Case 4: @katrinart is Impersonating Artist Ekaterina Putyatina
Accusation:
None!
The account @katrinart caught my eye all by itself.
The Findings:
You might remember my 1st case. This is in essence the same story with a slightly better disguise.
@iconzbranding had obviously doctored a steem logo into a stolen photo, claimed to be the creator of work produced by two separate artists, and posted some rather disturbing content in between, not much to dispute here.
This time, we go from Nigeria to Ukraine, to find another incredibly talented artist going by the handle @katrinart.
The account looks genuine at first glance, of course the art has been posted elsewhere, you'll find it on instagram, facebook, deviantart, and especially vk (aka the russian facebook).
The easy discovery here is the real name of our artist, it's "Ekaterina Putyatina".
Ekaterina uses the same profile image as the account here on steemit.com, the artwork is all identical and the account over here does exclusively post her work. All in all it looked genuine at first.
But @katrinart's introduction post stands out! It opens with the picture of a blond girl holding the usual paper-of-proof in her hands. Right in her very first post on the platform.
That account owner obviously immediatly knew what they were doing here and the "real" Ekaterina seems rather shy about showing her own face on the web.
Long story short: I couldn't find conclusive evidence on the blockchain, so I contacted the real Ekaterina in several of her profiles asking her if she was aware of her presence on steemit.com.
She responded pretty quickly on deviantart. Here's what she had to say:
thank you very much for the information! it's not me! The person impersonates me. It will be necessary to understand this. thanks again
We can't say for sure whether @katrinart is just trying to get rewards with stolen work, or if they are actually also trying to scam commissions. Some of their posts clearly talk about "order work". But either way, steemit.com doesn't need this.
The Schocking Truth
Our perpetrator has again received a nice $100 bonus from @curie. Unlike in @iconzbranding's case, though, these rewards are already processed. Nothing we can change about it now.
I think it's time the guy's at @curie did some homework before giving their praises.
yours,
Sherlock
P.S.: On a sidetrack I found the source of Ekaterina's profile picture, too. It's not by herself, it's widely used on the web and was originally made by an Italian photographer called Samantha Meglioli.
Have you witnessed similar things yourself?
Don't just ignore it and move on... let me know!
Thank you for posting @sherlockholmes.
Lovely moniker.
This is some fantastic reporting....have you reported any of your findings to @steemcleaners.
Cheers.
yes, @steemcleaners have been informed!
I really hate scammers! To see someone who use the identity (and the work) of someone else to earn money make feel so angry!
Great investigation work, resteemed!
thank you very much for your support!
Great work detective.
I posted an article about how to fix the Rewards Pool issue and mentioned you in it. I suggested, that along with a fix, there would still need to be more people like you hunting down those scamming the system.
Your support is greatly appreciated!
Great detective work, it's unfortunate that many don't even take a second to read a post before upvoting it.
Some of those upvotes are going to accounts trying to scam and get rewards.
It is stupid to try and 'game the system' as everything is recorded on the Steem Blockchain and scammers will get caught out and I do believe they will be punished by the community with downvotes (flagging) until they exist no more.
You got an upvote & resteem from me.
Steem on beyond the moon, we will take it way further. Good luck to us all.
Well, except when he gets to the scammers who are actually big fish with tons of little fish trying to get a nibble.
That's why I can't fight this battle alone!
I hope that others who have the ability join with your efforts.
For now, I can only just upvote and resteem you.
I like this! I like this a lot! You just got a follower!
I'm just interested: Can we ask you to solve some mysteries for us, if any?
That's the idea!
If you have any leads, feel free to let me know!
There are alot of scammers out there one must be very careful! Thanks for sharing this on steemit.
If you haven't seen our tools yet, you might find they help you in your work :)
Your tools are essential to my work here! Perfect to take a first glance at an accounts general behavior.
I would appreciate to see more details and options in your vote-graph tool!
Keep following - there will be more facilities added soon! :)
Thank you for exposing these scammers. Now lets resteem this and spread the word not to upvote any of their posts. Better if we all can flag them.
Yes, the judges and the executor are represented by the community as a large.
Only together, as a community, can we make this blockchain a better place!
You are right @sherlockholmes . I fully support your hard work. Thank you!
Good detective work!
On the brightside the real Ekaterina might consider joining steemit now, if not well at least we can follow her on her real accounts on other sites.
In fact she is currently waiting for her sign-up to be approved!
I'll report back when she's verified and if she lets me know her account name.
Awesome work Mr. Holmes! You've got yourself a new follower!