Scam Email: Andrew Hutton

Kathleen - I received an email from this person several months ago asking about purchasing my art. He asked if I could ship to Dubai and did I accept credit card payment. He contacted me through Fine Art America. I never heard back from him until yesterday. His email is below. Based on what I see I'm betting this is a scam and you'll want add this email / name to you list.

ahutton33@yahoo.com. Andrew Hutton

I do owe you an apology for the delay in reacting to your email. I have read the email you sent and is well understood. I do work as a safety person in an offshore oil rig presently in the Arabian gulf which makes communication a little difficult for me. I love arts and plan on retiring soon and opening a gallery in Dubai (UAE). I presently have some orders and for some, I do have the liberty to make a choice for my growing collection.

I am looking at opening a good business relationship with you, so as to supply me paintings for my Gallery.

Send me pictures of some of your collections so i choose, then you tell me the cost of the paintings will appreciate if you give me an quote too on shipping cost.

Soon as i get these informations i will communicate my card details to you for charge of both shipping and painting.

Scam Email: Luis Clarkson

Notice how the scammer email changed after the first email. And Luis is actually a male name but the scammer could care less about a detail like this when using a fake name. I'm assuming it is the same scammer who I reported on earlier this month, using the fake name Luis Huffman but having the same story about living in Fiji with her husband.

First Email:

"Luis Clarkson" [heatcomps@gmail.com] wrote:

My name is Luis from Baltimore, Maryland. I live in Fiji with my husband. I saw some of your works which i really loved and i will like to purchase them.

In regards to payment and shipping, Do you accept credit card and can you ship to Fiji Island ?

I will await your response.

Luis Clarkson

Second Email:

From: Luis [crustallinesales@gmail.com]
Subject: Re: Order - Quotation

Thanks for your response . I will like to know the availability and the cost of each selected below.

ORDER LIST ...
 
“Circle of Beauty” Photography on Canvas

--- HONEYMOON ISLAND

"Reflections after the rain"
"Embraced by the Light"
"Colorful Honeymoon Path to the Sea"
"A Quiet Bench"

--- DUNEDIN CAUSEWAY

"Sunset on the Dunedin Causeway"
"Time to Rest"
"A Brilliant Day on the Causeway"
"Evening Clouds    2"
 
MY SHIPPING ADDRESS..
74 Naviti St,
Lautoka, Viti Levu, Fiji

Kindly send me the total cost of the above and call either UPS or DHL for a shipping quote , but if you can't ship i can arrange for the shipping . Hope to read back from you with the total cost and we can proceed and finalized my order.

Sincerely.
Thanks.

Scam Email: Peter Johnson

Flattery will get you no where. IF you can recognize it is a scammer. And check out that random number in his disposable email account. Now there is a scammer committed to making a LOT of disposable email accounts.

From: Peter Johnson [peterjohnson5312221@hotmail.com]

Subject: Shipping

Dear ,           

You must have devoted so much time and effort to create this pieces that i am about to purchase because i can vividly see the uniqueness of the pieces.Your work also have  a pleasant and a suiting feeling, I am so sure it will bring comfort and happiness into my life.

The piece listed below are the one's i will be purchasing.

1 piecs Blue nude  24x36................2400€

1 pieces of 14x19 nude...............900€

Total cost of pieces-------------------------------------------------------------3300€

Payment for those pieces will be made by cheque from bank in Germany  and the money can be withdraw from my account, i will be issuing 8,500€  to cover the cost of the piece and shipping of your work.

I have some Furniture  to be picked up from a store in Berlin,so you will deduct your fee from the payment issued to you and have the rest disburse to the shipper that will come over to your location to pick up your work and have it delivered safely to me at my residential address in Manitoba,Canada.

I would inform the shippers about it after have heard from you.They will just come over to your area to pick-up the piece and then have them delivered to me.Before i can proceed to issue to you the cheque  i  will be needing your contact details and phone number to write and send the cheque to you.The address written below is my address for shipping.

Thanks

Peter Johnson

1344 Waller Ave.

Winnipeg, MBR3T 1P9

Canada

Scam Email: Charles Rooney

Kathleen,

I think you've got another one to add to your list.  Besides all the other clues, the fact that they hadn't really dealt with the actual info in my last e-mail was a giveaway.

Alysia

First email:

Charles Rooney [charlesrooney01@gmail.com] wrote:

Good Day,

Do you still have this your Beautiful artwork available at the moment for Purchase? the artwork am talking about are written on the Subject line of this email.

Please let me know if they are still available for purchase and email me back their price.

Best Regards,

Charles.

Second Email:

Charles Rooney [charlesrooney01@gmail.com] wrote:

Dear Alysia,

Thank you for your email and the information about the pieces, now that you have notify me about the price am really satisfied with it.

I want you to know one Important thing, I should have use PayPal as the method of Payment but I have been scam before through using PayPal and that is why I have cross my mind that I will never use PayPal again for Payment method or to give my Credit Card information to people i did not know for Payment method on the Internet because of my past experience.

Meanwhile I live in Essex United Kingdom, so now regarding the mode of payment I can make available will be through Travelers Check or Personal Check or either Cashier’s Check or Money Order only.

Due to that kindly let me know the Payment method you choose out of the ones I listed above in other for me to be able to make the payment available and send it out to you, also please I hope you are a legit and straight forward Artist.

I will also need your information below in other for the Payment to be send out to you.

Name on Check;
Address;
Phone Number;
Your Skype ID;

When i received this above information then i will be able to Issue your Payment and send it out.

Also i want you to know that i will appoint a good shipping company that will come for the pickup of the Pieces in your destination and deliver it to me, reason is due to the lost of goods, breaking of Paintings and Sculpture and damages that normally happen because it has happen to my shipment several times through FedEx and UPS and so on, that is the reason i cannot use both FedEx and UPS Company again for shipment.

I want you to know that i will include the shipment fees on the Payment that i will send out to you.

My Skype ID is charlesrooney01, I will be expecting your reply.

Charles.

Scam Email: Steve Padilla

Hi Kathleen,

I am very appreciative of what you have done with all of this. Because of your blog and website info, I have avoided being scammed here. It is sick isn't it!? Incredible that these people would pick artists to go after, though we are the most powerful type :) Thank you so very much.

Here is the e-mail and name and address of this one:

Name: Steve Padilla
E-mail: stevepadi01@yahoo.com

Steve Padilla [stevepadi01@yahoo.com] wrote:

Good day, hope you are good. Was going through your website and saw some of your artwork I really like. You are doing a great job. I would like to make
the purchase of the artwork in subject field above if it is still available..i would also like to know what inspired you to paint the artwork. kindly get back to me asap.
Thanks and God bless,
Steve.

 I responded to his e-mail above and gave him pricing etc....And I get this:

Dear Sean,

Thanks for the message, Hope  you are doing  great. i must tell you i am very much interested in the immediate purchase.

Unfortunately,  i am on voyage to France at the moment as i am a civil marine engineer and due to the nature of my work, visiting of website are restricted but i squeezed out time to check this advert and send you an email regarding it :-). I wont be back for another couple of weeks, I would have come to purchase the piece personally.

I'm okay with the price $4500, I think it worth it anyway. If you'd like to know, I'm relocating to the Philippines soon and I'm trying to gather some good stuff for my new abode. I am buying yours (quickly! before someone else grabs it) So, I'll arrange to send you payment ASAP.

Scam Email: Luis Huffman

I've been receiving a bunch of reports on this scam from artists so it was time to add this to the blog so others may be alerted.

It's a pretty standard scam email. Just because they offer to pay by credit card doesn't mean anything. They often use credit cards that are stolen but not yet reported as such, so may "clear" at first but will always result in a chargeback later.

If you receive an email looking like this, it IS a scam and don't spend any more time on it. Delete it and go back to creating art.

p.s. isn't Luis a male name? gotta love when scammers are stupid...unless Luis is gay and got married to a guy...

From: Luis Huffman [ppcsales10100@aol.com]
To:
Subject: Inquiry

Dear,

My name is Luis Huffman, I saw some of your works which i really loved and i will like to purchase them, But i will like to know if you can ship to FIJI ISLAND. I am from Baltimore, Maryland, Got married last year and moved down to Fiji Island with my husband.

In regards to payment do you accept Master credit card. kindly get back to me so i can send you the list of arts i am interested in ordering.

I will await your prompt response,
Sincerely.

Luis Huffman
Baltimore , MD 21244
Tel : (301) 747-6295