Just gonna copy-paste an FA journal on the subject, cause I haven’t seen people talking about it on here? Or at least, the post about wallpart.com went around like crazy, but not this info about it.
Please be advise it’s all a Ruse by sneaky Russian to get your personal information!
So, I have been notified by several people about pages of Peter &
Company and other pieces of my artwork being supposedly “available for
sale” through Wallpart.com, and in the past 24 hours have seen many
other artists make journals/submissions talking about finding their own
work on there as well. Naturally, the inclination of any artist finding
their work available for sale without their consent is to head to the
“Report Violation” link attached to every listing and file a complaint
to have it removed.
PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT DO THIS ON WALLPART.COM’S WEBSITE.
I’ve dug into their site code and reviewed some audits that were
performed by other folks in various places online who were aware of this
site’s existence, and there’s some very devious bait-and-switch going
on. Essentially:
- They are not actually selling any of the images that appear on their
site. Their “search function” is nothing but scraper software, which
essentially just loads up hits from Google Images and displays them
within a pre-built “shop” template based on the image’s resolution. This
is why every single piece on there has a title that is lifted directly
from whatever gallery site (FA/DA/Weasyl) or general website was hosting
it. Example: They have my title card from my Kickstarter page for the
P&C pilot, with the title lifted straight off the description.
- The dependence on Google Images is also why doing a search for your
own name will turn up different results each time, or possibly no
results at all. Their “search” function never actually searches their
own listings, because they have none. Confusingly enough, performing the
same search multiple times often returns different results at different
times throughout the day. I was able to find dozens of P&C pages
supposedly for sale by searching my name yesterday, but today none of
them show up in search results – even though the direct links to the
page forms (which I saved) still exist. - Their “Report Violation” link is actually a 100% phishing form. If you
fill it out, no matter what you put there, you will be sending them a
LOT more than you anticipated. This is actually the main purpose for the
site’s existence – they completely anticipate artists being upset
about their work supposedly being sold, so they developed a system to
exploit those who complain. - Various pieces of malware and other malicious code have been found
embedded throughout their pages at different times. This site is just
bad news all around.
- The site itself is hosted in Russia, and has already swapped web hosts
4 times in the past few months. The current host is listed as ENOM, and
other bloggers/artists have already sent complaints and reports to
their contact page, with little luck. It looks like it’s already been
branded and caught in the past and is trying to keep itself alive.
- Also, for a site claiming to have “billions of images” available for
print, to only have a little over 3,000 “happy customers” should be a
pretty big red flag on its own.
So please – DO NOT EVEN VISIT THIS SITE. Do not give it page views, and
most absolutely DO NOT FILL OUT ANY VIOLATION FORMS, EVEN IF THE
ARTWORK ON THE PAGE IS YOUR OWN. Instead, there is a Change.org petition
asking for the domain to be stripped and brought down.
Please share the word around as much as possible so other artists don’t
potentially fall into their trap by thinking that their “Report
Violation” page is actually what it claims to be. These people are pure
scam artists, plain and simple. Avoid them at all costs.
As someone working in the online payments industry who deals with phishing attempts far more often than I’d like I can only second this-
For the love of God do not fill in their contact form- this is what they’re looking for!
This is actually the best scam I’ve ever seen online. I kind of need to take a moment to appreciate this.
Anyway, stay safe everyone!
I love how potato in French is pomme de terre, which pretty much means “earth apple.”
like what stupid frenchman saw this:
and said “zis petite légume looks like a, how you say, APPLE! hmmm… but it grows in ze earth… HON HON HON! MAIS OUI! C’EST UNE POMME DE TERRE!”
j'adore comment ananas se dit pineapple en anglais, ce qui veut littéralement dire “pomme de pin”, genre quel type anglais a vu ça:
et s'est dit : “ow cette étrange big fruit ressemble à une, how do you say, POMME! hmmm… mais plutôt une pomme qui pousse dans les pins… HU HU HU! OH YES, IT’S A PINEAPPLE!”
(z'avez vu, on peut le faire aussi… hon hon hon!)
pineapples should never have been discovered anyway
I MILDLY REMEMBER THIS AND IT’S SO WEIRD TO THINK OF
I remember this, his name is Face and he would be on Nick jr, before it got its own channel.
OH MY GOD
I instantly got mad when I saw this jerk’s face because it meant I had to wait longer to watch my show. Go away Face I want Blue’s Clues to come back on!
