Sell safely, avoid the common scams

First look at the profile: how old it is, real followers, precise questions about the work. Be wary of urgency, vague compliments and any request to advance fees (shipping, customs, “release”). Above all, follow one simple rule: you only send the work and the certificate once the money has genuinely cleared into your account. A MycreArt payment request lets you send a clean, secure summary without shipping anything in advance.

After — never before. The certificate is part of what the buyer receives with the work once payment has cleared. Beforehand, you can explain what it contains and show QR verification. After payment, your settings determine the attachments; the QR remains verifiable online.

It's the most common scam scenario. The cheque looks good for a few days, then bounces — and the bank asks you for the sum you had already “refunded”. Never advance fees for a buyer, and prefer a card payment, whose settlement you can see in your account before shipping anything.

Favour what you can verify: card payment (Stripe), or a transfer genuinely credited to your account. Avoid cheques from strangers — especially foreign ones — which can bounce weeks later, as well as instant, irreversible peer-to-peer payments. And never pay a “fee” to release an incoming payment: no legitimate payment service works that way.

Yes, it's a common and healthy practice. A deposit (often 30 to 50%) at the order commits the buyer and covers your initial work; the balance is settled before delivery. It's also a good filter: a serious buyer accepts this framework, a scammer often refuses it.

A real collector is interested in a specific work, knows your practice, asks normal questions and behaves normally around payment. A fake one stays vague, flatters without looking at your work, rushes you, suggests an unusual payment method or an imposed shipper. At the slightest doubt, move from private messaging to email and offer a secure payment: the reaction tells you a lot.

Almost never when the offer arrives by private message. The pattern, flagged by artists' societies such as ADAGP, is always the same: a "collector" offers to buy your work as an NFT at a flattering price, points you to a platform of their choosing, and there "listing" or "minting" fees must be paid upfront — sometimes several hundred euros. Once paid, silence. The mechanism is the one behind every scam: you are made to pay in order to get paid. The rule doesn't change — you never advance fees, on any site suggested by the buyer.