I started this week on cloud nine, now I’m crying at my desk with 30 hours of unpaid work down the drain. I’m an artist trying to sell stickers to pay for my tuition, and since I started my Insta like three days ago and have no followers, I had the bright idea to collaborate with accounts that are on the rise and make them stickers. I would draw all of the images for free in exchange for them posting about them once they were done, and we would split the profits on the stickers once they were selling. Basically free money for them, and I’d get some exposure.
I contacted a bunch of accounts, and finally one replied and said they were interested. They had over 15 MILLION views, so obviously I was over the moon and thought this would change my life and spent all of last week drawing for them and constantly tweaking the designs. When I asked for their information to draw up a contract, lo and behold, it was a totally different name and country than I expected, and they refused to video call to discuss payment. I reverse image searched some of their reels, and they’re all stolen from a much bigger account. I was really devastated when I figured it out, but also lucky that I didn’t give them any of my personal information or sign anything. Don't be like me and get so excited that you do work without verifying people!