fraud

How to Avoid Being Scammed as a Photographer

Unfortunately, if you use the internet for work, you probably already know that new scams and scammers pop up every day. Recently, I’ve seen the rise in popularity of a new scam targeting photographers. I don’t want to see anyone, especially other photographers, being scammed out of their hard-earned money.

A Con Man, a Credit Card Fraud, and a Stolen Fine Art Photograph

Back in December, a young man walked into one of the fine art galleries that represent my photographs and engaged the gallery owner in a conversation about some of my prints. He seemed to be familiar with my work, said that his girlfriend was actually a fan, and remarked that he had been thinking of buying her a piece.

Photo Shoot Fraud: Don’t Get Taken by a Scam Like This

I'm photographer Jay P. Morgan from The Slanted Lens. In this video and article, I'll share with you an actual photoshoot fraud case and what to look for so that you don’t get taken by a fraudulent scam like it.

How Yelp Scams Photographers (and Other Business Owners)

If you’re a local business owner, you know that your number-one priority, day-in and day-out, is marketing your services and finding new customers. And in this digital age, the available options for marketing are surprisingly limited.

Amazon Let a Fraudster Keep My Sony a7R IV and Refunded Him $2,900

I am an amateur photographer, and I’ve sold cameras non-professionally on Amazon for over eight years as I’ve upgraded. That trend comes to an end with my most recent transaction. In December, I sold a mint-in-box Sony a7R 4, and the buyer used a combination of social engineering and ambiguity to not only end up with the camera, but also the money he paid me.

Artist Stole Photos for $15,000 Public Art Installation

Here's a tip for the digital age: if you're commissioned with $15,000 to create a public art installation in a large city, don't steal photos from the Internet and pretend they're your own. That's the mistake one well-known artist in Canada recently made, sparking a good deal of controversy and embarrassment.

How Someone Stole My Identity to Steal Camera Gear

It’s been a funny week. A couple of days ago, while I was sitting in the office reformatting my MacBook in sunny West Sussex, I was also sort of arrested in Islington, London.

Let me elaborate...

Couple Scammed by Fauxtographer Passing Off Stolen Images as His Own

Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to hear about fauxtographers stealing other photographers work and passing it off as their own. Heck, there’s an entire website dedicated to shaming the scam artists who do this. But despite the distinct possibility that you'll be caught and have your career destroyed if you do this, it continues to happen.

Case in point is a recent situation involving Lin and Jirsa Photography and the tale of how their images were stolen and used by an unnamed photographer to entice new wedding clients with work that wasn’t his own.

TIME Addresses the Fake Ruined Negatives from the Robert Capa D-Day Documentary

A month ago we shared with you a video documenting the story behind the ‘lost’ negatives famed conflict photographer Robert Capa captured on D-Day.

In the documentary, there’s a moment where the empty rolls of film are shown, emulsion gone and the plastic worn and tattered. Many of us probably didn’t think twice about the negatives that were shown, but A.D. Coleman and Rob McElroy did, and what they found out was a bit shocking, especially coming from a publication as respected as TIME.

Student Wins Photography Contest with Filched Photo

It's one thing to swipe a photo and slap it on your website, and quite another to enter that stolen image into a high-profile photo contest passed off as your own work.

That is exactly what Mark Joseph Solis, a graduate student at the University of the Philippines, is discovering as he becomes a subject of international ridicule for winning several thousand dollars worth of prizes with a purloined portrait.

Controversy Erupts After Stolen Picture Wins Samsung Photo Contest

One of the downsides to living in an uber-connected digital world is the ease with which intellectual property can be stolen. Whichever bogus excuse they choose to use, many people seem less than concerned when it comes to stealing someone's photography and claiming it as their own these days.

One such person is Instagram user @bogdhan, who recently won Samsung's 'Live in the Moment' Instagram contest (and an NX300) using a photo that he never actually took.

Researchers Take Aim at Automatically Detecting Photo Fakes on Twitter

You might remember the photo above from last year. For a while, it circulated the web like mad, claiming to show Hurricane Sandy bearing down menacingly on the Statue of Liberty. But if you've read our previous coverage on the photo, you'll know that it is, in fact, a fake -- a composite of a Statue of Liberty picture and a well-known photo by weather photographer Mike Hollingshead.

Photo fakes like this wind up going viral online all the time, often helped along by Twitter where retweet upon retweet puts it in front of thousands of unsuspecting people. Having had enough, a group of researchers from the University of Maryland, IBM Research Labs and the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology are trying to do something about it.