When somebody approaches you to buy your art on line, do you cringe? I'm starting to. I got approached this week by a man named "Harry Westhood" who was interested in a watercolor abstract that I had on my art website. We had a series of email exchanges and after the third one I was sure that it was a scam. He wanted to know the price of the work, and if he could pay by check (I told him that I preferred PayPal) and that he had a shipping agent that would contact me (a tip off). I told him that it would take 2 to 3 weeks to clear the check before I would ship the painting. Then I asked him for his complete contact info in order to proceed. He ignored my request and answered with a long list of information that he wanted from me: address, phone, cel phone, etc.
I decided to google "Harry Westhood" and the first thing that came up was "Harry Westhood, Art Scam", a posting by another artist who had been scammed by him. That was lucky and my gut level was right. I emailed him back and told him what I saw on Google and that I could not proceed with the transaction. What a waste of time - this has happened three times in the last year. Things to look for: (1) A sense of urgency. (2) Poor grammatical use in the email. (3) Wanting to pay by Cashiers check (sometimes a greater amount than you are asking) (4) They want to use their own shipping agent.
A couple of hours after I sent him the final email, he approached me on my alternate email with the same pitch all over again....only this time his name was "Harry Westwood".
