Is that a Whiteley? Why collectors buy lousy fakes as masterpieces

It was once famously reported that French painter Jean-Baptist-Camille Corot in his lifetime completed about 2,500 paintings of which 7,800 are now in American collections. The gentle Corot did little to help his own cause and would obligingly sign fakes, made by needy artists, reasoning that if a collector was so ignorant as to accept such rubbish as an authentic Corot, he might at least have a real signature for his money.