ArtId Art Blog
Art Marketing Minute - Email Contacts. What's Real?
by artid , February 5, 2010—10:10 AM
Occasionally on ArtId, we get a person or company that contacts a number of our members through the contact page in their ArtId galleries offering artists anything from representation to licensing deals. Sometimes these offers are legitimate and, unfortunately, sometimes they are not. Because your contact page is open for anyone to use, these emails cannot be dealt with as spam. An email received through your ArtId contact does not mean that we have endorsed the company or person.
So, we'd like to give you some tips on how to discriminate between truly interested business people and those whose real goal is to get you to pay them a lot of money for nothing.
How to Compare
1.A legitimately interested person will identify themselves right away and give you information about themselves and/or their company.
Beware of emails where the writer does not divulge the company name or does not tell you exactly what they are interested in doing.
2. A legitimate email will most likely address you by name and make mention of your work, how the person found you, and why they think you are the artist they want to work with.
Beware of emails that appear generic and do not regard you or your work personally. Likely those emails are being sent to a large number of artists by cutting and pasting the same email over and over again into contact pages.
3. A legitimate proposal will work within a standard of operating procedures that exist within the art business world.
Offers that promise too much probably cannot deliver.
If you receive an email that you are unsure about, let us know and we will investigate it. When we know that an unsavory person or company is contacting our artists, we post a notice in the Announcements section of your ArtId which appears when you login.
COMMENTS
01/15/2011 * 14:42:39
I got the following email from an etsy user;
Hello, I would like to make inquiry about your artwork,
1, What is the best price you are willing to sell it?
2, Would you accept private shipping company to come for the picked up of the item at your place?
3, Would you accept PayPal as term of payment?
Kindly get back to me with your respond to my private email address: (helen.anna@yahoo.com)
I would be waiting to read from you.
Regards.
I imagine that a computer BOT has been written with a list of 1, 2, 3, questions that get randomley switched around so as to avoid google searches on the scam email content.
I haven't followed this through but it is likely to be a scam similar to the old cheque that needs to be "cashed for my sick mother's operation, you keep the change (nudge wink) etc..." and the money is handedc over before the cheque clears.
Dunno how this would work with paypal but stinks of money laundering to me. My painting is £3500 so they are probably going for the expensive items only...
The users' account on Etsy is no longer active (an hour after I got the email) I don't know if someone else has complained and had them shut down?
Good luck everyone!!
( homepage )
12/20/2010 * 01:13:56
I have a suspected scam... anyone had this before. Why would someone insist on their own shipping company?
On 20/12/10 11:40, "John Phillip" wrote:
Hello,
thanks for mailing back,i am an oceanographer and i am buying this artwork for my dad, i am at sea right now,and I can only pay through PayPal and you can put the PayPal charges on me because as at present, i don't have access to my bank account online,but i have it attached to my PayPal account,and this is why i insisted on using PayPal to pay,all i will need is your PayPal email address to make the payments,i have a pick up agent that will come for the pick up after payments has been sorted and will also handle the paper works. Be rest assured of a secured transaction because i am a serious buyer and i will only take the artwork after payments has been sorted out.Thanks and
God bless.
--- On Mon, 12/20/10, Richard Crookes wrote:
From: Richard Crookes
Subject: Re: Inquiry about your artwork titled name Stardust
To: johnphillip77@yahoo.com
Date: Monday, December 20, 2010, 3:37 AM
Hi there, thanks for your enquiry
- the mininum price is $500 - paypal is accepted but there is a problem in
that the artwork is temporarily on exhibition away from home unavailable to
me to pack and ship. If you are interested, you may reserve it by paying a
deposit of say $50 to my paypal account and I will contact you when I am
able to ship (which I prefer by using my own shipping company) which would
be sometime next year although probably nearer the end of the year. Sorry
about that.
Richard
On 20/12/10 07:24, "johnphillip77@yahoo.com " >
wrote:
>
> Hello, I would like to make inquiry about your artwork.
>
> 1, What is the best price you are willing to sell it?
> 2, Do you accept PayPal as term of payment?
> 3, Would you allow a private shippers to come for the picked up of the artwork
> after have paid for it?
>
> I would be waiting to read from you.
> Regards.
>
( homepage )
11/10/2010 * 08:05:17
I was also contacted by this Dave Martins this week. He wanted to by my jewelry but for some reason I was suspicious. Searching on the internet (thank God!) I found your Blog, with Jeff Lawson's comments....the mails I received (3) are exactly the same! Questions: Does anybody know what is this scam? How we can be scamed?
Tks!
Cris Gibson
Jewelry Designer
( homepage )
11/10/2010 * 07:52:47
Dear Sirs,
I saw a comment posted on your blog by Jeff Lawson and was really scared... I was also contact by someone named Dave Martin this week and received exactly the same email he sent to Jeff. In my case this " Dave Martin" wanted to by my jewelry. Questions: what is the scam? How can we be scamed? In the future I want to be more prepared...
Thanks for open my eyes with this post on your blog.
Best,
Cris Gibson
Jewelry Designer
( homepage )
10/04/2010 * 11:56:30
BEWARE!!!! I was contacted today (again) by a "Dave Martins" . Two weeks back he sent a brief email wanting to order and pay by credit card. However, he did not specify what he wanted to order. Today, I received this from him:
Hello,
Glad to read from you below is the list of my order:
- Paradise
- Giclee | 13" × 19"
- Giclee Edition
Qty: 30
- Rose
- Giclee | 13" × 19"
Qty: 30
I will arrange for the pick up of my order directly from your location by my carrier am using at the moment for the pick up and shipping of my merchandise,so get back to me with the total cost of my order ONLY you don't need to include the shipping charges,and do let me know if this items are in stock and indicate the date for the pick up of my order by the shipping agent,because i do not want any delay on the order so below here is my address for your record:
Adorama Specialty Shop
14/146 Rama II Road,
Bang Mod,Chim Tong,Bangkok
10150 Thailand
Tel: +66 (0) 2 32 8360-3
Fax: +66 (0) 2 31 6268
I await your earnest reply so i can forward you my credit card information and complete my order for me
Best Regards
Dave.
A search on the internet using his telephone number turned up a blog warning of a scam and the language used in the communication they received was remarkably similar to ours. We decided to decline.
( homepage )
06/07/2010 * 05:41:34
OUCH! Now you've got me both thinking,. . . and scared! I had NO IDEA I finally find a way to let the world know I exist & I get THIS! I've tried to understand technology! I just DON'T get it!
( homepage )
02/10/2010 * 15:21:50
It's really more like phishing than spam. You want your contact information on your site, but you don't want every passer by ringing your doorbell and offering to sell you something.
It's getting worse, the telemarketers, direct mail, email, all are a way for unscrupulous people to get your attention. This may be a real live company but I would be very wary of doing business with them. It's not illegal but it's damned annoying and some people are going to get ripped off. Members write us every week with some offer they are getting asking if it's legit. We just don't want anyone to get taken.
( homepage )
02/07/2010 * 18:19:16
The recent receipt of unsolicited emails from QingFeng Art in China is perplexing. It cannot be called "spam", since ArtId publishes artist contact details which amount to implicit permission for third parties to send emails to these addresses.
Why would a painting factory, specialising in reproductions, want to contact artists?
There is a small possibility that someone claiming to be an artist sends an image to China to have it reproduced in oils on canvas in an impressionist style, for example. That someone could maintain, if queried, that the main source of intellectual property is the original photographic image. (I can concur that a major element of a realistic landscape is often the fleeting light of a sunrise, sunset, shaft of sunlight through billowing clouds, or other ephemeral event captured in a photograph, then painted at leisure in the studio).
Nevertheless, it confounds me that a supposedly thriving international business should seek channels to market through a network of relative novices. I am guessing that serious art galleries would not touch these Chinese artefacts with a forty-foot barge pole, so the Chinese marketers have to find a way into the low-cost art distribution network. Ergo ArtId and presumably other art sites.
So, while I cannot see anything illegal about this type of online marketing (source of contact details provided, name and address of QingFeng Art provided), I am still scratching my head wondering why these Chinese painting factories (and there are many) contact individual artists.
Eliot LeBow
01/23/2011 * 21:08:54
I Got the oceanographer one
Thanks for mailing back,i am an oceanographer and i am buying this artwork for my dad, i am at sea right now,and I can only pay through PayPal and you can put the PayPal charges on me because as at present, i don't have access to my bank account online,but i have it attached to my PayPal account,and this is why i insisted on using PayPal to pay,all i will need is your PayPal email address to make the payments,i have a pick up agent that will come for the pick up after payments has been sorted and will also handle the paper works. Be rest assured of a secured transaction because i am a serious buyer and i will only take the artwork after payments has been sorted out.
Thanks and God bless.