NFT Scam?

Lisa Ngan

Hi everyone, I was approached by someone on FB asking to purchase 2 of my artwork for $8000 each as NFT. It sounds fishy to me that someone would pay that much for my artwork, so I asked him what is the process. He says I need to register my artwork in the NFT platform he uses and then he will purchase it right away. Pretty sure it's a scam but does anyone know how the scam works?

Sonia Merkel

@Lisa-Ngan I saw someone talking about these types of scams the other day. I think what they do is "send you money" but it's more than the agreed upon amount, so they ask you to send them money back .... the one I saw was asking to pay for a commissioned portrait, but I was exactly the same apart from that.

ArtistErin

@Lisa-Ngan I had the same offer to purchase my work for a huge amount of money. Not $8000 though! It was $2500 apiece, they lifted 6 of my images on my website, contacted me on Instagram and of course I was suspicious because of the offer amount and cagey language. I told him I only accept Venmo or Paypal after a written agreement of purchase and usage rights. At this time I had no understanding of NFT agreements etc., he said he would use Cryptocurrency and I needed to study how NFTs work. Absolutely scammy Spammy. So I told him (or her, could be anyone really) I don't deal in Cryptocurrency and repeated only Venmo or Paypal.

Another scam that came my way was a woman wanting to purchase a couple of my illos. She said she could only pay by check, and she sent a photo of her hiding behind her picture ID (California Driver's License) and said once I receive $1000 in check form I would need to send back the remainder after taking my fee! LOL so ridiculous!! I was thinking how can these people get by with this outright theivery???? My immediate response to my own question was where there are scammers succeeding are foolish artists willing to take the bait, from a place of desperation, most likely.

So keeping my spidey senses open, trying to stay in my lane emotionally and not get caught up in fear or cynicism, I have concluded there will always be people scamming. I will hang out in optimism, it feels so much better there...

lpetiti

It definitely sounds fishy first of all, but I'd also add that NFT's are TANKING right now for the most part. My opinion is, even its legit, $8k is not worth it.