This really has nothing to do with art shows but where else would I find a group of people with more experience and knowledge of the art world in general. In fact, it may have nothing to do with the art world either but comes down to a general question involving the Internet, the sale of art, legalities and ethics in general. So, if I'm in the wrong place for something like this I apologize. But, if anyone has had any experience with this sort of thing I'd love to know how it played out.
I sell very little via the Internet. I have a web-site but it is designed as an introductory sort of thing as opposed to a sales tool. It has a lot of photos and offers a pretty fair sampling of what I do.
About 10 days ago I received an email from a man in a European country wanting to order 100 pieces (all the same) of one of my items that he'd seen a photo of. He said he is with a Trading Company. He is willing to give me a credit card number for the charges so, I have the safety of receiving the money before I send anything. Sounds pretty good so far but I keep asking myself what he's going to do with 100 of the same piece. Then about a week ago he writes and tells me that he has a freight forwarder who will handle the shipping for him and will pick it up from me when finished. My involvement ends when it is picked up. However, his freight forwarder does not accept credit cards and he's asking if I would run the freight charges through my credit card system, keep the money for the freight and turn around and pay his forwarder what is due him. In other words I would be charging his credit card around $7000. for the items plus $3500 for the freight for a total of $10,500 that would go into my bank account. Then I would turn around and pay his forwarder the $3500 for the shipping.
I really can't see a place in here where I could be hurt. However, it is such a strange transaction that I can't help but feel a little nervous about it. If there is anyone out there who has experience with any sort of similar transacction, Internet scams, or anything even close to the above I would greatly appreciate your thoughts.
Thank you.
P.S. I believe it may have been Nels who, awhile back, mentioned that the Bayou Festival in Houston has a lot of welding. Anyone who was there this weekend can attest that they also have a lot of rain! First time I've ever known of them to close early.
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Say what you will, there are 75,000 new instances of malware unleashed on the internet each day. Two thirds are trojans. The rest make up worms, backdoors, root kits, other viruses, ad trackers and other assorted spyware, and, last but not least, scams, hacks, and bots. May I draw your attention to my post from yesterday: http://www.artfairinsiders.com/forum/topics/don-t-open-that-email.
Just last week it was discovered that there was a large scale attack on Sony Playstation accounts and 93,000 accounts were compromised. Those accounts had info like credit card numbers used to pay the monthly fee. It's true that these hacks were on European accounts. So, what me worry, right? It is also true that the majority of new malware are variations of existing viruses, etc. created by high school students learning their craft, in there bedrooms unbeknownst to their parents. However, governments are also getting in on the act. Last week, a hacker group discovered a trojan created by the German government, called, R2D2 or Federal Trojan, that spied on its own citizens. Btw, the data was collected on servers residing in the US.
Don't think because you own a MAC that you are immune. There are plenty of PDF viruses in cyberspace that can compromise your system.
Most of you will never have a problem with what I just described. However, it just seems logical to me that contacting the bad guys, letting them know that you exist, is a really bad idea. Do I have a right to be upset with those of you who do, or those of you who don't take cyber security seriously enough? I definitely do because if hackers can get into a very secure site like Sony Playstation, it's childs play to get into this site where they can find your email and other assorted info. They can have my info. I have nothing to steal, But, some of you have something to lose.
This isn't even worthy of a discussion, it is so obviously a scam. Why do you people bring these up at least once a week now? That was rhetorical. Why do I say this?
Once again, you do not even have to get past the first 3 words to know is is a scam. All these emails are the same. The first 3 words are: "Dear sir/madam" If this was legit it would read "Dear Don." Then it claims to have done a search on the internet, but, the email never tells you specifically what it saw. It only says "items." If this was legit, the person would have said "I saw your refrigerator magnets", or whatever, some minimal description, of what they actually searched. I'm surprised this email came to your inbox instead of your spam folder.
The last thing I would do is contact the sender. That lets the scammers know you exist and that you were almost dumb enough to fall for this. Now, before you all get upset that I called you dumb, realize I'm not actually calling you dumb. I'm just trying to get your attention. This is the third time in the past couple of months that I've had to respond to these posts.
"I will get back to you with a ship date as soon as the funds have arrived and I have verified their authenticity."
Always!!!
I recently asked questions about this issue and just wanted to post the address of the person who contacted me. andrew_gallary65@hotmail.com
They sent a followup email with an their address, since I did not answer (thank you AFI for the advice). I checked the address using one of the map services that gives a photo of it - this gallery or shop is a tiny hole in the wall with newspapers and candy in the window.
Michael's right on. Obviously they never looked at your work to learn titles and have no specific reference to anything whatsoever. They could be sending the exact same email to someone who's selling Silly Putty eggs. I had a few scammers a while back that actually must have trolled my website and gotten titles of my pieces, but a dead giveaway is the language that sounds like the really awful Google translation it went through.
I spell out my email address on my website so it reads
caroline-kwas-at-hotmail-dot-com
Crawlers and spiders don't read any @ symbol and you're saf(er) and real people will understand.
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