How Can You Tell if a Tattoo Arist is a Scammer?

A travel nursing assistant and TikTok influencer booked an appointment with a Miami tattoo artist. Then, when she arrived at her tap-out session that she and a friend had already spent $650 on, she realized it was a scam. 

Woman Finds Miami Tattoo Artist on TikTok

DajLife described in a video with over 184,000 views that she found a Miami tattoo artist on TikTok who had what she thought was a particularly diverse and well-rounded portfolio. @Inkbydenzel, an account with 6,640 followers, had been posting since 2023 and looked genuine to her. He had posts dating back to the week prior with half and full sleeves that looked professional, given their style. That, alongside the tattoo artist’s low prices, seemed like an appealing quality, DajLife said. 

She said she reached out to the artist via his phone number, as he listed it as a preferred form of contact. According to her, she immediately started to notice something was off. She said it took him a full day to respond to her inquiry regarding pricing. Then, she said he asked for the full price of the appointment upfront instead of offering her an opportunity to pay a deposit. 

DajLife said she went ahead and agreed to pay the fee upfront, and he let her know she could come in “whenever” for her tattoo session. That’s when he sent the address and let her know she needed to send payment, the TikToker said. 

Due to a technicality with the design she wanted, @Inkbydenzel asked for $150 more, according to DajLife. The TikToker said she agreed and had her friend send over a combined $650 for the appointment. 

Things Start Feeling Strange the Day of the Appointment

DajLife said she started to feel extremely sketched out by the situation right before the appointment. She said she texted @Inkbydenzel to ask whether or not the address he had sent was correct, but he did not answer. She ended up arriving at a random building with no sign of the artist, she said. The TikToker added that when she called the man over and over again, he did not respond. According to her, he had blocked her number. 

She said she and her friend took a $60 Uber about an hour away from their town to get to his location. So, they ended up having to take a $60 Uber back home. That added $120 to an already expensive $650 trip.

Do Tattoo Artists Normally Ask for the Full Price Upfront?

Most tattoo artists do not ask for the entire payment for a tattoo upfront. Typically, artists will ask for a booking deposit that’s around 10–20% of the tattoo’s cost. That deposit will then be applied to the tattoo when a client comes to get one. 

For that reason, many viewers said that @Inkbydenzel didn’t seem like a real tattoo artist. However, commenters say there were a number of other signs that @Inkbydenzel is a scammer. 

DajLife described @Inkbydenzel as having an absurdly low price for his services. “We talked about it. So, long story short, he said tattoos for a tap-out session for two people was $500,” she recalled in her video. 

A tap-out session for just one person is usually a minimum of $500. But tap-out sessions can range from $500 to $3,000. Across his page, he has notably low industry rates that don’t typically match normal costs for tattoos. Full sleeves, for instance, do not normally cost $350, especially for the quality of work he was posting. They can range from $1,550 to $12,000+. That, alongside the fact that he doesn’t normally take deposits, paints a picture of a potential scam.

While many commenters felt bad about DajLife’s situation, others mentioned that it was a bad idea to send a full payment before the appointment. 

Even if ignoring his abnormally low prices, commenters said that @Inkbydenzel’s Instagram page has very obvious signs of being somewhat scammy. For one, there are commenters who claim that Denzel has messages on his page from 2024 stating that the tattoos are clearly “not [his] work.” 

“Just saw the page. I see comments from last year saying ‘not your work.’ Y’all didn’t see that?” one viewer asked. 

It’s unclear which posts the commenter is referring to from 2024, but @Inkbydenzel does have a number of posts from 2024–2025 where commenters ask for his public Instagram. Instead of providing it, Denzel asks that the commenters message him via text, something that raises an eyebrow. 

That’s partially because his former Instagram page, @iinkbydenzel, is no longer publicly available on Instagram. He also does not provide any shop site for his portfolio or any relevant additional pages based on his TikTok posts. Both of those factors, alongside the extremely small amount of public information about his business, point toward it being a scam.

Another added that “all his post[s] have 1-3 comments. What good artist page ain’t poppin? Def a lot of red flags.” That was another thing that stood out about his business. 

DajLife replied to one viewer asking whether she saw red flags, saying, “It’s 2026…. his most recent at the time was 3 days, 5 days a week or so,” which explained how she may not have seen anything out of the ordinary.

DajLife’s Update on the Tattoo Situation 

In an update to her TikTok page, DajLife told her audience that she went to the police concerning the situation. She said officers let her know that there was little she would be able to do, as sending her the wrong address for a bait-and-switch isn’t a crime in her area. DajLife and her best friend were allowed to file a police report, but she said officers told them it was unlikely anything would happen with it. 

Then, she said they contacted Apple Pay. She said they let her know that Apple Pay is primarily for transactions between friends and family. It’s not meant for business transactions, so there was little they could do to support her. 

Ultimately, she said her friend had to file a dispute with her bank. DajLife said she couldn’t do much to alleviate the situation. Instead, they just had to go through the legal process of disputing the charges.

DajLife also said she noticed that @Inkbydenzel temporarily limited his comments after she made her post. Since then, though, he’s opened his comments back up for new posts. 

“I clearly wasn’t thinking straight,” DajLife said to close off the video. While she indicated that she did her research before reaching out to @Inkbydenzel, she still ended up in the wrong spot with the wrong artist. 

AllHipHop reached out to @Inkbydenzel via his booking phone number and TikTok direct message. We’ve also reached out to DajLife via email and TikTok direct message. We’ll let you know if either party responds.

@dajmikaell it’s always sum . #miamibeach #inbydenzel #tattoo #fypシ #viral ♬ original sound – DajLife

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