The Business of Tattooing - How to Protect Your Clients From Scams

Tattoo Scams are EVERYWHERE

1. Have a good OFFICIAL website with your artists' names or your info very clearly stated. Have your booking process simple and clearly explained. Have an official form on your website for clients to complete and/or ONE email address for booking.
   
   Keep it simple! Don't overcomplicate it by having a million different ways to book. We recommend not booking through social media, but encouraging clients to email or complete an official form. The more options you give, the more opportunity there is for scammers to take advantage of.
   
   2. Have ONE email you use for your deposits and bookings. Ideally, use something very simple but obviously YOURS. If your name is JOE TATTOO, your email should be Joetattoo@gmail.com, Joe.tattoo@gmail.com, Joetattootattoos@gmail.com etc.
   
   Not purpledragon2848@gmail.com, not tattoosrcool@gmail.com, not even joetattoo1@gmail.com.
   
   You want this CLEAR and EASY, and most importantly, unmistakable.
   
   Ideally, use your OWN domain name for the email server, like Joe@Joetattoo.com or book@joetattoo.com as these are VERY unlikely to be faked.
   
   3. Put up a post in your stories and make a public statement, then create a highlight on your IG that clearly states the proper channels to book through. Include your policies and your OFFICIAL email.
   
   4. Encourage clients to ASK you if they're unsure. Allow clients to DM, call or email to confirm if they are ever unsure of how to book properly. We recommend always checking your socials, emails and any other communications every day, even if you don't book through them or even if you have a "NO DMs" policy. This is a great practice to ensure you never miss an opportunity to direct them to the PROPER booking channel.
   
   5. Think about VERIFYING your socials. This may not be for everyone, and this feature does annoyingly cost a monthly fee, but it does allow another level of security for your clients to know that you are who you claim to be, and to make yourself less appealing to scammers.
   
   6. Put all specials, deals, promos etc. on your profile in your official feed. Make sure you put all your specials, deals or promos in your feed and keep them up to date. This way, your clients will easily be able to see what your current deals are without having to go digging. The longer it takes them to figure it out, the higher the chance of them booking elsewhere.
   
   7. Use your NAME for your socials or something else simple. While you might think about having a clever alias as your username, it opens the door for scammers to hijack your username and create a fake account. Create a username that is short and simple. NO periods, dashes, underscores, and ideally NO numbers.
   
   It's much easier for scammers to take advantages of usernames like "yourname1" by creating similar ones like "yourname11" or "your.name1"