Arty Business Ep. 12: Scams & Bad Deals pt. 2

Season's greetings friends and Patrons, and welcome to another episode of the Arty Business series, where I share some of the helpful things I've learned in the process of building my own Arty Business. For this 12th article in the series I wanted to issue some warnings about potential SCAMS & BAD DEALS you should try to avoid as a working artist.

This is the second of 2 parts to this article, since there's so much to talk about here. Have you read part 1?

The last three topics that I want to talk to you about today are:

• RED FLAGS - Signs that a bad deal or scam may be incoming!
• SCAMS - Outright scams that literally just take your money and run.
• BAD BOSS - Becoming your own boss just to be your own worst boss ever.

And since I know there's a lot of downers here, in November I plan to share an opposite Arty Business article on GOOD DEALS & INVESTMENTS, so let me know if there's anything you want me to include or discuss in that one.

Alrighty fellow Artists! Let's talk Red Flags, Scams, and Being Your Own Bad Boss!

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• Misspellings, Bad Grammar, Weird Email Address. This can indicate a form email, international scammer, or at the very least someone not professional enough to be a serious client. I also always like to check the email address to make sure it's coming from someone within the company they say they're with. It's not airtight, but usually a scammer won't even bother to make a realistic fake email address.
• Very vague. They don't write your name/business name, and don't talk about specific pieces. They might say something general like "I like what you've been doing on Instagram." or "I like your amazing, beautiful art." Sus.
• Rush! A scammer will often try to rush rush rush you into a decision, saying they need your art for their wife's birthday or for their new house. They'll try to rush you into shipping your product before you receive your payment. (And if a real client tries to rush you as an intimidation tactic, charge a rush fee or say no.
• Overpaid check. One of the biggest red flags. A customer, client, or new employer tries to overpay you with a check, telling you to keep some of the money and pay the rest for something else. That "something else" will go to them, but the original check will bounce and you'll have to pay the bank the full amount.

The next few aren't red flags for scams, but are trends I've noticed in emails from clients who don't want to pay a fair price for my services. If I see these in client emails I'm usually prepared for them to reject my quote.

• Talking up their numbers. ("We sell 800,000 of this product a year / You'll have 100,000+ customers looking at your work / We'll sell our product with your art on it for years!") This is the client trying to sneakily lean on exposure in lieu of fair payment. My biggest clients have never tried to flaunt numbers, because they've just paid me fairly. Remember, your clients will almost always be using your work to make money. You are doing them a service, not the other way around.
• Passion project. ("I know we can't pay you well, but most of us are working on this as a passion project.") Oop, guilt alert! That's great that they have a passion project! But it's not yours. Protect your passion time, don't let other people decide for you.
• Very unclear project. ("We're not really sure what we need or how long it will take or how much of it we'll sell, we'll figure it out as we go.") A serious client will usually take you seriously as a professional and come to you when they have a clear and complete proposal for their project. If you need to hold a client's hand through the project, it'll be much more work for you. Charge more or say no.
• Tries to make you feel bad. ("Woah, you want $1000? We don't pay anyone that much.") There is a place for negotiation in discussing payment, but a respectful and professional client will either try to find a middle ground that works for both of you or just say thank you and move on. Your prices aren't arbitrary and don't let a potential client make you feel like they are.

Check out the resources section below for more reading on red flags in emails and from clients.

+ Buying Followers 

Any "followers" that you can buy are bots or inactive accounts. Why even have followers if they aren't really there for your work? If you see a message or comment offering to buy followers, delete and block them.

+ Multilevel Marketing (MLMs)

Lularoe, Amway, Scentsy, Herbalife, Rodin + Fields, Lipsense, Arbonne, Avon, Mary Kay...

I don't think I have to get too deep into describing MLMs and why they are almost 100% a complete and total scam. But I do want to warn you that by pursuing a path in art you may be directly targeted by MLM recruiters.

As soon as I announced I was going freelance, a family friend from my parent's church messaged me to invite me to join her skincare MLM, because making money from art can be hard and with the MLM I could make up to $800 (or something like that) per month. I'd heard enough about MLMs to immediately say no, but I felt (and still feel) so targeted and manipulated by being contacted at that clearly vulnerable point.  

A 2017 study by Jon M. Taylor with the Consumer Awareness Institute found that 99.7 of sellers with MLMs lose money.

Don't try to beat the odds, don't think you can beat the game. You'll be spending your money and your energy to make that company money. If you need money while you build up your art career, work a traditional part-time or full-time job that actually pays you outright.

More reading in the References section.

+ RAW Artists Showcase 

Early on in my art career I got an email from RAW, saying they loved my art and that I should apply to participate in their Seattle event. At the event they promised a night of local music, drinks, art, and more, and customers would pay to come enjoy and purchase art. Sounds like a regular art market, right?

Except at RAW Artists events, you either have to pay the display fee of $300 (which is about as expensive as a table at a mid-sized 3-day Comic Con!) or... you can sell enough $20 tickets to cover your fee.

So you go to your friends and family to buy tickets to your event. Which is what all the other artists are doing too. So nobody at the event is really there to shop, they're just there to support their friend's new art endeavors.

There's plenty of tiny local art markets where you can stand awkwardly around for three hours while no one looks at you or your art because they're there to drink and hang out with their friends. And they won't require you to sell the tickets to the event for them.

+ Job Scams

So many people got laid off during the pandemic, and so many people were suddenly trying to work from home that these job email scams have been THRIVING and we HATE IT.

I'll let you read more about this type of scam from the Federal Trade Commission, but here's the version that my friend came so close to falling into:

•  He applied for a job on Indeed (or they contacted him from his LinkedIn profile, I can't remember which.)
• They said they wanted to interview him for the job BUT they wanted to do the interview through an encrypted messenger service ("for security".)
• They "interviewed" him through a messenger service. (According to Norton Security, a legitimate company will never interview you though a messenger service.)
• He got the job! Now they're going to "send him some money" to buy a work-from-home desk set up from their provider. (Could also be training, career counseling, software, etc.)
• Remember the overpaid check red flag? Here's the scam. If he were to deposit the money and then pay it to the desk provider, the original payment would bounce and he would be out the $700 he paid for "the desk".

So scummy to prey on people hopeful about getting a good job after getting laid off during a pandemic. More on how to avoid job scams from Norton security here. 

+ Art Email Scam

A variation on the previous email scam that preys on artists in particular. I wanted to highlight this one because a mutual on Instagram recently lost $1500 to this scam. Here's how it often goes:

• A customer wants to buy a piece of art for their spouse's anniversary/birthday.
• They want it to be a surprise so they want to pay with a check and want you to use their special shipper.
• They mail you a check for the cost of the painting PLUS the cost for their shipper.
• They ask you to deposit the check and transfer/direct deposit/wire the shipper their extra money.
• AGH the check BOUNCES, so the additional money you sent comes from your own account.
• And THEN they may even ask you for a "refund" of the additional price, which would again be YOUR OWN MONEY.

Here's a great write up with examples of emails from this type of scam, and examples of the type of intimidation tactics they'll try to use to get you to follow through.

+ Other Spam Scams

I'll quickly list some other spam scam emails, or emails that are just advertising pretending to be an opportunity. You probably know these already, but in case they're new to you:

• SEO fix for your website!
• Web development services for your website!
• Google ranking for your website!
• You underpaid for your website! Pay us now or else!
• Super vague copyright infringement complaint!
• We make enamel/lapel pins/washi tape!
• Instagram Promotion with (Famous Person) + You!
• Apply to our Design Award Competition!
• New social media platform and you can be an Exclusive Beta user!
• New Print-On-Demand platform and you can be a Beta seller!

Lol to the spam folder you go.

I can't talk about scams and bad deals without talking a little bit about what I think is the most common bad deal artists give to THEMSELVES:

Leaving a traditional career to instead become their OWN worst boss possible.

How many freelance artists talk about working incredibly long hours, on weekends, no free time, no vacations, and no sick time? How many artists work their bodies until they literally break or strain, and then keep working even then? How many charge so little for their services that they can't afford health care, a home, transportation, or to save for their future?

As my own boss I've paid myself steeply below minimum wage, made myself work on the weekend if I had an unfocused week day, and berated myself when I didn't complete every conceivable task I needed to complete for the month in one day. I've given myself way more work than I could manage, isolated myself from colleagues for months, made myself work through lunch breaks, and skipped paychecks when I didn't need to.

This doesn't come from nowhere, of course. It comes from all kinds of terrible hustle culture/"starving artist"/capitalist systems nonsense, and I can't get too deep into it or this article will be 10 more parts long. I just want to implore freelance artists to start thinking of themselves both as an employer and employee, and for your employer to stop massively exploiting and abusing their only employee. Changing your thinking about your art career should affect the way you charge clients, structure your work day and year, accept or decline jobs, everything. 

One big thing that helped me start to shift my thinking about this career was talking to my colleagues (fellow artists) honestly about how I work and pay myself. Sometimes they told me honestly that I was charging too little, being too hard on myself, or overworking myself, and that honesty helped me a lot. Thank you especially to Lucy and Francesca for being two of those colleagues.

Another hugely helpful move was buying the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook for Pricing and Ethical guidelines. This seems so obvious, but I've never read anything that so clearly refers to working as an artist as labor, with associated labor practices, dangers, structures, etc. 

Here's a sentence from the Workplace Safeguards section of Chapter Three: Professional Issues: "While employers are responsible for creating a safe work environment, self-employed creators should make a safe setup a priority to avoid future disability." Just this concept feels wild to me, because it feels like social media makes the aesthetics of your studio and workspace a priority over it's safety. I think it makes aesthetics of the career in general a priority, to our detriment. We are workers, not an aesthetic dream.

I think we all have to work to set ourselves up for better, healthier, more sustainable success in this career, and that starts with changing the way you think about yourself as a worker.

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+ Freelance Client Red Flags - Article from InVision

+ Art Email Scams: Red Flags - Article from What Art School Didn't Teach You

+ Multilevel Marketing video from Last Week tonight with John Oliver 

+ How Much Money Do You Really Make Selling Stuff Like Rodan +Fields? by HowStuffWorks

+The Case (For And) Against Multilevel Marketing - Book by John M. Taylor for the Consumer Awareness Institute

+ Is RAW the Biggest Art World Scam? - Artists Beware series by Cat Graffam

+ Job Scams - Article from the FTC

+ Don't fall for online job scams - Article from Norton Security

+ Email Scam Breakdown - Video on Fake Copyright Infringement Scam by Detour

+ GRAPHIC ARTISTS GUILD HANDBOOK: PRICING AND ETHICAL GUIDELINES (You can also buy an older edition or secondhand to lower the price!)

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TLDR;

Talk to other artists! If you aren't sure if something's a scam or a good deal, ask other artists! Trust your gut! And do your best to value your time and skills as a valuable resource.

There's no way to completely safeguard yourself against scams or bad deals, sometimes you just have to learn through making a mistake. There's absolutely no shame if you do, they're successful scams and bad deals for a reason. It's the scamster's shame, not yours.

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That was a LOT to go through and I hope it was helpful to you! Were any of these new to you? Did I miss any big scams or bad deals that you want others to know about? Do you have any experiences with being your own bad (or great) boss? Let us know in the comments!

Next month I'll be back with the GOOD DEALS opposite to this article, so drop any questions or suggestions you have for that one as well!

As always thank you so much for reading this and your support. 

Stay strong, stay confident.