I and my nonprofit were personally attacked by the parents. They went after my disabled clients and organizations tied to me for asking questions about their work.
This book review triggered them to futher attack me on Amazon and slander me and my nonprofit there. Amazon refused to remove it. It took thousands of dollars of legal action to get it removed off Amazon.
I did purchase this book. Have the receipt to prove it. This “scrapbook” fully appears to be a scam. Sadly, I found out the hard way after asking a question about the work and for a video of the more intricate works and getting blocked. It caused me to do more digging on the inter-web. Search “candy waters autism art scam”. It made me sick to read and see the screen-caps.
I have since been contacted by the Dr. Phil show along with several others, including the mom; we were set to tape when she refused to go on all of the sudden. Why not if you have nothing to hide? If this was truly Candy’s work, it would have been a wonderful platform for her and autism awareness. Yet, still to this day, no one can seem to get full, unedited videos of her painting freely, no videos of her painting the intricate paintings. She is far from the only non-verbal autistic person painting on video. A simple google search proves that. Buyer Beware.
I own many coffee table books and they all have heavy gloss paper. This is just a gloss paper one step higher than laser paper. As someone who helped compile three yearbooks, I can not explain the empty pages. There should be no empty pages. Why not put autism awareness there (it was lacking), pictures of Candy having fun, family, signs of Autism (wasn’t this supposed to be about autism too?), something. You never leave pages empty; you pull pages out then. “Art” was faded on edges, it appeared it was old and pulled from a non-acid free box.
I am not sure what the parents failed music career had to do with the scrapbook. It was not relevant to the scrapbook at all and ran a theme throughout. There are also ads on where to buy the “art” elsewhere as well.
There were many grammar and punctuation errors; clearly no editor was involved in the process.
To those “fans” who still believe she is painting this “art”, literally everything you get in this sprapbook on her facebook page. From “testimonies” to famous people holding her magazine picture, all the “art”, the introduction. Some pulled from articles written by media in the past as well. Please, save yourself the money. You will get a better quality picture printing it with your own laser printer for free. The Waters often encourage you to do that on her page and show her. Well, I am telling you do so, and save your money. This was the biggest waste of money I have spent. It will be returned to Amazon as it is clear now; it is exploitation.
As far as the “art”, please look at the videos on her Facebook page. Now look at what you see in the book? Does it match in technical features? Overlays? Fine Motor Ability and strokes? Style? It is not even close to the same. Also why is there none of the art we see her doing in the videos actually in the book? Hurry though, as I see the videos are disappearing on her page which makes me stand in my opinion even more.
Most of my evidence you will find uploaded online here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/candy-waters-autism-artist/park-ridge-illin…⇄
Victim Location 10805
Type of a scam Charity
I was interested in purchasing some painting advertised by this business. I inquired about the authenticity of the artwork to verify the artist was the child with autism and that the paintings supported an autism charity.
I was blocked and my comment was deleted. So I sought information from the charity listed in news articles as a beneficiary for verification.
The business itself is run by a set a parents in Illinois and is named after their daughter who has autism, "Candy Waters Autism Artist". They advertise the work all over Facebook as being by their daughter, however, among art therapy professionals it does not appear that the child is the true artist behind the work because of a video that surfaced from the parents.
I soon learned any questions regarding the child’s process, even if coming from parents with autistic children who want to learn how they can help their own children, are blocked and evaded by the parents. I myself was blocked and banned from their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/candywatersautismartist.
I didn’t think anything of it until another friend of mine (who has an autistic son) said the same thing happened to her after she asked how she paints in an effort to help her own son.
The family claims they want to raise awareness of autism and the money "goes to a good cause". So why would they do this to members of the autism community?
We discovered a video online posted by the parents of the child painting. It became evident that this wasn’t the same person creating the paintings on their online store. We looked up if there was anyone else that said this was a scam. Sure enough, results popped up on Facebook and in comments on blogs warning of it being a scam for years.
We contacted news stations that had covered the family in the past and no one had actually seen this child paint for their interviews. They relied simply on word of mouth from the parents.
We contacted the charities listed as a beneficiary to the sale of the artwork. Kind-Tree Autism Rocks Foundation does not receive any money from the parents Zazzle store, does not sell the work on their own website any longer, and could not attest to the artist actually being a child with autism because they never required proof of authenticity or disability.
We are Lions, also stopped selling the work, does not benefit from the zazzle sales, and actually is not a charity in the first place. They are a for profit dedicated to promoting artists with disabilities,
In an effort to quiet anyone speaking out with their experiences of this being a scam, the family (the business owners) personally targeted individuals voicing their concerns on http://candywatersautismartscam.wordpress.com
The business owners resorted to extreme acts of malice including cyberstalking, slandering, harassment and defamation but looking up individuals private contact information, and seeking out their personal employers and affiliations to say they were stalking and harassing their daughter. They went so far as to label people pedophiles and threaten people personally.
Why do this when the only concern was the authenticity of a product they sell online?