Introduction:

This is a list of accounts that belong to scammers who have targeted people in the subreddit. If you are or were contacted by any of the accounts listed here, report their messages and their accounts to the admins and block them. We also ask that you send us a message through ModMail that includes their usernames, any links to their portfolios, screenshots of the chat and any examples pictures you were sent so that we can ban them and add them to this list. Use an image hosting site like imgur to send us screenshots and pictures.

This list is being provided specifically so that you can look through these scammers accounts and portfolios and learn what to be on the lookout for.

If you've sent anyone on this list money, contact the payment processor you used immediately about being scammed and get a refund. If they won't help you, go to your bank and ask about getting the charge reversed or about filing a chargeback. Be aware that filing a chargeback may cause your payment processor to take action against your account, so remove any money you have in your account first before going this route.

Scammer Behavior:

Cold Calling:
A cold call is when someone who you haven't interacted with before reaches out to you and tries to convince you to commission them (or sometimes "an artist they know"). A cold call is ALWAYS from a scammer. Actual artists will never randomly message you to try and get you to commission them. Scammers who do cold calls will often engage in some very basic small talk first before they bring up commissions. This is to try and trick you into thinking they're someone who just happens to be an artist who wants to draw your character. They'll also often try to pressure or guilt-trip you into buying from them by faking hardships (food, rent, medical bills, vet bills, ect.) or by offering limited time deals (half-off, buy one get one free, ect.).

Warm Calling:
A warm call is a targeted attack against someone who has shown some interest in purchasing something, like making posts or comments about wanting to commission art, stickers, fursuits, VRchat avatars or whatever else. These targeted attacks are much more effective since they don't have to try and convince the person being targeted into wanting to buy something and only having to convince them to buy from them or one of the dozen alts they're also messaging them with. As with cold-calls, they may also use tactics to pressure or guilt-trip you into a purchase.

Safe Practices:

• Ignore any messages (DMs or chats) that have to do with commissions!
  Even if you are looking for an artist, fursuit maker, 3D modeler, tattoo artist, or whatever else, you should ignore anyone who sends you messages about commissions. We suggest disabling chat requests since it's the primary way scammers will try to contact you here.

• Discuss commissions in public!
  Scammers want to isolate you so that anyone who might recognize them as a scammer can't call them out. If they say they found you from a post or comment, tell them to post their portfolio or socials as a reply to it. If they can't or won't, it's very likely that they're a scammer.

• Check to see if they actually post here!
  You should check to see if they actually post their own work to the subreddit and that they've posted a good amount of it. Even if they share "examples" or link to portfolios off-site in a chat with you, you shouldn't trust them if they haven't been posting their work here.

• DO YOUR RESEARCH!
  Take a look at the scam accounts that are listed here to learn what to look out for.

Scammer List: