.

A couple of years ago, before I joined DPW I got an e-mail from someone presumably in Scotland, inquiring about a small $200 painting on my website. I responded, thinking it might be a legitimate sale. They said they wanted to send their own shipping crew to pack up the painting (for an 8x10 ???). I said I was uncomfortable allowing strangers into my studio to do the packing, and I could pack it myself. They said OK, but their shipper would have to pick it up because UPS and FedEx don’t deliver to Scotland. Of course, by then I knew it was fishy but decided to play along. They wanted to send a check for the painting plus enough for me to pay the shipping company when they picked up the painting. I figured that they wanted me to deposit their bad check in my account, pay the shipper with my money, then they’d be long gone by the time their check bounced. I actually did receive a check - for $1000 more than the price of the painting! It had the logo of a bank in New Jersey. I took the check to my bank - but instead of depositing it, I asked the manager to report it as a scam, which meant that a notice went out to all the banks. Funny thing, but I didn’t get any more e-mails after that.