Hi Everyone,

I felt that I should do this article to bring awareness to all who reads it of a possible scam that could be happening.

The other day I received a email from someone I did not know with the Subject Line: the following: Artists for card collection

She wrote the following: (I am not including Her email and name )

Hello,
We are looking for talent digital artists to complete our cards collection for print. We will offer contribution fee and acknowledge artist on each artworks.
Do contact us if you are interested in the assignment.

Hope to hear from you

Thank you

Best regards,

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Well of course I did contact her because after all we are all trying to earn money right? Also I wanted to know more about this.
So after emailing her she wrote me the following:
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We are interested to print some of your artworks for our tarot cards deck.
Commission will be offered to you for each selected print. We will print your name on the card and of course decks will be sent to you once it is ready.

We will discuss more on the details if you are interested in our project.

Hear from you soon
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Well now I found this very suspicious considering that I personally have done work on commission for companies and they approach me in a much different manner. This woman is not very professional to me so I wrote her back asking if she was with a company etc.
she wrote me back the following:

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I am with a company. We are extending our new division for art publishing. Tarot cards is our first project. We hope to launch them by end of March into South East Asia & Asia Pacific countries.

I will able to get back to you soon on selected works. In the mean time, are you able to provide me abit information of yourself. (i.e. countries of birth, resident, qualification, experience in various design works and (later add on - what's the key factors to inspire you for these works)

We will be printing a brief background and photos of the artists on the recognition booklets together with the tarot designs.

Thank you for your support!

Best regards,

Singapore

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So now really suspicious because she did not say the name of the company let alone her email is not a company one its a gmail one which was odd to me, so I wrote the following to her this morning:
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Ok listen before we go any further on this I have to speak what is on my mind because its my nature. I will admit that little red flags are going up around this whole correspondence between you and I.

When I asked if you are with a company you reply with "yes" but do not name it? Which I find odd, why would you not announce your company name if you are representing it looking for artist's to commission?

You do not even mention how much will be paid to any artist. Would it not be more of a incentive when trying to commission a artist for his or her's work to let them know what you are willing to pay them?

May I ask why this project would be launch in just these countries and not in the States as well?

You see Joeyann I am not a child I am an adult and been a artist for 17 yrs. I do many commission projects for companies over the internet all of which approach me much differently then you did which is why I started to feel a bit leery about this.

There are many scams out there especially on the internet. I am not accusing you of this I am just informing you that I am very aware of this. I would like to think that you are legitimate and your interest in my art is legitimate.

But you must know this in advance I will tell you my name, I will tell you where I was born and my address, I will tell you how my skills came about in painting and what inspires me......

But.... I will never tell you my Birth Date, Social Security number or Bank information.

If you are legitimate and want to commission me with this project after choosing the artwork you wish to use and permission is granted from the stock owners of stock I used in the piece then you will be able to send me a check from your company, for that I will give you my address and full name.

This way I could take it to my bank to verify it is legitimate.

I do not mean to make you feel insulted by no means and I hope you understand why I said what I said. There are just too many scams out there and people have to be this way to protect themselves.

Any business would respect this if not agree that consumers must beware.
So I hope you are ok with me expressing my feelings on this matter
Sincerely

MistRaven
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I have not gotten a reply from her as yet but I wanted to share this with you all because I know many of the Deviants here are very young and something about this whole thing feels suspicious true I am going on a hunch but I am pretty sure she will not answer my email response.

My fear is she has contacted others here and for all I know she is legit. But just in case she is not legit.

Please young ones DO NOT GIVE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION SUCH AS BIRTH DATE, SOCIAL SECURITY OR BANK INFORMATION!!! If this person or any other person asks you for it.

This woman has not asked me as yet but I have a feeling she would of asked sooner or later because the way she wrote me was almost as if she is leading up to it.

So just beware ok, and if anyone else got a similar email and wish to know if its from the same person I got mine from note me and tell me her name and I will tell u if it is.