Full-body plantigrade fursuit commission commissioned on May 30th 2022 which until today (June 21st 2024) has not been delivered.
First contact was on Reddit as a comment to my post where I was looking to gather information on how expensive a fursuit of my fursona would be, see reddit post below
/u/Kiromu_uwu responded with prices:
I've decided to contact them via DMs on reddit.
Previous work was shown on Discord. (Note: Their TikTok account has been suspended for reasons unknown)
We discussed further details, then agreed to sign a simple contract. It entails a 50% down payment.
First payment occurred on May 30th 2022, second payment on October 4th 2022.
Fursuit updates were regular, on average once every month, enough to keep me satisfied. Progress was well communicated through Discord, even setbacks.
This was kept up until early 2024, where communication ceased, right after personal issues were mentioned and at the same time affirmed that they have recovered from said issues on April 7th. March 10th is the last time I got any proper fursuit progress updates.
April 7th was the last time they sent any message.
I kept requesting updates, having grown anxious from their mention of medical issues, attempting contact via E-Mail even. Unfortunately, I have not received any response for several months now, even though I saw their status on Discord being online playing video games.
Unfortunately, due to PayPal not accepting disputes/ claims for transactions older than 180 days, and my bank not considering chargebacks for transactions older than 13 months, I am unable to recover my funds. I left a final message on Discord, no longer believing any resolution can be reached.
Explanation and issue:
Merciful was to exchange one character named Yeshua in exchange for 3,000$ USD. It was agreed upon a payment plan of 400$ a month then changed (by myself) to 200$ every 2 weeks. Once the character was paid off there was a substantial delay in transferring the character with multiple excuses. The character was still actively up for sale during this time and a user had inquired about their sale, which Merciful then attempted to resell to them.
A ToyHou.se admin then had to transfer the character over to me (with proof of purchase). They were informed that they could appeal the transfer with substantial proof that the character was not resold, or a chargeback was filed.
Merciful then remade the character and asked the original creator of the design to add their creator credits to the profile. I was informed of the the recreation and put in a ticket to have the character removed. It was removed by a TH admin.
Merciful has claimed she has been hacked and never actually resold the character. She stated it was sold by her ex's fiancé as an act of revenge. However the correspondences between her and another user don't seem to match this claim. There are substantial conflicting details between what I was told and what another user was told. this information is private and has been provided to the AB staff.
Agreement:
The original agreement was made over furaffinity (Littlychibiteddybear). I had commented and then PMed her. She wished to take the conversation to Discord for ease of contact (sinned_raven).
Proof of payment:
*Please note there are cancelations of an invoice; noted by the strikethrough of 1800, and 200 on may 8th and may 3rd respectively. These were not paid by me as they were canceled prior to payment. They were meant to be payoff points on my part, and I had to push payment back. (See below reference)
Our interaction relating to payment delays.
Start of the issue:
-My confirmation to her that payment was complete and her confirmation that she received it and would send Yeshua over when she could.
-A delay in transferring the character to me. I had asked a few times, of which she had said she was busy and could not transfer the character.
-My reaching out to the user that she attempted to resell the character to
-My exchanges with a TH admin forcing the transfer
-The creator of the character reaching out to me about the recreation of the character
-My exchange with the TH admin about the removal of the recreated character.
Other relevant correspondence:
-Our discord conversations over the length of the transaction. This detailed various instances in which she would send me invoices to pay and idle conversation (redacted).
-A confirmation that LittleChibiTeddyBear is her alt sales account
Our current conversation regarding the issues, and her claiming she was hacked.
For transparency. I opened disputes with paypal. I am no longer comfortable owning this character and I will be returning it. I am unable to tell if she was actually hacked and her claims are true. It's weird to me how she just switches from not being okay with it to being okay with it after I threaten disputes and legal action. It's always weird to me that she's being allowed to use her "hackers" paypal and is in constant contact with her. I can't keep my personal opinions out of that matter. I consider this character "stolen goods" and I will not keep her and do not consider her to be owned by myself as it is illegal to own stolen goods.
Final update and outcome:
I received a full refund of every transaction listed for a total of 3,000$. As the case as a whole was multiple transactions and they were all refunded under an umbrella "case".
The character was returned to Merciful.
I DMed StormSoulSeeker from the Art Fight Discord server on March 5th, 2024. I found them via the #art-trades channel, where users advertise their open art commissions. We agreed to do an art commission. I finished my piece on the same day, and the last time I heard from them was March 7th 2024. I reached out to them on Discord several times (most recently June 13th 2024), along with Toyhouse and Art Fight. While I cannot know whether they have been on Discord since March 7th, Toyhouse and Art Fight data shows that they've been online since my attempts at communication, with 0 response.
Screenshots of original agreement (Discord):
At several points between the above reminder messages, I messaged them on Toyhouse and Art Fight.
Toyhouse screenshots:
With time stamp:
Toyhouse stats showing last time logged in as of June 16, 2024:
With time stamp:
Art Fight Profile Comment:
Art Fight stats as of June 16, 2024:
As a side note, I reported this to a mod from the Art Fight Discord (where the art trade was initiated):
An attempt to contact the artist on ArtFight was made, but despite being active on the site as of June 30th, she has not responded. She also deleted the shout made on her page.
She had sorted herself into a team indicating intention to participate in ArtFight for July of 2024
Back in May 2023, Aslley had finished a YCH I had a slot for. It was very late. It was a valentine's couples YCH that I had originally requested and paid for 9th Feb 2023. I have had late commissions before so I didn't think much about it. When I finally got the finished YCH in 5th May 2023, they also said that they were doing a promotion for a half body commission. I did like the work of the YCH so I was happy to think about a scenario and discuss. A final amount and scenario was agreed upon with payment settled on the 10th of May 2023.
But afterwards there were no updates, so I reach out on the 3rd of June for updates and was told that they were busy with Pride YCHs and so unable to work on my commission and also tried to sell me a Pride YCH which I declined or knew anyone that would want one. Again no updates. So I reach out in September 8th, September the 30th and October the 8th. All of which had no replies.
With Paypal's 180 days buyer protection coming up. I then started the chargeback process on the 18th of October 2023. Later that day I got a refund and an update by Aslley later that day. Saying that the Twitter DMs were empty and could only see my messages on PC. Said that they have ADHD, a spreadsheet to keep track of all open commissions and family issues in the last month. But said they would still be interested in working with me. To which I replied if you an start working on it ASAP, within the week then sure. I'll go ahead with the commission again. So I paid via Paypal again on 16th of November. I also added them on Telegram has they said it was a better way to get in touch with them. They also tried to sell me a Halloween YCH as well which I declined.
For this new cycle, got a message the 16th that the next steps was the sketch. On the 17th November, got a message asking if I was interested in a Christmas YCH. But I said let's work on one commission at a time. Knowing they struggle with ADHD, the last thing I would want to give is multiple commissions and would rather let the work on one commission at a time. This conversation around the Christmas YCH keeps going onto the 23rd of November.
Being keen to keep this commission quick and aware that it's now been more than a week getting any sketch. Reached out on the 28th & 30th of November and 65th of December 2023. Got a reply on the 6th of November saying that they were busy with family. But would be able to show a updates the day after. Nothing appeared the day after and I reached out the 14th, 16th and 19th and got a response on the 20th of December. But again no sketch or any updates just 'what are the next steps with approving a sketch'.
With Christmas now in fully swing I held off until the 2nd of Jan 2024 to ask for an update as in the screenshot before. Again on the 6th and 21st of Jan will no response until asking on the 1st of Feb. And got a response. Said they were in hospital was finally got a light sketch. Just outlines, no expressions or anything to make it identifiable as my fursona. Had some back and fourth about amendments. And I gave the go ahead ono the March the 4th. Reached out on the 4th, 12th and 19, of March and no responses. But this time they weren't delivered. Only sent.
At this point, life got a bit hectic and busy so I forgot about it. I also usually have a calendar reminder about the Paypal 180 days buyer protection, like for the last one. But this time, I accidently put it a month later than I should've. I remember about the commission and asked on May the 20th for any updates on the screenshot above. And no responses. Unfortunately but this time, the 180 days was out by 4 days so I was unable to claim a refunded anymore. I've also reached out on Twitter on the 20th of May but no reply either. I have also sent an email in early June 2024 but with no reply.
If you think about the full picture, I've requested a commission and paid for the 10th of May 2023. A year on, there is a sketch that only has an outline. No expressions or identifiers of my fursona. A lack of updates and communications. But would heavily promoting other YCHs even though not completing the current commission. Tried reaching out on Twitter, Telegram and email and got no responses. But there are still active on Twitter, making posts and retweeting and 'last seen within a month' on Telegram.
I started interacting with this artist because I fell in love with a pre-made design that she was wanting to develop into a suit (she has now changed the description of the post as just a character she owns, but was once a ref sheet for sale to make a suit from. The comments on the submission show that it was once for sale, but don't give any real detail on the original description).
I started messaging about it asking to purchase. We spoke through notes on furaffinity.net, getting the details of the commission down.
I was told there were 14 commissions ahead of me, but once my commission was started it would be completed within 2-3 weeks, and she explained my payment plan to me. $200 per month after the 35% non-refundable deposit.
I ended up changing my mind and asked to have the commission done of my own character, to which she agreed. I was sent an invoice for $5600 through PayPal. She confirmed receipt of my 35% deposit Nov 3rd, 2019.
Reference for the new character:
I paid $200 monthly, sometimes a little more if I could afford it, and was able to pay off the last of it in one lump sum on May 15th, 2020.
Once I was able to pay off the entirety of the suit, I kept up with her on Twitter, where she was clearly more active at the time. I just figured it would be easier to contact and also I really don't like the format of FA notes.
Things were okay, for a while. She responded within a reasonable amount of time. She did explain things had slowed down due to the pandemic, which I completely understood.
But after that is when everything started going downhill. I know it takes a while to make these things so I only messaged every now and again when I remembered the commission, or if I got on Twitter and saw she updated on someone else's suit.
But then an ENTIRE YEAR passed with no updates at all. And I had some things come up and thought it would be better to just get a refund since I had already waited two years with no results. She responded within a few days and apologized for not sending me any updates because she wanted to dump it all at once.
I thanked her for her response, and said that if it's already been started then I won't cancel.
I heard nothing after this until Feb 2023, when I asked for another update. This time she sent a picture of a carved head, which wasn't in the style I was expecting from her previous works, so I asked for an adjustment and she agreed.
I ask for an update at the end of the year and get no response. I wait until Feb 2024 and she ended up leaving me on read. I message again in March 2024 telling her that I'm pretty much fed up and I'm going to look into legal action. I messaged her on Twitter and on her website, furitup.com.
This is the email conversation. She begs me to give her another chance even though this all should have been completed within one month of her starting the handpaws.
I explain my frustration and tell her the requirements for me continuing this commission. She gave herself about 19 days to fully finish a head and digitigrade body suit. I have not sent a dtd (as I was never given an address to begin with) and ask for an address so I can have one made and sent asap. I never got aresponse.
April comes and I've still heard nothing. So I send another message through Twitter. Nothing. May comes and I've had enough. I tell her to stop production on anything and send it to me, finished or not, and she can send me the rest of my money. Today is May 20th 2024 and I have not received anything on FA, Twitter, or email. I will be emailing her again and repeat what I said in Twitter dms.
This is my first commission experience and I want to know if any of what happened is normal or to be expected.
This is my first time making a beware so appologies in advance.
This was my fourth time commissioning ElvensnowArt's who was a friend of mine since we shared mutual servers and a love for ESO, the previous three times had all been completely fine with no issues. So I commissioned him on the 18th of October 2022 for art of mine and another friends elder scrolls oc and he seemed happy to accsept it. All previous commissions had been done over Discord DM as well and the max only took 6 months to complete.
The commission was $60 but I gave a $10 tip so $70 in total and I paid via Paypal as soon as possible.
I knew he had some on off issues due to trying to find a job and getting used to living on his own. With him being my friend as well I generally didn't mind waiting months or longer for the commission as I trusted he would get it done eventually. He then gave me an update three months alter on January 19th 2023:
I then waited more however Elvensnow begun to ghost people and become distant. He left the mutal severs we where in and stopped being active on his social medias completely by September 2023. I really hate asking artists for updates but on the aniversy of the commission I decided to DM him and got no responce:
I gave him a week and then DMed him again poking for another update and this time he did respond:
However, this would be the last time he responded to me as he at some point changed his settings so only friends and people in mutual servers (as indicated by the discord clyde bot error) which I have also learned he unfreinded everyone who knew him as well. Thus I cannot message him anymore and he is no longer active on any of his socials.
As of today I never received even a sketch, it has been nearly 19 months so the chargeback on Paypal is not an option. I have also learned from other people who have commissioned him that I am not the only one he has done this to and owes hundreds of dollars to people.
Addendum: Contact was finally established on May 16, 2024 on the artist's blank tumblr alt
A comment will be made if/when a refund is received.
On March 4, 2023, I contacted Etsy Shop PlushiesNextDoor for a custom made plushie of a character of mine.
By Pledge, March 4th 2023
They acknowledged and said they were open to commissions and payment.
By Keo/PlushiesNextDoor, March 4th 2023
I made the payment with them through Etsy via Klarna.
I made the payment the same day, March 4th, 2023.
I was initially told it would be within a certain timeframe— 12-16 weeks.
By Pledge and Keo/PlushiesNextDoor, March 4th
On May 9th they contacted me again to let me know that they’re behind on orders and that it wouldn’t be until September that my plushie would get shipped. I was understanding and asked if they could post their work on their TikTok, PlushiesNextDoor.
By Pledge and Keo/PlushiesNextDoor, May 9th, 2023
I reached out again in September to ask what the process has been. They offered me a refund but I said I was still willing to wait.
By Pledge and Keo/PlushiesNextDoor, September 6th 2023
I received a message from them again in October 7th notifying me and others that they’re very behind on orders and that their suspected completion date was going to be by the end of the year. They attached a document with all of the orders they were currently working on to show where we were in the queue.
IMG_8052.MOV
By Keo/PlushiesNextDoor, October 7th, 2023
On October 29th, they contacted me stating that they were shutting down their shop and that they would provide everyone refunds.
By Keo/PlushiesNextDoor, October 29th, 2023
I asked if I could wait a little longer, and they told me that they would keep me on their list.
by Pledge and Keo/PlushiesNextDoor, October 29th, 2023
Their last reply to me was December 7th, after I reached out to make sure they were doing well.
On March 23rd of 2024, I noticed their plushie accounts on Instagram and Etsy were deleted or shut down.
IMG_8104.MOV
I emailed them twice. Once in April, and the second time in May.
Taken by Pledge, April 12th, 2024 and May 10th, 2024.
While they’ve seemingly deleted their other accounts, they’ve kept up their Tiktok associated with their plushie making. However, they are not active on it.
They changed their username from PlushiesNextDoor to YesItsKeo.
Unfortunately I’m aware that due to the amount of time that had passed that I won’t get my money back. Please be careful of this creator.
A client named Garyolah7 didn't pay me after I finish the commission
So I do the WIP, although I hardly understand what the client want
Some day later, the client suddenly want naked variation as well
The client didn't pay me after I almost done, and instant block me.
I ordered 10 YCH's (1 in May and 9 in June), as well as multiple PWYW arts (in their now deleted discord server) from Brokenvocaloid between May and June of 2019.
I ended up only recieving one of the PWYW pieces during an art stream they did, while all the YCH's as well as another PWYW were left undelivered. All of the undelivered art came to be worth $435 (though I was only able to find proof of $360 of that during my request for a refund, which was my own fault in not thinking to maintain recipts as I was completely new to the commissioning scene at the time and never thought to do so.)
I requested a refund and only ever recieved $25 of the $360 I requested back.
I was also asked at one point to give them $25 as they needed help with money, though at the time I didn't even have $10 in my account, I still gave them $5 because back then I was naive and just wanted to help.
I realize that I was far too passive during the whole encounter and let them get away with too much. I was far too passive in general back then and it's something I had to learn the hard way. But even so, they shouldn't have taken advantage of that. I never received any more correspondence from them after this and eventually gave up. I'm not sure if they are still active online anymore, since they're constantly changing accounts, but just in case I felt it was important to share.
**The initial date of “when” is a guesstimate as Zephyr had deleted the chat logs to hide all the evidence. I was unable to get a screenshot of the initial agreement.**
Zephyr was someone I had been introduced to via a YCH group commission completed by the artist Karukuji a handful of years back. After the completion of this YCH we decided to stay in touch.
We remained mostly friends on and off for the past several years where I could go several months without hearing from him only to have him message me if he wanted something from me for his own selfish reasons.
An example of this is when I was able to get a commission opportunity with a very skilled animator so I was trying to see if any mutuals wanted to split the art with me. He had ghosted me for several months only to shoot me a message to get in on this commission. To which I had told him “no” because I found it odd he only just then decided to message me when I was fishing for people.
I had a discussion with him about how this wasn’t ok to do after ghosting me for so long and he apologized. I declined his involvement with my commission and said if he wanted to get art with me in the future he would need to do better about communicating with me rather than only messaging me to get art.
He did end up getting better at messaging me. He even ended up commissioning me for one of my Scales & Tails commissions. Normally I require a $100 deposit to reserve the spot since I had issues in the past of people backing out last second when I was ready to start the commission (I do these commissions on a monthly basis) but since he was a friend I was able to waive the fee. When his month eventually came up he was in a financial situation where he couldn’t afford to pay me the full amount. We had discussed it and agreed that I would work on finishing the art for him with the promise he would pay me back later for the finished art.
(advertisement date of the Scales & Tales commission slot availability)
I finished his commission in June of 2023 and as of writing this have not received payment for its completion:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/52654113/
During this time I had been friends with Zephyr, I had seen several people posting warnings about him saying that he was very irresponsible about money where he would bid on YCHs despite not having the finances to actually pay for it. Despite these warning signs from others I was still on Zephyr's side being sympathetic to his situation. I even sent Zephyr some of my paystubs so he could use me as a reference to try and get an apartment to rent. I would NEVER do this for someone online but I had considered him a good friend so I was willing to do it to try and help him out of a bad situation.
At this time I was also expecting art from the artist Karukuji (that I had been waiting years for) who Zephyr was also expecting art from. Karukuji would message me saying he was going to be canceling all active commissions and would be issuing refunds to all parties in his queue.
Karukuji insisted on refunding my money to Zephyr since I didn’t have a Boosty account and then Zephyr would just forward me the refunded money. I rejected this idea because I didn’t trust Zephyr to actually send me the money because Zephyr already owed me $250 and has yet to pay me so why would I trust Karukuji to send him an additional $485 to MAYBE send back to me?
Karukuji would end up refunding my commission money to Zephyr anyway despite my concerns that Zephyr would be dishonest about forwarding me the money.
I had discussed this situation with Zephyr about how Karukuji wanted to cancel all owed art and issue refunds to which Zephyr. I figured with Karukuji refunding him he might finally be able to pay me back for the money he owes me.
Zephyr would end up sending me my money but only the amount that Karukuji owed me and nothing more.
If Karukuji was refunding everyone of their commissions then why wasn’t Zephyr able to pay me back the money he owed me? If Zephyr got refunded from Karukuji then surely he should’ve had no problem paying me for the art he owed. I tried to challenge Zephyr on this by asking him about it and he would respond saying it’s “none of my business” but I think it very much is my business. Zephyr said he would pay me when he has the money to do so but didn’t have it at this time.
Over the next few months after this I would have futile efforts to try and get the money he owed me as he always had a new excuse for why he couldn’t pay or he would promise payment and then ghost me.
Finally we agreed to a payment plan where he would make payments until he paid off his full debt for the art I completed and then we could finally go on our separate ways.
Instead of paying off his balance, he would instead just end up blocking me and pretend like the money he owed was nonexistent despite promising me over and over he will pay it. He would also end up deleting the telegram chat history so there was no incriminating evidence and he would also block me on PayPal so I would be unable to send him money requests.
Here are a few of the screenshots I was able to salvage from this:
(screen cap date January 8, 2024)
(screen cap dates January 11, 2024)
(screen cap date February 9th, 2024)
(mod note: 2 payments of 50$ equaling 100$ has been confirmed, one additional 50$ payment is unaccounted for. For the purposes of resolution, Fr0stbit3 is willing to settle for 100$ to consider the payment owed)
