Looking Into an Art Scammer on Bluesky

While browsing Bluesky, I came across a post from an artist warning others about a scammer who had been stealing artwork from another artist. Unfortunately, I did not take a screenshot of the original post, so I can only describe what happened from memory.

The post immediately caught my attention. Art theft has become a growing problem across social media, and seeing another artist speak out about it made me curious enough to investigate for myself.

After visiting the scammer’s profile, one thing stood out almost immediately. The account displayed multiple art styles that looked noticeably different from one another. While some artists do experiment with different techniques and styles, something about the account still felt off.

Instead of making assumptions, I decided to verify it myself. I ran several of the images from the account through my bot to determine whether the artwork was original or taken from somewhere else.

The results confirmed my suspicions. Some of the images were identified as stolen, while others appeared to be genuinely human-made. That mixture made the account even more suspicious, because it suggested the person may have been blending stolen artwork with original content to appear more believable.

While looking through the account, I also noticed that one of the scammer’s followers was someone I personally followed. Because of that, I felt it was important to let her know what I had found.

After I warned her, she replied:

“Yeah, thanks for the warning. I appreciate your action.”

Later on, I discovered that this follower had also been banned at some point, and it appeared she may have been evading a previous ban on Bluesky.

Not long after that, the scammer’s account was removed. Seeing the account disappear so quickly was honestly satisfying, because it meant one less person was able to profit from stolen artwork.

That experience pushed me to start looking more closely at other suspicious accounts, because sometimes a single warning can uncover a much bigger problem.