Commission scams: A guide on how to avoid them and find legit artists
Hello! I am writing this guide in order to hopefully help people spot scammers and art thieves, to teach people how to deal with them and to give people ways to actually get real artists for commission work.
For those who do not know, there is a recurring, extremely widespread type of scam where someone will advertise their commissions using stolen artwork, or (sometimes) traced or AI-generated pictures. This started (as far as I know) on Twitter, but it is currently in all sorts of social media (I have found them in Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Tumblr) and also on Discord servers, often large Discord servers requiring no invites or that are easy to find through Discord advertisement places.
These do obviously hurt both, the people seeking to buy a commission (who will either get their money stolen, or given a product that is not of the quality that was advertised), and the artists whose work is being stolen, who are not getting the work themselves. It is important for people to learn how to identify these people, and to quickly take action when possible. This post is kind of lengthy, so please press the Keep reading button below for the full guide! (And please do share this post around if possible- This is a very common scam and I have met far too many people who have fallen to it or have got their art stolen due to it, including friends and myself.)
So, how do they work? (in Social media)
In my experience, a lot of these scammers either run multiple accounts or are part of a larger scheme, operating in organized groups that follow similar tactics. They will very often use automated means to advertise en masse. Those in social media will make accounts that post some example artwork, often with a myriad of tags, in styles that do not match (see first example, featuring my stolen art :'')). They very rarely post anything that isn't stolen artwork, or have any actual real following they interact with properly. They will then very often spam heavily through replies (such as it happens in Twitter), posting hundreds of really similar messages in a short period of time. In the second example, you can see an account from one of these scammers that is using automated posts to garner attention, which are shared by similar accounts (notice the same exact wording between the first and third post). The third example (in the Replies tab) shows how one of this accounts replies "Hi" to every single message they get.
They will often seek posts from people who are searching for commissions, answering them (often with a "I do commissions, DM me") or other variants of that. (They often only share their "art" on DMs to not be caught stealing by the original authors.) You can see an example of that on the first screenshot below. On Twitter, Instagram and pretty much any place where you can DM people, they may also come to your DMs, often starting with a "Hello" or something so you answer to them, and then they will suddenly share their commission information (as seen in the second picture).
In any case, they rarely have publicly available commission sheets, and will only disclose their prices on DMs. They may share more stolen artwork in there. From there on, they will often speak in fairly broken English, and try to lead you to commission them. They will haggle the prices if they can- But they tend to be fairly steep, with them going up to $300 a fullbody, which tends to be unusual in people without a fairly established following or popularity.
They will often give you a payment method that does not allow for refunds- Such as sending the money to "Friends and Family" in Paypal. This is actually illegal for commercial work, so if you get an artist telling you to pay them through such a method, please do be incredibly wary: Professionals will use methods that do have an option for refunds.
2. How do they work? (on Discord)
On Discord, they will often enter in servers where there may be a place for them to advertise, or servers available through Disboard and other Discord-community searchable sites. Then, they will often not interact at all with the community itself, but they will jump to advertising channels and post about "seeking for work". I have found out that scammers operating on Discord do only very rarely also have socials, so look out for that. Do reverse searches if you can. Legit artists don't tend to join Discords solely to advertise, so look up "from: [name]" on Discord and check how they have interacted in the server, if they have done that in any way. See the first and second example for an example on how they behave. First example has art from @ydteus (in the second message, the dragonborn's source is unknown.) Second example is from one of these accounts who entered on a Streamers' Discord. Streamers and VTubers are very popular targets for these scammers. Third example (with art from absent_lambeth on instagram, and unknown for the second picture) shows another important point, which I'll explain below.
Many of these scammers do not have solid commission sheets showing examples and prices for them. The third one even mentions "it is under construction", fully knowing a commission sheet is expected. Not every professional artist has them, but most do. It is often expected that people who do commissions will have some sort of Terms of Service at the very least, even if they do not have a commission sheet.
3. What do they do?
They scam you. You may never get any art from them. You may get traced art, or art that is not of the quality they advertised, because the art they used for promotion wasn't theirs on the first place. Or you may get an AI-generated picture, too. In either way: You will find yourself with +$200 less in your pocket and no way to seek a refund. So, it's very important you know how to spot them BEFORE they scam you. I have known people who have lost their money
4. How do I actually spot them?
Simply put, they do not act like normal artists would. Let's make a handy list of suspicious behaviours to look for, though.
Most people who draw commissions won't directly DM you unprompted to ask you to pay them for work. If you get such a DM- Report as spam and block.
Most of them don't act like bots, either. If you're on Twitter or similar pages, seek for extremely repetitive posts, hundreds of Replies in their Replies tab that are copypasted or very similar. If you see that, report as spam and block.
Reverse search is sadly very unreliable nowadays, but it does not hurt to try. A lot of them will modify the picture so it doesn't show in reverse search, but try it- And seek if it links to a different account with a different name.
As an ESL, I hate to say this, but the grand majority of them have really broken English, so look out for that. Not every person with broken English is a scammer, but it is something common amidst them. You will notice they fail to communicate general information. Try to ask them for Terms of Service, for example: They will probably be unable to provide you anything (if they do even understand you.)
You will rarely find them on your own unless you frequent specific tags, such as "commission" or "openforcommission". Or even using completely unrelated tags in their posts. I found one of them using a tag about someone's death to cop violence on their anime art. These people mostly only interact with their fellow scammers, but not with artists you'd find through other means.
As mentioned above, they won't provide you a payment method that allows for refunds the grand majority of the time. If someone tells you to send them money "as friends and family" in Paypal, or through something life Ko-fi's donations (although this one is rare), do not pay them. This is a general advice: Do not use payment methods that do not allow refunds for people you don't know.
Ask them for a commission sheet, a webpage, their Terms of Service and other things. Professionals should be able to provide at least one of these, usually.
5. What do I do if I find out they have stolen art/if my art has been stolen?
If you have found stolen art, let the original artist known ASAP if you can find them. Ask for help from friends if you cannot find them.
If you're the artist, DMCA claim. Every page has it, it is required for them to have it. If you search "dmca form (and the website's name)", it should show up. Bsky only has it in mail form right now, but it's there. A DMCA claim is a Copyright claim, and as long as you can show that you posted your picture somewhere before they did, you can do it. The form may seem scary, but it is not all that much. They will ask for your legal full name, address, a mail + a telephone, the url of the post stealing your art, an url to where you posted it first, and to sign/agree to some terms. DMCA claims tend to be processed swiftly (in about a day) because websites can get in trouble if they allow for copyrighted content to be stolen. And you actually do have rights to any picture you have created without needing to trademark it or anything.
You may also want to ask your friends to help you report the account and/or posts. Often, reporting it for spam will give you the best results. DMCA claims will take down the offending posts, but sadly, reports in most major places are rarely taken seriously, but they may limit an accounts' reach or auto-flag it as spam in DMs, so it is still a fairly effortless option to follow. DO still DMCA claim them though.
6. Where do I actually find real people to commission?
Your best bet is through other real people. Let me explain some good methods for this.
Do you have friends who are artists? Ask them if they have commissions open, or if they know other people who take them. Artists almost always know other artists, and they can quickly find you someone you can trust.
Did a friend of yours get a commission? Ask them who was it from if you like the style, and they may be able to get you a link to their social media!
Do you follow artists for any sort of content you're interested in? (General art, fanart/fandom stuff, people you look up to, etc). You can check their work first and see if they have commissions, or if they share art from other people, and then check those.
Scammers really don't partake in fandoms or have art-related posts go viral (some get some follower-begging bait going viral, but that's it). Chances are that, if you found a cool art in your dashboard or timeline, it is from a real artist.
I think places such as VGen need verification for artists and have ratings. I am not personally experienced with it, but you may want to check that out.
You can always ask people to double check with you if you found someone but are doubtful about them being legit. If you are part of any community, do ask there! If you have artist friends, tell them! A lot of artists are acquittanced with the scam issue.
I have seen people do lists of artists available for commissions in places such as bsky, too. These can be an option, but always do verify that the people doing the list in the first place do seem like an actual person.
Ending notes
This is a very long post, but I really wanted it to be very thorough. I would greatly appreciate if you could share it around, as it is a very widespread issue that not many know how to identify. If you do find out scammers in Discords, please DM the servers' admins and link them to this post so they can get banned, in order to prevent scamming and art theft.
If you have any question or you need someone to help you verify an artist being legit or a scammer, my DMs are open for that too. I have talked about this a bunch in other places and I am fairly experienced with these cases, and I would be very happy to be able to lend a hand and find you an artist, if you do need the help. Thank you for reading!
Throwback...Tuesday? Sure! If you've been following me for a while you might remember I used to do tons of these one-off black and white character drawings. I was getting nostalgic looking through them in my files today- here's some of my favorites!
Honestly I have hundreds of drawings sitting around, I'd love to work with a publisher to put them into a book someday. I've been too busy to draw this kind of thing recently but I'm hoping to do more soon, they're always a blast to make! : )
Cover for the Flower Festival art prompt invitation (to be announced soon), and also Acrona's appearance for the spring festivities to come 🌺
The illusion flower is meant to represent an alor'el, which was once common in Kalimdor, and according to an unfounded kaldorei legend, only bloomed for a couple who share a perfect love 🌷
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