Painted as prey
By Kaitlin Melanson/ kmelanso@cnc.com
Thursday, September 14, 2006

They come from all parts of the world, including but not limited to France, South America and the United Kingdom. They have distant homelands, but they all have one other thing in common - they want your artwork.

But before you package up your valuable originals, Ben Strohecker, Susan Burgess and Joan Colt Hooper urge you to think twice.

These three local artists are just a few of many who have fallen prey to an Internet scam, which begins as a seemingly harmless transaction but quickly turns into something far more insidious. In less than a month’s time, all three were contacted by prospective buyers from overseas looking to purchase paintings had found on the artists’ respective Web sites.

Strohecker said he first heard from "Lauren Paul" at the end of May.

"This person had found my work on a Web site where I used to display my work before I got my own Web site," Strohecker said. "They had seen a couple of paintings they had wanted to buy and were looking to verify some prices."

Strohecker verified that the price of the two pieces totaled $1,500, and the buyer said she would be sending a cashier’s check. Strohecker said the correspondence then began to slow down. But then, out of the blue, he received a check for $6,500. Not sure exactly where the money had come from, Strohecker took the check to National Grand Bank to verify its authenticity.

"They then called Chase [the drawer] and spoke with a person who told them to hold it up to the light and look for a watermark, which the check did not have," Strohecker said. "After that I was then contacted by the buyer saying it was in fact their check, saying they had accidentally sent the improper amount, asking me to send back a check for the extra $5,000."

In Burgess’ case, her scammer also wanted to send a check for more than the amount of the paintings, but for the alleged purpose of paying a third-party shipper.

"The phony buyer who contacted me was a ’Mariah Haywood,’ supposedly from the U.K., and was about to move to a new home in South Africa," Burgess said. "’She’ eventually asked if I’d be willing to pay their shipper from money they would add to my payment for three specific paintings chosen from my Web site. I asked that payment be for only the exact amount we had agreed upon, and not to include payment to the shipper. She e-mailed back that that arrangement was fine. I never heard from her again, and I didn’t expect to. I was just curious to see what the scam would be."

When she found out so many of her neighbors had been targets of the scam, Susan Fader, co-owner of Ditto Editions, made it her mission to educate other artists of such fraudulent activity.

"I sent out an e-mail warning all of my clients that these scams were out there, and I immediately got response from several artists in Marblehead alone saying they had been contacted," Fader said. "We have clients all over the place, so to have several people from the same small town be hit was very strange."

Fader opined that the scammers might see small-town artists as a perfect target, given that they work on an individual basis and the prices of their individual pieces generally fall in the $1,500 to $2,000 range.

"Artists are a different kind of people," Fader said. "Though some of them also work in business, when it comes to their art, it is completely different."

According to Fader, many artists are very new to the notion of having their artwork displayed on a Web site, and place big hopes in the power of cyberspace.

"Many people think of their Web sites in terms of ’Field of Dreams,’ and if you build it, they will buy, but it’s not that simple," Fader said. "It can work if you cross promote it at gallery shows and talks, but people don’t really go to the Web site to buy, but to find out where they can see your work."

Fader believes that the personal nature of art may make artists particularly vulnerable to scammers. Having anyone express interest in his or her work provides validation, even more so when the person is in a faraway land. "They see that someone overseas wants to buy their work and they get excited and maybe a little na?ve," Fader said. "I really feel it is my responsibility to educate these artists, and they should not feel stupid because they want to believe it’s true for all good reasons, but they really need to be careful."

Fader said that some of the signs of a scam to look for include the use of lowercase lettering throughout the e-mail, broken English, as well as a lack of detail on everything except the financing of the art.

"Once correspondence begins, scammers often become chatty and start small dialogue to seem personable," she said.

Burgess suggests that those doing business on the Internet check out www.craigslist.org, which provides a list of warning signs and advice on the subject of scams.

"It’s likely that most scams are following some of the characteristics listed there, and they tell you clearly what to watch out for," Burgess said. "Then it’s up to the buyer and seller to sense whether or not the party they are dealing with is genuine. Listen to your gut. If it doesn’t feel right, it’s probably a scam."

Colt Hooper recommends that artists - and anyone selling anything online - only accept payments through PayPal.com.

"They pay PayPal, and then PayPal pays you," Colt Hooper said. "They send you an e-mail once the funds are available so you know the money is good before sending the piece."

Whether an artist uses PayPal or not, Fader says it’s one of the best ways to scare off scam artists.

"Whether you have a PayPal account or not, tell the buyer you only accept payments through PayPal, and they will usually stop correspondence," Fader said.

Taking her responsibility to look out for local artists to the next level, Fader has taken correspondence from her clients and sent it to the state’s computer fraud detective unit, and suggests that others do the same.
"If a number of people come forward with this, they will see what an issue it has become and it will go into a national database so others will be aware that these scams are out there."

Though she has been unable to find such a person as yet, Fader is looking for an authority to speak on the topic at one of Ditto Editions’ future Salon Nights, in hopes to further educate on the issue.

To contact the Essex County Computer Fraud Department, call 978-745-8908

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