Scam Artists

Be careful, there are so many scammers out there trying to suck you in!

There’s a warrant out for you unless you send money; there’s a problem with your Amazon account, Fed Ex is having difficulty delivering a package to you and so on.

A few months ago, I thought I was talking to a PayPal rep. When he told me he’d stay on the phone with me while I drove to the Dollar Store to purchase a PayPal, card I realized it was a scam.

So when I was working at the Belen Art League Gallery a couple weeks ago and got a call from a New York number I almost didn’t answer it, thinking it was just another con-game. But I did and it wasn’t.

It was from a studio doing a film in New Mexico and had heard about our gallery from another studio. It’s pretty exciting for us to know that filming agencies back in New York are spreading our name to each other.

Last week, I received an email from a man in Florida who said he was a journalist and wanted to do story about small town artists. He said he had family here in Belen and would be visiting them soon.

I wrote him at length, talking about the art in our town, the support the arts gets from the city leaders and community, and the other galleries in town. After I sent the email off, I went back to reading my other correspondence and golly, another letter, this time from the Chicago Art Museum.

This writer also had family in Belen and would be visiting them soon and wanted to do a story of the Judy Chicago museum’s impact on our town. A warning sounded in my pea brain and so I called the number listed in the letter. There was no answer, not even a voice mail. Scammed again.

Yesterday my daughter was eating out and sent me a snap of a painting for sale for $495. She was shocked at the price especially because the frame was plastic. What she didn’t realize at the time is that it wasn’t an original painting. It was what is called a giclee print of the artist’s original painting. A giclee print is a technology for fine art or photograph reproduction using a high-quality ink jet printer to make individual copies. So it’s like a poster only printed onto canvas. $495 for a print.

While many artists do this, it seems like a scam to me. A cheap way to sell the same painting over and over again.

We will not scam you at the Belen Art League. All of the paintings we sell are the real deal, one-of-a-kind originals. Our prices are super affordable and we have a layaway plan. Our goal is only to support our local artists and bring beauty to our community.

Please bring your kiddos down to Becker Avenue on Halloween. The street will be decorated in a scary way, and there will be candy handouts in front of the old City Hall. Not a scam, our way of thanking Belen.

(Jo’l Moore is the president of the Belen Art League Gallery and Gifts. Contact her at [email protected] or call 861-0217.)