I would check if the image can be found in any post.
it is always good to check everything

on telegram I use " FindFurryPicBot " to search for the origin of the pictures that others pass on.

ooo thank you for this info! I didn't knew something like this exists ;w;

it is useful to search for the artist of the drawing. or to find in which sites it is published (some not very precise).
if it works of course XD, it doesn't always work.

I had a scammer note me saying they liked my fursona and asking if they could have permission to draw them. I said yes and they asked if they could send me some reference material on Discord. When on Discord they said this was actually a commission they were proposing and that they wanted to be paid. I asked for their portfolio and they sent me cropped images of other people's art.

Unfortunately I was not able to report them on FA because they were smart and only sent the incriminating stuff over discord. The moral of the story is to communicate over FA if you are at all suspicious, because that way you can get them banned if they slip up. They tried to get me to join a discord group with their "team" too. It had about 16 people on it, so I suspect they are part of a group of scammers.

Their FA username is michael-art by the way in case you encounter them. I just don't have the evidence to make a case against them. (so if you don't fully trust me, at least be careful if they contact you)

I'm sorry this has happened to you. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for this very important info, buddy. Stay safe, everyone. Love from Indiana!

Scammers have been very keen on the furry fandom as of late. Whether they're scraping popular art YCH posts for desperate buyers, messaging people on social media or Discord directly asking for customers to buy their fake commissions, or even more brazen like trying to sell fake fursuits or convention room share splits.. it seems like furries are a little too trusting with their cash and falling for internet tricks that should be easier to sus out.

Good on you to make the PSA though. More people should be bringing this stuff to light and putting people on guard. We don't want to be known as the fandom full of scams. :(

Jokes on the scammer, the artist already ghosted me a year ago. :D

wow

Well not this one, I'm sure Hyilpi is great. <3

thanks!

Хм, ни разу не выходила на подобную ветку, но буду иметь в виду! Спасибо за пост!

Thanks.

I'm to the point I don't even feel comfortable buying YCHs anymore :(
I want to support smaller artists, but it's just no longer safe.
I've been ghosted, forgotten, and screwed by too many artists here

Don't even want to add up the lost money

damn I didn't know how bad it was makes sense why nobody wants to do ych :/

Funnily enough they've had language barriers which ended up working out hilarious for me. Usually when someone comes up and contacts me, they're trying also to get onto personal information to use your art to alter it for scams later on.
I've had some that were talking bad english and since I'm quite experienced with both my languages, which are German and English. They try the worst and even try to get onto me with German, I've had dozens of those Scammers block ME instead of ME blocking them! Since a while I'm just vibin' along and just ignore any incoming friendrequest which seems fishy for me, since they try to contact on Discord first.

Thank you for posting this! It will help a lot of people hopefully.