Peter Vink - art fraud on TradeMe
As the ScamBusters put more pressure on Vink and threatened his lucrative little business, he joined our forums. In his mind the core ScamBusters became the devil incarnate, while Vink saw himself as a white angel, bringing peace and love to the world.
In one of his (usually late night) posts he defended his practice of signing imported artworks.
"Who cares who painted the works... as long as the buyers are happy?" ~ Peter Vink
As doors started closing on him, Vink the fraudster needed to come up with other money making schemes.
Multiple IDs #1 - Chelsea Finn
The first of these was a brand new graduate from an English art college... an apparently sweet little thing called Chelsea Finn. She set up a TradeMe ID called oceandevotion and specialised in painting triptychs. She was saving up to be married, she claimed.
Young Chelsea started to develop her own following on TradeMe and her works were selling well. For a new trader she seemed to know her way around the TradeMe system and quickly became a popular seller.
Like Vink, Chelsea didn't like anyone asking difficult quesitons on her auctions. One trader enquiring "Which art school did you attend in London" was quickly blacklisted.
In creating this character Vink - the comsumate conman - avoided some of the mistakes he'd made in the past. He no longer identified works as specific New Zealand locations. They became "Just a pretty scene".
But Vink was still ripping off photographers work under the new ID. Take this one from Mike Levin.
With a little help from ScamBusters, Mike Levin convinced TradeMe to remove that auction for breaching his copyright. But Vink's TradeMe frauds were far from over and he had another trick up his sleeve.
Read on...
