Many of my blog followers are artists, so I'm giving you a heads-up! I got an email from Charles Frey, wanting to buy a piece shown on my website. The bad English and sentence structure was sort of a give-away but I'm sure there must be legit art collectors out there who are not fluent in English (are there?)
I googled 'Charles Frey' + art - and got almost 8,000 hits on this scumbag. Beware!! In fact, beware of any 'client' contact via email requesting information on (usually) your most expensive piece or pieces.
Google the name. If nothing comes up, let the person know that because of unscrupulous scammers who prey on poor artists, you only ship a painting once payment has cleared through a credit card or Paypal. Don't accept a check or money order. If you accept a credit card, call the credit card company first (not with the number the 'client' provides - but find it through the credit card company's website) and make sure the account is legitimate.
I sell a lot of work over the internet, and it isn't difficult to sort out the scammers from the legitimate clients.
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I got an email from "Charles" last night. It seemed suspicious, so I told him I'd invoice him through PayPay and would ship the art when PayPay varified the payment. That shut him up ;)
ReplyDeleteI mentioned 'Charles' on Facebook and quite a few artists mentioned that they'd also had emails from the dirtbag within the past day or two. Spread the word!
ReplyDeleteAdele,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up. We too, have had internet problems. Check out our new blog, sandyscottblog.blogspot.com
Sandy Scott
Sandy Scott is nationally known and one of my favorite sculptors. Check out her work!
ReplyDelete