First scam email received:
From: David Nutter [david_nutter@rediffmail.com]
Subject: Order Enquiry
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
Second scam email received:
From: David Nutter [david_nutter@rediffmail.com]
Subject: Re: Order Enquiry
Hello,
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
ah, there is that classic third party shipper red flag. "I don't want you to bother your self..." Right... and 'your self' is one word. Grammar or basic spelling will never be their strong suit.
Here is an email I received today from an artist:
ReplyDelete"Hi Kathleen,
My name is Michael and I am an artist in Rhode Island. I recently received a request for some of my art from a David Nutter and decided to investigate online. Apparently you received a request from "him" as well. Thank you for posting your comments online. I am a little cautious and wanted to see if this "David Nutter" was legit.
My question was how things ultimately turned out? Did you end up sending artwork to him? Or did you call his bluff? If you get the chance, please let me know how everything turned out. I am suspicious.
Thank you very much in advance.
Michael"
Well, Michael - first off I would recommend NOT replying to a scammer once you know it is not for real. No sense confirming for them your email address is "live" (they send their scam out to hundreds of thousands of email addresses not knowing which emails are valid or not). And there is no sense in "calling their bluff". They don't care about you and they don't really care about emails trying to scam them back (though I know lots of artists do that just to feel better). It's just a numbers game to them. Can they send out a zillion emails in the hopes that even one victim will completely fall for it.
Remember, the scam is they WANT you to write back. They WANT to send you a check or money order (it will be for more than the amount owed and it will ultimately turn out to be a fake check). They will ask you to send your artwork AND the difference in the overpayment they've "paid". Then you are out the money (typically thousands of dollars) and the artwork.
So my best advice is - once you know the email you've receive is from a scammer - just delete it and go back to making art. Even though they may have personalized the email, at that point it is no different than a viagra spam email and you just have to delete and move on.