Monday, November 03, 2008

Where in the world is kevin Stokes?

These things are starting to come in at greater frequency. Artists File Online has a discussion board with a lot of these scams listed. If in doubt about someone contacting you, please be sure to check in there to see if a history already exists. Please feel free to share your communiques'. The more these people are exposed, the less likely it will be that someone will get caught up in their salacious scheming.
My name is kevin, I am an individual art agent and interior decorator from Glasgow,
scotland. I got an order for the supply of some artworks from a group of client, and when
i came across your portfolio on your site, while searching for good artworks, I found some
of them to interest me and fit what i am looking for, and I intend to market these items
to my client and also negotiate a price that will include your price (i.e your selling price) and a mark-up as a profit for my effort.
Payment will be made directly to you at the price i am selling and i will expect you to ship after payment clears and send me my commission /margin afterwards.
My client prefers to make payment using a credit card as this is much easier and cost
effective for an international transaction thus will provide you directly their credit card for payment.
Please let me know if you do commission work and if you accept master card payment after which I will let you know the items we are interested in, and we can proceed with the order.
I am looking forward to a long term working relationship beyond this order.I am sorry I do
not have a website yet but it should be ready soon however you can always contact me if
you have any question and I would get back to you as soon as possible.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Best Regards.
kevin Stokes
kevinstokes12345@rocketmail.com

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I got one of these emails from Kevin Stokes. He is not on the scammers list. Is he a scam artist?

Art

Anonymous said...

I'm afraid so. This letter is very similar to one written by Alex David.

If you get a letter like this, that has grammatical mistakes, misspellings or has a payment scheme like this one, please look through a few letters.

Anonymous said...

I just got one, and asked for his number. I just tried to call him whilst I was googling him I found this page. No doubt a scammer. Why pick on artists? Don't we have a support system to protect us from this shit?

Anonymous said...

I received this email too. Needds to get english lessons.
I received this on 11/16/Bummer!!

I almost got excited about this!!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it is kind of and awful little scam. Artists aren't alone, though. I am sure other industries run up against this too.

I don't know if there is a page where these are listed. I think the Artists File Online has kept pretty good track on their message board.

Anonymous said...

Yes, identical letters are on Artists File Online with different fictitious names. I just got a letter today. You never want to assume it is a scam but you can compose an easy reply asking for a contract or payment by PayPal on your site...expend as little energy as possible without discounting anything...also the search on google for scams.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I got it too (11/17). Thanks for posting so it was easier to research and then ignore.

Anonymous said...

When I've made sales online, the inquiry usually includes specific questions about what is on my site. A dialog usually develops before there is any discussion of transaction details. This letter, for instance, goes into a lot of detail about the transaction but never mentions shipping or details about specific works. To my mind, those are dead giveaways.

Anonymous said...

I also got the same letter 11/17. I am glad I looked "him" up. Thanks for the input.
dubious

Mike D said...

Damm, I got so excited about this, that sucks, but I don't understand how the scam works.

Anonymous said...

Hello Mike,

Generally, the evil person will send you a check made out for more than the purchase. You are supposed to send back the difference. In the above case, you would be sending back the contact's "commission" on selling your work.

Depending on how far you go, you would be out the contact's commission plus whatever artwork you sent out.

Anonymous said...

I also got this same email. Google analytics tells me that I got a hit on my own website from Pittsburgh on Nov 12th. Is it possible that this person actually operates out of Pitts? I live in the southwest.