Ah Scammers. Got to love them. Well no, not really, but they are everywhere out there, nipping at the heals of self-published authors everywhere. Recently I’ve had some ‘interesting’ run ins with them on Fiverr, and I wanted to share how I spotted them. Because while you can find some wonderful deals and very good artists on Fiverr, you also see a lot of people who do some pretty unethical things.
Examples? The most common is using artwork that isn’t theirs to use. A few months ago I ran into an artist who was using art from four other professional artists as their samples. How did I find this? Two ways, Tineye and Google Image Search/Google Lens.
Scammers will often do this, nick someone elses work as their ‘front image’ the one you see while scrolling through. It will look suitably epic. You look at the pricing and it’s great, you think, this is it. This is the artist I want to work with. But wait dear author, you need to check. What are their other images? Are they the same style and detail? And of course, what do the image search tools say? Tineye is an extension for Chrome, and Google Lens/Image search is built in. I use both. Simply right click the image and look it up. If it shows up elsewhere, and nothing on that page says anything like the artists name? It’s almost always a scam.
The fact is scammers are everywhere in this business. From bad editors to fake artists. You MUST be vigilant, I’ve learned that the hard way. (See *HERE* as to why I say that.) Scammers aren’t going to stop, but you can be ready for them. And oh, if you do see a scammer on a site like Fiverr, report them. Be proactive, don’t let the scammers find a new victim if you can help it.
