apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

False advertising by real estate agents is an offense which keenly interests state government regulators. Unless that West Elm photo shoot occurred in the apartment for sale, the agent is considered to have engaged in a deceptive sales practice by posting it on the internet. Bait and switch is not tolerated by real estate regulators, I hope someone will report it to the State of New York.

The artist's site called the page "in situ" su and included the statement that "All of the works were customised to fit the style and interior decor of the buyer" so it is doubtful that she didn't know these weren't her client's homes. Shameful!

I find it "interesting" that those photos on the Dee Adams website were removed only after my post here. It's like either that ad agency or the artist (I hope it was the former) was just waiting to be caught before doing the right thing. The whole "Jacob" character is fishy. Why issue a public apology here - on a post about a realtor using a West Elm ad where the public apology would just become a part of AT archives after a couple of days? Wouldn't a more appropriate place for a public apology be on her website, where her former ad agency apologizes for fraud on the site where the client pictures used to be until the pictures are replaced with actual in situ shots? I wonder if any of the sites whose photos were stolen, such as the Hotel Adagio, actually know about it?
Maybe I should post other examples of this? Or maybe I should start my own online detective business and uncover similar cases of fraud! (Or maybe I'm just a little too bored with my day job...)

Funny that y'all sort of expect an ad agency or a realtor to be pulling this kind of crap, but not an artist.

hehehe

If I were going to pay almost a million dollars for a home, the least I would expect is some real photos...sheesh

patrick(too), so true. I guess nobody is above this kind of crap. I think I'm guilty of assuming artists would behave with more integrity than an ad exec or a realtor. I stand (very) corrected!

They aren't sorry they did it. They are sorry they were caught.

OMG!! I can't believe someone actually did that! That's just not right!

Maybe West Elm used the vacant apartment for their photo shoot - anyone think of that?

The broker came back and apologized (on Curbed). She admitted that she lifted the photo. It looks like people have asked her to list the real photo because her excuse for lifting it was that the apts looked "similar". Coming from an agent who used that many exclamation points I'm guessing they look nothing alike.

I actually met with this firm (but not this agent) last year and they showed me at least 6 apts that were described as "one bedrooms in Ft. Greene brownstones" and were in fact studios in large (non-brownstone) walk-up buildings.

Grace

Sheisty. Funny... but ultimatey very sheisty. "Bad, real estate agent! Bad!"

And real estate agents wonder why their profession has such a bad reputation.

speaking of which, can anyone recommend a real estate agent who is, for a change, decent and honest?

oh, i absolutely, positively, can refer a realtor. I had nothing but a perfect experience with this person. We were the buyer and she represented the seller, and we could not have felt more comfortable. She took care of us in so many ways. She's here:

http://www.cbhk.com/agent/AgentDetail.asp?CEQ_AgentCode=10323

She's truly decent and honest.

Thank you Susan, i will keep her in mind for the future when i am ready to buy. i guess i was not specific enough, as i am currently looking for rental agents.

She also does rentals, so call her.

I'd love to hear how this plays out...

So is this agent, who has not a deceiving bone in her body, is very well connected, and hard working. I've known her for a long time and have been continually impressed with her dedication to her clients...

http://corcoran.com/agents/profile.aspx?userid=PCE&region=NYC

This hilarious....because of how bad a decision this was by Holly. This will haunt her forever professionally.

I find people lying about art/interiors/decor very often online. What I don't get is why they think they won't get caught?
Here is an excellent example:
There is an artist who does contemporary/modern abstract pieces. This artist has a website and on part of the website she shows her pieces in clients' homes.
I was recently looking at hotels online for an upcoming trip to San Francisco and guess what I saw? A picture on the hotel's site that looked eerily similar to a picture the artist has on her website that she claims is in a client's home.
I remembered the artist's site and clicked back there and the artist had taken this room shot directly from the hotel's site, used PhotoShop or some other program to put her art over the art in the hotel picture, and then claimed it was in a client's house in Denver.
You have to see it to see how funny it is:

First look at the sixth picture down on the hotel's site, look for the picture of the Honor Bar with the red-orange wall behind it and the tree photo:

http://www.jdvhospitality.com/hotels/images/15

Next, go to the artist's gallery and scroll down the 10th photo. You will see it was stolen from the hotel's site and the art was added by computer over the hotel's tree photo!

http://www.deedee914.com/gallery.html

This is just one example but I see stuff like this all the time.

Good catch James. That's pretty lousy for an artist to do. If she doesn't have real clients, then maybe she should spend more time painting and less time photoshopping.

James,
It looks like that artists photoshopped all of them.. Every photo looks like its from a furniture catalog.

I would like to offer a public apology for the above post regarding deedee9:14. My name is Jacob Connolly and I work for the small boutique company that maintains the website collateral for deedee9:14 and the artist Dee Adams. Our design studio is mainly responsible for photographing the work and displaying it as this is a service we offer to artists who do not have the time or inclination to do so.

I offer this apology publicy because Miss Adams' team has since dismissed us for using poor practices. Our intent was only to show her work in situ with a combination of professionally photographed images as well as digital composites. The artist herself wasn't repsonsible for this portion of the site and we have since made restitutions to her and her representatives for our mistake. We have also sent legal notice to the Adagio hotel in San Francisco with the intent of paying any damages as well.

It is my understanding the team at deedee9:14 will remove this section of their site and have all the works re-photographed by a studio.

My personal apologies to Miss Adams because she is well known throughout the design community.

all apologies and there was no excuse for our lack of professionalism. Our apologies to Miss Adams and the terrible mark we've put against her otherwise good name.

Very nice apology, Mr. Connolly, and I, for one, applaud you for coming foward and assuming responsibility, and making your apology public. So often excuses are made and responsibility is sluffed off.

Thank you.

Jacob, like oceandreamer, I also admire your apology. The intention of my post was just to point out that this type of misleading advertising and marketing occurs frequently. I didn't mean to single out Dee Adams, just to show another example of the kind of deception discussed in this post.

I am happy to know that Dee Adams was not responsible for this, because I do like her work. It is also nice to see somebody taking responsibility for this behavior.
Everybody makes mistakes and errors in judgment - it is how we handle these mistakes that shows what kind of person we are.

Hmm Jacob. Sounds a little suspect to me. I don't buy it.

The photos are now gone. If you have made restitutions to her and she has been aware of your "mistake" then why did it take until today for those photos to be removed? I don't buy it either.

As part of our legal agreement with the artist we were requested to issue a public apology in writing. This is not something that was required of us on this website but I felt it necessary to make every effort at making sure we abided by her wishes. As far as it taking this long for the site to be changed and for the images to be removed, documentation had to be completed in a certain way and all our digital assets handed over to the appropriate people. We no logner do business with Miss Adams and she has been very fair with us considering. For that I'm grateful but a lesson has been learned. This will be my last post on this subject.

I wanted to see what the deedee kafuffle was about so I checked out google's cached version of the site: http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:rTi5KbLNujgJ:www.deedee914.com/gallery.html+http://www.deedee914.com/gallery.html&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=safari

Wow, that's highly unprofessional and amateurish. If you're going to do concept renderings there's lots of stock images you can license. No need to steal.

I don't believe for a second that Jacob Connolly and his company (notice he doesn't name the company publicly because he has admitted THEY DO THIS AS POLICY) has learned one ounce of "lesson" here.

They happen to get caught for their regular practice of faking images and now we're supposed to believe it suddenly won't ever happen again.

Seriously, it seems like it's time for class action on the parts of the artists who paid Jacob / his company. This artist is now going to have this page come up when people search for her name, and how many people are going to take the time to read the whole thread before connecting her with stupid fraud? And as "hmmm" points out, we don't even know there is a Jacob Connolly.

WTF is this country coming to.

Okay, now that I look at the supposed timeline, I don't buy it either. At all. How could the timing be so perfect? This "Jacob" claims she discovered this and came to a restitution agreement with him before this story broke, and now he just happens to have taken the images down immediately after the post here that broke it.

Personally I don't buy that.

Wow, this just gets much more depressing if she did (or knew about) the Photoshopping and Jacob is made up. Ay...

I, too, find this "Jacob" character completely suspect. There's not a doubt in my mind that Ms. Adams created a fictional scapegoat to take the culpability off of herself and her own organization. Here it is all put together; some things others have pointed out plus some additional observations:

1. The timeframe between the original comment divulging the photoshopped pictures and all the actions that "Jacob" has claimed to have taken just doesn't gel, especially the fact that the images were removed only after this "broke" on AT.

2. For what it's worth, a google search of Jacob Connolly turns up nothing for any related industry. He was willing to divulge his full name but not his company's name? Convenient.

3. Cached versions of the site don't offer any promo link to the design firm that created the site. It's pretty standard for a firm to put a little link on the bottom of the page or on an about page... this makes me suspect that the site was designed internally.

4. Finally, having worked in the art licensing industry, I find it very suspect that the company has "made restitution" to the hotel for using their images. It just doesn't work this way-- it's too small of beans. A cease and desist is usually the first order of the day, and rarely will legal action go further than this, especially when the images are taken down in a timely manner once the misuse has been "divulged." The only time dollar settlements generally come into play is when the violating party has earned money from the sale of copyrighted material, then they would settle to pay the hotel compensation, but that's not the case here.

So, I believe that Adams (or her people) made the whole story up to *sound* like they've done everything in a perfectly respectable way.

Deception upon deception. Fun stuff!

Well dee is a sometime commenter on this site so I guess she is posting as Jacob.

Very poor show dee dee.