Case 6: busting @annart's Ukrainian fake artist ring
Accusation:
While digging up information about @elena2017's case I was in close contact and had tremendous support from the real Ekaterina
She had the initial hunch and was essential to pulling the account @annart into the spotlight!
The Findings:
@annart is an account operated by the real person portraied under that blog.
What isn't portrayed, though, is the fact that she is also impersonating a few other artists!
First there are @katrinart and @elena2017, who had been identified as fakes in case 4 and case 5. You can read all the details over there.
Next we have two more fake artists:
- @nellyhandmade - impersonating nellyhandmade on vk.com
- @juliyahandwork - impersonating Yulia Kurikhina on vk.com
But what kind of proof do we have to say @annart is behind this?
@annart isn't new to this game. She received initial funding from an account that has been unmasked 11 months ago: @nataliadobrick, who, coincidentally, also transfers funds to that same bittrex wallet until today!
Not convinced yet? While all other artists have confirmed to me that they are unaware of their steemit presence, Anna's vk profile completely refuses communication, and so does @annart over here.
Need more? Check the activity times of the accounts, you will find a strange synchronicity in claiming rewards. If you check the voting behavior between these accounts, the connection is just as obvious! The tools by @steemreports will help you do this easily.
Also, Anna has been the one commissioning the paintings of @sjennon and @stellabelle from the real Elena for (hold your breath) $15 each!! We have proof in form of screenshots of her conversation with the real Elena. Unfortunately Elena has requested these to not be released! You'll have to trust me on this one. I am willing to show them to a trusted member of the community if necessary.
We do not know who was commissioned to do the portrait of @tj4real that has also been published under @elena2017, but it is revealing that Elena never took a selfie with this one, but did so with the other two.
There are more steemit accounts who are possibly connected to @annart, these accounts belong to her husband and a married couple they are friends with. I will not state their accounts here directly, as we cannot proof they do in fact have knowledge about this, however likely that is!
There are potentially many more artist profiles on steemit that are running like this, just see the case of @iconzbranding that I started my work with here.
So please, be extra vigilant when you see profiles like these. Use some scrutiny and execute a reverse image search on google, it's often as easy as that!
Please also be aware that the same scam is being executed, not only on steemit.com, but also on the russian fork called golos. If you know someone over there, they should probably check this out!
yours,
Sherlock
Have you witnessed similar things yourself?
Don't just ignore it and move on... let me know!
Good on you, well met and good job, came here from Stella's blog.
I'm not sure how things are going in golos, but you will have a field day here, there are probably fakes left and right. Probably thousands of accounts are bots, so supposedly there could be hundreds of fake accounts.
Yeah, I try to be open about my methods. Only if the community as a whole, curation services like @curie, and especially whales start being a bit more vigilante, will we be able to rid ourselves from those scammers!
Thanks for the impersonation warning
Excellent work once again!
Phenomenal work @sherlockholmes! When I know I spend a great deal of time and energy on my posts, AND I'm out there on the streets promoting steemit, its annoying to discover that the reward pool for people who are keenly trying their best to publish great content (not just artists but everyone) is being drained by dirty little scams like this. Thanks for the great work.
How do I report stuff to you for you to have a look at? I think I've found something iffy but I'd prefer to DM you. busy.org dosen't seems to like your account.
you can contact me on steemit.chat - @sherlockholmes
I've sent you a DM (Hopefully) :-D
Good work @sherlockholmes
Well done you . Which of course means well done to us the collective .
WOW! Good detective work!!! It's important to get the REAL artists paid and recognized! Shame on the impostors!!
I also got approached by the Facebook account of the real Elena asking me for help but unfortunately couldn't help as much as I wanted. I will keep a close eye on this.
What I did notice was the way this person writes and posts. The type of posts (less text, not longer than 500 words or so) and a lot of random )) midsentence. Also the lack of English grammar stands out.
I noticed that all the accounts have delegates SP. Would be cool to see where this is coming from - we could probably figure out the root of this. I also noticed that all accounts seem to resteem eachother. This means that we could also probably figure out more accounts operated by this person.
@uacobra also seems to transfer to the same Bittrex account you mentioned above.
I would love to see the chats between Elena and the scammer though..
You can ask the real Elena on Facebook, she has them!
I have not received them from her directly but through a middleman, she herself did say this:
I am honoring this.
I found more accounts sending funds to the same Bittrex accounts:
@TatyanaSV
@unlovedgirl
I also came across another account which has already been flagged down: @uneducated @svetlanaart
yes, and there's a bunch more.
take a look at this: https://steemit.com/art/@katrinart/hello-steemit-have-a-great-weekend#@predator/re-annart-re-stellabelle-re-katrinart-hello-steemit-have-a-great-weekend-20170804t124949648z
Oh wow. This person is pretty hardcore at scamming.
I just checked that link and got. "This post was hidden due to low ratings."
yes, because it has already been downvoted, there's a button that let's you reveal the content, though!
We can't do much though. All we can do is flag the account and posts down - but the account will keep on existing on the platform. :l
yes, unfortunately so, as the account @nataliadobrick shows very well.
She could have been honest and present the work of this artist. You can't go around trying to impersonate people. From what it looks like she paid more than what her post generated.
Yeah I know - that's why I find it so weird that she did another post about it.
Thats what I always think... But it isnt fair either to the many folk on here who struggle with English as a second language but remain honest.
You can browse through the blockchain history to find who delegated on https://steemd.com/@username. However when you register on steemit, you're delegated 27SP to help you get started.
Ah, I can't seem to find the delegation so far but the account of Elena has been around for quite some time, so the new user delegation shouldn't apply to her.
Shocked!