spammers targetting OPS artists?

[sundiver]

Has anybody else been getting a lot of spam/scam emails about the paintings they posted on the OPS website?

I've had 3 in the past couple of weeks. It's that usual scam where they are moving to a new place. They so far have been from "Michael Silverberg", "Jerry Goldstein" and "Heidi Schreiber". The wording is identical, or almost, and the English is bad.

I googled the wording and sure enough, it's the scam where they send you a cheque for more than the amount, and you give the shipper that arrives at your house the difference, then the original cheque bounces and you're out the money.

I only get the phony requests about the pictures I have on the OPS site and if they were doing it from my blog they would know that the paintings are either already sold or in a particular gallery and they would have to go through that. Some have been on WetCanvas, but some haven't.

I doubt there is anything we can do about it but wanted to give a heads-up and also find out if anyone else is getting the same thing.

Perhaps I should have sent this in to the OPS blog itself. I'll copy it to there too.

[Pat Isaac]

Hi Wendy,

I have been getting things like this for well over a year and so have many of my friends. It is not just the OPS website, but anyone who has a web site as many of my artists friends have received the same emails and they have nothing to do with OPS. Also my artist friends who don't have web sites have not received any, and there have been alerts everwhere regarding this so most everyone just dumps the emails.
However, maybe they are just starting to hit Canada.

Pat

[aolaranora]

Nothing like that lately, but had few before... they all pretty much the same, easy to figure out. I have my way to deal with those guys - just send them to one of my gallery directors for negotiation... after this offer they always get lost for some unknown me reason! :-)

[halthepainter]

These pop up over and over again. I just had one supposedly from Galveston, Texas.

[halthepainter]

I just had another one pop up just now in my "Junk Folder." It said that I just won $1,000,000 legally. The message said it was from the FBI. I guess I probably shouldn't have deleted it. :eek:

A few years ago a friend fell for the scam. They paid her with a certified, cashiers check. She mailed off the painting and the excess money they had sent. A couple months later her bank demanded the money back because the certified check was counterfiet.

A lady where my Son works, received notice that she won the Canadian Lottery but she had to pay a processing fee. My Son said "Do you remember entering the lottery"?
She replied "No but I won." She paid the processing fee and of course that was the last she ever hear of it.

[gekai]

Just signed in and saw the thread. Actually I have had emails from all the three mentioned and the English is indeed bad. Didn't know how the con worked, though. Thanks for the heads up

[RainySea]

I've gotten two such emails. Heidi Schreiber was one of them and one from Michael Silverberg. I ignored both of them but both did seem to come from viewing the ones I'd posted on the OPS website.

[CarlyHardy]

This type of spam email also shows up in the website email boxes. I have the spam alert set high for my personal emails and seldom get that type because they are targeted to a large volume of emails. And when one does get through, it goes to a filtered box so I can look at it without opening it.

I've also recently gotten messages alerting me to payments on Paypal (which were fake). I never open messages like this. Go to the Paypal site and check your account without clicking on any links in the suspicious email.

Got one of these recently from the US Government which said they were trying to send me a payment....lol...was a fake. But the strange thing is that several weeks before that I had sent some information to the IRS concerning my taxes. If I hadn't been so suspicious, I might have opened that message without checking it out.

carly