The latest scam I’ve been getting on Instagram are people who love my pics so much that they want to make them into a mural. Sometimes, it’s a painting. But either way all I need to do is accept a check for a large amount, keep a little for myself and then send them the extra for supplies. Art supplies can get pricey you know!
Of course, it’s just another fake check scam, and not even a very convincing one. So do not ever accept a check for more than it should be, and then send a stranger money! I feel like that should be common sense, but they wouldn’t keep trying it if people weren’t falling for it. Click here to read more about different types of Fake Check Scams from the FTC. Read on to see what happens when you reply back to the scammers and give them a little bit of a hard time.
I Want to Pay to Use Your Photos!
It starts with a nice complimentary message about how pretty your Instagram feed is, or how inspiring your photos are. So great that they want you to be their muse. The scammer I’m using as an example wanted to make my photos into a mural. I got this same exact message last week, so getting this from another person alerted me this was a scam going around.
One you reply back that they are interested, they will explain they will be sending you a check for a high dollar amount. This person was going to send me $2000, but once I got on board, they later upped it to $5000 because they wanted to use two photos. Lucky me!
This is where they start asking for personal information. I gave them an e-mail I never use for anything, the wrong bank name, and name of one of the witches on Hocus Pocus as my name. I kept asking them details about this amazing mural, but they don’t seem to have a lot of details for me.
After this, they started asking for my phone number, so I gave them a fake one. I wanted to make sure they had no usable information just in case they were going to try and get into my bank account. The main part of this scam isn’t to steal your info through, it’s to steal your money by having you send it to them yourself.
Pretty soon I had myself a very realistic looking image of a $5,000 check, written out to an imaginary witch. They e-mailed it to me as my “allowance” and requested I deposit it right away. I’m publishing the photo of the check with some stuff crossed out, because it’s a fake, but it could contain info obtained through identity-theft.
If I did try and deposit it, it may actually clear. And then I’d need to send them their part of the check. And then that’s when I’d be losing out, because pretty soon the bank would be coming after me to get back their real money to replace the fake check money.
Avoid Fake Check Scams
This fake check scam also comes in the form of people “accidentally” sending you too much money for an online purchase. Then they will ask you to refund the extra. Then later you find out the check is fake, and you can’t get your money back, and you have to pay the bank back.
So NEVER EVER EVER accept a check and then send a refund. Also never give out your bank info to strangers online. Don’t even give them your personal info like e-mails or phone numbers that you use for things like banking or credit cards. The less info they have to use, the better.
Also, don’t send anybody a screenshot of a log-in code! That’s a whole different Instagram scam that’s getting a lot of people lately.
So What Happened with My Fake Check?
They kept telling me I needed to deposit ASAP, so I asked them a bunch of silly questions and then pretended I deposited it. Then they kept telling me I needed to Venmo them the money, or use cash app. Unfortunately, I don’t use those (at least not for scammers, lol) so I told them I’d need to use Paypal and it will take a few days to get transferred. My scam artist was so sad, because she wanted to get to work right away!
She helpfully suggested I just go to the store and get an Amex gift card for $2000. So suddenly my cut went from $1000, to $3000! I’m just making money like crazy over here.
I asked repeatedly for her e-mail but she didn’t want to give it up. She then started trying to get me to hook a debit card up to my bank, or use Zelle or Paypal through there. I just continued to pretend to be confused as to how any of that works, so then she got mad and started threatening to call my bank and reverse the check I never deposited.
She got very nasty, threatening that my bank would close my account and that I wouldn’t be able to get a bank account anymore. And then she’d call the police and I’d lose my job. The threats kept escalating, and it was getting close to dinner time, so I finally let her know I was faking it. Funny thing was, she didn’t understand and still kept threatening that the bank would close my account. And by “my account” of course that meant Sarah Sanderson’s account. I even asked her if she’d seen Hocus Pocus and said I’d given her the name of my Halloween costume. So finally, I just sent a message letting them know they are a terrible person, waited until it was read, and then blocked the account.
The account mentioned may still be active and trying to scam other people. If you get a chance, report @jamieson6594 for fraud. Or maybe send them a message and see if you can get them to send checks out to the other Sanderson sisters, lol.
About the Author
Candy Keane is a digital content creator and long-time cosplayer, most well-known for being on the cover of the Star Wars documentary Jedi Junkies. After making costumes professionally for over a decade, she now writes about about geek culture and mom life, and continues to cosplay for fun, while sharing her love of costumes on Instagram @SewGeekMama. Her first children’s book, I’m Going to My First Comic Convention, was published in 2020 and won a Story Monsters Approved award for Excellence in Literature.
Geek Mamas 
I got scammed by these artists, the name is Andra on insta, I accepted the check and it somewhat went through. I got 100$ out of the 1000 they promised. I sent back those 100 and they still want 400$ for art supplies while i keep the 500$. The check has not cleared and I dont know what to do. can u please help.
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So you have already sent them $100? The check most likely will end up being fraudulent and you may have to pay the bank back the $100 from the check. I would cancel that check and maybe let the bank know what happened.
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Hey so this happened to me and unfortunately I deposited the check but did not send any cash through anything I called my bank because they’d suspended my account temporarily and they said to call them back in the morning. Am i in danger here. Gosh I can’t believe it some people are just molded by evil
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Once the bank figures out it is a fraudulent check, they will suspend your account so no more activity can take place. Then they will need to talk to you to determine if you have committed a crime by knowingly depositing it, or if you are the victim of fraud.
The bank will take back the funds from the check and may charge you a fee on top of that, depending on the bank.
This scam happens so often that they are probably familiar with dealing with it.
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I’m a very tech savvy person so knew it was a scam from the first message and have been dangling them along for a couple of days now. Decided to google it to see which direction to go with it and see exactly how they made their money. I see a couple of references to Nigeria and specifically Lagos. I’m not sure how tech savvy they are themselves, I’m guessing not very so I was thinking about feeding them some BS like “where are you located? Oh that’s weird because my uncle in the cyber crimes division of the FBI traced your digital footprint back to Lagos Nigeria.” Who knows if they’d buy that jargon but it might make them look at each other like uhhhh
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They should offer to send you a check soon! That’s their main goal with this.
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I got this message also a couple days ago, I gave her my name, email and the name of my bank. But then I realized that this was too good to be true so I searched up on google and I found this page. So I told her that she was an scammer and I blocked her. But could she do something since I gave her my name, email and the name of my bank?
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No, they shouldn’t be able to do anything with that besides send you annoying emails if they want.
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My daughter fell for it today! She deposited the check and then started getting nervous and wanted to get rid of the money so she venmoed some back to them like they wanted. 🤦 The bank fixed some of it and changed her account but now these people are threatening to come find her and kill her! Now I am so nervous! Why don’t teenagers listen?! My husband is in IT and has told her for years to ask before doing anything.
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oh no! They got very threatening with me as well. They told me the police were going to come have me arrested for stealing their money. I’m sorry to hear your daughter fell for it. I’m hoping people will Google this before that happens! They are just trying to scare her though. They are most likely on a different continent.
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THIS HAPPENED TO ME!!! The fact that they use art is so disgusting and so uncalled for. They kept sending me 500 dollar checks and I only deposited two of them. After coming to realize that they were FAKE I had called Bank of America to let them know that I had gotten scammed. I was so scared because I could’ve gotten arrested when I really didn’t even know what the hell was actually going on. I didn’t even know that others were GOING THROUGH THIS. I wish I had searched it up prior before actually falling for it because now I can barley sleep at night because they call me all the time in the early mornings sending me threatening text messages, horrifying videos, AND ARE JUST CRUEL AND DISGUSTING. I can’t believe this and no matter how many times I block them THEY KEEP CALLING BACK 😭😭 like I hate it and it’s ruining my life and my money-
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I’m sorry to hear they are harassing you! You may need to change your number to get them to stop.
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I fell for it because I love art and I told them I would do it for free persisted on it, that it was necessary and when I gave in and gave my email, which wasn’t actually my email but where I messed up was my phone number. They were like oh now you have my check. I said I don’t even want it and I’m out because doesn’t seem real and I’m guessing you don’t just want to paint a picture. After that they got really mean. They threaten to kill me, they even sent pictures of people who they have killed before for and said that they have my picture so there’s no hiding, they said they will get somebody to assassin me. It was all very scary. To be honest I’m still kind of scared.
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That is crazy they went that far! They were rude to me and threatened me, but not that bad. But please don’t worry, these people are just hiding behind a computer and lying about everything, including the pictures they send. Just cut them off, block all contacts.
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I’m so sorry ! Dealing with the same thing right now! I gave a wrong email but my right phone number and they won’t stop. I just keep blocking.
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Keep up the blocking! They should give up soon when they realize it’s a waste of time.
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Hi, if I don’t give back those money, can I just block them?
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You don’t give the scammer money because that’s laundering, which is a crime. And yes! Block, report, and delete them.
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Thank you so much for this! I’m currently getting messages from I think the same person! 🤣 I know it sound silly but I wasn’t sure if it was real or not. I’m glad I found your article before sending them any personal details. Thank you 👍
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Glad you caught it in time! 🙂
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This unfortunately happened to me too they threatened my life and those of my family and sent me really gruesome pictures and videos
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oh no! They sent you pics and video?? That’s the first time I’ve heard of that happening. That’s terrible. Sorry to hear it got that far.
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Oh gezz I’m currently dealing with the same thing. I never cashed the check and they are sending me threatening messages that I did. I just keep blocking them. People are absolutely crazy! I was being nice about the artwork and when I said no thanks and she is going out of control.
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The people doing the mural scam seem to be the worst with the nasty threats. Once I blocked them on Instagram, I never heard anymore from them. Hopefully you can block them out too!
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One of them tried this trick with me tonight. I played along for a little bit, then fed them a fake sob story, begging them to stop trying to scamming me. They first asked for a screen shot from my bank, so I sent them a partial screenshot, with only the “daily limit” portion and no identifiable info… They kept trying to get me to write my name and date on a sheet of paper (was never going to happen). They also video called me a bunch of times, wanting to see my face (I didn’t let them). They used a code word that Nigerian scammers often use, “Alaye,” which means thug/scammer in their language. They wanted to know if I was one of them, trying to con them back. I wasn’t threatened, only accused of being a conman, myself. I’m surprised they didn’t get rude with me. They just said “have a nice life.” Probably because of the fake sob story I fed them. I told them I’m not some rich American, either, so I’m sure they got bored of me.
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I didn’t know about the code word! That’s a new one. I should try using it on the next scammer and see what they say, lol.
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i just got this message 2 hours ago. ive never really been scammed before so i was just excited that someone wanted to paint me! at first i didn’t know that i would be “paid” so i complied, only then for them to tell me i would be compensated. i couldnt sense a thing!! i asked to see some of their previous work, and they showed me, which was a mistake. i have them my real name, phone number, and email, and told them which bank i associate with. they sent me up to 3 checks, and it seemed like they were gonna send more, which would have amounted to 2500 and i would get 500. i deposited 2 checks which both had 453.36 each and sent back 400 using apple pay, and then another 100 on cash app. before i could deposit the third check, i suspected something was weird, so o searched it up only to find “INSTAGRAM MURAL SCAM” as the first search. i sent back what i could but there’s still a pending deposit of over $400. i don’t know what to do. i am going to contact my bank as soon as i wake up tomorrow, but this happened right before i fell asleep and now i can’t sleep as i’m shaking. please give any advice on what to do in this situation. i was stupid and naive and im never falling for this shit again. im so MAD. i am still sweating cold sweat. i’ma broke college student, please help me
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Oh no! I hope you were able to get in touch with your bank to stop the deposit. Dealing with the bank directly and letting them know what happened is the best thing to do.
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i of course blocked them but i’m not sure what i’m supposed to do now.
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Alert your bank that you were a victim of fraud. The checks they sent you may clear at first but will later come up as fraudulent.
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I just had someone try the scam on me. I luckily found this page and learned what to do. I didn’t deposit the check because it looked fake. For some reason they let me off the hook and didn’t threaten me. The scammer was toneysarthub on insta.
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Glad to hear you stopped before depositing the check! There are a lot of different people pulling this one, so sounds like at least you got lucky with them not getting threatening like they did with me and others.
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Yep, this just happened to me but before they could proceed any further with the scam, I sent them a link to this post asking if anything seemed oddly familiar to what they were telling me. Needless to say, I was blocked shortly after. Thanks for posting this! 🙂
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LOL! That is too funny you sent them the post. Love it. 🙂
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I just sent them this post too. My scammer was @f.aleksandra2027453 and had followed some of my friends to make it seem like they may be someone I know.
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First of all THANK YOU for putting your scammer on blast!!
Ours was named Allysa Jade (IG iamjade_07)
This just happened tonight- It was on my 18yr old daughter’s secondary account that’s focused just on her modelling- but I manage it and deal
with all her DM’s
(There is also a Reddit thread about this scam as well btw)
It began with the scammer complimenting my daughter, saying she wanted her to serve as her muse for a mural she was going to paint and that she was hoping paint a picture (notice it was a mural first and then a picture) by using one of one of daughter’s modelling pic posts
BUT the VERY QUICKLY she shifted to a LOT of talk focused on the payment that her “client” wanted to pay ASAP so that she could finish the painting by next week- (That was the first red flag- I mean who the heck can finish a detailed oil portrait in a week or less like the ones she had posted on her account???— but I figured I would get more info….
Then came the jibber jabbering nonsense about her “client” wanting to pay by emailing a cheque and that the check would be $2500 and my daughter’s portion would be $500. – I was like, umm ok that’s weird sending a cheque by email but ok, cool.
THEN- she wanted my daughter’s full name and an email – I (acting as my daughter) said, hmmm maybe I should give you my mom’s email.
THEN –
She says “btw I need the name of your bank for the endorsement on the back of the cheque”WHICH MAKES NO SENSE – People don’t need to know the name of your bank to send you a cheque – and an endorsement is a signature that the person receiving the cheque signs on the back,….. but I had some time to kill so I gave them a different bank’s name
Then I asked what the client’s name was and if she (scammer) was based in Canada like me (my daughter) (I asked this cause she had an Australia flag and Canadian flag on her profile and Ottawa Ontario and Australia written there
as well)
She ignored my question about the name of her client and said “I’m from tamps (yes that’s how she spelled it) Florida ma’am” ( Keep in mind the pic of the scammer looked like a girl about the same age as my daughter” ) So she was definitely starting to slip up by the way she was messaging – What 18 yr old American girl calls another young girl ma”am???
I asked again about her client’s name.
She ignored me AGAIN and kept trying to explain about the cheque she was gonna send.
Then she says- Are you near a laptop or an iPad rn?
I ask why
She says that I need a second device to open the email of the cheque she’s gonna send.
I say “I’m not so sure about this”
She immediately tries to calm me down and keep me focused on how to get the cheque opened and what to do.
I’m getting annoyed at this point so I tell her (as my daughter) that “I think I need to talk to my Uncle about this he is a lawyer who works with PWC – an international finance/accounting firm to see what he thinks cause I trust him (and yes- my older brother is actually a lawyer and works at Price Waterhouse Coopers 🙂 )
THIS next message WAS MY FAV – You can tell the scammer is getting flustered cause they COMPLETELYdrop the whole “attempting to sound like a young American girl who is an independent artist” and they say….. (lmao)
“I under your skepticism but I want you to know that in this firm we work according to the policy of this firm so you have nothing to worry about”
Like REALLY?? – I guess this young girl all of a sudden is working in a “firm” ???
It was ridiculous
Ugh, just ugh
But at the same time this is when it hit me, how about all those other scammers sharing this with each other who were/are smoother talkers than mine? Or those dealing with a young impressionable 18 yr old who is flattered by the attention and wouldnt mind some extra cash?
So I basically told her at this point that the jig was up- that I could tell this wasn’t on the up and up – and said what she wrote on her profile about being Canadian and Australian and then telling me she was from Florida made no sense
BUT then the SCARY thing was she sent me a pic of half of a Florida License with the same name as her IG name written under the pic and what looked like the exact same girl that was on her IG profile pic— Of course I still knew it was a scam, but damn they really go all out!!!!
(Now that I think about it, it’s probably real ID from a real girl who also got scammed somehow into giving up some info in order to get a cheque of some sort)
I said it didn’t matter if she was who she said she was, that whenever I (my daughter) has been paid for anything *outside* of regular modelling through her agency (for magazines or clothing brands etc) where her agency takes their percentage and then directly deposits the rest into her bank account— That she gets paid through PayPal-and that it’s the only form of
Payment that protects both people- I told her to look at my daughters second last post showing her backstage with Kevin Hart when he was here on his tour in Vancouver and that they paid her through PayPal for that gig that and anyone can easily pay that way.
They ignored the message COMPLETELY and tried one more time to see if they could redirect my focus back to depositing the cheque
I was about to leave when she sent 6 messages in super quick succession (obviously cut and pasting) detailing EXACTLY how I should open the picture of the cheque to full page resolution and then open my mobile banking app and use my cell phone to deposit the cheque
I said Nope- not gonna do it – Told her my Uncle (my brother lol) said not to etc etc
That’s when I just called them out completely and said “nice try scammer.”
Within 2 mins they deleted all the art pics on their IG – I took screen shots of the messages to share with my other daughters (one of whom is also a model and has an IG account) and by the time I was done amd went to report them their account just said “Instagram User” amd had no pic.
When I let my other daughters know, my eldest said “Yup, it’s a scam Mom, happened to me
too” – She’s the one who told me about the Reddit thread.
My 18 yr old asked me- what’s the point of them wasting time going through all that? I said to her, “Think of it this way, if this is their full time job- and they spend 8 hours a day doing this to countless people every day and get, say, even ONE person to fall for it and send them back that $2000 – that adds up to about $60,000 a month if they work every day of each month.
She was like- “Ohhhhhh, damn!”
This scam MUST be working otherwise they wouldn’t keep doing it.
And think of all the people who are too embarrassed to come forward. – The scammers are counting on that, because they are appealing to people’s egos.
Hopefully sharing this will allow anyone else who was targeted feel better knowing they aren’t alone.
Years ago I used to have a Loss Prevention Company – we dealt with retail theft as well as internal theft and fraud investigations – So I tend to be a bit more distrustful than the average bear, but I’m sure if I was a different person with different life experiences I would have reacted differently.
These people are scum, they take and take and don’t care who they hurt. It’s really sad.
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Oh wow they were all over the place with their background there lol. I actually posted in that Reddit thread, but added the link to my blog post and it got removed. I guess it’s not allowed.
And it is really terrible what these people are doing, I agree!
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I was talking to a girl, who wanted to use my photo for the Mural. And asking my permission to use it, i was supposed to say Yes and she will go to send me $500 however, I have researched about it and got to know this article. But By mistake, I have shared my email address, do you think that would be an issue?
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Don’t worry if you just shared your email address. They can’t do anything but maybe send you some spam mail. 🙂
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Lmao they almost got me as I am very fashionable on Instagram, they were pretty convincing & I reposted the check they sent me but they were far to persistent that I send them $100 back of the money and I googled this so it seems they can’t do much unless you actually send them money back.. fortunately I didn’t send them anything back and will be contacting my bank tomorrow to let them know that I deposited a check into my account.
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Good! Glad to hear you figured it out before sending them any money.
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That’s crazy I just had the same thing happen. I always look these situations up first and they tend to pop up with scam lol. Always look it up as usually someone else will have experienced the same situation
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I have just recieved from a Christine on Instagram about the same thing…… I’m now getting emails from several different emails about the fact I haven’t deposited money or sent money to the person for painting supplies….. I archived all emails and saved a screenshot of the account which I have now blocked on Instagram
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Sounds like you did the right thing!
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this happend to me this morning i asked her for a digital wallet and i got blocked 🙂
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Thank you in alerting us !! The moment they replied i felt it was fishy and googled to find this so im not wasting time. I simply
Blocked them immediately so i wont even need to msg further
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Good way to handle it!
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I ALMOST fell for it today!! I was googling to see if there were scams going on on Instagram before I would send the screenshot and I’m SO GLAD I found this post!! The account that tried the scam is “morgan_steph123”.
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Yay! So glad you found this post and they scammed one less person 🙂
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Just ran into this scam myself by someone impersonating Rositsa Ivanova (fleur_josephine32).
I thought the initial dm was sketchy and did a Google search and found this article. I sent them a screenshot like “yeah I’m not interested in your scam”. And of course they were like, “no no.”
The real kicker was the idiot posted a story video highlight of themselves, a Nigerian man smoking with the Lagos, Nigeria location tag on. XD
I then screenshot that and was like “is this not you”… safe to say they dipped and I think deleted the account. (As of rn I can’t find it on any of my backup accounts on Instagram).
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Glad you found the post! I always think it’s funny when people send it to the scammer 😆
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Oh my gosh thank god for this post !! I was just on Instagram where this came up as well! I told her I would let her paint me for free and she proceeded to tell me I needed to get compensation for it to prevent a lawsuit so I said “it should be enough that there are messages of proof I do not want compensation and that I am allowing you to paint me.” I told her my husband is a lawyer (I don’t have a husband) and I kindly declined her offer when she asked to send me money ($3000 and to keep 500 for myself.) I would have fallen for this since I have lots of followers it would not be uncommon for this to appear as something realistic that I would get asked.. however the girl sent me the same messages twice and after telling her I was advised to decline her offer per my “husbands” request lol, I was left on seen
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Wise advice from the imaginary husband, Lol!
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I got a message! I didn’t realize that was a scam, after the final moment, she asked for my real full name and my bank, and I felt something wrong, then I google” painting scam on Instagram”. Luckily, you post this article and at the top of the web, your sharing saves many people who suffer this scam, including me! I really need to say THANK YOU!
I immediately decided to tell my story as a warning on my YouTube, I would like to have your permission to share this article link in the info section and some crucial parts of conversations in the video, hope everybody tells everybody, to block these scam !!!
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Hi, Yes are definitely allowed to share the link! The more people that know about this, the better. Thank you for passing on the word and helping to get it out there.
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My daughter was falling for it today, until I stopped her. IG name is pandit_2 and goes by Sara. Ugh! I reported it and told my daughter to as well.
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Good job 😊
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I almost fell for this before I realized it was a scam. They were pretending to be some girl who does paintings and wanted to pay me $400 for a $2500 painting.
After they asked for my name, my bank, and then my phone number, I said it sounds like a scam, and they gave me some huge story about how they’re a well-intentioned person who “doesn’t try sh*t.” I told them “send me a photo of you holding a piece of paper with my name on it” and they tried to distract me and ended up sending me a formal-looking contract that said they were going to use the painting in a LA art show sponsored by UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. I just laughed at him and told him to get a job and he blocked me.
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Good thing you didn’t fall for it!
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Yup. This one is still floating out there. I got the first complementary message and looked at the profile. It had two dozen pieces of art so I accepted the message but once the second message about the mural and client paying got sent my alarm bells went off. Blocked the account and reported the scammer.
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Good move!
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They have my face, half of my full name, and my country. Should that be an issue? I accepted the deposit but have not sent anything. What should I currently do?
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The issue would be with the deposit. It’s a fraudulent check, so you need to notify your bank if you’ve deposited it in your bank. It will eventually be caught even if it clears first.
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It happened to me recently and I didn’t realize it was fake untill after I deposited the check and it was pending in my bank account. I tried to send her money but it was getting denied. Then I realized this might be a scammer so I googled this article and blocked the person. I already gave them my phone number and name and email. They kept messaging me with death threats and going to call the FBI. I blocked them and blocked them from my email. I called my bank the next day and told them what happened they couldn’t do anything till the check I guess was cleared but the person I spoke with said he put a note saying it was a fake check, and it should go away i. A couple of days. I also requested a new debit card to be safe so they can’t make withdrawals out of my account to be safe. I’m going to the bank in person today to see if they can take that check out of my account. I also reported everything to the FTC like they said I should do. I’m so scared because I didn’t know it was a scam till It was too late.
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It sounds like you took all the right steps to protect yourself afterwards! People have sent me screenshots of the threats they send. They are pretty terrible. But don’t worry about that, they are threatening people that live all over the world and they certainly aren’t in all those places. Block and ignore them.
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Thank you I appreciate it and that’s exactly what I did I went to the bank today and they said I did all the correct steps and reporting it and get a new card and telling them in person. They said the check amount will be removed and I won’t be charged anything. I was so scared.
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That’s good to hear that if you catch it in time, you are ok with the bank and don’t owe any fees!
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Hello, I was contacted yesterday. At first I thought it was cool that someone wants to collaborate with me. But when I start asking questions about the details of the project, I wasn’t given a straight answer. So when I started asking questions, they would never give me a straight answer. When the scammer told me about the clients name, I searched it up. And the scammers profile and the clients profile were exactly the same. Each lettering, each emoji, everything. It was like it was copied and pasted and it probably was. I never gave them my name, my bank and that other information because it seemed fishy to me. When I searched “art mural collaboration scam” up on google, this article came up. And it was about the same thing that happened. Thank you so much for the articles information. I reported, blocked and restricted the scam account on my phone.
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Glad to hear you looked it up and found the post!
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Hey! I got contacted by an account like this, clearly they had hacked into someone’s account! It’s sounded too good to be true, so I decided to do some research and came across this page! These scammers also follow people you may know so I will now be warning those who may fall for it! Really appreciate post like these❣️
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Thank you for letting me this post is still showing up and helping people not get scammed! ❤️
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Someone named Taylor Barnes_arts contacted me on instagram about using my pictures as a painting for someone. Wanted my permission. The scammer said, “The person is interested in getting an anonymous mural this time. Rich folks, hahaha.”
Do not believe them!
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Thank you for posting this! This just happened to me, I started asking questions like why does your client want a picture of someone random and not of themselves? What are you going to do with my picture once you paint it? Why aren’t the other people you used on your page tagged? And they blocked me after that 😂 I never even got to the rest of the process. I was skeptical because of the whole payment and credits thing anyways bc I knew I would have to give them information in order to get paid and thats never a good idea.
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Good thing to be skeptical! You were right 🙂 Thanks for letting me know you found the post.
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Ah this just happened to me today too! I got as far as sending them my name email and bank name but as soon as they asked for my phone number I found this article and just said I’m not interested anymore and blocked/reported them. Hopefully they can’t do anything with that info other than maybe try to email me with a check, but I’ll definitely just block any emails they send me and do nothing with that check.
Honestly debating changing all my accounts that use that email as well and just deleting the account based on those scary stories above!!
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Some of the mural scam people get very threatening, but they don’t seem to be able to do anything but that! It would be a good idea to change your e-mail associated with your bank though.
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Thanks for sharing it, I’m a 22 year old girl and I immediately understand when someone wants to scam, as soon as I received the message I immediately blocked it, the profile is “linda.toffler_” please report!!
Unfortunately, there are many people who don’t know how to immediately recognize a scam, even older people, so surely this post will help them. Also with the new instagram update the message had ended up in the “offensive/unwanted/scam hidden requests” section.
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That’s good news that it is being filtered now at least! One small step to getting rid of so much scam activity.
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Thank you for this post! I received this today from a @greg_artstudion, I thought it was fishy from the start. My partner works as a threat researcher and thought the same thing. Reading your post confirmed it 😊
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Glad you were able to find the post and confirm your suspicions! 🙂
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I can’t believe I almost fell for this. I am a teenager and was so happy they thought my pictures were pretty! I gave more info like my name, number, and email. I hope they can’t use it!! My parents told me that it was a scam and I was shown this page. Literal life saver. I told the girl she was a scammer and she kept trying to convince me with fake screenshots of people that got the money. I told her “I talked to her clients” as well as “told Instagram manager the story” which I didn’t haha. But how could you do this like seriously. And they target more teens because they are more gullible to fall for it! Don’t trust maddie_jerome_10. Stay safe!
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I’m glad you found out before you got involved with the check fraud or sent any money! I know it’s a let down to find out it wasn’t a real offer though.
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I fell for this today 😦 both me and my friend did. My check didn’t clear yet and I didn’t send them anything but I did deposit the check. And then I contacted my bank and they said they can’t do anything until the check clears. But I’m so worried now. I’m going to the bank tomorrow to cancel my card and get a new one just in case :(( my friend sent them money back and then they sent her videos of people getting killed
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OMG they sent her videos of that?? That’s awful! It sounds like the crazy threats are getting worse.
You are doing the right thing to go to alert the bank and then get a new card.
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Thankfully my bank closed it all out and I don’t have to pay anything, my friend has to pay 3k back into the bank I feel so bad for her because she’s poor and doesn’t have the money
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Glad to hear your bank got it squared away. Sorry about the friend! That’s terrible.
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My son fell to a trap yesterday. I told him that it might be a scam but he kept on defending her that the artist is legit bec of sending some screenshots of her paintings and convo from her other clients. So I ended up helping him to deposit the cheque on my account but I told him not to send any money yet until verified. Today the money is already in my account until I read this thread. So I phoned by bank to verify bec I think it is a fradulent transaction I told, so they said they will put the money on hold until verified. Scary!!
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I’m glad to hear you called the bank and they’ve put it hold. I can assure you, it is a scam unfortunately!
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I don’t accept the check or anything cause it seemed too sketchy but I did tell them my bank name, email and phone number, is that bad? Can they hack anything with that?
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No, they shouldn’t be able to do anything with that. They could try and login, but would have to guess your password. But they are looking to steal money by having you send it to them, not by hacking your account.
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I just came across this scam. They actually commented on one of my post from a couple years ago saying they wanted to use my photo for inspiration for there clients mural. When I dmed them I immediately asked why it wasn’t a scam and they told me because I would be receiving money. I continued to ask more questions and learned that there supposed clients name was Johnson Bryan. Which flipped (Bryan Johnson) is an actual famous artist. At this point I knew it was fake and reported them. Just in case anyone comes across a savannah_spish71 please now it’s fake. Thank you for sharing your story!
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And thank you for sharing your story and the name of the scammer! The more people that report them, the better.
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Hi so I unfortunately fell for this and had send them money… what do I do now… they have my full name name of my bank and email.
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Make sure you contact your bank and let them know you were a victim of fraud! They aren’t after your info, they just want to money you sent.
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This has just happened to me. The account name is artof_jaydenkaleb. At first, I thought it was legit because the account seemed real (the scammer had photos published back in 2014).
But what made me suspicious was the way I became a third wheel between the scammer and the client. Why won’t the client directly send the money to the painter? Also, they both sent me the exact same instructions (with identical typos) to deposit the check. I found this REALLY suspicious.
“Once you have the front and back images of the check in your email
Then you open up the front image of the check to a fulll screen on your laptop
Then Login to your bank app on your mobile phone
Then You select the mobile deposit feature on the app and follow the instructions”
Full with 3 l’s? The exact same double spaces? Weird….
I called TD Bank (which was the bank written on the check to make sure it was legit and because I was hesitant and they told me it was a scam. Now I’m afraid because I gave the scammer my name, bank’s name and email before I realized it was fake.
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They are after the money you send, not so much the personal info. It’s much easier to have you just send them the money then try to hack into your account.
You should be fine to just block all contact and don’t deposit the fake check.
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