Artist Beware: The Scams Targetting Artists

Now I’m not some super-big Instagrammer or artist like Cat Graffam but even I have nearly fallen foul of a few of these scams – the fake influencers and fake online galleries I have had many times, so many times I came up with a way to automatically block them without making your IG comments like Colditz.

(Although you do have to occasionally add the new page URLs to your comment word list to block new ones, it also has the added side-effect that you benefit from their bot likes but their scammy ‘DM us to be featured’ comments are hidden).

Also recently had an odd one where someome wanted to buy my art as an NFT from a very non-human sounding account that was all about crypto when I don’t offer NFTs…so I guess they didn’t really know my work because I’ve been very vocally against NFTs.

I suspect this might be another scam where someone wants to ‘guide’ you through setting up a NFT and either pocket some of the gas fees or get some consultancy – or benefit from selling the work on, knowing they’d make a quick buck. Whatever, bitcoin and NFTs themselves are all massive scams.

I also know people who have paid thousands of pounds – real money, not dollars – to be exhibited in a Mayfair/Bond Street London gallery which is basically a high-level vanity gallery. As Cat says, this is bad, also scammy and leads to an art scene where who pays wins, and lets anyone who is a minority or poor basically struggle. I have also had the hiring test scams from even legit companies, which I think are poor. Yes us animators and editors get it a LOT and it’s evil – expecting artists and designers to jump through hoops to get work, and give free consultancy is wrong.