*** This version of Confluence is for testing only and contains a copy of content from June 29th 2026. No changes will be preserved. ***
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As much as the Internet has positively transformed the market place for buying and selling most anything, it has also come at the price of pervasive scams. With buying art online, the concern is with fakes and forgeries -- basically not knowing if what is being purchased is real or not and what, if any, guarantees come with the purchase. Probably the most notorious case of fake art being sold on eBay is the case of Ken Walton, an attorney who turned into an Internet con man. He came to the attention of the FBI when he made the front page of the New York Times after he sold a Richard Diebenkorn painting for $135,858 on ebay. The problem was that he forget the painter's signature. He wrote a book about his scam titled: Fake: Forgery, Lies, and Ebay. Here is a photo of the top of his webpage, www.kennethwalton.com 
Here is an interesting YouTube interview with him regarding his sale of fake artwork on eBay.
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