key. cheyn.

(Commission scams v2)

How it starts

(How it starts)

So you are a tumblr artist and you want to share your art into the void that is tumblr. You make a post, add the usual tags like ‘my art’, ‘artists on tumblr’, ‘digital art’, or event just ‘art’ in general. Then you hit post and watch it see how much attention your hard work will get. Maybe you even did a commission and your commissions are open so you may have even added ‘commissions open’ as an extra tag. Now you wait. Surely it’ll take forever to get any interest…But! Then you see it! A comment asking you if your commissions are open. It’s done within seconds of the post being made. What luck! You do have commissions open so you DM them because they asked you to.

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How it works

(How it works)

Once you message the account they will then tell you they want you to draw their pet or a family member such as their son. But they won’t take any offered payment methods that you have listed in your commissions post that they saw. Instead, they will ask you what your email address is so they can send you the money that way. Might seem odd but they claim they just have issues with using the links you offer. But they promise a high payment for this simple commission so you give them your email address and wait for the payment to come through. Unfortunately something goes wrong. There’s a new email from ‘PayPal’ but it’s claiming there’s been a little problem crediting your account and that you need to pay to upgrade it in order to receive the payment. So you do as stated but somehow this isn’t enough. Now you don’t have money, you lost some money too, and the account you messaged is threatening to get the local law enforcement after you if you can’t send them the money back. You get scared and start to panic. So you keep sending money and more money but nothings happening. However, if you calm down and pay attention you’ll likely notice the real issue.

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The fake PayPal email

(The fake PayPal email)

Upon closer inspection the ‘PayPal’ message you’ve received is fake and doesn’t come from the official PayPal email address. The account who contacted you is scamming you and has no intention to pay you and that’s why they won’t use any provided links. You’ve been scammed out of work and likely have lost more money than you wanted to lose.

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What can you do to avoid this scam?

(What can you do to avoid this scam?)

When posting art always keep an eye out for these kind of spam bots. They’ll comment asking you to DM them or comment asking you to DM them if commissions are open. You will eventually notice the repetitive comments across multiple posts they like too. Do not contact these accounts and instead block them and alert other artists about them.