#avoid/block @desmondbro123 if they interact with you for purchase purposes 🙏

[nonokoko13]

Careful with this style of scam because I think I met one. You see, on 13th December I received a DM of this user asking for a commission.

I asked what they had in mind because I didn't have commissions references or prices but since they dm me I thought "Maybe I can do an exception depending what they want". Their request was quite big (?): full body of their son's dog, coloured, rendered and background — also rendered.

I felt weirded out because they didn't follow me, had liked my art or posts before and when I checked their blog I found it was completely empty. No reblogs, no asks, nothing personal that indicated this blog followed or supported artists. With a generic looking username and pfp on top of it all.

First thought I had was "This reeks of scam". You know, the type of scam that asks you for a comm, saying they give you half of the payment first and the rest after you send the final result, but their bank account doesn't work and you have to send money. I decided to give them the benefit of doubt, although I stated I wouldn't start anything until they paid beforehand the whole payment since that's one of the conditions I would put to anyone asking for a drawing.

I offered to make the whole thing for around 25-50$ and they said they were willing to pay 200$.

Let's be honest, I'm not a famous artist, why would someone who already striked you as odd give SO much money as their first offer? Usually it's the other way around, artists asking high price then the client tries to reach a middle ground or something.

They asked if I use PayPal so I share my paypal.me link; for those wo aren't familiar with it, once you make a Paypal account you can share this link to the person you wish, they enter the link, put the amount they want to pay you, press confirm and the transaction is done. Here's a video explaining how it works:

Then they told me I have to send my email for the payment. This time I didn't reply because I had already saw a scam where — once you send them your email — you receive an email from "Paypal" saying there was a problem and the money the scammer supposedly sent didn't reach your account so they have to send another [insert exact same amount they sent. I'll say 200$] so you have to give them back those extra 200 dollars just to never hear of the money or the client, ending up with 200$ less. You see, the key there is that if the "Paypal" email has @/gmail or @/hotmail instead of paypal.com that's a personal email, not an official company.

Besides, why would I send them a virus if they were who came to me? Believing this was an excuse to get my personal information and avoid delivering the promised payment I ignored them until they messaged me again today insisting on it. Asking them if they tried entering the link they replied this

Anyone who has bought something online before knows they have to use an email account to log in any app to continue with the purchase. Hell, I have shared my address with fanmerch artists for that purpose. How are you going to pay someone refusing to use your paypal, the method you asked them to use? At this point I was sure it was a scammer. I declined their idea, told them to have a nice day and blocked them

If you see this pattern don't waste your time like I did if you smell something is fishy since the first moment (kind of obvious when they say they like your art and they have never interacted with you). My advice is to block once you see any of these 🚩 + insisting that you download another app you don't have for the payment; tell them to share THEIR email to send them an invoice, if they get mad, refuse to share their email or leave you in read then that's it. Trust your instinct when anything gives you bad vibes