Artists get a lot of email that looks official and is not. This article helps you decide whether an email is real, shows what ArtSites does send, and tells you how to ask us.
Signs of a scam
- A domain name or website renewal from a company you never used. It says your domain is about to expire, or has been "suspended", and asks you to pay a company you have never heard of. Compare it with the real renewal notices below.
- An offer to list your website or raise your search ranking. Offers to put you in a directory, "register" your site with search engines or lift you to the top of Google, from someone you did not contact.
- An invoice or suspension notice for a service you do not recognise. If you did not buy it, you do not owe it.
- An invitation to a show, gallery or "feature" that asks you to pay. A real invitation does not usually start with a fee.
- A pitch to make your art into NFTs, or to "license" it. Especially one that arrives out of the blue.
- Urgency. "Pay today or lose your domain." Real notices give you time.
- A link to pay or sign in somewhere new. Look at where the link goes before you select it. A real ArtSites email sends you to your own website's address or to artsites.ca.
- A sender address that does not match the company. The name may say one thing and the address another, or the address may be a free mail account.
One sign alone does not make a scam. Several together should make you stop.
What to do
- Do not select links, open attachments, reply or pay.
- Forward it to us. Contact us and send the email. We will point out the signs we can see. We cannot always be certain, but we can tell you what looks wrong.
- Sign in the usual way instead. If an email says there is a problem with your account or payment, type your website's address into the browser, then
/admin, as you normally do, and look at My Account. Do not use the link in the email.
Emails ArtSites sends
We send these, and only these, about your website:
- Renewal notices, reminders and an expired notice. If you pay yearly, a notice about a month before your website expires, a reminder about a week before and a last one about two days before. They send you to the renew page of your own website, your address followed by
/renew. See Questions About Paying and Renewing. - A suspension notice once a website has been suspended. See If Your Website Is Suspended.
- A payment problem notice when an automatic PayPal payment did not go through.
- A thank you and a receipt after you renew.
- A password reset when someone asks for one on the sign-in page. If you did not ask, ignore it. See Can't Sign In?.
- A request to confirm an email address for someone on your account. See The People on Your Account.
- A notice for each message from a visitor, and for each guestbook or mailing list entry on your website. See Is This Inquiry Real? for scams that arrive this way.
- Trial emails, if you are trying ArtSites: a welcome, a few check-ins and a notice when the trial ends.
The renewal, suspension, payment, receipt and trial emails come from Geoff or Rochelle at ArtSites, at an artsites.ca address. The automatic ones, such as password resets, confirmations and visitor notices, come from website@artsites.ca. Anything else that claims to be from ArtSites, or asks you to pay somewhere other than your own website's renew page or your PayPal account, is not from us.
More examples
Geoff, who built ArtSites, keeps a blog of scams sent to artists: Art Scams. Messages from a buyer through your Contact form are a different case, covered in Is This Inquiry Real?.