More than once I’ve encountered an artist scam on Instagram, with the more common ones including people who insist they want to buy my art as NFTs (and refuse to buy the originals), even though I don’t make NFTs, as well as a PayPal scam where they insist on getting my PayPal info to send me the money, when in fact all they want to do is use my PayPal email address to try to hack in. It usually doesn’t take long at all to sniff out those scams, especially the NFT approach, as they all use the same general script.
Today I received a different DM (direct message) approach, so I went along briefly, but very hesitantly. In this case, the person contacting me asked if they could commission me to paint an “abstract sea wave” picture. It didn’t seem too far fetched since I recently posted a bunch of ocean-inspired paintings (and I directed him to that post), but he insisted on wanting a commission. I said it’s kind of hard to work on commission, since I wouldn’t know whether he’d like the finished result until it was finished, unless he had a specific image in mind that I could base my painting on. He sent the picture (above left) and said he wanted something like this. I responded that I didn’t like the idea of selling a copy of someone else’s work, and asked if he knew who the artist was (no answer to that). I asked what the offer was as far as payment (no answer to that).
First off, I have to say I had my doubts simply by checking the profile, because he only had a handful of unrelated posts, although 2 “selfies” of the same person – whether or not it was actually him or just stolen images, it’s hard to say. But when you see 5 posts, 116 followers, and 1,381 following, it seems a bit suspicious.
The 2nd clue was when I asked what size he wanted, his answer was in centimeters. I hate to say it, but that’s a pretty unlikely answer for an American. Or – his suggestion that he was American – when I asked for a shipping address, he gave me a street address in Kentucky that, when looked up online, revealed that it was the above-right pictured trailer park.
The 3rd clue, which I should have mentioned earlier – is that this profile didn’t follow me, didn’t like any of my posts, just DM’d me with this commission request. That’s a bit strange and too random to seem real.
I asked several times what price range he was willing to spend, and he never answered. When pressed further, he said I should state the price, since I’m the artist – so as a test, I quoted a 4-figure price – and his brief answer was “that’s fine.” I’m not sure if he expected me to search the address, and I don’t want to make obnoxious statements here, but to be honest I’m guessing it’s probably unlikely that someone living in a mobile home is out spending thousands of dollars on art on a regular basis. Hey, if they do, more power to them, and I support the idea all the way – the interior of that home should be decorated nicely just like any other home. But the various clues being put together here made me skeptical.
Lastly, when he asked, “how can I found you on Venmo,” the bad grammar and the request for my personal info was the final straw – at that point I blocked him and stopped the conversation. Even though he gave me a legitimate street address of a real home and a Gmail account to reach him, the rest of this all seemed too risky.
So I share this with you to hopefully reach other artists who get similar scam attempts, and let you know some of the concerns I had with the info given to me. We’d all love to sell our art, no doubt about it, but I swear that 98% of the DMs I’ve received on Instagram about my art have been attempted scams. It’s a shame.