If you receive a comment on your art or photo posts asking you to "sell" your work as part of an NFT auction, and promising you big money payouts, it is a scam. They want you to download an app and send money before you get all the benefits of the darkweb NFT auctions they allegedly oversee.
Most recently, @harrynewton07 sent a comment on my recently posted photoset. I asked for some basic professional details in there and he initiated a DM conversation instead.
(Sorry, I can't post the last screenshot as tumblr limits it to 10 per post.)
Note: "21st Century" doesn't exist. If you search Discord for that server, there is only one and it's about gaming. At the time I was messaging this scammer, I could not be bothered to check. But I have now and no relevant results come up.
The scammer never sent an actual server invite. If the server exists, it is not discoverable, and thus I can't verify anything he is saying anyway. I would assume that if I said I can't find it, he'd send a phishing link masked as a discord invite.
Googling brought up "21st Century Auction House" as the summary for a (now-defunct afaik) server called Portion.io. This appears to be legit. Without digging into it, I can't tell, but often scams look legit on the surface. If you look up Portion.io itself, the website clearly states it WAS a crypto NFT auction house using ETH. It no longer operates.
These scammers are likely using it as a front. They are mimicking it.
They provide no business details whatsoever, no links to legit websites, no email, no past portfolio or clients, and avoid every single question that attempts to get any background on the "company". A real art dealer or company would have all this information available, especially if they are dealing in thousands of dollars per transaction.
This scammer could not even provide me with a business name. If this had been Portion.io, they would have said. And also Portion has an entire website and contact details, etc. (I do not actually know if Portion was legit either, but at least it has some presence online.)
All he did was give me his "name" and where he allegedly lives. Neither is likely true. Harry Bart, yet his username is Harry Newton. And he supposedly lives in Amsterdam. (Very doubtful. I am going to guess based on the influx of such similar scams that he is based in Nigeria or India.) And kept telling me to download an app and join his discord server.
He often got frustrated with me, and accused me of being ignorant, having a bad temper, and alternatively, calling me "buddy" and "dear".
These are all red flags. Everything in this convo is a red flag.
But the biggest red flag?
ANYONE soliciting your art from tumblr.
No professional art dealer or auction house will ever solicit via comments/DMs on tumblr. Sorry, kids. They don't. They will go through professional channels, especially if the sums of money involved as large as this particular scam was claiming.
These scams are specifically targeting tumblr users because overall it is a userbase of non-professionals, teenagers, young adults, and artists desperate for clout and validation. This makes the userbase more naive and easy to convince. The scammers also tend to use very flattering language and "lovebomb" you.
Now, are there actual users who want commissions and such? Sure. But those will be obvious regular users. The accounts that do these scams are always new, very short on any biographical info, and randomly reblog inconsistently. Some in the past catfish and steal entire profiles from real people from Instagram or FB and pretend they are those people. This one doesn't even bother to do that.
Professional and legit dealers/buyers/auctions/galleries will never go about business this way. They will have established online presence, they will provide actual details that can be cross-checked, and they will generally have a good grasp of the language they are communicating in. They are business people. They also will not be sourcing from tumblr as real buyers will need to ensure they are buying original work that the user has the rights to. There is no such security on tumblr where anybody can steal anything and repost it as their own.
As someone who has been approached by various individuals/companies for use of my photos over the years, this is NEVER how they do it. And it is never done via DMs on tumblr. Not once has any solicitation on tumblr not been a scam. And not once have they ever said they only work on Discord and only trade in crypto.
Do not download anything they tell you to download. Do not login to any website they send you. Do not give them any money or banking details. Do not fall for their lovely promises of fame or big payouts. Do not assume because they have an account and/or some website/discord that they are real.
If it's too good to be true, it is.
