Where Anatomy Goes to Die

I wouldn’t normally make a post like this, but I just had the weirdest 2 weeks. I applied to, what seemed to be, a pretty standard designer/illustrator job (I won't mention the name of the company it was posted under since it's a legitimate company that had no idea their name was being used.) A lot of very similar beats as most other art/design/illustration jobs on pretty much every job site out there. I applied, didn’t think much of it, had surgery a few days later, and woke up after sleeping off anesthesia to a text from a supposed representative of the company. We got in touch via email and this was the rundown I was given:

He also noted in a later email that, while they would reserve the rights of use, the art could still be used in a professional portfolio, no worries--totally fine with me. For the most part, this doesn't read as anything particularly strange--in fact, it reads as pretty great. In a sea of the literal hundreds of jobs I've applied for, this is probably one of the few times I've seen a truly solid paycheck for this kind of work (lots of folks out there either don't know what kind of budget their projects actually require or there's the Ye Olde I Just Don't Want to Pay You What You're Worth.)

There's a standard back and forth, things seem okay, and the job itself seems fun. I'm always down to do some art for education and especially for pandemic stuff. He emails me this:

Up front is also cool--I've been ghosted before getting paid in the past, so a "good faith" payment is okay with me. And while it's a little unusual to get a cashier's check, I understand that they're often used when larger funds are involved. Rarer now, with online payments being so common, but not wildly unheard of. Tbh I'm getting kind of excited by this point. I'm thinking this is my first "big job." This is money I could really use right now. And this is probably something they were betting on: there are a lot of desperate artists looking for a paycheck and this one is an amazing one. Especially considering how hard it is to find art jobs, in general, but also to find ones that pay you what you and the job are worth. Then, about a week into pretty consistent correspondence, I get this:

By this point, I've only had the official green light to start working for about 2/3 days. Barely any time to do anything, really. So, obviously, he hasn't seen anything yet. Even if he had looked at my portfolio and liked what he saw enough to trust whatever I came up with, I just found it odd that he was so willing to immediately hire me on for "phase two" (which I also wasn't aware was even a potential factor in the job.) And to also double the payment--even if it was an accurate calculation for the workload added--without having any idea of what you're getting felt weird to me. But I really, really wanted it to be legit. Thankfully, by this point my sister had made me aware of some similar scams going around on Indeed, so I started looking a little deeper into this. Eventually, unable to find much, I went directly to the site of the original company and contacted the owner. I gave him the rundown of the job and the name of who I was in contact with (Clayton West.) Within an hour, I got a reply back that said his business hadn't posted any sort of job and that he would be contacting the authorities. I emailed Clayton to let him know that I was severing ties, authorities had been contacted, and that I was going to shred the check. Unsurprisingly--despite his faithful correspondence up to now--I never got a reply. About a day or two later, I got the check in the mail and found it had been written for $13,600. And note: the check had been sent to me before I had even known there was a "phase two." Into the shredder it went and I thought that was it. Then today, less than a week later after this whole thing dissolved, I applied to another job on Indeed. A different type of business (a school, which is also a real and legitimate place), different info, different application parameters; different country, actually. Within 45 minutes of applying, I got a text from someone claiming to be a rep from the school (Anthony Toochio) saying they were hiring for an illustration job that was worth $6800. Immediately, I thought that was a weird coincidence. Surely, I was just burned and overthinking, right? I look up the school, confirm it's legitimate (no one named Anthony on their staff, I saw), and eventually decide to check the link. Guess what I see? Guess. Yup:

And the header, as mentioned in the doc, is one of the exact examples I was sent by Clayton in an early email. They post the jobs under the guise of being legitimate businesses and institutions (specifically small and/or relatively unknown ones, as far as I can tell) and it's not limited to a singular country or one type of industry, either. The first job listing was posing as a sign shop in North Carolina, USA, and the second was as a secondary school in the Southwark district of London, England. I'm sure there are more. So, all that to say to be careful when you're applying to jobs, as a general rule, but if anyone contacts you with this specific job: cut off all contact before you get your hopes up, time wasted, and involved in a scam of some kind. I have no idea what they hope to gain, and I'm so glad I didn't have a chance to find out. So, just be wary out there. As a freelancer without a company to back you, you've got to be super protective of yourself. I'm definitely learning that, myself, right now. Additionally, here's an article from the The Graphic Artist Guild about other sorts of scams out there, just so you can be aware.