We have heard from two members this week about an art scammer named "John Bathgate" who has been attempting to buy paintings with a bad certified check. As it goes, he sends a check for more than the amount of the purchase, then asks the seller to refund the difference when shipping the artwork. It is not until you have paid him the refund that you find his check does not clear the bank -- so you are out the artwork and the money you may have sent him.Dear CAC Members,Just a friendly reminder to all of you to please beware if you are approached by potential buyers who you don't know or who wasn't referred by a reliable source. Do your research online - there is a lot of information out there about some of the more common scams - and if anything seems suspicious to you, please investigate thoroughly before proceeding with potential sales.
We hope to help keep our members safe and secure.
The characteristics of these emails remain what I've been saying - and will continue to emphasize, in order to educate as many artists as I can as to how to identify these emails BEFORE sending money. Check out the link I have in the upper right hand corner to read more about the common characteristics of these scam emails.
I just an email today and found your comments after Googling the name John Bathgate. Thanks so much for postng this information. Here is the email he sent me:
ReplyDeleteHello,
Good day to you over there, My name is John Bathgate I'm from Seattle and i hope this message finds you well.I was going through your works and my eyes caught...., i will like to have it for my new apartment this month. please let me know if the piece is available, if yes let me have the detailed price and more information about it. i will be waiting to read from you.
John.
Susan,
ReplyDeleteGlad you were able to identify that email as a scam. If you search this blog for Stan Thomas, you'll notice that email's content is almost identical to the one you received.
I do think there must be a scammer manual out there with templates because the content of so many of these scam emails are SO similar.
I'm going to keep posting them and hopefully more and more artists will have this as a resource that they can check to see if the email they just received is for real or not.
Saving artists one email at a time! [smile]
Glad you did not even have to reply!