#muse scam

Seen as: 'I'm feeling so inspired by your picture/art!' Scam Type: Muse Scam

1 - Description of this scam:

The muse scam is a variant of the fake check scam in which the scammer will contact the victim over social media and claim to want to use their image for an art project. The scammer will often use a stolen social media account to increase their credibility. They will offer a generous sum of money and offer to pay via check, and the victim is instructed to send money to the scammer for “materials” via an irreversible method. The victim is under the illusion that the funds cleared when the bank makes the money available thanks to current regulations. Usually the fake check deposit will be reversed in a few weeks, but it can also take several months. If you do not have the funds to cover the amount, your balance will go negative. Your bank will usually charge a fee for depositing a bad check, and your account may be closed depending on the severity of the scam. source (reddit)

Additional info about the muse scam. (from malwarebytes)

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Example account shown here: @muralmagicsworld (banned)

Accounts also running this scam: @craftpatch, @shadyduckgladiator emilyartlana emilyfanartist thoughtfulgraze rogerwil01

(Note: There are probably a lot of scammers running this scam. This post is mainly talking about the blog that I managed to find or were made aware of.)

2 - What this scam looks like.

Part 1: The request. (on a post made by a bot no less... lol)

A secondary (more recent) example of this request can be seen here:

The source of this is from this post by @blankwisher64 who gave me permission to use it. Thank you!

A third example can be seen here - Given by anonymous:

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Part 2: The blog an their posts.

The blog's earliest post was made on November 11th 2024

Using google lense (the photo icon you can use to look up an image on the internet) I was able to find these images linked to a youtube channel and an instagram account made by an artist known as Andreas Liss.

The woman in the first instagram post's name is credited, by the original artist, to be the lovely Anastasia Dmitrieva.

Where as the scammer... well.. They decided to call her... Jennifer.

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Final words: The muse scam is quite common and it's recently migrated from instagram to tumblr. If you are someone who posts pictures of yourself or your animals, always remember this: If someone tells you they're feeling 'inspired' and they'll draw you or your pet but you have to 'pay for art supplies' and they're willing to send you a $1000+ 'check/money order' and 'you can keep the rest' because they're feeling 'oh so generous'?

It is and always will be a scam.

Other helpful guides on spotting scams. (by @kyra45)

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I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW CONFUSED I WAS BY THIS LIKE WHAT DO YOU MEAN VIOLATE MY PRIVACY?!

Anyways they gave a weird response so best guess it was a scam so yeah though i just post to warn anyone else?

Also its such a random choice of an post

So just so my tiny itty bitty following if the account @oiloncanvas0 Tries to contact you, they're either pretending to be someone else, or they've stolen that account and the person talking to you is not the person you see in the profile photos. It really sucks because the artwork on there is absolutely stunning. I highly doubt the person you see is the person running the account. The profile seems legitimate , so either the tumblr itself was stolen or someone is stealing content from another source and putting on the Tumblr as if it's the artists personal tumblr. Which I kind of think it's exactly that, because it continues to update, fairly regularly.

I'll tell more about this later, it's been an exhausting day and I don't have it in me to tell the full story right now. I've reported them as spam for now and blocked them. Better block their email too. If you have any suggestions on how to report them more accurately, please let me know. I don't want anyone falling for this. I think it's obvious, but not everyone will, especially teens on this site.

Also please share so more people hear about this.

Readathon day 4: had to skip my afternoon reading time discovering that somebody who initially seemed nice was a scammer. Then i rage-exercised and watched comedy specials because i couldn't concentrate on reading. (PSA nobody wants to pay you for a photo so they can do a painting. Block em)

Readathon day 5: looking forward to this shorty

hi tthere!

Its been a busy weekday today, so I apologize for the wait. I'm also on mobile so i apologize for any typos ahead of time. But accounts that are contacting you saying they are interested in your artwork, are usually going to try and perform a fake check scams of some sort!

How I know this type of scam to have started on tumblr was in the form of what many have come to call 'the muse scam'. <- Linked here is my scam alert post. :)

Heres a brief description from said post:

The muse scam is a variant of the fake check scam in which the scammer will contact the victim over social media and claim to want to use their image for an art project. The scammer will often use a stolen social media account to increase their credibility. They will offer a generous sum of money and offer to pay via check, and the victim is instructed to send money to the scammer for “materials” via an irreversible method. The victim is under the illusion that the funds cleared when the bank makes the money available thanks to current regulations. Usually the fake check deposit will be reversed in a few weeks, but it can also take several months. If you do not have the funds to cover the amount, your balance will go negative. Your bank will usually charge a fee for depositing a bad check, and your account may be closed depending on the severity of the scam.

These scams have changed over time, developing into scams that start and look differently, but at their core they tend to be almost identical.

With the museum scam, I honestly know less on how it works, as i haven't experienced that one or even seen someone scam-bait one to know what they do exactly ask for.. But from what I know from reddit and YouTube with free book promotion scasm for example, I'm guessing will likely say they want your art to be displayed in a museum, then after showing you fake credentials, they will either ask for your information to send you a fake check, or have you pay a 'fee' of some sort to get the art sent there. The art won't make it, obviously, and they will make excuses of something having come up and you needing to pay more fees.

There is, of course, always the risk of your information being stolen and such too with that. Especially if you go to websites they send you, or you openly give them your information...

Speaking of websites...

Some of these scams also start where the scammers will start out saying they just.. took your art/pictures, or they want your art/photos to be part of an online bidding service. They will show artists fake screenshots of high bids, and, knowing artists will want their art taken down, they will tell them to go to a fake website that- upon filling out the form to have your art taken down or paying the 'fee', the website will steal your personal and credit card information, sometimes aiming for crypto as well.

All in all, honestly, if anyone approaches you asking you to just.. buy your stuff out of the blue, and their account is a few days to a week account, they have no icon, no posts, of just generic images you can find via referse image sesrching that are stolen or are AI, it's highly likely a scam account.

Thank you for your ask and I hope this helps!

Hello! Thank you for sending me an ask. :)

This scam likely falls in line with what is known as the "Muse scam."

These people will make comments about buying your art, and then say things like "Your art is so beautiful I feel so inspired to draw/paint a mural of it". Now, I'm guessing, they're trying to say that they want to put it in a museum to try and seem more credible or 'official' if they're using accounts that look like official museum related accounts or something.

The end result is a fake check scam where in they tell you to pay a 'small fee' ($50-$100) to send you a totally real (no fake) check. You deposit this check, thinking it's real (it's not). However, it is not real (is fake), and once the bank detects it as being fraudulent within a few days/week, if you had spent any amount of money they had sent you, the bank will then take your money as compensation as the money was never real in the first place.

To give an example and further explain:

If the scammer gave you a fake check for $1000, and you spent $900 of it, once the bank realizes it was a fake check, the bank then zeroes out what's left of the fake check, and will take $900 of YOUR money from your account. Yes, this will possibly even put you in the negative if you do not have the $900 in there to begin with.

Scammers do not care. They got their $50-$100 you gave them (which to them is a lot in their country most likely) for that 'processing fee' of the check. That's all they wanted.

Sometimes they'll tell you 'something came up' and you have to pay them more. People will fall for this too, sadly.

Or they will tell you to enter your card information on an 'online portal' to get the money, and it winds up being a phishing website that will steal your information. Please, do not go to random websites and put in your credit card information.

You can view more about the muse scam here:

Hope this helps!

I post lots of photography on my Tumblr (it's just a hobby, something I naturally started doing during walks , I'm not a professional or looking to be) and I've gotten about a dozen of these.

Different accounts, but sometimes I find almost the exact same comment under other people's posts. I don't want to accuse anyone just yet but it seems off.

Hi there!

Thank you for your question.

There is- sadly, a known scam going around that tends to target photographers specifically.

It's known as "The Muse" scam, where scammers will say that they felt "so inspired" by your photograph/picture that they want to create a mural, "piece of art", or something similar.

Below is a link to the scam exam(ination) that I did for this scam:

Please stay safe with interacting with accounts looking to buy your photos for cash, crypto, check, ect. As those are usually scams!

Never accept e-checks, direct deposits, go to links people provide related to crypto/bitcoin transactions. If someone demands your paypal name/email, be wary of fake emails from a gmail.com address saying it's from PayPal stating:

there was an 'issue' with your account and you need to pay money to fix it.

Your account was 'upgraded' to bushiness so you need to send money to get money. (Biggest red flag here!! Never send money to get money!)

if you don't send the money in x hours/days your info will be sent to the fbi/local law enforcement (PayPal will never, ever say this.)