WARNING: Zolo-Adopts/pupsadopt (NOT IG PUPSADOPTS)

Posted 5 years, 2 months ago (Edited 5 years, 2 months ago) by cerviidae

I'm going to clarify that this is NOT ABOUT INSTAGRAM USER PUPSADOPTS. Pupsadopts on Instagram is the individual who had their art stolen and is a reputable adopt seller. They are NOT the scammer. The scammer stole their username and art. 

scammer, deviantART : zolo-adopts, pupsadopt (both deactivated)
scammer, PayPal e-mail : [email protected]

Proceed with caution if you see anyone with the user zolo-adopts on any site. Pupsadopts on Instagram has confirmed that they do not have any accounts outside of IG, so any accounts under that username are fake unless officially stated otherwise. 


UPDATE 1

I tried to ask for a refund, and they responded with this. :^) I'm not 100% sure on how to proceed... PayPal will allow me to open a case on the 5th so I may do so then.
For the record, I didn't receive any e-mail, not even one with the watermarked stolen piece.

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Okay, so on deviantART, I came across a $5 elf adopt for sale (dead link since deactivation). I recognized the username "pupsadopt" from Instagram user "pupsadopts" that I follow and assumed that it was the same person (I know I should have checked, but I didn't even consider it, tbh). I claimed the adopt, the DA user gave me their PayPal e-mail through comments on the deviation, and I sent $5. They then told me to note them with my e-mail so that they could send me the unwatermarked files. I did so, and then they deactivated. 


I've had this happen before, and I find the artist on other websites and usually they just deactivated for personal reasons and were going to follow through. I messaged user Pupsadopts on Instagram, saying that there was no rush and that they could send me the files whenever was best for them. They replied with this:

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I did a Google search "pupsadopt elf adopt", and found an Images result for the listing that I had "paid" for. They changed the listing to "Anime Elf Adopt CLOSED" after I purchased it.

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And in the same Google search, there were two more (deactivated) listings of other characters that they stole from Instagram pupsadopts:


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I issued a refund to PayPal. When doing so, their e-mail became available to me.

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Pupsadopts (Instagram) and I did more research. They googled the e-mail, and discovered a second deviantART account, zolo-adopts.

I then Googled the url https://www.deviantart.com/zolo-adopts (deactivated) and came up with quite a few results.
There were more listings on Images of art they had stolen and uploaded as adopts, one of which they presumably sold for about $28 since a similar one had that price:






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THREE

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Since all of the content is deactivated, there's not unfortunately not much can be done. However, I did want to put this up in case there were other people out there who purchased from this person, because they have a couple accounts and sold/listed who knows how many stolen adopts. I also wanted users to be aware of this scammer because it's likely that they will make more accounts; the two accounts that they were using were both being used at the same time just days ago.

I've never actually been scammed or made a PSA like this; if there's anything I should do or change, please let me know!



m0oniie

Hi! I wanted to know if the original pupsadopts has instagram? Do you know if they perhaps have a new username there?

fawnee

Pupsadopts is no longer on Instagram. Did they change their user?

cerviidae

@m0onplant fawnee 


Heya!! Sorry, this is an old PSA so I had to go through my Insta messages to find them. 😊 They are now seaboating!

https://instagram.com/seaboating?igshid=gy2b77e05y25