In an article from December 27,2022 by Artsology a person stated that she operated a separate business from Artsology and maintained an Instagram account for her paintings. During the past few days,she’ve gotten a number of strange direct messages from unknown accounts requesting to purchase her original artwork as NFTs. Giving her the benefit of the doubt,she replied to her initial question and informed her that while she had never produced any NFTs, her original paintings were for sale. She insisted on buying her artwork as NFTs despite her claim that she only collected NFTs. She asked if she could teach her on how to turn her work into NFTs so that she could sell them because her profile on her account said that she was an entrepreneur and coach. She gave her the name of a platform that she should utilise, but something about her messages felt strange. She had a rare spelling for a common name, so she Googled it and came up with nothing. As she advertised herself as a coach, she next searched for her name using the terms “entrepreneur” and “coach,” but this time, no results were returned. She ceased communicating when she informed her that she was unable to locate her online to confirm her identification.
There are scammers everywhere, so it’s not a big concern, but she thought it was strange that a few hours after that exchange, her personal Instagram account received two more direct messages from two separate random identities with very identical language to the first inquiry’s opening words. She didn’t react to either of them, and as she checked them to share the wording with us, she found that messages have disappeared despite her not deleting them. Although she didn’t follow through with the first enquiry,she has a gut feeling that whomever is operating the scam was encouraged by the fact that she did. Perhaps they reasoned that if they kept sending her similar messages, they might eventually persuade her to use a different account.
Inquiry number two came in today, so she responded to it and started a conversation merely out of curiosity. This time, the “buyer” provided a price, however he remained silent regarding the specific works of art he was interested in purchasing. He persisted even after she admitted that she had not created any NFTs, but his texts also gave off the strange impression that the dialogue wasn’t proceeding naturally. He then indicated that he wanted to pay her so that he could convert her work into NFTs, and he offered to pay her a portion of any sales he might make, despite having before claimed to want to buy her art as NFTs. He eventually stopped responding as she kept asking questions.
The idea that she would receive four inquiries in 36 hours about purchasing her art in a legitimate way as NFTs would seem unlikely given that her personal art profile contains no information about NFTs. Furthermore, given the lack of knowledge she has about the process, there are probably many opportunities for scammers to smuggle their way into the system.Another inquiry she received a few months ago stated that his wealthy clients were eager to purchase NFTs and were willing to pay significant sums of money. He only requested that she has to pay a “gas fee” to assist him in converting her art to NFTs, and he said this repeatedly:” pay the gas fee, it’s only the gas fee, and I’ll show you how to do it after you pay the gas fee”. The conversation with that man ended because it was illogical in every way.
Conclusion
NFTs are quite popular right now because they give artists and content producers a method to sell their collections for hundreds, if not millions, of dollars. NFT trades alone reached a staggering $17 billion in 2021, a 21,000% increase from the previous year. Regrettably, the rise has also drawn a flood of NFT scams.
You could lose your NFTs or instantly lose all of your money thanks to these scams. Even worse, you can purchase NFTs that vanish before you can make a profit.
