10/30/23:
I initially purchased a custom fursuit collar from RegallyWild, in-person, in the dealer's den of Furpocalypse 2023.
I was out of fursuit while looking at the collars in the den. The vendor overheard me say to my partner that, while I really liked one of the collars, I didn't think it would fit on me when I was in suit. They suggested I purchase it, take it back to my room, try it on, and return it if the fit was not correct.
I did this and found, as suspected, the collar did not fit, so I returned to the vendor's table. When I arrived for my refund, the vendor suggested that, rather than refund me, they'd prefer to custom make me a new collar - same pattern and materials - and ship it to me after the convention was over, with the shipping being at their expense. I thought this was very generous and agreed. I provided my name, address, and contact details, which they wrote down in front of me, and I handed them back the too-small collar while they kept my money via credit card transaction.
11/11/23:
About two weeks later, I had not heard from them, so I decided to reach out via email. They responded almost immediately, verifying my recollection of events, and letting me know they'd been sick and promising the order would "be heading out next week." Since a specific timeline had been provided, I was looking for follow-up in the next week. That didn't happen.
12/02/23:
Three weeks later, I reached out again. I was concerned because I knew I'd be out of the country for a few weeks and may have had to arrange for someone to receive my mail if a package was going to be delivered. This email received no response at all.
12/18/23:
Two weeks later, despite being out of the country and in a vastly different time zone, I tried reaching out again. This time, they replied the next day, saying that spikes for the collar were out of stock - odd, since they were supposedly ready to send it one month prior. Strangely, they also offered to send "the rest of the order" before the collar. The collar was the only thing I had purchased, so this was confusing. Since there were no other items to be sent, I told them I was fine to wait for the collar to be completed, because I saw no other option. Also confusing was that one of the emails referenced providing a phone number, but there was no phone number in the message at all. This would be the last time the RegallyWild ever spoke to me.
01/26/2024:
Around five weeks later, I was back in the states and had not heard anything. I reached out again, and additionally requested the phone number they had previously offered to provide. This email received no response.
02/01/2024:
Due to the complete lack of contact, I followed up more quickly, one week later, requesting a status update. This email also received no response.
02/06/2024:
Five business days later, I reached out again. As it had now been nearly two months since they had responded to anything, I felt my only course of action was to request a refund or initiate a chargeback. I know chargebacks can be hard on small businesses, so I felt I owed them a chance to correct the issue before contacting my credit card issuer. This email was not responded to. Unfortunately, I was unable to initiate a chargeback because I had provided them with too much leeway. My issuer would not dispute the charge because it was older than 90 days and neither would Square, RegallyWild's payment processor.
02/15/2024:
About two weeks later, I noticed they had posted new work on Twitter. In desperation, I looked to try that avenue to contact them, but they had their DMs closed. I tried replying to the post, which went unanswered. At this point, I presumed maybe something had happened to them or they had gone out of business.
05/24/2024:
Nearly six months after their last contact, I noticed RegallyWild running banner ads on FurAffinity. I followed the ads to their website and learned they were still taking orders. This prompted me to reach out again one last time. This, of course, also went unanswered.
10/24/2024:
It has now been just shy of one year - fifty-one weeks - since RegallyWild took my money and gave me a year-long headache. Recently, I've had another burned customer of theirs reach out to me via Twitter DM asking if I'd had any luck getting in touch with RegallyWild. Their experience was, unfortunately, much the same as mine.
I've since learned RegallyWild will be vending at Furpocalypse - my local, home con - again this year. So, I feel it's important to get a warning out about possible issues with this maker in advance, in the hopes that no more customers will have the same issues that I have.
I began the commission process with p0pr0ck on August 23, 2022, for a 3/4 suit including head, paws, tail, feet, legs, and additional armsleeves for $1600. I paid in two consecutive installments of $800 through Paypal on August 24 and August 25 2022. Naively, I did not ask to pay goods and services, and paid through friends and family as requested by the maker (this was my mistake). The maker had a public trello linked in their bio, so I was aware she had a few projects ahead of me, and knew it would be some time before my suit was started so I waited a few months before reaching out.
However, per the screenshots provided, I had to borderline beg for communication, deadlines, and updates. I'd send multiple messages over the course of weeks that would go unanswered for long periods of time. I was hopeful when p0pr0ck began to send frequent updates around mid-late April 2023, as she was working on the head of the suit.
Once the tail, head, and paws were finished, we mutually agreed p0pr0ck should send the mini partial out, however it took nearly a month after completion for her to send out the suit and for me to recieve it.
With the absolute battle that communication was, and some of the messages p0pr0ck had been sending me about her personal life, I opted to settle for the mini partial and get a partial refund for the parts I did not recieve (feet, legs, arms). She had since updated her pricing ladder, however, so I had to manually calculate the cost between a mini partial vs a 3/4 suit in her old prices vs her new ones to find what the refund cost should be. I calculated it should be about $673. This number was agreed on by p0pr0ck.
It then took another few months to hear back from her on my question about ETAs on the refund.
The first $100 of the refund was recieved on September 6, 2023, with a message from p0pr0ck detailing she had sent it. The second installment came in September 20th, 2023, but this time with NO alert message from p0pr0ck.
There was them more periods of radio silence before the 3rd installment was sent on April 3rd, 2024, again with no messages sent from p0pr0ck indicating she had sent it.
Finally, around August of this year, p0pr0ck posted to her story for commissioners to message her on telegram, citing DM troubles with Instagram. I recieved one reply from her on August 9th, 2024, and have heard nothing back since.
Given that the refund was agreed to on June 17, 2023, I have now been trying to get my partial refund for a total of 15 months, nearly 16 months, at the time of writing this beware.
I reached out to WetVenom in late October 2023 inquiring about his rates and terms.
After talking for a bit about his rates and the character being drawn, we settled on $150 for a two panel, comic-style commission. I sent the first payment on November 1st, but we ran into a small problem. Because I paid through PayPal with a checking account, PayPal turned the payment into an eCheck. Since Venom is from outside of the US, it took almost a week for the transaction to even register, and by that time I didn't have the funds in my account. PayPal automatically retries the transaction after a few days though, and ultimately the eCheck cleared on the 16th of November. After receiving email confirmation that it cleared, I followed up with Venom and he confirms that he received the payment and will be starting on the commission.
A little over a week later he reaches out again to reconfirm the details, and I verify the details of the commission once more. From this point however, communication starts to taper off.
The next communication is two months later on January 17 2024, where I reach out to ask how the commission is coming. He responds a few days later asking to once more confirm the details of my commission, and stating that he's fed up with impatient customers. After confirming who I was and clearing up the misunderstanding, he then says that the commission may already be finished and that he needs to double check. I ask him to let me know if that's the case, and then I wait another ~2 weeks before checking back in.
This time he responds the same day, confirming that he is still working on the commission. I wait another month, March 7th, before checking back in on his progress. This email goes unanswered. I wait another month, April 4th, to inquire about his status.
He responds the next day citing family issues are what caused him delay. I empathize with his situation, and let him know that if he wants to cancel the commission all he has to do is let me know. This goes without response, and I reach back out a week later.
After reconfirming privacy details and format, I wait a bit longer, thinking that his last email was an implication that the commission was nearly done. I reach out again on the 29th of April to confirm, and he responds shortly after saying he's sending the commission later that night: stating that an error within the commission gave him some delay. A few more days pass and I send another email on May 3rd to verify if the error was still giving him problems.
After telling him that I didn't need another commission and that I only wanted to confirm where he was on this commission, I receive nothing back but silence. I send another email on the 24th of June to ask what the status of the commission is, to no response.
About a week later I send a separate, Ultimatum email.
This too went unanswered, and ultimately nothing came of the PayPal dispute since 180 days had already passed since the transaction date.
As of 9/27/2024, I've reached out to both of wetvenom's public emails to confirm their intent on completing the commission.
On January 31st, Baasil made a post for Tarot card slots, two separate decks that would ideally be finished and printed.
After kind of waffling about it for a couple days, I reached out on February 2nd.
I promptly paid for the slot, very excited to be a part of the project. They confirmed payment and shared their excitement for the project with me.
I hadn't heard anything in March, so I sent a note for an update.
I was not given a wip, so I figured maybe they had fallen a bit behind, as trying to keep a deck consistent is most definitely a lot of work. So I gave the benefit of the doubt and patiently waited as time ticked on. Then I requested another update in June.
Here they acknowledge that there wasn't enough interest for a full deck, but was still happy to do prints for the people who commissioned the art. I was more than happy with just getting the art in general.
July rolls around, and I still don't have a single update or wip, and I start getting a bit nervous as it has now been about 5 months since I commissioned them
I'll admit I got a little too stern for my liking, but I was getting increasingly nervous as they tended to disappear for a while and randomly come back.
They were very polite towards me in their response, because I did genuinely still want the art, I still loved the concept and I was happy to wait.
In August, Baasil posted one of the cards, and I got excited again, knowing that they were being worked on, and that the style was looking really good.
After this, starting in September, they were focusing on streaming work. I thought, okay sure, we all have bills to pay, so I patiently waited.
At this point I was preparing for a massive career change so a lot of time got lost on my end, and I ended up reaching out in March 2020.
I wanted to give another chance as I really do love Baasil's style and part of my thought process was that it was only $35, so I'd be happy with any art from them. They still remained very polite towards me throughout this entire exchange, while explaining loosely what was going on.
I changed my character choice as well as offered full artistic freedom, as I wanted it to not be stressful on them, as I know sometimes drawing with heavy constraints in an art piece can be a lot, and they have a super flowy style that I thought would work well with this character.
Which brings us to our last correspondence with each other, two years later. Again, we both remain civil through this exchange.
At this point, all of the journals except a select few have been deleted, and I didn't think to screen cap them because of a huge move and personal issues going on in my life as well.
Every so often they come back and post more, but they haven't been active in almost a year, and truthfully, I'm just really disappointed. I tried to give chances, and I'm a very patient person, but if this was really going to be this much of an issue, I would have done that chargeback back in July of 2019.
I recently reached out one more time to see if I could get some response, however my note when completely unread.
The only positive thing to come out of this was that neither of us were confrontational at any point in time, and it was always a civil and professional discussion between the two of us. I commission a lot of artists and I almost never have these issues, I am going to have to take this to heart and maybe some day I'll see my $35.
Uses deceptive wording and pressure tactics. Initially I was willing to forgive and assume inexperience, but the ask for double for delivery, then for a different commission, then for a 50% tip flew way past the acceptable line and drained the remainder of my good will.
End product (no watermark free copy was received) not received as of today 9/17/2024.
Artist reached out first after small talk and was the one who initiated conversation after I followed them on Tumblr.
I paid Lapis $100 for this YCH back in April of 2023, before I largely departed from the fandom. It was to contain two of my characters, one of which I don't even own anymore. This is proof of payment, as best I can manage, given it was done through boosty.
Immediately there seemed to be a trend of me having to ask multiple times for a response, and it would be five months from payment before I received any sort of WIP.
After several attempts to contact Lapis over ~4 MORE months, I finally received a long explanation as to why it hadn't been done yet. I strove to be amicable as I understand how bad burnout can get, as an artist myself.
After this, it would be a couple MORE months (over a year at this point) before I heard from her again. It took commenting on her FA, and eventually tracking her down on Telegram to finally get a response. I'm of the belief that clients should not have to hunt down their artists. Note: I HAD started an Artists Beware post, but as she started contacting me in the middle of revising it, I stopped because I thought she'd gotten her act together. She had not.
So anyway, under threat of an AB post, she suddenly regained the ability to respond to messages, and the following conversation ensued. I was willing to talk it out and admit that I had been speaking from a place of anger, and I figured things would be better from here.
Note: I traded one of the characters who was supposed to be in this YCH to someone, who apparently contacted Lapis asking them to change her to one of the characters that became mine in the trade. This was not my idea nor was I consulted about it in the slightest. Lapis did not even attempt to confirm this decision with me.
Unfortunately, she began ghosting me again.
I made several attempts over the last two-ish months to contact her, during which she apparently had time to post screenshots of FA's twitter in another server, but not to acknowledge any of my messages.
Blurred out the irrelevant FA Twitter drama.
Only when I publicly asked her to respond, did she decide to do so. The next images will only be screenshots of the conversation that followed in its entirety. I was very angry and my tone throughout reflects that- but after being strung along for 1.5 years, it's hard not to be.
I'll be the first to admit I was a bit pettier than I needed to be towards the end of this discussion, and my temper did get the best of me, but being told I am being unreasonable for not enjoying being flat-out ignored for over a year while she posts art/animations daily on VK.. well. I can only hope Lapis cleans up her act moving forward- she really is a very gifted artist.
Was in talks with the artist prior to commissioning them about ideas. Officially commissioned them February 12th, 2024 when I was invoiced and paid for a two character NSFW commission of my character Lumi and my spouse's character, Milosh with an alt version. The agreed amount for the commission was $300 total.
Experienced some major delays initially on seeing any progress, which lead to a few inquiries. I eventually settled for the idea to be changed to a one character pin-up of Lumi in a cheerleader outfit with an alt, and receiving a half refund on that. I didn't get the half refund until quite a bit later, then received a passable sketch. Asked for some minor changes, then nothing. Weeks turned into months, months approaching a near year, and no correspondence from the artist as seen in the images prior despite numerous attempts. The artist however still active and drawing despite owing me and avoiding me.
The images show the main area of communication via Discord, but I have inquired on Twitter and via email. Unfortunately for me PayPal can't do anything as it's taken longer than what protection they offer customers, so here I am.
I wanted to settle things civilly but have been outright ghosted by the artist.
Outline:
- Original agreement: on 12/23/23 I reached out to Michi on FA and was told I could send them a message on Discord. After doing that, exchanging hellos, and confirming I was interested in a YCH slot, I shared my ref and sent the payment ($45) after they sent me an invoice. After which they told me it would be a day or two before they could send me a WIP, which was fine. Sure enough, they began sending WIPs, and I was happy with the work, however, after a bit, communication began to get scarcer. I reached out for an update on FA, and they got back to me with a nearly complete version, just missing some color in places and some shading. After that, all communications dropped. I tried reaching out over FA and Discord over the months, but have gone ignored. I tried to go through PayPal to get my money back, but it was declined, as it has been more than 180 days.
Replaced old screenshots with some hopefully clearer quality screenshots of the Furaffinity messages with date and time, and an email has been sent, and so far has not been replied to. Also added the invoice
Fursuit Maker and I agreed on a commission for one fursuit head. I paid them 450$ on the date of Feb. 24 2023 via paypal. Maker specifically requested payment using the "friends and family" option, making it impossible to get a refund through paypal... they said it would be done “March-April”, or about 2 months. Payment was made in full. Maker promised to make a head mock-up day of payment, which never happened.
Maker promised the following deadlines:
DEADLINE 1: Completion March-April 2023, said on Feb 25 2023. (see above)
DEADLINE 2: Said they would begin in May 2023 (1 month after the first deadline.), said on Mar. 23 2023.
DEADLINE 3: September 2023 (7 months after first deadline), said on Aug. 10th 2023.
DEADLINE 4: would be done around Oct-November (9 months after first deadline), said on Oct. 4 2023.
DEADLINE 5: Said they would try to finish by the end of the year, December (10 months after the first deadline). Said this on Nov 13 2023.
All dates were missed. A 3D base was never designed, nor printed, thus Fur was never cut, etc. Maker saved only 3 reference images of the character despite me sending multiple, which implies they never intended to start work, as the updated photos had key design notes. As stated earlier, The maker made no concept images or 3d base designs, despite agreeing to do so on the date of payment.
Maker told me they printed the headbase of my suit on Jan. 12 2024 (11 months after the first deadline..) but never sent an image. Maker tried to resolve the issue by promising to begin work and add paws + tail to my order, but I declined the tail so it wouldn't take as long. Maker never began the paws.
I would understand if they had to halt work upon beginning my suit, I would be patient, and I have been; However they made no attempts or plans to work on my suit until Mar. 15 2024 when I had suggested I was being scammed, because I genuinely had no reason to believe I'd ever get my suit. They claimed to have printed out a base for my suit but I never saw it.
Maker offered to send a free fursuit base for the wait time; I declined, and just requested my money back.
Maker agreed to a refund on April 1 2024, with a deadline refund date of July 1 to pay (their own words.)
No money has been received. they have ignored my messages and I suspect I have been blocked by them on Telegram.
(My last message came from a complete lapse in judgement due to a build-up of frustration. I should not be so accusatory or speak in such a rude way.)
I understand that their work is good quality, but their business practices are absolutely unacceptable. If they cannot even BEGIN my suit after more than a YEAR, they should not be taking new commissions. They have been working on other suits, but have never touched mine. I understand some clients are more important than others and I would not be complaining if I had waited less than a year for only a head.
TL;DR
Commissioned Navy for a fursuit head. Maker promised and missed 5 deadlines over the span of a year and a few months. Navy told me they printed my base, but I was never shown said base. They offered to add paws to my order for my wait, which I agreed. After a year without any work, I confronted them and requested a refund. Navy promised to refund my 450$ by July 10 2024, and then never responded to me again.
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So I commissioned this artist almost a year ago. At first they where very interactive as fast to respond. But after paying ($195) they became very distant and after about a month sent me the first sketch for my commission. After discussing any changes they became even more infrequent updates and after a while became completely silent before the discord account got deleted. I figured something might have happened so I was about to chalk it up to a loss. But then a while later they started to still make posts on their inkbunny account. I dm'd them there to try and get an explanation but just got a line about them just forgetting before completely ghosting me there too. I even found another person who commissioned him and had almost the exact same experience here after paying they got a sketch after a month before being completely ghosted.
Below are screenshots of the chats (censored the commission details cuz I know not everyone is into that).
