Kickstarter Pledge/Backer Scams | Artist Website Scams - Be Safe Out There!

  I am very sad to report the huge amount of scamming and spam messages that I've encountered since launching my campaign on Kickstarter.  I couldn't find a lot of information about these scams online so I'm writing this post to share this information for other creators.
  On day one, I received a very large donation from "Aide Thompson - AXEN" on Kickstarter.  The "person" wanted me to email "axentech1 (at) gmail (dot) com" to connect with other "high-roller backers" on Kickstarter.  The grammar was off in the messages so I knew something was fishy right away, but confirmed it later on after this scammer removed their pledge.
  I have to say how disappointed I am in this experience.  Kickstarter really needs to have a better service to vet the backers and to protect its creators from getting attacked.  If you search for "Kickstarter Scams", you will find backers who have been scammed by creators, but this was the opposite scenario.  I have also received a large number of spam messages which is equally disheartening.
​  Unfortunately, I believe there's no end to this sort of behavior given the anonymity of the internet and the vulnerability of artists and creative people.  It is for these reasons that I have largely distanced myself from online activities and I prefer to build genuine, person-to-person communication offline.

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  Please also watch out for scammers who try and contact you through your art websites.  These predators reach out to inquire about buying art and then will engage in a number of different methods to scam you.  Don't reply to their messages and mark it as spam.

Spam/Scam example from my contact page.