HOWDY HOWDY! I had somewhat recently made a post inquiring about artists who I could commission a plush from! While that is no longer occurring (I realized I am broke lmao not important), one of the offers made to me INCLUDED ART THEFT!
Below are the screenshots of our convo!
I got suspicious by the contras of styles and lack of work on their page! After all, if you've got work that good, why wouldn't you show it off, right?
So I did some image searching and found laladollieshandmade (aka just LaLa Dollies) on instagram! And decided eh, what's the harm in reaching out?
Got this reply today!
SO! The work shown on by so called Cary-here is not theirs! While I am unsure of the third plush's creator (and if anyone knows or finds them lemme know so I can inform the maker/give a proper shout out-) I know that this person was falsely claiming to be the creator of the first two plushes!
Please check out LaLa Dollies on insta if you are interested in the first two, I believe they just did a restock! And avoid getting scammed people!
I got a feeling a disclaimer won't deter scum like this but if you're a complete stranger coming into my dms trying to convince me to commission you, I will call you out and block you, I'm fully aware of the scam.
My inbox is open for character related questions and for moots (I think it is open rn anyway idk)
Not for creeps trying to get my PayPal or credit card information.
Don't be like this person who already tried. I'd suggest reporting and blocking the account.
WARNING - The attached images contain mature language referring to the content of explicit fanfic. 18+ only.
So I had a message on Discord the other day from a stranger. To me, this could be anything from someone contacting me about an event I'm running or a genuine person who found my contact details listed on AO3 or my Carrd site.
But it sounded exactly like a spam/scam bot, so I'm going to share the conversation here with you all both for amusement and as a good list of warning signs to look out for when receiving messages like these!
All images contain Alt Text for those who cannot read from the image.
Also please note, that is just the display name of the user not their Discord username. Please do not attempt to contact anyone with that username.
The red flags: the opening is very generic and then they didn't mention which work they read. Personally if I was contacting someone about a fic I loved so much I wanted to talk directly, I'd mention it right away.
Next, the question is very generic. The piece they're referring to is part of a series, and it's very very easy to see the series started a couple of years ago.
More below the cut! And it gets spicy as I decided to humour the scammer and see how far it would go, because that work is about 75% explicit sex.
So here you can see I'm keeping my responses incredibly dry, because I can tell this is bullshit and I'm just waiting for the line to drop. You know the one - "I want to draw something from your fic" - and I'm just itching to bring up the actual contents of the fic because only the first few thousand words are SFW.
Bless the scammer they really think they have me on the hook with continued messages, but I'm not having it. Notice how they ignored me asking to see these supposed messages and reviews on my works.
Then that actual part where they talk about it? That's a two sentence summary that's included in the first part of the fic, very typical of an AI generated response. Essentially, they fed the text to the bot and told it to give them details about it.
Now here I realise I have them close to where I want to pull out the actual details of the fic, but because it's explicit, I checked their supposed age first. If they were under 18 that would be an immediate halt - "my works are not appropriate for your age group and it is not appropriate for us to discuss them, I'm blocking you now please do not contact authors of mature or explicit rated works in the future"
But they kept going, thinking they were forming a genuine bond here.
Here's what we've been waiting for, of course they're an "artist"
I actually ended up leaving this on read for 12 hours, I wanted to write and I was curious if they'd just push it further on their own or not.
So here we go, here's the art. I reverse image searched and they came up with nothing so if they're stolen I can't find the source, if they're genuine then this "artist" doesn't have any online portfolio or social media presence which is very unusual for an artist.
Also notice the red flag that the signature does not match the username they're contacting me with.
I don't know if these are AI generated, genuine, stolen, or something else, but the messages remain suspicious.
And anyone waiting for the bingo? There it is - "I have an idea about your story for illustration"
This is the typical line, doesn't specify the scene, doesn't give any other details, and this is what the scammer will generally use to start "work" on the piece then demand payment from the writer. Or they'll guilt trip the writer with a sob story about how they're desperate for money for a pet/illness/family member/education/etc etc. They prey on kindness and people who struggle to say no in the face of pressure.
And this, friends, is where I pull out what I've been waiting for all along.
This would not be a surprise to anyone who read the fic or even just read the tags to be honest. It's all right there. I'm also not lying, I'm proud of those scenes.
Again, not exaggerating, and hilarious that they're taking the bait and asking for more details on the scene after sounding horrified about the graphic sexual content. So we can assume that many of these replies are also from AI of some kind.
So these "ideas" are very clearly AI based, because the sky isn't dark, Raphael isn't just "disguised" he's completely changed his face, body, and outfit so it would be pointless to try and show him in that scene. The balcony is also in the Boudoir, and they don't stand out there brooding looking lonely either.
So I brought it back around to push it again, but of course if anyone wants to draw a piece inspired by my works genuinely they're more than welcome to do so.
The finale gets a little anticlimactic but I was bored of dealing with an obvious scammer so we are rounding it out now:
So there you have it, after sending the last message I hit that block button and went back to doing useful things with my time, but maybe I put them off trying with other explicit writers, took up time they could've spent on people who may have fallen for it, and hopefully this can serve as a good example of what scammers look like when they contact you out of the blue.
They've tried this shit on AO3 itself, on Discord, and on Tumblr too.
Be aware of the red flags, and if someone is being really vague on the details that's a huge red flag.
Hello all, I made a MASSIVE BLOODLINE SHAMING mistake by commissioning an AI “artist”. They did not tell me they were using AI, and I was stupid enough to not recognize the signs. The person (or maybe they’re a bot) goes by the name of Delores and the tumblr account they were talking to me on is @deloresinbloom and ofc I’ve blocked them now. Here’s what happened:
I posted my college au fic on Ao3, they commented on it praising me in vague terms and then asked how they can chat with me about inhun fic ideas and the like.
I started talking to them on tumblr and then they said they’d like to draw art for my fic, I was obviously shocked and super elated that I didn’t stop to think how weird the whole situation was. They then asked for a commission, it was pricey.
They sent me some artwork of their previous projects and now I realize it was all AI. Their profile had no posts either. But back then I thought it was legit so I agreed.
They took about 17 days to finish the whole project and only sent me one outline pic of the work, no other progress pics.
Finally, I posted the “art” and asked y’all to follow them and commission them, please don’t do that btw, if you haven’t learned from my mistakes.
Anyway, that’s the end. Thanks for reading about my insane fuck up. And please don’t fall for something like this, like I did. And if you’d like more evidence of this or want to talk about it, feel free to dm me!
Watch out for art scammers, fic-writing folks. They’re getting smarter.
I received a long, thoughtful comment on my 60 Seconds! Fic that seemed genuine. I happily replied to the comment because it talked about plot points in my story. Then they wanted to talk on another platform, likely to sell me crappy AI-generated art.
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Be safe out there.
