[7 Oct] PSA: Digiphase/yomedome/more@DA

pax Thank you! Their galleries have a lot of stolen art so if those artists know of anyone else whose art was taken (and badly photoshopped in some instances: https://www.deviantart.com/fluxionz/art/Rose-Spyre-ADOPT-2-CLOSED-791116365), I'll add them here, too.

Good job on the PSA!

Worth noting that the amount of accounts has helped show their tells:

- no linked social media/other art galleries/zero online footprint 

- claiming to be going through old art and selling them, possibly to explain the art style inconsistency

- making poor attempts at WIPs to increase credibility

- adding a name and/or a small story to the design

- blurry jpeg images, pixelated lines indicating poor color editing, just really anything that seems inconsistent

- and I can't emphasize this one enough; Absurdly cheap prices for illustrations

Some of these things may seem fine stand alone and aren't intended as criticisms, like adding stories to adopts is a neat feature. These just seem to be reoccurring themes and can hopefully help people protect themselves.

pax

I can relate with those feelings. It's great that the victims who purchased the characters won't be out too much money - unfortunately the fact that they're scamming users at all is also why I'm so irked by this whole thing.

I will add that listing the artists that they've stolen from is seriously useful. I was able to find the source of another piece that didn't ping in reversed images by doing some digging through those accounts. It's a blessing that they stick so close to their pattern.

Uploaded to Wayback Machine since archive.today is being stubborn for me.

Editing my comment here instead of double posting to add yomi043 made a deviantart account (seen commenting here) and has tweeted a post regarding it. They also notified the artist of that particular picture, so there's another tweet circulating that information as well.

I'm under the impression that the scammer is finding targets through character applications made to RP groups since quite a few of the characters found so far appear to be from an application, I suppose it helps them with getting multiple pieces to sell, so maybe their groups will see it. Hopefully some Japanese users will dig through that account and will be able to recognize some more artists.

pax

I archived it when I originally found it (link here), but sadly it does not include yomi043's post. Their comment was respectfully confirming the theft, reminding them of the illegality of their actions, thanking others for notifying them, and they linked the original art tweets while adding they reported the art pieces in question.

Thankfully their tweets can corroborate.

It's wonderful that some of the accounts have dropped! In a way, it's regretful since if this person could be contained, that'd be great. But it doesn't appear to matter how many accounts of theirs are active anyway as they'll sell from multiple accounts at once.

I noticed the gluecoz account flat out claimed to be QWRKQWRK, linking the FB on the profile section. I don't believe it's true seeing as the FB only shows artwork belonging to one person and the gluecoz account never actually posted their artwork aside from their profile image, but I found that interesting.

Heads up on another account maybe? My hope is that this is a legit person but they’re hitting most of the tells of this scammer (no social media; blank account other than adopts posted within the last day; dead, empty 3-year-old account that only just revived within the last few days and revived only to sell adopts it seems; blown-up overlays are quite pixelated; named an adopt something random and offbeat; and claiming to be selling old art on the first adopt).

I haven’t been able to find anything so far and am still holding out hope this is a legitimate seller, but putting it here in case anyone recognises the art or can confirm they know this artist and they’re real:

(link removed until something crops up)

So far they seem legitimate but sadly you can't be too cautious these days.

pax
I got home and luckily I did still have the page open so I was able to screenshot it. Not as good as an archive, but it'll also be good to keep track of yomi043's deviantArt in case our old friend pops up with more of their art.

https://sta.sh/0kywup92raw

Here are the links of their post archived, however:
Original - http://archive.is/Ol1Qh
Character - http://archive.is/zTfuc
Character - http://archive.is/nOwdR

Bronze_Coffee
That's an understandable reason. Their very first post on that account (digiphase), I and a few others requested progress shots. Their idea of a progress shot was putting it through filters to create lineart, then making it a greyscale, and showing a patch of color on the greyscale. It sadly convinced the buyer, but the rest of us realized it was not an actual progress shot whatsoever. It's definitely understandable to mistake that one as a legitimate progress shot if you're not a digital artist, so I don't begrudge them that.

We were really vocal about the intentions behind posting misleading progress shots, so of course they removed the post. Maybe they figured out "hey artists are on here too, crazy right" and decided to target an artist who posted their own progress shots. It's definitely nasty and I can totally understand how you would've felt that way!

Update. Yomedome @ DA is another of their accounts. MO exactly the same. This has become enough of a recurring issue that I’m recommending anyone with their PayPal address to post it publicly and to report that account to PayPal.

Ahhhh boy.

The age of the account is a tell too. 2 months old, around the time we got one of the accounts taken down.

I see that some people are finding the journal identifying this account. I'm glad they are. There's no way to keep this scammer out, but at least people are able to learn and hopefully they can stay safe in the future.

Mercer This scammer makes a few hundred off overly trusting people every time they do this, and they do this very often from the tip of the iceberg amount of accounts we’ve found. That’s easily more money than most deserving artists make within the same amount of time, so to see them keep doing this so blatantly even when they know people are aware of them is grinding my gears like nothing else. 

They make up some bogus every time about why they need the payment sent through friends and family and I just cannot stress enough to anyone reading this to never, ever pay in that method. 

If the artist’s account is legitimately locked from business payments, they better get that unlocked before they start selling things because absolutely never is it acceptable to demand friends and family as payment for a business transaction. That people give this the benefit of the doubt and pay through f&f at all hurts me a bit to read every time. Never give in to an artist demanding payment through friends and family no matter what reason they have—if there’s some “error” that is on them to figure out, not on you to compensate for by paying without buyer protection.