#scammers of tumblr

[excited-insomniac]

Truly can't help with your question, Kelly

[sunsetsandsunshine]

hey, you reblogged a cat donation post from pillars-of-stereos and i just wanna let you know that they're a scammer who's been caught many times. Their previous urls have been hologramconnosseurrs, sleiekkem, ohdelin, michelvv, michevvous, michevvouuz, michevkevv, michelaide, michelainne, seafallsv, bagsofgoldz, stereopillars. You can check the blog kyra45 for more info they've been tracking this scammer for a while now. Even their bio, pfp, header pic are all stolen from another tumblr user. Very sorry if this ask gets sent multiple times. I'm going through the reblogs on their posts to get the word around as that seems the most effective way to deter this scammer so far. Please do report them to tumblr if you can or warn others about them.

Oh wow…and no need to be sorry! Thank you for telling me I would’ve never known if you hadn’t 😟😟😟

This person did DM me, saying she needed help and needed be to reblog her post- which I did but I should’ve looked more into it before reblogging. Thank you so much for telling me 💗✨💕💞!

I will be sure to report her asap

[habken]

dawg is Not contributing to the conversation once bit!! He's too busy playing subway surfer

[slenbee]

Current Scammers - 10/31/24

Disclaimer: This list is only meant to serve as documentation and reference material so that others know: what to look out for in regards to a scam, and who to block preemptively if you so choose. I do not, in any way, endorse harassment or mass reporting these users. Do NOT do this. I'm serious. DO NOT mass report. Only report these asks if you GET them or ones like them. Thank you.

Part 2

----------

This is the current list of scammers pretending to be Palestinians from Gaza asking for money (USD) through PayPal rather than via an official fundraising site like GoFundMe. Many of these accounts have non Palestinian names attached to the PayPal accounts while using real Palestinian names on tumblr stolen from real people. The accounts that claim to be vetted are in fact, NOT vetted by any well known group or organization, and they will beat around the bush or straight up block you if you ask for proof. All of these scammers follow a similar but slightly 'altered' script, and multiple scam accounts are usually run by one person. They will usually reblog a handful of posts after they join, then not reblog anything else, or give updates on their aid situation (like a normal user would). Also, if you look at their pinned posts, most have comments/replies turned off, and or have comments deleted/removed. I wonder why? :) Here is a comprehensive guide on how to spot these scams.

Thank you to @kyra45 for providing the list. I just wanted to provide the explanation(s) so people are aware of what exactly these people are trying to do and/or how they are 'scamming' others.

Note: Most evidence linked will be call out posts that can usually be found by searching an accounts username on tumblr. If you are suspicious of an ask you receive, I suggest you search their username to see if they've been reported by other users! If you have the time. please take a moment to report the PayPal connected to these scam accounts. Thank you!

----------

Insulin Scams: A guide on how to spot it and where it came from.

@lastdosesworld - Insulin Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

@diabeticpandemjckryptonite > @gaza-diabetes-childrenhelp - Insulin Scam - NOT vetted. Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

@androgynousharmonyavenue > @toopeanutsweets - Insulin Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

@bitchygardenarcade Insulin Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

@colorfulgladiatordelusion - Insulin Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

@perfectpiratewonderland - Insulin Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

@happyladyparadise - Insulin Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

@furryreviewearthquake - Insulin Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

@gladysconnoisseurpost -Insulin Scam - NOT vetted. Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

@Generalladypeaces > @deliciouslightpenguin - Insulin Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

@foggyruinspost - Insulin Scam - NOT Vetted. Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

@daregosh - Insulin Scam - NOT Vetted. Story stolen. Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

@cleversuitsoul - Insulin Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence that it's a scam: here

----------

@janeursular-bakir > @gaza-family1 - Evacuation Scam - Asks for PayPal. Evidence it's a scam: here

@esta-0 - Evacuation Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@magicalbluebirdkitty - Evacuation Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@a-mother-of-gaza - Evacuation Scam -Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@family-of-gaza - Evacuation Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@reallyuniquedaze - Evacuation Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@maximumtriumphmagazine - Evacuation Scam - Stole images from a real artist. Artist confirmed via e-mail not related. Uses fake gofundme for asking donations. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@perfectlovercat - Evacuation Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@makozh - Evacuation Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@boldlynumberonejellyfish - Evacuation Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@al-rasher - Evacuation Scam - Fake GoGetFunding campaign. - Evidence it's a scam: here

----------

@nishverian - Medical Scam - Reported to be using pictures of the filipina actress claudia barretto. Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@tinytreewombat - Cancer Scam - Not vetted. Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@cherrylydia - Cancer Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@dimoral - Cancer Scam - Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

@hltabdallah - Medical Scam - Uses stolen images. Asks for PayPal. - Evidence it's a scam: here

[leidensygdom]

Commission scams: A guide on how to avoid them and find legit artists

Hello! I am writing this guide in order to hopefully help people spot scammers and art thieves, to teach people how to deal with them and to give people ways to actually get real artists for commission work.

For those who do not know, there is a recurring, extremely widespread type of scam where someone will advertise their commissions using stolen artwork, or (sometimes) traced or AI-generated pictures. This started (as far as I know) on Twitter, but it is currently in all sorts of social media (I have found them in Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Tumblr) and also on Discord servers, often large Discord servers requiring no invites or that are easy to find through Discord advertisement places.

These do obviously hurt both, the people seeking to buy a commission (who will either get their money stolen, or given a product that is not of the quality that was advertised), and the artists whose work is being stolen, who are not getting the work themselves. It is important for people to learn how to identify these people, and to quickly take action when possible. This post is kind of lengthy, so please press the Keep reading button below for the full guide! (And please do share this post around if possible- This is a very common scam and I have met far too many people who have fallen to it or have got their art stolen due to it, including friends and myself.)

So, how do they work? (in Social media)

In my experience, a lot of these scammers either run multiple accounts or are part of a larger scheme, operating in organized groups that follow similar tactics. They will very often use automated means to advertise en masse. Those in social media will make accounts that post some example artwork, often with a myriad of tags, in styles that do not match (see first example, featuring my stolen art :'')). They very rarely post anything that isn't stolen artwork, or have any actual real following they interact with properly. They will then very often spam heavily through replies (such as it happens in Twitter), posting hundreds of really similar messages in a short period of time. In the second example, you can see an account from one of these scammers that is using automated posts to garner attention, which are shared by similar accounts (notice the same exact wording between the first and third post). The third example (in the Replies tab) shows how one of this accounts replies "Hi" to every single message they get.

They will often seek posts from people who are searching for commissions, answering them (often with a "I do commissions, DM me") or other variants of that. (They often only share their "art" on DMs to not be caught stealing by the original authors.) You can see an example of that on the first screenshot below. On Twitter, Instagram and pretty much any place where you can DM people, they may also come to your DMs, often starting with a "Hello" or something so you answer to them, and then they will suddenly share their commission information (as seen in the second picture).

In any case, they rarely have publicly available commission sheets, and will only disclose their prices on DMs. They may share more stolen artwork in there. From there on, they will often speak in fairly broken English, and try to lead you to commission them. They will haggle the prices if they can- But they tend to be fairly steep, with them going up to $300 a fullbody, which tends to be unusual in people without a fairly established following or popularity.

They will often give you a payment method that does not allow for refunds- Such as sending the money to "Friends and Family" in Paypal. This is actually illegal for commercial work, so if you get an artist telling you to pay them through such a method, please do be incredibly wary: Professionals will use methods that do have an option for refunds.

2. How do they work? (on Discord)

On Discord, they will often enter in servers where there may be a place for them to advertise, or servers available through Disboard and other Discord-community searchable sites. Then, they will often not interact at all with the community itself, but they will jump to advertising channels and post about "seeking for work". I have found out that scammers operating on Discord do only very rarely also have socials, so look out for that. Do reverse searches if you can. Legit artists don't tend to join Discords solely to advertise, so look up "from: [name]" on Discord and check how they have interacted in the server, if they have done that in any way. See the first and second example for an example on how they behave. First example has art from @ydteus (in the second message, the dragonborn's source is unknown.) Second example is from one of these accounts who entered on a Streamers' Discord. Streamers and VTubers are very popular targets for these scammers. Third example (with art from absent_lambeth on instagram, and unknown for the second picture) shows another important point, which I'll explain below.

Many of these scammers do not have solid commission sheets showing examples and prices for them. The third one even mentions "it is under construction", fully knowing a commission sheet is expected. Not every professional artist has them, but most do. It is often expected that people who do commissions will have some sort of Terms of Service at the very least, even if they do not have a commission sheet.

3. What do they do?

They scam you. You may never get any art from them. You may get traced art, or art that is not of the quality they advertised, because the art they used for promotion wasn't theirs on the first place. Or you may get an AI-generated picture, too. In either way: You will find yourself with +$200 less in your pocket and no way to seek a refund. So, it's very important you know how to spot them BEFORE they scam you. I have known people who have lost their money

4. How do I actually spot them?

Simply put, they do not act like normal artists would. Let's make a handy list of suspicious behaviours to look for, though.

Most people who draw commissions won't directly DM you unprompted to ask you to pay them for work. If you get such a DM- Report as spam and block.

Most of them don't act like bots, either. If you're on Twitter or similar pages, seek for extremely repetitive posts, hundreds of Replies in their Replies tab that are copypasted or very similar. If you see that, report as spam and block.

Reverse search is sadly very unreliable nowadays, but it does not hurt to try. A lot of them will modify the picture so it doesn't show in reverse search, but try it- And seek if it links to a different account with a different name.

As an ESL, I hate to say this, but the grand majority of them have really broken English, so look out for that. Not every person with broken English is a scammer, but it is something common amidst them. You will notice they fail to communicate general information. Try to ask them for Terms of Service, for example: They will probably be unable to provide you anything (if they do even understand you.)

You will rarely find them on your own unless you frequent specific tags, such as "commission" or "openforcommission". Or even using completely unrelated tags in their posts. I found one of them using a tag about someone's death to cop violence on their anime art. These people mostly only interact with their fellow scammers, but not with artists you'd find through other means.

As mentioned above, they won't provide you a payment method that allows for refunds the grand majority of the time. If someone tells you to send them money "as friends and family" in Paypal, or through something life Ko-fi's donations (although this one is rare), do not pay them. This is a general advice: Do not use payment methods that do not allow refunds for people you don't know.

Ask them for a commission sheet, a webpage, their Terms of Service and other things. Professionals should be able to provide at least one of these, usually.

5. What do I do if I find out they have stolen art/if my art has been stolen?

If you have found stolen art, let the original artist known ASAP if you can find them. Ask for help from friends if you cannot find them.

If you're the artist, DMCA claim. Every page has it, it is required for them to have it. If you search "dmca form (and the website's name)", it should show up. Bsky only has it in mail form right now, but it's there. A DMCA claim is a Copyright claim, and as long as you can show that you posted your picture somewhere before they did, you can do it. The form may seem scary, but it is not all that much. They will ask for your legal full name, address, a mail + a telephone, the url of the post stealing your art, an url to where you posted it first, and to sign/agree to some terms. DMCA claims tend to be processed swiftly (in about a day) because websites can get in trouble if they allow for copyrighted content to be stolen. And you actually do have rights to any picture you have created without needing to trademark it or anything.

You may also want to ask your friends to help you report the account and/or posts. Often, reporting it for spam will give you the best results. DMCA claims will take down the offending posts, but sadly, reports in most major places are rarely taken seriously, but they may limit an accounts' reach or auto-flag it as spam in DMs, so it is still a fairly effortless option to follow. DO still DMCA claim them though.

6. Where do I actually find real people to commission?

Your best bet is through other real people. Let me explain some good methods for this.

Do you have friends who are artists? Ask them if they have commissions open, or if they know other people who take them. Artists almost always know other artists, and they can quickly find you someone you can trust.

Did a friend of yours get a commission? Ask them who was it from if you like the style, and they may be able to get you a link to their social media!

Do you follow artists for any sort of content you're interested in? (General art, fanart/fandom stuff, people you look up to, etc). You can check their work first and see if they have commissions, or if they share art from other people, and then check those.

Scammers really don't partake in fandoms or have art-related posts go viral (some get some follower-begging bait going viral, but that's it). Chances are that, if you found a cool art in your dashboard or timeline, it is from a real artist.

I think places such as VGen need verification for artists and have ratings. I am not personally experienced with it, but you may want to check that out.

You can always ask people to double check with you if you found someone but are doubtful about them being legit. If you are part of any community, do ask there! If you have artist friends, tell them! A lot of artists are acquittanced with the scam issue.

I have seen people do lists of artists available for commissions in places such as bsky, too. These can be an option, but always do verify that the people doing the list in the first place do seem like an actual person.

Ending notes

This is a very long post, but I really wanted it to be very thorough. I would greatly appreciate if you could share it around, as it is a very widespread issue that not many know how to identify. If you do find out scammers in Discords, please DM the servers' admins and link them to this post so they can get banned, in order to prevent scamming and art theft.

If you have any question or you need someone to help you verify an artist being legit or a scammer, my DMs are open for that too. I have talked about this a bunch in other places and I am fairly experienced with these cases, and I would be very happy to be able to lend a hand and find you an artist, if you do need the help. Thank you for reading!

[goreyskeleton]

PSA FOR ALL TUMBLR ARTISTS!!!

On Tumblr there’s these users who will private message you and pretend to be interested in your artwork just so you can tell them your personal information and then steal it from you. It’s usually blank blogs but basically if you provide an alternative way to do an art request that doesn’t involve sharing your private information THEN ITS A SCAM!!! This is the third time I got one of these mfs and the first two times I hadn’t even seen a post informing about the scam. Stay safe gang!!!

[bitchy-craft]

MONTHLY REMINDER

As a monthly reminder to all tarot readers on this platform, and maybe more out there. @ recoveringinternetaddict is a scammer who has scammed hundreds of euros from me @starryfree and @tarotwithavi.

This is simply to not make people forget and fall for this awful human being again.

♡ scammer quote of the month ♡

"There have been so many scammers on

the internet recently. Pay me 19.95 EUR and

I will tell you how to avoid them."

Masterpost > Paid Readings > Subliminal Channel

[coulsonlives]

PSA: CAT MEDICAL BILL SCAM

Please signal boost this if possible to inform your followers about these scams.

Earlier today, I got a message from the account nicole-loves-king, where they asked me to signal boost a post because their cat needed medical help. Here's the ask:

(And you can see the post in question here)

I looked at this post and was immediately put off because they were asking for people to send things through 'friends and family', which if you aren't aware, is a very insecure way to send someone funds using paypal, because you don't have the protections you would get if you used 'goods and services'. So scammers can make off w your money really easily.

I looked at their blog and scrolled down to the end, and I realized their blog was made today! And, all their posts (there weren't many posts to begin with lol) were of trending topics. I noted puss in boots, and welcome to nightvale among others. This is probably how they found me, because I reblogged some of that stuff recently.

Here's the time stamp from their oldest post (notice it says the time, not the date, which means the post was from today):

In their ask, they also tell you to answer privately. Hm, that seems sus. Why would someone not want you to publish a request for help?

So I have a policy where I don't signal boost posts from brand new blogs because, yknow, they could be scams. I posted this, and the scam account blocked me. They also blocked my friend when they replied to their ask and said their blog looked suspicious. I did some more digging, and I found a comment from someone that confirmed my suspicions:

This is in fact a scam!

@nicstonka is almost identical to the above account (nicole-loves-king). Look at the avatar, the pictures, and the paypal address, both accounts even have 'nic' (as in 'nicole') in the name. The only thing that is extremely different is the name of the cat! Yet both blogs also have the name of the cat in their url ('king' and 'tonka'). That should also be a red flag, because usually someone isn't gonna have the name of their pet in their url, only a few posts, and a signal boost for that exact (fake) pet.

Here's a side by side:

Looks at those paypal accounts: nbrunelle519, and nbrunelle391. Nope definitely not a scam /s

And the cat pictures side by side:

Tumblr's "scam" tag is actually full of these reports now, which you can see here. Or if there's nothing there anymore, click here and here for images.

And links to some older PSAs about other cat scams: 1 2 3

So if you see any blogs like this, where all they have is trending posts, it seems like they've copied and pasted an ask to you, or if they're asking you to send things via friends and family, vet them so so so carefully, because chances are you're walking into a scam. Don't just repost things without carefully checking! If you aren't in a position to check carefully, better safe than sorry: don't repost it! Don't let these scams spread.

Pro tip: If a blog is dash only, so you can't view their archive to see when their first post was made, and you're on desktop, you can just open the blog in its dashboard view, then click 'end' on your keyboard over and over until all their posts are loaded. Usually if it's a spam blog, you'll only need to click 'end' 5-6 times, sometimes a bit more, since they only post just enough times to give the appearance they're active, then there's absolutely nothing after that.

If you want more proof someone is a scammer, you can look at the currency they use their post (or the currency shown in the vet bill), then hover over the paypal link and inspect the part of the url that says 'country.x=AA'. The 'AA' is the abbreviation for the country your money is going to! If that country doesn't match the country of the currency shown in the post, it's a scam! Example: someone's post says '$' for USD/CAD dollars, but the country in their paypal link is 'PH', which stands for Philippines, where they use Philippine pesos, not dollars!

Also keep in mind that these are not bots! There is a real person behind these accounts. They have replied to people who wanted to confirm they were real, but their intentions are still to scam you, they just know it looks better if they reply.

Stay safe!!

Edit:

Updating this post to announce the scammer's made more blogs, and they're probably gonna keep doing it! Here's the list so far. This isn't up to date btw, go to @scamarchive and check their pinned post for the most recent detected blogs

turncoatrune, starlightdisc, xxmy, wxnt, eeyore-pg, coatedpeanbean, starrypanelstars, panelstars, scyllostyle, the-nonbinary-witch, aash-aash, leechness, ash-aahs, commandobutch, lovely-pages, pagefive-to-six, reconnecteed, five-and-fourty, stepsapphic, farmer-butch0, health-pages, turnersapphic, lxve, march-pls-be-good, emberful, imse7en, kassidymaygemz, kassidymaydream, dreamingkassidy, kasdream, live-march, confusedskulll, march-lives, criticaltuesday, quicksilvah, wrldy, quicksilveey, the-stucked-pan, flurrbum, o345, nxce, thls, hokkairi, sykdykee, furrtasticbu, bumfurry, supsense, wickdart, the90sbest

Keep in mind you may not receive an ask like the above ones. You may get something simpler like this, instead:

Most of these are cats, but there's been dogs and even people too.

If you wanna get even more info on all these accounts, there's an archive of this scammer's pinned posts and asks here, so you can see at a glance how similar they all are. You can also see a comprehensive list of scammer red flags specifically for tumblr here!

And lastly, you can report the scams using 'report something else' > 'unlawful uses or content' > 'phishing'

[tired-and-unjellied]

Hello, is mariam weirema from Gaza, I have started a campaign to seek help to get rid of the genocide in Gaza, I am reaching out to you with a warm heart so that you can share my post against friends and family to spread the word, and a small donation💰 if you can, Please I am on my knees asking you to help me complete this.

Thanks for your kindness and generosity 🕊🙏🇵🇸

That's likely a scam

They blocked me when I asked if they were verified

It's the same text as known scammer @/zaynabu

Here's the exact difference between the asks: different name, a space removed, and a simple change of words

They also mention a GFM in their tags, but no PayPal (as usual for scammers)

#free gaza#free palestine#gofundme#donations

Also some other minor tells common in the usual scammers

obviously generated url

reblogging a few things directly from the OP about random stuff (Palestinians seem to go directly to the point or reblog other fundraisers?)

They also had AI art, but I've seen at least one fundraiser with one, so...

@kyra45 @anonthescambuster

update: the ai-generated image was stolen off a GFM: (thanks for telling me, anonymous asker!)

[theladybrownstarot]

Tarot Community Scam Alert ⚠️ :-

This about an exchange reading I had with a reader who broke my trust , disrespected me and I consider this as a scam .

It's @riyus-things now she deactivated her account. She is a fake reader as she has scammed number of people by being a fake reader .

I started my exchange just two days ago and asked any 3 people who had be Interested to do the reading with Me . She was among them.

I had opted for vedic chart reading for My question's prediction. Later when I got the reading it was totally copied from the website I knew .

The following points had my suspicion come true :-

I got to know from the chart what website she used .

Prediction wasn't according to question's context I asked .

I already had an eye on the blog quite few time in which I observed about her English. The prediction's English and her English were different. I didn't want to look down as I thought that maybe it's for professionalism.

But , I had check on the website 5 times just because I didn't want to accuse for anything wrong but it was what it was .

She copied the whole prediction from website.

EVIDENCE :-

Her reading Vs website's reading :-

2nd :-

There is whole of this very long in my DM but but I could just upload this .

Later I had sent her the website reading's screenshot , she showed by responding as she is totally unaware what is happening because she got caught.

FROM HER SIDE :-

LISTEN TO ME :-

I guess it's not hard to see how she was manipulating me and twisting from one excuse to another .

I.e - Herself then her friend then herself and then a mixed excuse of both reasons.

My rules won't apply to her excuses cuz she is a fraudster.

You know this is literally a disrespectful thing. You are just pretending for something you are not and taking valued time and hardwork from other readers .

She did this so quickly like just a copy paste , but I would have taken an hour to predict would this be fine and justified ?

If I wouldn't have told her about post I would have made her gone so easily like that .

She sent me a reading as proof that she is a reader and can save herself which was again fake and copied which is can be seen with her communication skills .

An apology post ! She made it tagging me in and blamed her friend about not being loyal and sending my reading to her whereas with me she told her friend recommended the website only . Like she told me she used the website as tool and now she is saying her friend used it and gave reading . Wow. [ she deactivated her account so post isn't there but one person did like that post as far as I remember, if you see this please send me the SS of it . ] She is a fraudster .

[8pxl]

🗣️ PSA

if ur a pixel artist or u use instagram please be wary of this account @pixel___art__._

they’ve not only stolen pixel art from a LOT of artist (including myself and @waneella) but they’re claiming to be the artist behind the artwork. it’s just so wildly cringe lmfaooo but please block them so you don’t accidentally interact with this account, thank you!! 🖤

[whenuwishuponastar]

"So let's make a decision, start a new religion

Yeah, we're gonna build a temple to our ̥̘ͭ͠L̏ͦ̀ͯͨ͋͟͏̣̪͈̼̯̜̔͆͂̇͘͝ͅo͇̬͎͉͎̱̗͖͙̼͍ͦͪͪ̽̑͊́͢v̷̩̣̗̩͇̦̠͈̥̻̗̣͚̺̎͂̀́̏̀̕e̒ͦ̇̈҉͙͓̳͓̳"

[storieldraw]

I dunno who needs this, but there are a lot of scammers that want to buy a commission from you. They have a proper chat and when you should send an invoice to them they want to send you a kind of cheque. Don't ever agree to this shit. They will grab your money.

[kawoid]

[beta-lactam-allergic]

2 more scam bots pretending to be Gazans sent messages to me in the past few hours. So, to vent about this, I'm posting this poll.

[kstarlitchaotics]

Seriously these people- if they are people-need to stop I'm not donating what so ever I don't want to turn off the ask because I want to interact with people from fandoms or other interests not to donate some phony organizations that don't exist plus hello poor here don't even bother