Some new kind of scam? It’s giving scam but I also don’t really understand how it’s a scam?? but it’s 100% a scam yeah?

This is happening to multiple people, truly a new low.

PSA: This is an ongoing potential scam.

The JasmineLucas325 account, as well as several others, are suspected of belonging to a ring of sockpuppets/bot farm run by a person who is trying to make money via shady commissions.

They appear to target fic writers on both AO3 and ff.net (and potentially other sites as well) as well as d&d players, probably due to the fact that they're more likely to want to commission specific character art instead of just AI generating it themselves.

Their messages usually contain something along the lines of praising the writing, saying how they'd love to bring your characters to life and an offer to chat about that, with various socials attached. "Jasmine" in particular has been caught messaging several people, all with the same wording, only the fic title swapped out. And yes, unlike the comment bot situations we had previously, these are actual accounts, which is why we suspect there's a person somewhere behind it. All of these accounts were created recently.

As was uncovered by people investigating this situation who contacted the person behind this, the commission prices are inflated and they are suspected of generative AI use and/or art theft. There are also other red flags such as refusing to share sketches, timelapses or WIP shots - which are part of standard vetting procedure.

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(Brief) Twitter thread calling out another one of these accounts and sharing DMs between the suspected scammer and a customer: Here

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If you have received any messages like this, from JasmineLucas325 or other similar accounts, feel free to let me know. We're investigating several accounts and trying to find as many as we can to warn people.

Thank you and stay safe online!

Yeah, I got this one yesterday as well.

I've been getting bunches of these too, all so far on my FFN account. I've gotten multiple reviews (all from different accounts but formatted basically the same) but I have gotten probably 20-30 PMs through my FFN account like this. They seem to follow the formula of FirstnameLastnameNumber in most cases it seems. I was pretty sure it was some sort of scam going around but good to see it confirmed.

I got one, too. It was hilarious really, because it was a comment on my VIDEOS at ao3. Yep, written well indeed. Blocked that account.

According to what I've been told by people online, it seems that at least the Jasmine account may now be known to AO3 and some of their comments were removed as spam thanks to (probably lots of) authors reporting them.

Another tidbit I have to add is that I recently posted something as well, but so far received no such comment - granted it was a very niche fic for this fandom, though what is also notable is that I had comment moderation on at first and only later switched it off to see if any of these accounts would comment. Maybe that could be a factor? I have no data to say for sure, but maybe turning on comment moderation is something y'all might want to consider at least until this situation dies down🫣

@konartiste potentially relevant to the commission solicitation comments you’ve received recently?

Me too. Except they didn’t have their contact info in the comment. I started emailing with them and it seemed legit at first, but then their commission fees made me spit out my coffee. And when I said no they tried to emotionally blackmail me. lol.