First Method

As artists be very weary of the first method, because sending and receiving files is a natural part of the job. Clients will often send you zip file with images, pdf, videos etc.. so it makes it easier to pretend to be a client.

First way to save yourself from this is to turn off this stupid settings “hide extensions for known file types”

It makes it sooo much easier for scammers to trick you.

Every file on a computer has an extension. It tells the Operating System how to open it. Which program to use etc. Jpeg images are opened with your gallery app, mp4’s are opened with a movie player, .c4d files are opened with cinema4d.

So image.jpg is obviously not a virus, it’s just an image. BUT exe files are often viruses. .exe files are executables. Apps. And they can be very useful. You’ll notice all your media players, games, software etc are all .exe files.

The scammers goal is to convince you to open a bad exe file. So what they will do is make the following name:

Image.jpg.exe

And windows will HIDE the exe part!!!! So you will see it, ( image.jpg ) click on it and you will now have a virus which can steal all the information on your pc. Spy on what you do, make copies of your emails, intercept your emails etc..

SO MAKE SURE WINDOWS ISN’T HIDING EXTENSIONS!

Generally be very wary of files with any extensions that are not jpeg, jpg, png, mp4, pdf or other stuff you frequently use.

A good example is .SCR . It’s officially a screensaver file for windows. But in reality it’s just an exe file with a different extension. Windows runs it exactly the same way.

PDF FILEs

Pdf files in general are common and not problematic. BUT the program you use for reading pdfs may have lots of flaws. Because it has lots of “Features” like web access and updates and all kinds of weird stuff. I’m sure they were added with the best of intentions. BUT hackers and scammers take advantage of them. ESPECIALLY in the most common one Adobe acrobat. So to be safe, use something else. I recommend foxit. Or just use your browser to open them. Microsoft edge actually does a great job of viewing pdfs.

Second method

These are basically all based on Either the Nigerian Prince scam, or the Couch for sale scam.

Nigerian prince

The original was

“Hi I need your help I have 10 million dollars! I will send it you, then you send me half back to an account in another country, and you can keep half for yourself”

You enthusiastically agree.

You are then told that you need to send a small fee of $100 to verify the transaction before recieivng the money. This will often come from a fake account pretending to be your bank/paypal etc..

And then you obviously don’t hear from them after sending that money.

I personally experienced a very convincing form of this. Someone reached out and discussed a real sounding job of rather large volume. But then they said they wanted to send a workstation and monitors. Which was strange.. Because.. Well they could just send me an upfront deposit so i could order locally.. I gave them a fake address, just to see what happens.

And then I got an email for a fake DHL account that said i needed to pay import tax to receive my package.

This is their scam. They get the “Small” fee from you.

Couch for sale

This scam is most commonly used on market places in the US, because people still use checks there to pay for stuff. But variations of it exist in other sections of the internet.

You are trying to sell a couch. Someone reaches out to you, asking if its available.

They ask if you accept checks, and send you a check, but it turns out to be for more than the cost of the couch. They ask you to send the extra money to the moving company which will pick up the couch.

If you do that, you will lose that money. And the original amount will be taken away by the bank, because the check was fake, or from a stolen account. And the owner will report it as fraud. But since you sent the money to the moving company yourself ( it’s not actually a moving company, just pretending). You can’t get that money back.

The variations of this include fake emails from paypal/payoneer etc.. and clients who insist you refund them the extra they sent you. Or some variation of that.

Sometimes you will receive the money in your paypal account or stripe. But then the card they used to pay turns out to be fraudulent/stolen and the money is refunded.

In short be VERY weary of anyone who has sent you more money than they promised and demand a refund.

Pig Butcher Scam ( bonus )

This one isn’t really targeted at artists per say.. But it is very common, so I decided to cover it just in case. Someone will message you on watsapp or telegram and ask if you are “Alex/Jane/Carl.. Etc”. And then you will say “no” they will apologize and try to start a conversation with you.

They will ask you where you are from, what you do etc..

Then they will tell you about an amazing investment opportunity, and how they can help you learn to make money from investing like they do. In recent times this is mostly crypto, but can be just classical stocks too..

They will direct you to a platform for trading. It will let you deposit money, but probably not withdraw it.

They will tell you that large popular platforms are impossible to make money on, but these little known niche ones are where all the big bucks are made.

I do not know why its called the “pig butcher scam”…

Quick Red Flags:

They ask you to send them a DM / what’sapp message / telegram message, switch platforms.
They ask you if you can receive a payment by SKRILL / Payoneer
They are in a super hurry with an easy project. Talking with you non-stop until you make a payment back
They make a domain with Cyrillic alphabet, which looks like the exact service name

Soo… Stay safe.

Cheers,

Aleksey