This kind of thing happens a lot in communities like tarot or witchy spaces too. People make fake profiles and try to scam followers. If they ask for money, they’ll just take it and block you.
Total scam. I got burned like this once when I hired someone to do tile work. Paid a deposit, and they kept making excuses not to come back. Took forever to get it resolved.
Scammers copy pages and steal videos to make fake accounts look real. It’s super common. If you see an account acting sketchy, just block it.
They’ll ask for a small deposit to secure your spot. Then they ghost you.
Paying deposits is normal in the tattoo world, but you should be the one reaching out to the artist, not the other way around.
This is what happens when you reply to random tattoo artists. Business scam included.