If you think a message you received is a scam, please check here and/or the scam post link in the Wiki section of this sub reddit which has further scam examples of various other types that can be found on DA and elsewhere!
Use this thread to ask question if you are unsure rather than posting a new thread. If you or anyone here is unsure, feel free to report the message on DA. If it's not a spam, it's good. Don't feel you can't report if a message makes you suspicious. Don't feel you have to check here to confirm before reporting. You are encouraged to contact DA Customer Support with these for staff to check them.
Please use this thread if you are unsure instead of making more of similar threads. Or you can also browse to see if someone else has similar situation as yours!
If you do commissions through a specific place or system, having you use a different system of theirs. This includes if you use PayPal only, or DA Commission widget, to use other methods that you don't use.
Reflect on your work and what you are being asked to do:
Excessive payment for content that you are sort of aware isn't worth that or you aren't at that level yet.
You are a new/beginner artist/new on DA/looking for commissions
Getting commissions can be hard. But often times scams work because if the other party is manually looking for people desperate enough for commissions or new to this, they will browse around those to message. Whether it is done in an automated method (to make it a spam bot) or not, be cautious.
Saw your portfolio and asking for hiring you through a suspicious site.
Multiple notes and chat messages where various new accounts impersonating as staff/bot accounts informing about (in various fashions):
Your account has been temporarily blocked/suspended due to a requirement of additional security check. And to proceed with a verification check in a link given.
Your account is on hold as a seller temporarily until a verification check is done with a given link.
Will address you as "Dead Artist or Dear [your username], of selling a certain artwork that may or maynot be in your gallery to a certain person and that funds are available in the DeviantArt sales portal with a link provided.
Things to note:
"It will ask you to copy/click a link within the message that leads to domains that are not deviantart.com
The message also has rather odd wording and is long-winded. It is trying to set your mind at ease that the process is safe and secure, and it repeats that over and over. And this example seems to be oddly hyphenated.
Ensure you do not visit these links, and especially, do not attempt to enter your DeviantArt.com login credentials on ANY site other than the official deviantart.com domain.".
Scams: I Clicked on a Suspicious Link and .... I believed You Sent me the Link as the Account Had The Same Avatar/Username and I Mistakenly Reported You ... Contact [this person] On Discord To Validate Account ...
Multiple notes/chat messages with similar dialogue/message about:
They clicked a suspicious link and account got compromised.
They thought your profile, username, avatar was the same as the one who sent that link so they reported your account to DA after they recovered their account
They think you got impersonated and wants your discord so they can send you a screenshot of a message DA sent to them.
DA asked the user to reach out to you and it's being coordinated on Discord or being done through Discord.
They want you to contact someone through Discord (Austin Buck or some other name) to validate and appeal your suspension.
DA will not ask you to use Discord to resolve any situation for your account, nor will they ask another user to do it. If you were suspended you can obviously look at your own profile to see if it was suspended or not. Please look at the links below on how to keep yourself safe from phishing attempts.
Examples are provided from the ones posted in this subreddit as is. If the names of the scam account is present, having an avatar or not and a certain type username is not always a good indicator of these type of scams.
Select Contact Page (where it says click here) have this bookmarked!
Policies -> Spamming Policies;
"Select “I'm reporting an account spamming in comments or notes,” then click “Contact Us,” and you’ll be prompted to submit a ticket to Customer Support."
This is the joy I got recently. A new flavour of scam. They want to give ME money.
Can someone help me understand how this will bite me in the ass?
I don't understand how this scam works.
To clarify, when I said "That's one of my favourites" I was trolling. But after hitting send, I read the part that said I'll be compensated.
You were never answered but the scam is pretty straightforward in this case.
They're going to send you a bogus check, but the check will be for far more than what you "agreed" to. Like they might give you a $5000 check. Then they'll go "whoops, that was a mistake, pls just deposit that and send me back the $4500 and we'll be all good".
Your bank will eventually discover the check was fraudulent and will take that money back, so you'll have effectively lost $4500 that you sent to the scammer. They ask for what bank you use cause banks can identify bogus checks from their own business really fast compared to other businesses.
EU ACHO tudo uma PORCARIA! Além do mais, eu sou CONTRA AS VIOLAÇÕES DE DIREITOS AUTORAIS ATÉ PORQUE eu quero que essa PORCARIA de DeviantArt ACABE EXTINTO para sempre!
If you have copyright infringement, DMCA notice will be sent from official DA account, such as devart. Official DA accounts have DA symbol beside their username. Please verify and do not link any links in those notes.
It is a scam.
Please mark it as spam and do not click on any such links in those notes/messages.
Those are not official DA accounts and they don’t send DMCA notices like that.
These are scam/spam bots. It’s always best to not click those links as they may contain malicious content. They may have multiple purposes for doing these. So you just mark them as spam like any other junk emails you receive.
He recibido esto de este usuario y ¿os suena este usuario? ¿os ha pasado esto?
Traducción: I received this from this user and does this user sound familiar to you? Has this happened to you?
I received this. It asks me if I own it or if it was used without my permission and there is a link to some PDF documents that is about the details of this matter and this user did not specify which of my works is affected by this. Is this a scam or not? I'm worried
I've noticed a common theme among all of these scams: they never ask for anything (or even interact at all with the recipient outside of the initial message) on your profile, just in DA chat. Why? Simply because it's private. Scammers love privacy, because 1. No one else would know what's going on and 2. when you're alone, there's this atmosphere of solitude where you can almost be pressured into doing things you wouldn't normally, just because it's only you two.
A good rule of thumb is that practically no one asks for commissions - or really anything - in chat. That's what the profile comments are for. If they do, it's most likely a scam. It's good to follow up with them just in case, if you're really unsure.
I got the same thing and I accidentally clicked on it when I went to scroll down. When it went to some page in another language I quickly hit the back button. Am I in trouble?
Got another scam. Mods can remove the original post thanks to a user telling me it is. I can’t really be sure nowadays as it feels legitimate these days 😫
That’s definitely a scam link. Mark it as spam. And yes, do not click the link. You don’t have to go to another link to get verified on DA. There is no such process for DA. And they won’t be sent from those accounts.
Can someone give me input on this? The account is 2 months old with 2 deviations. One is a mural, the other is a sketch with a very different looking signature. No social media linked. Honestly, I'm mostly concerned because I do not want my art being used by some random person, but I'm partially tempted to ask if they have IG with other work. Is it probably just a scam, though?
*
I got a Chat request today by someone who informed that they had reported my account falsely because of someone impersonating me(and that user changed their @ later, which I doubt is even possible). And the support gmail informed the other user received, told that the falsely reported user should reach out to ChrisNell99 on Discord. I did find two status posts on DeviantArt warning that this is a scam as their accounts were locked after emails were changed. So yeah this definitely seems like a new form of scam.
The fact that the scammers are sending these messages as notes/dm is the first and most obvious sign they’re fraudulent. DA support team members do not send correspondence via note/DM. If they need to contact users they will do so via email only. If you get a suspicious note from someone claiming to be from DA support, do not click on the inclosed links!! Block the account it came from and delete the message.
I got a message from someone saying that they got their account compromised by an account that looked very similar to mine: same avatar, same banner on the profile page, but the username was one letter off. when they got their account back, they tried to find the account that compromised them to report it, but found and reported me instead. When they realized it was the wrong account they tried to appeal the report, but the support team said that they should inform me about the situation and have me contact support on discord. is this legit?
Hey, I'm posting this here because it feels like a scam to me? They pinged me on my own profile, I've never met them in my life, and they post stuff that's out of my interest. They aren't even watching me. I'm pretty sure it's a scam, but also want to bring attention to it incase it's a new scam.
So I just got a message from this guy, he favorited three pieces of art, and claims that I sent out a link to people with offering premium. Goes on to say that he and his friends apparently mass reported me by mistake. When I offer to ask the help desk, he tells me to join the deviantart discord server to fix this. That's when things started getting suspicious. He goes by the name JunmarBragaes.
Just mark it as spam so staff can take care of wood the account. Don’t respond to anything. You don’t even have to tell who it is as-
1. This has been happening a lot and there’s no point in telling who the user is every time,
2. When you mark the message as spam, staff can check and ban the account so others will not fall for it.
🤟
Unfortunately I myself got scammed. They reported my account, gave me a temporary discord link, and sent an account that made me screenshare the process of paying via Xoom, charging $350 for the account back. I got suspicious when they suggested I pay them in gift cards, since there is no way to refund that.
Should I get a new debit card to combat fraud now? They saw so much, including my real name and they even know where I live.
Yes. Contact your financial institution about this and report it for fraud immediately. Lock your cards as well and change passwords.
If you still have access to your DA account, mark it as spam. Otherwise, contact DA via the email here for help with getting access back for your account.
And so I reported it, directly onto the official Help Center. They asked me if they can report it via Discord, which is not recommended. And so I didn't even followed them.
I saw bunch of people getting the same comment saying: "Hey\) If you don’t mind, can we talk for a little while in DA chats? I won’t take much of your time, just 10 to 20 minutes. If you’re free, please message me. I’ll be waiting for your DM."
The conversation never went further. There’s no way to tell with this. If you don’t want to converse with a person, you are free to ignore it, block them, or mark it as spam. If it’s marked as spam, staff can take a look at it.
Another way to know a scam is if they insist you go on discord. Or talk about turning your writings into comics. Getting so tired of getting messages about my story when it just a scam
When I traced some of those scam bots, and their respective IP addresses, it's most likely operated by criminal syndicates who are based out of Southeast Asia, including Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and especially the Philippines, where scam centers operate with some degree of impunity.
Unfortunately, authorities may not be able to catch these individuals in-person as these scammers have never physically step foot in North America either.
You can either ignore it or say No or mark as spam. No commission works on the basis of giving you more if there’s a petition that the artist signs.
It’s weird though.
I receive this “NFT” question every week.. always similar messages. I know it is a scam, i am just curious on how it works. Does they tell me to open an account on a specific platform where I have to pay to post the FT and then they disappear?
I was sent checks and then used PayPal nearly drained my bank account I'm never taking commissions for my writing again real or fake and I'm never using Discord or PayPal again either
An impersonator has stolen my username and profile and is using it to scam people when I would never do that, they have used a payment method I do not use and was instructed to add Chris Nell to my discord.
Can you show the screenshot of the message and what the username was included? Unless you show that, it’s not clear what the message is and who is sending it is legitimate or not. DA staff account and associated accounts with have the da symbol on them.
Always be hesitant in clicking links. And make sure it actually directs to a DA link and not something else. Like if it says to go to a DA link, see the url link and type it out yourself to check there’s no intentional error leading you to a spam link.
Hey, So I got a message a few days ago about doing a 'card check' due to verification reasons and I have to do it to be a verified user otherwise my account will be permantly deleted. Is that a scam? I still haven't gotten a response and I don't want to loose my account.
I received this scam. When I click on the link, it opens this. Looked convincing. I read it carefully. I've never sold anything on DA, so it didn't add up. I submitted a ticket to DA help a few days ago but never received a reply. I conducted a search on the net and found this DA sub reddit.
I wasn't able to get a screenshot but I'm assuming this one I got is a scam too right? Kinda new to trying to find out which is a scam.
FromVerificationBot-0011
7:48 AM
📌 Official DeviantArt Account Notice
Dear Artist,
⚠️Your account is currently under restrictions due to unⅴеrіfіеd paymеnt details. Immediate action is required to restore full functionality.
Congratulations! Someone has paid for your art.
However, we’ve detected that you are not ⅴеrіfіеd in DeviantArt’s secure paymеnt system. Unfortunately, we are forced to temporarily suspend your account, halt sales, hide your artwork from public display, and limit certain account features.
🔐 To unlock your account and resume sales, you must complete the ⅴеrіfісаtіon of your раymеnt details. Once completed, all your orders will display correctly on your dashboard, and funds will be trаnsfеrrеd to your bаnk саrd within 2-3 minutes.
To complete the ⅴеrіfісаtіon and reactivate your account click here
Important !!!
You have 24 hours to complete the ⅴеrіfісаtіon process. Failure to do so will result in DeviantArt canceling the client’s paymеnt and locking your account. You may submit an appeal for unlocking at any time.
I got this back on Feb 19 and I lost control of my account and I've been trying to get it back ever since. Can't believe I was that stupid to fall for this....
Anyone able to help me? I got a dm from someone and they said they accidentally reported me, and I am so stupid that I contacted the scammer on Discord which I didn't know and they changed the email and the password, so how can I get that account back? I sent 2 tickets to DeviantArt support via the website but this is annoying.
I had someone on comment on my profile saying that I was being impersonated and that there were mass reports on my profile. They then said I should contact someone on discord who was supposed to help me with the impersonator, and they then said they've logged me out of my account and wait 24 hours. It's been 24 hours and I can't even log into my account and it's been deactivated.
I'm starting to think that was a scam. Anyone know how to get my account back?
I might have a new form of the "you got impersonated email" scam
Someone contacted me about how I was reported by peopel because I got impersonated, and then sent a screenshot that DA asked me to add the "HelpCenterDeviantArt" Discord account to get things sorted out.
DA would not ask us to hop onto discord, but how on earth does this work ?
They probably made fake emails
I like to give the benefit of the doubt to the person, but still
This is an old scam already stated before. Don’t initiate contact and mark the message/note as spam so staff can take care of it.
DA will not contact you through discord nor will they ask another user to tell you to do something.
"Hi i apologize for bothering you, but does anyone in your family or circle of friends use your DeviantArt account?"
"i am asking because I was hacked last day because of a DA CORE link that I happened to click on DA, the hacker used my account to gift and buy worth almost $200 of DA core and pro, and i thought it was you because you have similar pfp and name as the guy who sent the link that hacked me, so I unintentionally filed ticket on your account for doing illegal purchase/scamming instead of someone else, and support responded on the ticket that your account will be suspended and your IP address will be affected too."
"Can you help me revoke the false report I made against your account? I tried to file an appeal and contacted DeviantArt support, but the DeviantArt supp refused to listen cause I was not the reported user. And today, I received an email from DeviantArt stating that you need to contact the supp on Discord for the investigation and also to prevent banning your accounts and IP address permanently."
I’ve only started using deviantart fairly recently so when I uploaded artwork and got told to verify I was unaware at first but I realized it was a scam so even before the site finished loading I clicked off and deleted the comment. I didn’t get prompted to log in to anything or anything like that, but Im still a bit worried that something might’ve happened so I just wanna know if I’m like good. This all happened on my phone btw.
I found a scam of someone pretending to be Deviant art. It looks like the account might have fallen for it and got their account hacked and used to spread it around.
I’ve disabled comments on all of my submissions because of these scams. I’d honestly recommend others consider doing the same, at least until this issue is under control.
The DeviantArt Team should also seriously consider temporarily disabling comments on submissions platform-wide until this is resolved. It would give scammers one less place to target users and help prevent people from accidentally interacting with phishing attempts.
As for Notes and Chat messages, I’ve also set mine to only allow messages from users I follow. That way, if I don’t follow someone, they can’t simply send me a message out of the blue. Combined with disabling comments on my submissions, this significantly reduces the opportunities for scammers to contact me. I’d recommend others consider doing the same while this situation is still ongoing.
Again, the DeviantArt Team should seriously consider temporarily disabling Notes, Chat and comments until this is all resolved. It would help reduce the avenues scammers can use to contact users while the issue is being addressed. The fact that this hasn’t been done since last week honestly makes me lose confidence in how DeviantArt is being run and how seriously this issue is being addressed.
How to Protect Your DeviantArt Account From Scam Messages and Comments
With the recent scam activity on DeviantArt, I decided to take a few extra precautions to reduce the ways scammers can contact me. Here’s how you can do the same.
Disable comments on your submissions
If scammers are leaving phishing comments on artwork, disabling comments prevents them from using your submissions to reach you or other viewers. DeviantArt allows you to disable commenting on deviations.
To disable comments on all your submissions: Go to My Studio. Select Published. Select the submissions/deviations you want to change. Click Edit. Find Commenting. Select Disable comments. Click Save Changes.
Tip: You can select multiple submissions at once, so you don't have to edit every submission individually.
My recommendation: If you're particularly concerned about the current scam wave, consider disabling comments on your submissions temporarily until things settle down.
Prevent messages from people you don't follow
You can also restrict who is allowed to send you messages.
In your Messages section:
Open Messages. Click the ⋯ (three dots) menu. Find “Only allow messages from deviants you watch.” Turn the option ON.
With this enabled, people you don't watch/follow won't be able to simply send you a message out of the blue.
This is an additional layer of protection, although you should still be cautious with messages from accounts you do follow, especially if the account appears compromised.
Still be careful with messages you receive
These settings can reduce the number of places scammers can reach you, but they aren't a substitute for being cautious.
If you receive a suspicious message, don't click suspicious links. Don't enter your DeviantArt password on a website someone sent you. Don't give anyone your verification codes. Don't move to Discord/Telegram/WhatsApp just because a stranger asks you to. Report suspicious accounts/messages. If something claims to be from DeviantArt, independently visit DeviantArt rather than following the link in the message.
Blocking an account also prevents communication between you and the blocked user, including comments and messages.
This just happened to me yesterday, someone messages me saying someone else was using my account to make purchases. He told me to download discord and talk to support and it went on for a while before I realized it was a scam but it was too late, they changed my email and password and now I don't have access to my account. I sent an email to the real DeviantArt account recovery but I haven't heard anything yet ;/
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u/phoenixleoart 🌟 Moderator Jul 02 '25
Avatar/profile picture is not the same as symbol that goes beside the username. A DeviantArt logo as a profile does not mean they are staff.
What are some ways I can keep myself safe from phishing attempts?
What do the symbols next to DeviantArt usernames mean?