Masterworks Reviews 218

This is a high pressure sales tactic to sell you shares you'll never be able to sell again. RUN AWAY!

I purchased a share of a painting in August 2022. Not long ago I received an email saying my account had been deactivated, with no information as to why. I contacted customer service and received no reply whatsoever: so currently it feels like I was scammed out of $500. I would strongly suggest you avoid this company and look to a more reputable form of investing.

Thanks to the excellent team of professionals that took the time to explain the process of art investing and onboarded me seamlessly into a new form of investment.

When you start investing with them, they are the most helpfull to support you in investing money, and they push you to much, Red Flag!

When I tried to sell my shares, 20 days later I receive a email dat because my trading wallet was inactive they froze my ability to sell my shares. But I was trying to sell my shares!? Red Flag

After trying to get my wallet active again what took me almost 8 months, yes freaking 8 months!! With receiving many, many template emails with no support, I almost wanted to file a complaint at the court.
Because with investing experience this felt like a big scam.

So after being a big pain in the ass bothering these Masterwork &%$#@# I finaly got my shares sold.

For everybody who is reading this, stay far far aways from these folks!

This was the most horrible investing experience in my life!!

Be aware folks for these MasterSnakes...

Evan was helpful and patient to explain everything and answer all my questions. Process easy and convenient yet secure with checks and balances.

I bought into the first of 6 paintings in 2021. They're appraised for less than my purchase. The annual fees are high and Masterworks has no incentive to sell the paintings because they collect annual fees on my shares. Paul Colnaghi emails me relentlessly marketing new paintings. I've repeatedly asked him to stop spamming me to no avail. Given that I'm losing money, I've asked for an explanation of the "value" of my 6 investments, coupled with paying annual fees. Crickets. I see no return on any of these paintings, and no communication from the company other than a steady stream of pitches to buy more. Given my experience, I'd recommend avoiding the fancy hype with no ROI in sight. What's wrong with this picture?!

The good:
App is made well. Supportnist responsive. The legal framework they hold the artworks in seems descently safe (its yours even if mw goes bankrupt.

The bad:
I invested about 20k in 6 different pieces of art about 3 years ago. Beside a small lift all assets have lost about 20% in value since, (in the most recent valuations)
Looking back I would no longe investing in art except possibly for a highly diversified ETF styl, low cost product.
1. The art market is highly iliquided so its very difficult to have any control of selling an asser (particularly if the priice is down)
2. i have to fully rely on the expertise of the masterwork prospectus. Its pretty much a lottery from my perspective
3. the cost structure is built in a way that masterworks has no incentives to sell fast. They profit either way. The risk and cost is fully with the investors.

Edit on masterworks reply:
For 3: If we assume an artwork is valued at $1 million, the 1.5% fee amounts to $15,000 annually. Of this, storage might cost $2,000 to $5,000, insurance could cost $3,000 to $5,000. So once an artwork is aquired masterworks has no variable cost per artwork so the more artworks are sold the higher the contribution margin is. Thus the more artworks bought the better. If they sell mw gets a substantial part of the sales price. If not, the artwork just keeps raking in management fees. Thats what i mean with unaligned risk.

Easy and quick process to begin investing with masterworks. Professional and streamlined

The system is not user friendly and I faced a lot of issues with help desk. They kept on ignoring my enquiries and once I heard back after few chasers, the information was vague and lacked to asnwer my questions.

From the investment perspective, seems to me that this is not a product sutiable for retail clients and Masterworks which plays the role of intermediary does not inform the client much about their products.

The company sends a lot financial promotions emails which are unnecesasary annoying (even after opting out) and does not give much informatin on the your investment continuity.

I would not recommend Masterworks if you are a retail investor.

They do not respond to unsubscribe instructions. Even blocking within Gmail does nothing, which leads me to believe they have intentional workarounds. When I first attempted to unsubscribe, all emails from them had been signed off by the same person until that point. Very soon after I received another email from them signed off by a different person. Using gmails in built block feature resulted in emails from them from yet another name. I replied to these emails to request they stop and delete all data they have on me and received no response. I have blocked, reported as spam etc and I STILL RECEIVE EMAILS FROM THEM. Actual scams are easier to get rid of, if this isn’t one itself. I’ve never come across a company with as little disregard and predatory behaviour in their communications. Bizarre.

I had trouble getting my account linked but with Layla’s help I finally got it set up. She was very patient. I’m proud to be a Masterworks owner.

Mike got tied up on a call and Phil supported my call. He was excellent and answered all my questions. I will be contacting him and investing additional funds in the future.

Evan was exceptionally professional and knowledgeable. Had a great experience!

Excellent investment advise. Concise and unbiased.

Excellent explanation of how the platform works and helpful to be able to get all my questions answered with personal service.

Great communication and business description. Made me very comfortable with getting invested.

Took time to go over my investment selections and help me diversify my portfolio. Thank you!

Not happy so far. I have over $23,000 invested in various pieces of art. My portfolio seems to be on a downward trend while stocks have done well. I realized today this is primarily because they have charged a management fee of $439. This does not equate to the 1.5% management fee I agreed to. If they hold onto this art for years, there's no way the profit will cover these steep management fees. I scheduled a consultation to find out what's going on. Plus, they use deceptive techniques to entice buyers. For example, you'll see a piece of art sitting at 99% sold for a couple of days so you will think "I have to buy now before it's sold out!" I did this a couple of times and realized it's a marketing technique. The interview to access an account seems to make you feel like this is a privileged investment platform. Plus you're money is locked up. Selling on the secondary market you'll end up losing several percent. At this point, I'm not sure what to do. I was buying for several months but stopped when I wasn't seeing any results. It's also concerning to see all these 5-star reviews from users who only have left one review...seems like a red flag. Although I'm seeing these people are brand new investors or people who just interviewed... let's see how they feel in a year or so. The only reason for two stars instead of one is because the platform is well designed and the idea is good, but management fee is causing a loss of value.

Quick, informativd, and effective.

The time taken to learn my knowledge and interest in art and investing and then discussing how that related to MASTERWORKS's offering was very important.