EBAY ART FRAUD: A GROWING CONCERN

Art fraud has been a problem on eBay, well, forever. But lately it has reached disturbing proportions. More and more of this fraudulent art is popping up as scam artists have discovered way to literally print money. This fraud has become a particular problem in the area of ACEOs, small format art that can be made and shipped inexpensively. Fraudulent art is not exclusive to eBay, however, that's where most of it can be found. Sadly, eBay is a safe haven for these con artists. Ebay will only remove fraudulent art if the original copyright holder comes forward. Otherwise, they prefer to turn a blind eye and happily collect their rather substantial insertion and final value fees.

Buyer Beware
To the trained eye, the fraud is obvious, but many art collectors do not recognize that their purchase is not an original painting, and simply believe that the "artist" has mastered photo-realism. There are several sellers on eBay right now who are PowerSellers, with Top Rated Seller Badges being displayed on their auction pages. This only serves to confuse buyers. By placing a Top Rated Seller icon on the fraudulent listing, eBay is essentially recommending the seller as being one of their finest. In reality, the fraudster most likely earned their PowerSeller status and Top Rated badge by the large quantity of items they've been able to move. A legitimate fine artist cannot produce quality art at a high rate, but a con artist can produce, list, and sell upwards of 20 items a day - enough to qualify for this level of seller status.

What IS art fraud?
There are many types of art fraud. Some are forgeries of famous artists, like Thomas Kincaid. You'll see this a lot with Chinese sellers, as there are no copyright laws in China.

Another form of fraud is the "paintover." This is where an artist paints on top of a photograph, usually with oils. This form of fraud requires some artistic skill in order to make the painting look realistic, though it's fraud nonetheless.


The type of fraud that seems most prevalent is fake watercolors (above), produced using a common technique called "water painting" or "printer art." Using this method, the scammer downloads a photo from the Internet (usually without permission), prints it on watercolor paper, wets it down, and smears the printer ink around with a brush, creating the illusion of a watercolor. Often, a few details (like whiskers on a cat) are added with some white acrylic paint so that there are visible brush strokes. Colored pencils are also used in the same manner. An acrylic medium or varnish will also leave brush strokes and help to further the illusion of a painting. The video at the bottom of this entry beautifully illustrates how the process is done.

Things to look for:
This type of art has a very distinct look to it. It may be photo-realistic, but is washed out, grainy, blurred, and devoid of detail. Colors are watery and drab, lacking the color pigment that would be seen with actual watercolor paint.

- The seller is listing in volume, perhaps 10-15 items a day. A true watercolor ACEO would take hours, if not days to complete. A fraudulent piece of art can be created in less than 10 minutes.

- Images may be stretched or distorted. This happens when the fraudster manipulates the photo in order to make it fit into ACEO size.

- The artist has no bio, and displays no work-in-progress photos. If you DO see WIP photos, they are usually not representative of the style of art that is actually being sold (in other words, you can also steal and/or manipulate WIP photos).

If you believe you have purchased a fake, scan it at high resolution or view it under magnification. If the work was generated from a computer printer, you will see a dot pattern, usually in magenta. The dots are most visible in the whitest area of the image.

The image below is a high resolution scan of a fake watercolor that I purchased on eBay for this purpose. The magenta dots are very visible throughout.


A real eye-opener
The following video is an incredibly well-done demonstration of the the process of creating a fake watercolor. The entire process takes less than 10 minutes from start to finish.

The cat below was created using the method shown in the video. It was listed AND sold on eBay. The original photo was downloaded from someone's Flickr page, and used without permission. (I have contacted the copyright holder and confirmed this). In this case, the photographer filed the appropriate VeRO forms and reported the copyright theft. This is a rarity. Most photographers never find out that their work has been stolen, doctored, and re-sold on eBay.


Can't you spot fraud by checking the seller's feedback?
Unfortunately, no. In most cases, buyers are unaware that they have received a fake, and leave glowing feedback. These sellers also have friends and relatives purchase from them to bump up their feedback. Most fraudulent sellers on eBay have hundreds, even thousands of positive feedback comments. You may notice that many of these sellers have repeat buyers who purchase large quantities. Consider this a red flag (it may be the seller themselves buying under a second ID). Your best defense is to use your gut instinct. If it looks like a photograph, it probably is.