o-o that happen to me to, i had someone noting me for commission's to.

we need to take care who we reply to when they want commissions :/

I'm not a artist, i'm a poor otter who can't afford nothing..

Scammers are such scum. Scammers who target artists and small businesses are doubly so.

I don´t know how someone would want to focus anyone, specially people who can genually lose their freelance job by getting scammed.

Damn, looks like scammers are in FA now. I had someone note me not that long ago, asking if I would like to hire them to illustrate my work. They were new on FA, had favoured no other artists or work except mine, and the only work they uploaded on their account was clearly not theirs. I looked the work up online, which said it was from a D&D card. Luckily, I've been through this kind of scam before, though this was the first time it happened on FA. I usually have people noting me on fanfiction.net for that.

Oh, the people telling you to hire them is a lot.
And I mean, I understand that there are real artists looking for job, but still, stalking people isn't the way.

Good job on spotting it and spreading awareness!

Since they were trying to get your email address, it's likely they were going to claim they paid, then send a fake email from 'Paypal' which will say you've hit some kind of limit. A limit which requires a payment (which they say will be refunded) to raise - and that's the scam. You'll be asked to make some kind of payment through a method you can't cancel (gift cards, etc) and then they'll disappear. They don't care about the art, though people trying to scam a free sketch are also something to be aware of.

That's another possibility. In any case, the person stopped replying to me.
And yes, I think there's a easier way to support someone (for real) that is different to get a paypal email by pushing people.

Yeah, definitely a scam. You're the artist, you set the rules. Never bend them for anyone you don't know and trust.

Thanks. And yes, I mean. I can understand when payment can be discussed among the two! Specially if it's a recurrent client. But when it's someone new with so many yellow flags, that turns into an automatic 'no'.

I got scammed recently (or they attempted to anyways). More red flags than a communist parade, so I had fun with it and wasted their time. :D

Anyone who tries to be pushy with you should be blocked and reported on-sight. Doesn't matter if theyre legit or not; even if they're legit, that kind of person doesn't have enough sense to be doing business w/ you and is a huge liability. We need to normalize the idea of this being extremely unacceptable behavior. It's for the sake of protecting our community.

I understand what you mention. And in that topic, I can say that I've met lots of people who have different ways to do business.

But when a person is trying to push to change a rule that is made to protect both sides, yuga a boundary that I'm not willing to break.

Thanks for the support. And writing this journal is also a way that I thought it could be useful for other people who can be target of this behaviour.

Sorry this happened to you and people in the comments. I'm glad you didn't get scammed.

Thank you. We need to walk carefully with all of this things o_o

I've had a few people try to get me to commission them, which I knew they were scams from the start. Never be afraid to call out scammers otherwise they'll target more people.

True. And let's be careful around there :c

I've had a person try to get me to commission them and I know their Discord name or at least their first account's name.

Problem is that both accounts I know would've pulled the same stunts. They never gave me an answer to what artwork they stumbled across to find me - not the first time I asked, and the last time I asked was never answered for weeks so I dropped them. Then denied the Friend Request on Discord again. Never heard from them again. Then I see the SAME character in their Discord icon but this time drawn in a different pose.

I shutdown the Friend Request from that one as well.

If you wanna know how the interaction went down, I expressed uncertainty because not every artist can handle my characters properly, or rather, they cannot do such high levels of details so obviously I need to negotiate what to simplify if it simply becomes too much. And also give them options as to what they wanna draw if they want a challenge. Though I didn't mention that part.

They kept pushing back for me to commission them, and then they gave me prices that were too high for what I saw, none of the pieces warranted $80 to +$100 and beyond. They more closely warranted $40 to $60. And $60 is being very generous.

Once I started saying "I don't think my characters suit your style", and "I'm sorry, but I don't think your style match my characters." and pushing back, they said something in a way where they were like "Well, if you don't want to commission me, that's a you problem, not a me problem." aaaand that was the breaking point to know that I was likely being approached by a scammer.

The weird part is that this artist's stuff was oddly consistent. Not a single thing looked too different from one another. So to some degree I can maybe believe that they were an artist. But at the same time there's nothing stopping them from taking an entire artist's gallery and just using it as a front.


That has been so far, my only "scammer" or weirdly desperate artist. Also I forgot that I left out that they said "I think I am good for a commission from you since I have empty slots!" and my reaction was this very strange feeling.

Huh, many red flags, even considering that it was someone desperate to get a client. Thatś not the correct way of trying to get someone to buy your products anyway :/

Yeaaah, it was a very strange experience. If an artist usually wants you to commission them, they usually have some form of acquaintanceship or friendship already pre-established beforehand. So they ask you, you usually know you can absolutely trust them!
Unfortunately nothing was pre-established and the only context I had was a picture I then recently commissioned. So that was a very strange interaction I've ever had.