Comments on: Israeli art scam

By: marko

marko — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:46:53 +0000

Hello, I am from croatia,
I sell similar paintings in spain before 3 years ,
I paid about 40 euros each images 50×60 cm,
After 6 months I found the pictures on the 18 euros in web ,
and after I bay direct in china xiamen but much better
quality and reprodukcions of chagall, gogh,,, proky 5-25 $
and selling in offices per 30-70 euros,
This izraels scam artist
have the lowest image quality mostly ,,,And they pay boss to much price for each paintings 40-60 euros, not 5 $
,,
Naive people are everywhere, especially in door to door product sales and they have product in hand immediately and not ask for a price sometimes

By: Itay

Itay — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:26:21 +0000

Guys, I want to shed some light about this whole issue, since I am an Israeli and I know people who have done this.

Everyone here who talks about spies, Mossad, etc is talking nonsense. Indeed it is a scam and those people aren’t really art students. It is just people earning good money in a sleazy way.

Personally, I hate it, and I do think it gives us a bad name- and I hope no one here will generalise here on all Israelis. a lot of us oppose this.

But please, remain proportionate, don’t take it to conspiratorial places.

By: Polly

Polly — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:24:36 +0000

Well their here in Canada to. I live in Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada. We had a young man come to our house around supper time, July 24, 2009. He said he was from Israel on a art exchange program. He was selling oil paintings and he had a folder with all the paintings in there. The paintings were going for $140-$190 cnd. Thank goodness my husband was home, he asked a ton of questions and he knew it was a scam. After the student left we googled it and here you guys are with all the info. Thank you for posting the info, this has helped us tremendously…
So funny, we get flyers in the mail. Michaels is a art/craft/scrapbooking store. They were advertising some paintings for sale and 2 of the paintings that were advertised was the ones the student had showed me in his folder.

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:07:49 +0000

The site that you offer, rtgallery.com, installs Malware. Luckily my computer alerted me before being infected.

Everyone else, watch out for this site!!!!

Also…..I believe I just got scammed….I bought two larges pieces that I really like but am concerned now about the original nature of these. Several people have mentioned sites where you can find these prints; can someone help with that?

By: Graham

Graham — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:43:42 +0000

http://www.china-art-discount.com/index.html

Some of the “alleged” art work is on this site. Including the one he claimed was his and some of the black and white paris street scapes….oh yeah….at least it cost me nothing but a few minutes with a dishonest traveler.

By: Graham

Graham — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:25:43 +0000

Eltham, Melbourne.
Had A French “art” student (Filix, or Filip)(medium height, black hair, carrying a yellow art folio) knock on my door. Again I was not going to let him in but felt sorry for him, and thought there was no harm in having a look. He showed both me and my partner and we took his number. He asked for our number but I said we would contact him if need be. After he left my partner started laughing because she had heard about this type of scam. I felt like a dick, but at least I did not buy and of the art. Similar prints to those mentioned earlier;
tour de France abstract thing
Moulin rouge
Woman being swallowed by a fish…abstract.
Provincial france?
Urban Street scape.
A Cat/Tiger….abstract…. using coconut something or other to create texture.
Forests.
A terrible one with three trees he claimed was his.

By: Anapap

Anapap — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:17:05 +0000

Yes, they are the same people. They are now operating in Cyprus. I recall the tour de france painting – however this is not called that but Loops with Competitor – no. HS0246.

Check out the site: http://www.dupine.com – you will probably find all the paintings you have seen there selling for $5,95 each or €11,75 each. They are mass-produced in China (this is the wholesaler) although they claim that these are hand painted the canvas looks odd. The company also is ok to sign these with different names – the one I bought bears signature by someone called “gregori”.

I have passed the matter to the police and the consumers association.

I hope this helps.

By: Gyp Dee

Gyp Dee — Sat, 09 May 2009 05:12:37 +0000

At the moment they’re in Toowoomba,Qld.Luckily we have no room on the walls for more pictures, otherwise I’m sure I also would have purchased one, especially with Mothers day tomorrow.

By: Kim

Kim — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:47:58 +0000

I just got scammed for $250 by a handsome French “artist”.. I like the ‘painting’ but am now annoyed that it’s not even a painting just a cheap print … I’m just wondering if anyone else has the naked girl – black and white?

I live in hope that it may be different from the others as he told me he painted it himself. Brisbane Australia..

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 05:07:11 +0000

Had two of them open my screen door, try the front door, bang on the window and ring the bell before I opened up expecting it to be my impatient son. However I am faced with two swarthy looking bums with an open folio of “art” I told them to F… off, and tried to close the door, one tried to stop it being closed on them and angrily stated ” you must look at these before you send us away” I replied take your crap and F… off or my dog will take a piece out of both your A**es. I was really angry that they just about invaded my home, only stopped by my locked door.