Wisconsin Portal Scam

I’ve recently been contacted by a scam artist and feel I should share this story with my fellow artists. Long story short: 1. “They”, from New York City, wanted to buy one of my sculptures off the “Portal Wisconsin” website, last Saturday, asked about price. 2. They replied to the price and said I should mark it sold immediately. They were just getting a job promotion and life was messy, the promotion included an out-of-town move, asked for my name, address, and phone number so they could contact me. 3. They informed me that they would send a check to cover the cost of the art and they wanted me to take the excess money, from the check, to pay a shipper who would be picking the sculpture up from me. 4. I replied that they should just send a check and I’ll ship the piece to them. They replied “no” because of all the moving they were doing. 5. A check came on Friday for $2000. I was to cash it “IMMEDIATELY” and take the cost of the sculpture out, then “IMMEDIATELY” send the rest of the money to their “shipper”, some character in California. HA!!!! Stop the music!!!!!
The check was from Pittsburg, some sort of children's foundation and it was sent to me from Puerto Rico. The senders name was someone I never heard of. My banker examined the check, found it was printed on a ink-jet printer like we all have, including the endorsement name that no one could read (regular bank checks are printed with regular printing presses, leaves different characteristics). I contacted the detective squad of the sheriffs department following my trip to the bank (no, I did not “cash the check”). I am now on record regarding this attempted scam. I have broken off all contact with these sorry individuals. To cement the fact that this is a fraud, the Wisconsin Arts Board sent me an email warning me of scam artists using names off the Portal Wisconsin website – too late, I’ve already been there and didn’t get scammed to boot. So, anyone getting such messages should be aware, if they don’t want the art shipped by you directly to their home it’s likely they don’t want your art, all they want is the money they will try and fleece off of you.
Ah the art world, what an exciting place, isn’t it??
Respectfully, Pat Plunkett, Visual Artist