Crypto and "NFT" offers to buy your art

This is one of the most common scams aimed at artists today. A "buyer" appears out of nowhere, praises your work, and offers a large sum, but only if you sell the piece as an NFT. The offer is bait. The goal is to get you to pay a fee, hand over wallet access, or sign a transaction that empties your wallet.

How it works

A stranger contacts you through your site, a comment, or a social message. They offer an eye-catching amount, sometimes quoted in cryptocurrency like "2 to 3 ETH per piece." They insist the only way to do the deal is to turn your art into an NFT. From there, the trap takes one of a few forms.

• The upfront fee. They tell you that you must first buy cryptocurrency to cover a "gas fee" or a "minting fee," often a couple of hundred dollars per piece, and send it to a wallet they control. Once it arrives, the money is gone and so are they.
• The fake marketplace. They steer you to an unfamiliar minting site you have never heard of, and refuse to use well known platforms, often with a flimsy excuse. The site collects your fee, and sometimes your name and card details too.
• The wallet drainer. They send you to a page that asks you to connect your wallet and sign to "mint." Signing that transaction can send your funds straight to the scammer or quietly grant them permission to drain your wallet later.

The specific amounts and site names change constantly, so do not rely on recognizing a particular figure or web address. Recognize the pattern instead.

Warning signs

• An unsolicited, unusually large offer from an account that does not seem to know your actual work.
• Insistence that the piece can be sold "only as an NFT."
• A request that you pay any fee, in cryptocurrency or otherwise, before the sale.
• Pressure to use an unfamiliar marketplace, and refusal to use a mainstream one.
• A page asking you to connect your wallet and sign a transaction to proceed.

How to stay safe

• A real buyer never makes you pay to get paid. If money has to leave your pocket first, it is a scam.
• Never share your wallet's recovery phrase or private key with anyone, for any reason. That phrase is total, permanent control of your wallet.
• Do not connect your wallet to or sign transactions on sites you did not seek out yourself.
• Treat any "only as an NFT" pitch as a scam and stop replying.
• If you want to explore selling work as NFTs, do it on your own terms through a well known platform you chose, never because a stranger pushed you to.

If you've already responded

Move fast, the first hours matter most.

1. Call your bank or credit union's fraud department now. If you deposited a check or shared account details, they may be able to stop or reverse it.
2. If you sent a wire or money transfer, call the company's fraud line right away and ask them to stop it. Western Union fraud: 800-448-1492. MoneyGram: 1-800-926-9400.
3. If you paid by card, ask your card issuer to dispute the charge.
4. If you wrote a check, ask your bank for a stop payment before it clears.
5. If you paid with gift cards, contact the card company's fraud line and keep the cards and receipts.
6. Change the password and turn on two-step verification for any affected account, and report the message to the platform. Forward phishing emails to [email protected] or [email protected].
7. Report it to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and report online fraud to the FBI at ic3.gov.
8. Save everything: screenshots, messages, and receipts.

Be careful of "recovery" services that ask for a fee to get your money back. Those are scams too.