Thank you for your report!
We have received your report and it is currently under investigation by a forum moderator.
Liars , cheats and scammers .
Welcome to the forum.
Here you can discuss all things art with like-minded artists, join regular painting challenges, ask questions, buy and sell art materials and much more.
Make sure you sign in or register to join the discussions.
Hang on Studio Wall
This is a Studio member-only feature!
Join our Studio membership and save your favourite Painters Online content, from gallery artwork to step-by-step guides, to your own online mood boards. Create your go-to place for inspiration and learning. Plus, members can also enjoy a range of exciting features including monthly art videos and a digital magazine library.
If you are already a Studio member, simply login to your account.
Not a Studio member? Why not try our free 30-day trial - no commitment, no credit card required
Showing page 1 of 2
- 1
- 2
Message
Posted
This whole site is being infiltrated by numerous lying and scamming people . On the gallery ,in the blogs and here on the forum. Sadly in my opinion it is being detrimental to the whole site , I'm beginning to doubt any newcomer posting on the site.
One I thought was genuine is Andi Williams but looking at his blogs and paintings I am pretty sure he isn't. This Twist person and Kenneth Li could even be the same person . There are more.
Please can this all be sorted out and cleaned up . It really is a sad situation.
Posted
I so agree. I really enjoy so much being part of this art community - especially as I am about as far away from the UK as one can get - find most of the Gallery such great inspiration and am really enjoying the discussions, so am pretty disturbed at the recent influx of liars and scammers. I would hate for the genuine people to give up contributing in disgust. I think Robert is going to do some creative deleting? One suggestion I saw on another thread is just don't reply to requests for opinions about dubious "artworks", as that just puts the thread to the top of the list. Is Dawn the person to take some action or does she already have enough on her plate?
Posted
It's not that we are gullable, but as artist's it is in our nature to want to be helpful if we can. This has backfired on this occasion and quite a few of us have wasted our time pointlessly trying to help these scammers.
This isn't always the case and there are many genuine people who have had questions answered by this forum team so there are positives to be had.
Sylvia, yes on those names and I would also add 15sdd and gina green. My apologies if I am wrong.
Posted
I only have moderating rights on the Forum, so everything is down to Dawn (who doubtless does have a plate-full to cope with in managing the site generally); I do discuss things with her now and then, but as my prime objective is to save her work, while also keeping the Forum usable, I try not to bother her too much: she knows that she only has to tell me if I go and delete things I shouldn't. It is difficult determining what's spam and what isn't sometimes - judgement comes into it; do you delete comments which don't have anything to add to the discussion and look as if they've been put there primarily to advertise another site? What if that person DOES sometimes make a useful comment....? In many ways, it would be good to have hard and fast rules, as they do on newspaper comment pages; but Dawn has striven to maintain this as a friendly site, open to all - so there are inevitably grey areas.
In the case of the Chinese art-factory posts - I think we've got their number now, and I have deleted some of them. What will stop them entirely is discovering that the free advertising they've cynically enjoyed here isn't bringing them any trade: because we recognize that at best they're just skilled copyists, we'll point this out, and this isn't a selling site anyway. It would be very nice if art buyers DID come here and make us fabulous offers for our work, but if that's happened to anyone else it certainly hasn't happened to me: and of course that's not what we're here for.
Ignore them? Yes - there's probably little point in doing anything else, since if a spam post is removed, it'll take all subsequent posts with it anyway, so your outrage will be wasted..... On the other hand, it is useful to know if people agree that a post is spamming us: and thanks again to those who report spam - I know there are occasions on which, usually after discussion with Dawn, some of these grey area posts remain, and realize that might be frustrating if you've reported them in good faith, but I hope you'll understand the reasons.
Posted
Just to let you know I see Mr Twist has posted two Ballet paintings in the last half an hour
perhaps the ONE A DAY theory might thought about again at least the general artists could keep a better eye on what and when pictures are being posted and paintings would not move quite so quickly , at least until this has been sorted out.
Posted
I had to raise my eyebrows in surprise at cheats, liars and scammers on an art site. An art site?????
I'm on the admin of a football supporters fan site and we get a few clowns, spammers and trolls posting (I've deleted messages of one idiot's posts on six different threads today (after showing him the door, and one weekend we were hacked by literally hundreds of posts from a Turkish site that almost closed udsdown) but can't see a grain of sense in why they do it. Youth, people with nothing to do, or, worse pure spiteful types who post just to be anti-social. It's football, so we expect some ding-dongs, fall-outs and language less than proper at times, but that's argumentative conversation, not empty-headed spite for spite's sake. I really didn't think to find mis-behaviour on here......but then again I got banned from a literature site for speaking my mind and I moved off a ballroom dance site to avoid replying to arrogant and ignorant self-serving know-alls who don't want any opinions but their own. I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised, being as "there's nowt so quare as folk"...being an old but true adage....but I am...😆
Posted
I think i missed a lot while i was away, and some of it not of the good kind :/ I know that many of us really value your experience and advice (this is to you all) and i'm sorry if that has been taken advantage of. Seems like someone thinks spamming the gallery and the forum is a good marketing tactic - a misstep and very annoying i am sure. Robert - I don't envy you trying to keep on top of it all.
Posted
Something I find a bit baffling is the fact that someone so skilled as to be able to copy materepieces to such a high degree would even try to sell them as originals? Why not paint their own work? Is there any indication they are attempting to deceive? If they are sold as copies and stated as so and acknowledge the ariginal artist, then what harm to anyone? I've done versions of several masterworks without the slightest idea of them being just that, my versions., and I never sell paintings anway, or even try to. Deception is the sin for me, not the copying, or, as Mr Darcy would say 'Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable."'😆
Posted
gwg, As I recall nobody gave you narrow minded or unfriendly comments, in fact quite the opposite. The problem occurred when you didn't agree with most of those comments on digital imaging and were unable to comprehend that we all have our own idea's and a right to express those idea's on any one subject. It was then that you made the decision to leave the forum.
A forum is a tool for discussion, there are disagreements over art related issues regularly on here but that is what it's all about, it keeps it interesting most of the time.
Sylvia has answered the issues regarding these nuisance scammers which have infiltrated our gallery and forum recently, they are being dealt with and I have had three of them removed having been scammed myself, there are still some out there but the forum moderator will I'm sure sort it all out in due course so that we can resume normality again.
Posted
I have some sympathy with gwg as I have difficulty separating the scammers from the genuine posters, Syd has already confirmed my admitted gullibility. I have not posted responses on a number of threads recently as I am now never sure if I am being helpful or stupid. Most of my, long retired, teachers would happily confirm I tend to the latter!
Posted
Jim - they copy because they find there's money in it; not necessarily much, but enough to keep the Chinese art factories ticking over. As you would know if you've ever tried selling original work - it ain't easy! That's why they don't do it (or if they do, it's not their main source of income). Chinese artists - those that work in these production line factories, there have been articles about them elsewhere - are very good; they produce very accurate copies of established paintings, and if that's what buyers want, fine. (It's not fine by me because it's just copying and hoping to benefit from another artist's work, living or dead, usually dead: but then I'm not an art buyer.) But invading a site to promote this work, under cover of apparently genuine posts, is not. The trouble doesn't lie in the copying, but in the passing-off; it is an attempted deception which relies in part on others' ignorance.
gwg - I don't remember all of the replies to your earlier post(s) so hope you didn't receive narrow-minded or unfriendly responses; but if you did, well - people have their off-days, in which a genuine thought might come out in an apparently hostile way: that's the nature of internet posts: you can't see the whites of others' eyes and can't tell how remarks will be received. As for your other points - the site is provided by The Artists Publishing Company; it's intended for the display of members' original work, from beginner to expert. It does not exist to provide a platform for other companies - and that's what these copying outfits are - to promote their wares. If the Fujian art factory, to name but one, chose to advertise in the magazine that might be one thing, but it doesn't of course - it seeks to advertise for nothing, in a non-commercial forum and gallery. If that were acceptable behaviour, we should be swamped with this stuff and genuine members wouldn't get a look-in.
What it may lead to should be obvious from a post I've deleted this morning - a company, probably from the very same country but possibly Russian, which also specializes in spam, offering fake passports, fake money, to anyone fool enough to buy from them. This is blatantly illegal, it could rebound on the company providing this forum, and it's the sort of free-for-all cesspit which would develop if we didn't remove some of these posts and discourage them.
Showing page 1 of 2
- 1
- 2