ARTISTS BEWARE!

In an email on December 6, 2009, "Mary Lee" offered to buy a painting she had seen on my gallery website, saying her husband "Jim" would send me a check. When the check arrived on December 15, it was for almost twice as much as the asking price. Through several emails and a phone call, they/he/she said that I should get a Western Union money order for the difference and give it to the movers when they came to pick up the work, as it was to be shipped to South Africa.

The name of the moving company was given as Dolphin Movers, apparently a legitimate (?) moving company, and the contact came from "David James" [dolphinsmovers1@yahoo.com], who gave the following information in an email [sic]:

James Carter.
For: Dolphins Movers.
The atlantic House.
48 Caledonian Road,
Kings's Cross.
London D 4 7 BT
UK.
Agent No..206-338—3153

In another email "David James" sent me the addresses of all the Western Union offices near us.

The check came in an envelope with the return address: VONNIE TAYLOR (which was printed on the envelope)

(then, hand printed [sic]:)
Jeff Harrison
7301 6th Ave
Tacoma WA, 98406

The postmark was virtually illegible, but it appears to be from Atlanta, GA. We still have the envelope and the emails. The bank has the check. Unfortunately, I do not remember the bank it was drawn on.

We deposited the check with RBC Bank of Moffat Rd, Semmes on December 16th. I refused to do any more about it until the check cleared. Today the bank refused it (AND charged US $5, even though we had reported the scam to them - they'll be hearing about that!)

So the moral of the story is BEWARE! It turns out to be a well-known scam, and had I fallen for it, I would be out quite a lot of money, and worse, one of my favorite paintings would be gone, and probably trashed. Looking back on it now, I probably should have been suspicious from the beginning, but at least I grew to be. It's easy to think someone I didn't know would admire my work enough to ask to buy it - it's happened before after all. But in this case, it was merely a scam.

You can read more about it here.