Asked To Deface A Picture Vs Returning It

What difference does it make? You ship it back, it is gone... you deface it, it is gone. That's known as a difference without a significant distinction.

Standard procedure these days.

We do that with buyers that pay thousands of dollars for signed and numbered, limited-edition art.

We have them cut a six by-ten-inch piece out of the center and the signature and number and mail it to us in a first-class envelope.

Shipping and restocking costs are too high to have the art shipped back.

Hi Sharon,

Yes, Like Floyd said - that is standard procedure.

Due to the rising costs of shipping it has become standard practice Sharon. I understand your feelings about having to destroy it but its the least costly way .



Dave types faster than I do :-)

It's not like it's an original art piece... its a print.

You just have to "trust" that FAA will produce the refund after you follow the instructions. Pretty standard these days. In fact... it was standard in past days too.

Its just how its done now. Its too expensive to ship back and then store some place. Its easier for you to destroy it and prove it was destroyed. I've cut up cables that didn't work and other things.

As said its just a piece of paper, tear it up, they refund you. Its not like the site can resell that image at that size and its defective.


----Mike Savad

You selected one specific image out of millions available and then you asked that it be printed on a product, in this case a wood substrate at a particular size (but it could as well have been on a shower curtain or phone cover or puzzle . . . ). You ordered a one-of-a-kind item - no one else will ever want it.

As Mike suggested, a print-on-demand site cannot resell the product, so destroying rather than shipping back is actually the most cost-effective and the least wasteful.

The only hard part is. If its wood and one doesn't own tools. How does one destroy it?

it even saves you a trip to the post office, or UPS, or Fedex, you should be happy to do this or is the print not that bad after all if this makes you feel uneasy?

The product would have been destroyed anyway.
This way, it saves the cost of shipping it back, both financial and environmental.

I think in this case, since it's wood, it was not asked to destroy it, but to write on it.

I'm also not sure that FAA pays for the shipping back. You may have had to pay for that back which sure wouldn't be worth it if it was damaged.

The thing is, if you write on it, you could easily fake that in photoshop with an overlay. I could cut it into cubes, drill holes in it, one could shoot it with a gun. I guess you could dump paint on it.


----Mike Savad

Fine Art America does not reimburse the outgoing or return shipping charges unless the return is due to a defect in quality.

I understand that it feels creepy to deface a piece of artwork - even if it already has a defect to it.
But yes, that is standard procedure around here, they need a picture as proof - and your refund will be on its way. It saves on return shipping charges.

Standard procedure.

Shipping it back only wastes money as it ends up in the dumpster.

Edward is right. Why would FAA want to pay to have a damaged item returned to them?

And this saves you the trouble of taking it somewhere to ship it back. Makes sense any way you look at it.

Seems to me that the point was whether or not there would be a refund. I could be wrong, but the comment was "Makes me uneasy to do this and then wait for a refund."

On my lower-priced eBay sales and on other platforms, when I get a request to authorize a return I don't even make them destroy it. I just give them a full refund and tell them to keep it and do what they want with it.

I get some very nice feedback for doing that and it is some of the best advertising I can get for the price. I also get a lot of repeat business from those same buyers.

Sure, I bet I do get scammed once in the while, but my return rate, to begin with, is very, very low so even if 100% were scams, you can't buy that kind of goodwill and positive feedback at any price.

Mike Savad-

It would be an unusual house if one didn't have forks and knives, or a screwdriver, etc. of various descriptions with which to deface a print, even on wood.

Wood is harder to hurt than one may think. Its a lot of work beating wood to death. I'd set it on fire, but plywood is not burning friendly.


Things are destroyed because once people find out that they can buy it, and get a refund and not destroy it, they will take all the work, and no one would get a profit. A small place can get away with it, but a large one, people would post it as a hack to get almost free art.


----Mike Savad

Glenn, the sooner she complies and submits the photo to Fineartamerica, as they requested, the sooner she’ll get her refund.

Customers should try to view things from a company’s point of view. Too much dishonesty out there. I don’t blame Fineartamerica for wanting verification that the item is truly not wanted, before issuing refunds.