What are the characteristics of a scammer?

The scammers we usually need to be wary of are:

• In the case of gaming accounts, such as Steam, they pretend to be the owner of the victim’s account, then contact the owner of the gaming account through any social media and claim that their account has been reported, and the victim sends their contact details, but not to the gaming support contact.
• In the case of commissions, we won’t be suspicious if the conversation seems normal, and the intent to scam only becomes apparent once their request is completed. For commission cases, we need to outsmart them by prompting the client to send 1 USD if they request payment via PayPal.

The result of personal analysis

After spending the whole day searching for the person behind the name ‘Domian Carlo’ used in various scams such as PayPal, here are the results.

It turns out that this name has been most frequently used for scams on various platforms, not only DeviantArt but also Instagram, which has been targeted by scammers. Thread source: https://www.reddit.com/r/paypal/comments/1fi1m0p/a_person_paid_an_extra_300usd_to_an_existing/

Secondly, yesterday I also asked ChatGPT about where the name Domian Carlo came from and who Domian Carlo was, and why this name was most often used in scams. and it turns out that based on the answer from ChatGPT, as shown below:

• The name sounds “authentic” and convincing. – Names with the Spanish/Latino format of Firstname + Lastname make people more likely to believe that it is a real identity, not a fake account.
• No clear public trace – Since “Domian Castro” is not a famous figure, scammers can use this name without fear of anyone quickly discovering their true identity. If people try to google it, the results are minimal, so victims can be confused.
• Names can be recycled – Scammers often use the same name on multiple platforms (PayPal, DeviantArt, Instagram, email spam) to run automated scripts. If one account gets banned, they create another one with a similar name.
• The psychological effect of “foreign names” – Many scammers choose international-style names (Spanish, Latin American, European) to appear professional or “foreign,” making them more trustworthy in matters of money or online business.
• It’s probably just a random generator. There are tools/scripts that generate random fake names, which are then used en masse for thousands of scam accounts. So it’s possible that “Domian Castro” is just a random result, not chosen with any specific intent.

And among the five answers provided by ChatGPT, the most plausible ones are number one and number five, because they appear to be authentic. Number five is only a temporary guess based on the results of a random name generator.

Characteristics of accounts that will scam you

The social media account was only created two days ago. We don’t need to look far for an example; take Instagram. If a new Instagram account is created, it will be empty, so we fill it with new images, but we use stock images found on the internet or take photos of famous people from their official accounts. What is the purpose of this? It is so that it doesn’t look like a scammer, even though it is obvious that it is a scammer account. Oh yes, for Instagram, we can use Meta AI to report fake or fraudulent accounts, which are usually quickly removed. But what about DeviantArt or Discord?

It is possible that the process will take a long time and require reports from several users. In the case of vectors, scammers will use vector image profile photos to convince victims, especially those who are opening commissions in the vector category. The reason I have just analyzed is “I have already commissioned A” or other users who offer vector creation services.

The profile photo of the scammer was taken from the internet.

The investigation didn’t stop there, so I was curious whether the profile photo used by the perpetrator was his own or taken from the internet. So last night before going to bed, I took the time to ask ChatGPT again to confirm whether the photo was real or belonged to someone else and how to take someone else’s profile photo. It turned out that ChatGPT couldn’t help due to Discord’s own policy, so I had no choice but to use the old method of using the inspect element on the browser.

Finally, I logged into my Discord account through my browser and opened the chat account named Derry, then we searched for the user ID in the resource tab. Oh, by the way, we need to know that the Discord account profile photo is located in the cdn.discordapp.com folder in the source, then the avatar, and there will be several folders with numbers. Those numbers are the user IDs. How do we find them? We copy the user ID by right-clicking and pasting it into the search bar to match. Usually, in the source tab, the most recent conversations or those who have just become friends are at the bottom, not the top.
After that, I used Google Lens to search for the image used as the profile photo, and yes, my guess was correct it was taken from the internet.

It turns out that before I worked on my version of the vector, someone else had already done it first.

So, after I uploaded my version of the vector, it turned out that someone else had already done it, but the caption was rude and the upload date was July 25, 2025. From this, it was clear that the perpetrator had been carrying out their actions for 1 or 2 years. You can check the version via this link or preview and my version:

The difference is that I’m using captions as usual here, even though I actually want to get angry too.

Highly suspicious email address

Perhaps I didn’t realize that there was something strange about the format of the PayPal message or the official PayPal email. However, it turns out that the original PayPal notification email format is actually very simple, just stating “you have received a balance of X dollars,” and upgrading from a personal account to a business account is completely free of charge. The only fees are charged when you make a transaction, and they don’t exceed 200 USD or 300 USD, just 2%.

Regarding the email address, make sure it’s the real one.

Not this one

And I also asked ChatGPT again if all money notifications were successfully received from the application itself, official email, or PayPal dashboard, not through Discord, WhatsApp, or others.

Several screenshots of conversations on Discord and direct messages on DeviantArt

For some reason, I feel like something is strange here. I should be the one panicking, but why is he the one panicking to the point of spamming me with three phone calls? If I should be panicking, it’s because the money hasn’t come in yet.

Then when I gave him paypal.me, he insisted on asking for my email address. Just for your information, you can also send money using your email address in the app, but if you want to be safer, just use paypal.me. and this is the last conversation on deviantart.

Since I also enjoy blogging, don’t be surprised if my posts are this long, but also as a reminder to always be careful when making transactions or commissions, especially with PayPal. If you don’t understand, ask your friends who have made transactions using PayPal or chatGPT.

Pictures Source

https://www.deviantart.com/iamheavymetalcool48/art/Woman-1220583007 https://www.deviantart.com/gingalibadeidara/art/Girls-selfie-Vector-1246837005

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