As awareness of my art practice grows, so does the amount of unsolicited offers and inquiries for work or services. In other words, I am seeing way more ‘opportunist’ traffic in my social feeds and email. Scammers, fraudsters and tricksters regularly contact me to see if they can get something going. Art scams are nothing new. Most artists are aware of the ‘my wife loves your work’ scam and the ‘vanity gallery/exhibition’ scams but some scams seem more legitimate - at first.

I was approached through Instagram by a follower, shortly after posting a portrait painting. He asked if I would consider doing a commissioned portrait. Of course I am wary but I am also reluctant to shut things down just yet. We did some back-and-forth and I took every bit of information he provided me with to do some sleuthing. I looked up the address, the name, his social links etc. I used Google image match to see if the image he sent me of the intended subject was legit. Finally, I sent a contract for the commission and indicated that I would require a deposit before starting.

And, you guessed it… Things started getting real.

That was the last I heard from Harris.

Will I still consider commission work? Yup. However, I will insist on discussing the terms of the commission either in-person or over the phone. Real buyers should not have a problem with this. Scammers should just slither away.

One more thing… To make this experience extra memorable, I decided to proceed with the commission work - just for fun.

Art Scamming