Globalization and Me

Natalie Hyder
ARE6933
If its Too Good to Be True
Hello,
My Name is margaret lee pearsall ,I saw your Art advert and don't Know if you
have any available art work for sale? Can I have few images of your recent
works?I won't mind having your main website so as to explore more into your
works and for payment, will you accept bank check?.kindly reply back asap.
Margaret (M.L. Pearsall, personal communication, April 5, 2016)
A few weeks ago I got an email from what seemed like a perspective art buyer. As an
active artist in my community, my email address is linked to multiple websites and artist
directories. This is not the first email I have received like this and, I assume, it wont be the last.
Globalization through the use of the internet have given con-artists a new platform to steal
identities and scam money. We have all heard of, or received the Arabian prince inheritance
email, but this is only one of the many email scams circulating the web (Kircher-Allen, 2012).
What makes someone fall victim to these seemly overt scams? Why have artists become a target
to buyer fraud emails? Perhaps, it is the artists ego and hope to be discovered that can make
them fall victim to buyer-fraud scams.
Throughout my research, I found very few scholarly articles and just as few blogs which
discuss the topic of scams that target artists. As art educators, it is our responsibility to educate
our students of the possible ways in which they can be taken advantage of by scammers through
the internet. In this research brief, I will discuss how globalization has aided in the targeting of
artists in 419 scams and what students/artists should look for to avoid them.
Become Informed, Knowledge is Power
In the 1980s Nigerian 419this nickname came from the Nigerian code for fraud
scams started out as mail correspondence from the Nigerian Central Bank or Nigerian Petroleum
Company. The rise of Nigerian 419 telephone and email scams, have been directly linked to
globalization caused by the technology revolution over the last few decades (Caballero-Anthony,
2016). The more connected people are to the internet, the more susceptible they are to fall victim
to cybercrimes. Cybercrimes such as, data theft, credit card information and intellectual
property, is something that has become possible as more corporations are increasingly connected
through a dense web of information technology (Caballero-Anthony, 2016).

Globalization via the internet has aided in the rise of transnational crime. Readily
available access to the web has changed organized crime and given scammers access to wider
audience of victims in the last two decades (Caballero-Anthony, 2016). The use of internet cafs
aided in the rise of globalized identity theft in the late 90s. Although Nigerian internet cafs
now enforce a zero tolerance rule for email scams, the use public computers have currently been
on the decline because of smart phones and personal computers. New technology has allowed
419-scammers to work from home, with low risk of being caught (Kircher-Allen, 2012).
There are a few websites and blogs that worn artists against internet scams. Websites
such as, http://www.artscams.com list ways that artists can protect themselves from becoming a
victim. Be aware of overpayments and instructions to return the overpayment amount, be
skeptical of urgent overseas buyers and emails with misspelled words or grammatical errors.
There are also warnings against the use of vanity galleries and publishers that charge the
artist rather than taking a commission off of sales. These types of galleries and publications do
not have an incentive to market your work, since they dont make their primary income off of
commission.
Artist and blogger, D. Michael Coffee (2012) offers advice about his first hand
experience with scammers who target artists. Recently, he played along with a scam and was
sent a fraudulent cashiers check. In his blog, Coffee highlights the areas to look for in a fake
check. Besides the obvious security features of a cashiers check, a see through watermark,
security printing on the back and micro printing along the top border (Coffee, 2012, para. 5)
check to see if the routing number and account numbers are in the right place. Also, confirm that
the check number matches at the top and bottom of the check. Banks dont always know right
away if a check is counterfeit and are not held accountable for them. Fraudulent checks can take
up to a week for banks to identify and 419 scammers know this (Glickman, 2005).
Dont Let It Scare your Students Away
The first time I received this type of email inquiry, I was eager to see if there was a
potential sale. I am a skeptical person by nature, and after a few short emails I realized it was a
scam. However, some artists arent as lucky. Coffee (2012) notes in his blog, that after he wrote
his post on art scams, he was notified by various artists who had been fooled and were cheated
out of money. These scams are not limited to email, lately I have seen similar scams posted on
Facebook. Scammers rely of the naivety of young gullible artists and prey on older ones that

arent as internet savvy as our digital natives. Informing our students of typical internet scams,
and their warning signs, can prevent them from being taken advantage of.
As an educator, I focus my most of my attention on lesson planning and teaching
strategies that I forget the art industry has a whole other side to it. I should assume that my
students want to become artists and they should understand that it is also a business. The
business side of the art industry is something that a lot of artist and art students are ignorant
about and just like any business, there are con-artists, scammers, and pyramid schemes
associated with it. The internet is a useful tool for students to learn to promote and market their
artwork. We shouldnt let this scare our students away from using the internet to promote and
sell their art, just educate them on the risks of using public forums to do so. If it seems to good
to be true, it probably is.
References
Caballero-Anthony, M. (Ed.). (2016). An Introduction to non-traditional security studies: A
transnational approach. SAGE Publications Ltd.
Coffee, D. M. (2012, June 3). Close up of an artist scam... Retrieved from
https://dmichaelcoffee.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/close-up-of-an-artist-scam/
Glickman, H. (2005). The Nigerian "419" advance fee scams: Prank or peril?. Canadian Journal
of African Studies, 39 (3), 460-489.
Kircher-Allen, E. (2012). You've got fraud. Makeshift (4), pp. 21-21.