Advice on Artist Who Approached Me to Commission Them, but Is Producing Subpar Work

[GRemy84]

Within this month and last, countless artists have been approaching me to beg me to commission them, and I mistakenly obliged to a few, including one that swindled me out of $1000+ of my money (which I am still fighting, and I have reported to everyone in that regard), and there's one on Instagram who showed no examples of their work on their page, evidently showed examples from another artist via DM, and is producing subpar work when showing progress on my art, explicitly plagiarizing the reference images I provided them. How should I approach them?

[James]

Firstly, you should stop sending anyone who approaches you money. They are all most certainly scammers, not actual artists. 

Once you've already proven yourself to be a viable mark, these scammers will continue to approach you. It may even be that it'a all the same organization or the same person behind it all.

 

Stop sending these people money.

[Xaila]

I am in a hundred percent agreement with James.

There is a time and place where an artist hawking at/approaching the customer one-on-one is acceptable and fair game.

It is unfortunately not in an online space.

Are you even following these people who approach you first and/or doing research on them before agreeing to giving over your money? Because it seems you're able to discover they're no good after the fact so why not before hand?

[GRemy84]

Yes, I've learned (unfortunately, the hard way) not to deal with these people. Luckily I didn't send a lot of money to the artist in question I'm dealing with on Instagram right now.

[RTKobold]

Also seen this happens a lot on discord servers. especially since i tend to get these types and block on site. As well got some banned off servers. since it's very easy to find and report then. (There's usually big tells.) Artists don't dm people to ask for commissions. Since the art speaks for itself as well as experience.

Edited July 21 by RTKobold