Common Lie #3

3/15/2017

Lie #3 - You are likely to get ripped off (or scammed) if you sell paintings online.

Unfortunately there are a lot of online scammers. But most people who fall in to this prey are not taking the necessary safeguards needed to make sure the sale is legit. Some of the sings that are a red flagged with a potential online sale are bad grammar in the email or an overseas buyer who wants to “overpay you and have you send the overpayment back to them in cash or wire transfer”.

They key is to only take payment via paypal and don’t ship the painting until you have the payment in full. If your buyer is a repeat customer then you may ship or deliver the paintings with only a deposit collected. But I still don’t recommend it. And the reason to take paypal? If you have a problem (and file a claim right away) paypal will freeze the money in the buyers account until the situation is resolved.

Never accept checks unless you have a strong history with the buyer. And be wary of cashier's checks and money orders as they may be fake. Only accept paypal. A buyer can even use their credit card with paypal. It's really that easy.

2 Comments

Trisha Adams link

3/15/2017 05:40:33 am

Hi Leslie,

Thanks for alerting artists to online scammers.

A common version of the over-payment scam is to say they must use their own shipper. The "buyer" then includes the payment for shipping agent in the cashier's check he sends you. He asks you to pay the shipping agent in cash when the shipper comes to collect the painting. It turns out the check is no good and you are out the money and the painting(s).

Telltale signs may include: The scammer doesn't refer to a particular artwork in their email (indicating the email content is a boilerplate which they copy and paste to hundreds of artists per day). He asks for information or the price of an artwork, but it is clearly stated on your website. (This indicates he looked at your website just long enough to personalize the boilerplate email with the name of one of your paintings, but didn't really read the website.) He asks what paintings you have in the $500-$5000 price range. (Why such a large range? A $500 painting is very different from a $5000 painting! Why is the price the only variable he is concerned with? A typical buyer will be specify style or subject matter or colors they are interested in.)

If you're still not sure it's a scam. Look at your website statistics. Did you have visitors from Alabama or London or wherever their stated location was? Compare the time the email was sent to visitor activity at that time. Often you'll find the visitor was from Nigeria.

Heather

3/15/2017 03:49:26 pm

Leslie

Thank you so much for this post! It's something I have been wondering about as am in the process of starting the journey. Thank you so much for bringing great information to the creative world :)

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Common Lie #3

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