This is a cautionary tale for all artists especially of the 'starving variety. We all need the money but....be careful! I painted this watercolour to form part of my contribution to the "Colours of the Wolds" Exhibition held at Bridlington Spa in August 2012. It was a selling exhibition and I always maintain that the best critics are the ones who part with their hard earned cash, so you can imagine my delight when I received an email asking to buy it. The customer was named Peter Reich and he had seen it on my Fine Art of America webpage. I had uploaded all my images onto that site on the same day we started the 'live' exhibition. He said he had seen it there and what was the best price I would take for it. Now a sale is a sale - so we negotiated £400 unframed plus postage. He said he would send me a bankers draft for an amount to include that plus enough to cover postage and packing. He had a 'bone fide' collectors page on Fine Art of America and I had no reason to doubt that things were kosher, so I removed the painting from the exhibition and waited for my money. It took about a week but finally an envelope arrived with a postage stamp from Trinidad and inside - a Barclay's Bank Draft for £800. Yes - £800. Now let me see...£400 for the painting..why that left £400 to cover the shipping costs. Mmmmm...very strange. I took the the draft down to my bank who pronounced the draft as genuine but just to get final confirmation I also called in at a Barclay's branch. They too said it seemed like the real thing, but if I would like to leave it with them overnight they would check it out for me. The following day they rang me and guess what....it was a fake.
So what's the scam? Apparently although my bank would have accepted the draft, it takes 21 days to clear. In the meantime I would have sent the painting and the balance of his money, after deducting shipping costs, to his nominated address and have been well and truly out of pocket! Good job we followed the old Yorkshire motto - "If it sounds too good to be true...it probably is!".
Finally, click on this link and enjoy some 'proper' music - a good old fashioned rocker from the Beatles.
So what's the scam? Apparently although my bank would have accepted the draft, it takes 21 days to clear. In the meantime I would have sent the painting and the balance of his money, after deducting shipping costs, to his nominated address and have been well and truly out of pocket! Good job we followed the old Yorkshire motto - "If it sounds too good to be true...it probably is!".
Finally, click on this link and enjoy some 'proper' music - a good old fashioned rocker from the Beatles.
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