Is this legit? Anybody else have this happen?

1

Got an email today from a man who said he wanted to buy a surprise painting for his wife. He wanted me to email him pictures and prices for my art. Didn’t smell exactly right so I referred him to my website, stating everything was there and I don’t do private sales. He came back and wanted me to pick a painting and email him pictures. I gave him the same response except to say he should let his wife make the choice. It all smells like 3-day old fish to me? Anyone else experience this? Or know what’s going on?

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It’s the classic scam. He’ll want to send you a check for more than the amount of the painting and then have you send him a refund. He’ll hope you do before you his bad check clears.

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Thank you. I knew something was off, but I couldn’t figure it out. What you said clears things up. Glad I didn’t bite.

4

A man tried the same scam on me a few years ago. I dealt with him in the same way you did.
If it smells like a fish….

5

I’ve been plagued with scammers and catfishers lately. Makes me super cautious. You’re right…pass on the questionable.

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If it feels bad, assume it is bad.
Because I found agonising about this sort of thing so stressful, I took to adding a little Terms of Business text box under my e-mail signature (only for selective use, of course!). Item 1 = paintings will be despatched to the buyer’s preferred address by the agreed shipping method upon receipt of cleared funds. Accepted payment methods: bank transfer, Stripe. Strictly no cheques, no cash.
What you say after that is a bit academic - I think I included stuff about supports/materials/sizes and whether it was or wasn’t framed. But the main point was just to slip in item 1😊

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I really like your idea. Have decided I will let anything that can sell, sell through DPW. Saves me a lot of hassles and negotiations.

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It’s a scam. Just received a new one today asking if I want to purchase a domain name. Ugh!

9

Keep wondering how many times they can change a scam. My latest was an invitation to show in a gallery in London. Ahhh, the compliments on my work were amazing…blah, blah, blah. Turns out, after a google search, that the gallery offers less than a square yard of space for an inflated price. Think the gallery probably is legit, they are just using aspiring, needy artists to finance their upkeep. And the scams keep coming…

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Thanks for this advice, I just got a nearly identical request through daily paintworks messaging yesterday

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Hey, Silva, it sometimes seems unending. Glad I did a Google search on the gallery. If possible, I always try to check out the “too good to be true” offers. Still waiting for that legit offer!

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There are new old things (I mainly get them on instagram, not here), but just be ware.
“Buyer” wants desperately to buy your “last posted” artwork and wants to pay you paypal. When I say they can buy on my website, with paypal, they refuse saying “I don’t trust websites”.

The reason is they just want email associated with you paypal account to hack it. I got quite a few of those lately.

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OH boy, this takes me back! A few years ago, I got message from the same guy! Or maybe a different guy, reading from the “scammers’ playbook.” The “gift for his wife” thing, cuz he" found her laptop opened on my website and figured she liked my work" … I was very naive and got all excited, until things started not adding up, like

  1. when I asked which painting he was interested in and he couldn’t come up with a title, even though the title is RIGHT THERE at each painting;
  2. He wanted to mail me a check (ALARM BELLS!) instead of going through PayPal
  3. When I responded I only accepted payment through PayPal because that way BOTH of us are protected against fraud, he deftly replied that he was “just trying to save (me) money, PayPal has all these fees,” yada yada…
  4. When I insisted on using PayPal for the payment, POOF! He was never heard from again. (Imagine his poor wife, not getting my art for her birthday!)