Scammer If I Ever Saw One!

This is NOT my painting. Image of Owls Head Light Station in Owls Head, Maine, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I received an e-mail first thing this morning.

Michael Silverberg [mmmoreef@gmail.com]

Monday 6/4/2012 1:16 AM

Good day to you over there, My name is Micheal Silverberg I'm from phoenix and my eyes caught this particular work(Owls Head Light), i will like to have it for my new apartment this month.please let me know if the piece is available, if yes let me have the detailed price and more information about it. i will be waiting to read from you.Regards.

I've sold artwork over the Internet before, but this didn't seem okay.

Michael has a problem in spelling his name correctly more than once. So, which is it Mike?

Grammar is not very good either. Salutation? A bit strange.

So I do what I always do. Contemplate, then act—what can I find out about Michael Silverberg at mmmoreef@gmail.com?

Any search engine will do. I got lots of information about Michael who has an alias was well.

Kathleen McMahon, artist, http://www.kathleenmcmahon.com/info/scammer-names.html has done a terrific job as an Anti-Scam Samurai. Visit her website and check out the long list of names scammers use. This is only a partial list.

If you get an e-mail and it doesn't seem right, go with your intuition and do some research. It will pay off.

As a former computer science teacher, I developed an Internet Safety curriculum where I taught my students to question what they saw and read on the Internet. Compare what is said on one site with another. Check your sources. What is their motive? Are there lots of spelling and grammar errors. If it sounds too good to be true? Then it usually is.

Go to http://www.artistsnetwork.com/articles/business-of-art/scam-letter.

So how do you protect yourself and report those nasty scammers?

Here are some tips you can use to avoid becoming a victim of cyber-fraud as seen on http://www.fbi.gov/

• Do not respond to unsolicited (spam) e-mail.

• Do not click on links contained within an unsolicited e-mail.

• Be cautious of e-mail claiming to contain pictures in attached files, as the files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders. Scan the attachments for viruses if possible.

• Avoid filling out forms contained in e-mail messages that ask for personal information.

• Always compare the link in the e-mail with the link to which you are directed and determine if they match and will lead you to a legitimate site.

• Log directly onto the official website for the business identified in the e-mail, instead of “linking” to it from an unsolicited e-mail. If the e-mail appears to be from your bank, credit card issuer, or other company you deal with frequently, your statements or official correspondence from the business will provide the proper contact information.

• Contact the actual business that supposedly sent the e-mail to verify if the e-mail is genuine.

• If you are asked to act quickly, or there is an emergency, it may be a scam. Fraudsters create a sense of urgency to get you to act quickly.

• Verify any requests for personal information from any business or financial institution by contacting them using the main contact information.

• Remember if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

To receive the latest information about cyber-scams, sign up for e-mail alerts on this website. If you have received a scam e-mail, please notify the IC3 by filing a complaint at www.ic3.gov.

Check this: http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/reporting_to_ISPs.php :

How to Report a Spam, Scams and Abusive Use of Email Accounts and Hosted Websites

If you have received spams and scams that are coming from a Yahoo, Hotmail, AIM, Excite, Gmail or other public or free email account, you can report it to the provider to have them shut that account down.  Here are the addresses -just forward the email to the appropriate address with the subject "Abusive use of account":

Email providers

• AOL - For AOL members only to report spam: tosspam
• GMail - gmail-abuse@google.com  - Report GMail spam
• Hotmail - report_spam@hotmail.com 
• MSN -  report_spam@msn.com
• Yahoo.com email accounts: abuse@yahoo.com;
• Yahoo.co.uk email accounts: uk-mail-abuse@yahoo-inc.com

Website hosting providers

• Yahoo! Stores - To report Yahoo! Stores that are advertised in spam emails - store-spam@yahoo-inc.com
• Yahoo! Hosted Domans - to report Yahoo! hosted websites that are advertised in spam emails: domains-abuse@yahoo-inc.com

Be on the lookout at all times. Protect yourself, your family and friends.

Hope this helps. Leave a comment.

Jo

www.jomorise.com

PS:I'm back with an update. I forwarded the e-mail to GMail's link (as seen above) at 12:04 AM and got a robotic response at 12:05 AM.

GMail provided me with a choice of forms to fill out. It was neat, quick and easy.

You will need the message header so they can track them down.

• GMail has instructions on how to find the header. 
• In Microsoft Outlook, I found the header when I opened the message and clicked on View/Options and the Internet Header was there. 

1. Click within the header report in that window
2. Press CTRL + A to select all
3. Press CTRL + C to copy and close the window. 
4. Click in the form where the Message Header is needed
5. Press CTRL + V to paste what you copied from Microsoft Outlook.

So DON't delete the scammer's e-mail until you have reported the villain to the proper reporting bureau. That is crucial if you want the scammer gone.

Click on the 'comment' link below. Share your experience with scam e-mail.

Jo

Camden, Maine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am so excited! My artwork may now be seen and purchased from two galleries in Maine.

The Small Wonder Gallery
(Photo Credit: SW website)

The Small Wonder Gallery, 1 Public Landing,  Camden, ME

and the  

Store Upstairs Art Gallery, Port Clyde General Store, Port Clyde, ME.

Port Clyde General Store (Photo credit: Garrett Crawford)

All this happened this past weekend. You will see some of my original oil and acrylic paintings and limited edition water color and pen and ink prints of seascapes and landscapes, which include the popular belties.

Come to Camden and Port Clyde! Enjoy the ocean and friendly people who live and work in the area. Tom and I spend our summers in the area. Why? Because we love the Maine Coast—we were married on the Grace Bailey schooner in 1998 and spent six wonderful days out at sea for our honeymoon. We arrived unexpectedly and the other guests were elated at having a wedding on ship! We were all strangers when we arrived, we were a family when we left.

English: Grace Bailey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If there is ever a place to feel welcome, it is on the Maine coast. Rockland, Rockport, Camden, Port Clyde, St. George, and Cushing have so much to offer in the arts, lectures, restaurants, sailing, bicycling and so much more. We spend lots of time in the Rockland and Camden libraries. They have a fabulous collections of books and videos. You can sign up for a library card and start taking home books for your enjoyment.

When you come to Maine, send an e-mail and let me know what you thought of the area and if you did see my artwork in the galleries mentioned.

Here is one of my new paintings. Titled: "Wave", 8x10" oil on canvas with a silver frame. It is a crashing wave amongst boulders on the sea shore. A little jewel. Commission work is accepted. Just e-mail me at info@jomorise.com .

To see more of my art, visit my website: www.jomorise.com .

Click the "comment" link below and leave a message. Thanks.

Art In Wolfeboro and West Ossipee, NH

Wolfeboro, NH

Huggins Hospital in 1916 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Please come to the group art show now on display in Wolfeboro, NH. Go to the Huggins Hospital waiting room area. You will see a great selection of art and photos. The artists are local and the theme is Wolfeboro.

Huggins is now the state of the art hospital. What a difference from 1916.

Wolfeboro also has the historical railway station everyone just has to see.

Scenes Around Wolfeboro, New Hampshire (Photo credit: billandkent)

My work includes an oil painting on canvas of the old Berry Mill Dam in Wolfeboro, Falls, NH and a water color print of a fisherman's gear.

Fisherman's Gear

Berry Mill Dam, Wolfeboro Falls, NH

 The display at Huggins will be for the months of May and June, 2012. So hurry before they are gone.










To see more, go to the GWAC (Governor Wentworth Art Council) group website.

http://wolfeboroarts.org/

 

Here are some of the artists of the T. A. G. (The Artist Group) at Huggins. They are a sincere, happy, creative group who are also GWAC members.

Come visit. Take some art home. Support the local artist community.

Ever since very early childhood. I spent hours drawing from imagination.

Rainy days while in Elementary school meant inside recess. That spelled fun activities for all.

Timken Roller Bearing Co., calendar, September 1950, teacher at desk (Photo credit: George Eastman House

Teachers offered opportunities to draw, sing, tell stories or just mope in our seats. Very few of us moped.


At home, the radio was rarely on therefore the 1950's songs other kids sang were exciting to hear. Some songs seemed grownup. I remember thinking it was silly for kids my age to act like a movie-star-grownups singing  LOVE songs! In the presence of a Good Shepherd nun? Or was that the point?

We had lay-teachers—the ones who got paid to teach. I was never sure why there were lay teachers in a parochial school. I knew there were no nuns in public schools. The Pope wouldn't allow that. Public school intrigued me then. The public school bus passed our school yard every day and the kids on the bus looked normal. Why couldn't I be with them?

I'm diverging—back to my budding art career.


My favorite rainy-day activities were drawing, painting. My 5th grade teacher was impressed with one of my paintings. It was a winter scene with people skating on a frozen pond. However, one skater was giving me a hard time. I couldn't fix his limp lower leg. Maybe the skate was too heavy? Just then Sister Sainte Rolande looked over my shoulder and said, "You will be an artist some day. You are very good. Keep painting and you will get better."  I was stricken with glorious pride. A nun complimented and encouraged me to develop my talent. Alleluia!


In the eight grade, I created holy scenes on chalkboards for the teacher. She seemed to like my work and asked me to create "a nice picture" on the extra 4'x6' blackboard.

I loved working with colored chalk on a black board. The images were complicated and detailed. They included the Virgin Mary, Jesus, Joseph, animals and perhaps other characters from the New Testament. Whatever struck my fancy.

I've always been intrigued with the human form and features. On two occasions two different teachers decided to teach us how to draw people. It was simple if everyone did it the right way. (They obviously shared the same arts activity manual.) We divided the paper into 4 sections and added parts as seen in this example.  Look familiar, anyone?

I  was aghast! Nobody looks like that. Or—perhaps? I often wondered what  a nun looked like under all that clothing.

Everyone's artwork was tacked around the room for several weeks.  Eventually, other projects happened along. None very interesting. There just weren't any art classes. There were state mandates and classes required by the congregation, to graduate. Or was the Pope creating the curriculum? Art was definitely not part of the program.

Italiano: La Morte di Cesare di Vincenzo Camuccini è un quadro che si trova a Roma nella Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna. Français : Mort de César Deutsch: Der Mord an Gaius Iulius Caesar Español: Asesinato de Julio Cesar en el Senado (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I graduated the second of my class. High honors. Then I convince my dad to let me attend public high school. He agreed, mostly because he would not have to pay tuition for another four years.

I discovered several kids from my parochial school had also switched over to the public school. And the classes were co-ed. Students were normal and classes were interesting. But there were no art classes. The Latin teacher realized I was interested in art, therefore, my Latin project included a painting. Title: "Et tu Brute". Very morbid, indeed. I still have it.


My step-aunt, Marguerite, knew the artist, Ed Mayo, of Kennebunk, Maine. Ed recommended I read a couple of art books, which she purchased for me! I was so happy that she thought of me! I read each book cover-to-cover. I treasure them still. Aunt Marguerite brought me to Mr. Mayo's studio to observe a water color demonstration of an ocean scene. I was so impressed. I practiced the ocean scene over and over. It was difficult, but I didn't give up.

During my senior year, the high school librarian asked me to display my paintings in the library. My first one-man show! I never got them back. I was too shy to ask him to return them. I'm sure they were thrown away.

However, art was offered for the first time in the public high school the year after I graduated. Darn! I should have stayed back. So I struggled on my own to learn more about art.

Thirty-two years after high school graduation I was in the middle of building my own home (with my own hands). I had spent a whole afternoon shaping one cabinet door and decided against that project. I hired a carpenter, Dennis Dunton, to build the kitchen cabinets.

Recognizing Dennis' surname I realized he had grown up in the same house I had previously lived in. Dennis was intrigued and shared humorous events that occurred as he grew up in the old 13-room house. He offered a tour of my old home. It was incredible. All the rooms were the same as when we sold it to his dad, just very worn—he was one of seven kids. As I left, he pointed to a framed painting hanging in the sun-porch. It was one of my ocean scene watercolors! His mom found it when they moved in and had it framed. It's been hanging on the porch all these years. I was flabbergasted and thrilled at the same time.


I eventually went to the University and majored in art education. Later I also became certified in computer science because art courses were always the first to be cut during economic hardships. So I was an art teacher but taught computer science—with a creative bent. Students earned either a computer credit or an art credit because my curriculum incorporated the arts—I expected my students to be creative.

Now I create art and sell my work. Visit my website: www.jomorise.com

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Hubby Burns Toast and Toaster

Image via Wikipedia

Abstract nude, by Jay Meuser, 1956

While painting my next masterpiece—a watercolor, I became aware of a smell in my studio. Ignoring it, I continued with the orange wash and worried not to overwhelm the surrounding colors and hoped the reflections would be believable.

Within minutes, the smell got stronger. Something was burning. "What is that smell, Hon? Did you burn something?"

"Oh, I burnt the toast. Everything is okay," Hubby replied. He had decided, several years ago, that an aluminum pie plate or a block of wood placed over the toaster would shorten the time needed for bread to toast. I've chastened him every time he made burn marks on my smaller chopping blocks or when he melted the plastic on our new and cheaper toasters. He apologized each time and found a different method to implement his plan.

"Burnt toast?—Okay?—Smells like the kitchen is on fire. I can barely breathe!" I rushed to the kitchen and found something very black. "You left the burnt toast and a burnt block of pine on the counter. The kitchen is filled with smoke and the smoke is in every room of the house."

"Sorry Hon, I ran water over the toast."

"Why didn't you just throw it outside. If you burn something, throw it outside immediately! Otherwise, it just stinks up the house."

This time the block of wood was burnt and smelled something awful. "The block of wood does not help save electricity, it only helps burn the toast. The block is charred all the way through. You'll burn the house down!"

Frustrated, I picked up the burnt, wet toast and threw it out the door. As it landed in the new snow it crumbled. I placed the block of wood on the doorstep.

Now I had to air out the house! As Hubby sat reading one of his many library books, I ran from room to room opening windows and doors. To hasten the process, I grabbed a couple of newspapers to fan the smoke outside. It was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside and the inside temperature was dropping. I continued fanning as long as I could stand the cold.

Hubby continued reading.

As I shut windows and doors I determined patience would help me deal with the smell, which would eventually dissipate.

Upon returning to my studio, I added another glaze of orange to my painting. The results were splendid. I loved the painting. A masterpiece! Maybe not. Perhaps the next painting... .

Two weeks later, the burnt smell finally gone, I noticed a new block of oak sitting beside the toaster.

"Nice piece of wood, dear." I admired the grain and thought of the many ways I could use this piece of beautifully grained oak. From chopping block to woodcut printing. Later, I watched Hubby proudly place this 3/4 inch, heavy piece of oak over the toaster. This board completely covered the toaster slots. With eyes rolling back in frustration, I went to my studio. Later I observed Hubby in the living room eating toast as he read his new book.

The next morning as I made breakfast, I noticed a burnt smell.  "Did you burn toast again?" I asked as I examined the block of wood. It sported two distinctive, black burn marks on the underside and it was now warped.

I placed bread in the toaster and pressed the lever. Hubby walked in and said, "Better watch your toast. I burned mine. It didn't pop-up."

"That's because you had a board over the toaster." So I prepared my eggs and cocoa. Eventually I realized something was burning. My toast was smoking and I could not release the toast. The knob was stuck. The toast would not eject. As I unplugged the toaster, I yelled, "You ruined the toaster with your damned board! Why do you keep doing that?"

Hubby replied from the living room, "Sorry, dear."

Image via Wikipedia

electronic motherboard

After breakfast, I decided to inspect the toaster. Upon dis-assembly, I found the interior gummed with black, toast soot. Crumbs stuck to the gummy residue. I spent about an hour cleaning the parts and Hubby offered a computer cleaning spray we previously used to clean computers. I sprayed that on what looked like a motherboard. Once I was satisfied with the cleaning, I plugged the skeleton of the toaster into the outlet and pressed the lever down. It was working. Then I pressed the release button and it worked! "Hon, I fixed the toaster!"

A few minutes later I discovered the interior plastic collar that originally framed the slot where the handle traveled up and down now blocked the path formed by the slot. So I cut the hanging plastic from the slot with a hack-saw.

(Photo credit: healthserviceglasses)

My beautiful toaster.

Now to re-assemble the toaster. With so many parts to hold on to, it was impossible to screw the metal sheets together. "Hon, can you come here? Hold this tight. Be careful not to let the sides pop out."  Hubby used his muscle as he pressed the ends together. I placed enough screws so he could get back to reading. Upon turning the last screw, I proudly examined the toaster only to find one side wall had popped out. "Hon!"

Again, Hubby helped me press the parts together as I re-assembled and screwed the pieces together a second time.

Upon inspecting the sides, I was proud of the work done. Perhaps I could repair toasters and other small appliances. In today's economy, people could save money and I'd earn a small income to boot. There aren't any small appliance repair shops around anymore.

Now to replace the knob and test the toaster with its handle in place. Something wasn't right. Where was the metal arm onto which I was suppose to slip the handle? I now realized why it was so difficult to screw the toaster together, we had forced the metal arm in behind the toaster's wall. This toaster had to be easily assembled, otherwise how could a factory justify using two to three people just to place 8 screws into the bottom of a toaster?

I dis-assembled the toaster a third time. The metal arm was just a little bent. No problem. This time I re-assemble the toaster without Hubby. Hah! I COULD repair toasters. Maybe a shingle outside the door was imminent.

Smiling as I twisted the last screw into place, I flipped the toaster and happily slipped the knob on the arm. I pressed the knob down. The toaster worked. I pressed the release and it did not return. Upon further inspection of the knob, I found the plastic neck was warped. So I went to Hubby to admonish him of his evil deed once again and showed him the now heat-deformed handle.

"Sorry, dear."

I sanded the bulges out of the neck. Proudly placing the knob onto the arm, I pushed the knob down, pressed the release button and it worked! Glory, glory. I was going to really put some thought on this new career venture. Perhaps a web-page to advertise my services. How much would shipping a small appliance cost?

The last piece of the puzzle was the temperature dial. That was going to be the easy part. Or was it? It didn't slip into place. Aaargh! The dial slipped in from behind the toaster wall. So, I dis-assembled the toaster a fourth time—all the way to the skeleton and the mother board. After determining the position of the handle and slipping it on, I carefully and easily re-assembled the toaster without Hubby. I did it in fifteen minutes!

The toaster looked great in its usual corner. It was sparkling and seemed happy. Only I knew what parts were now deformed or partly mutilated. But it worked! As I collected the tools and considered my new career plans, I decided that it was not for me. I lost one to three screws each time I re-assembled the toaster and spent five to fifteen minutes just hunting for screws or washers.Happy toast from now  on!

I was happy to have my toaster back.

"Hon. I fixed the toaster. Don't you ever cover that toaster or any other toaster with anything again."

"Sorry, dear."

I went to my studio and realized it was now 3:30 PM. Too late to start another painting. The lighting was not right. Maybe tomorrow I'll create a masterpiece.

Donation

Live in Vermont?

Would you like to contribute by bidding on two of my artworks, which I have donated?

Go to http://msacblog.wordpress.com for more info.

The event is scheduled for Saturday, January 28, 2012 • 5:30 - 9:00 pm


One print is a black and white print "Alisson's Restaurant" un-matted,
packaged in archival wrapping.



The second print is a watercolor "Mt. Mansfield" matted and packaged in archival wrapping.



Have fun!

JMOrise