Beware: Nathradas

Originally posted on May. 25th, 2013 by aerospiritual

WHO: Nathradas

WHERE: FurAffinity

WHAT: Full color single character piece, no background.

WHEN:
[08/22/11]
Nathradas opens up for regular character commissions. I inquire if I can reserve a slot since I'll have to wait for a bank transfer to clear into my Paypal account. She agrees.

[08/30/11]
I send payment and commission details to Nathradas. I'm thus listed as paid on her commission status journal.

[08/09/12]
I'm a patient person; I know that life and related issues come up- she'd posted that she was going through some stuff and that's fine. It happens. But after hearing nothing about my commission for almost a year, I sent a polite note to her on FA inquiring about my commission's status. This note has still gone unread.

[08/24/12]
I attempt to contact her by e-mail, through the account she provided. No response.

[10/21/12]
I attempt to get ahold of her on dA. I receive no response.

[10/23/12]
Two days later, Nathradas posts an image to her FA of the werewolf suit she has been working on for the past two weeks. The bottom of the description reads "(nope, in case you're wondering, I'm not gonna be back, not until January I'd say, I can't say yet tho, I have no clue how long it takes me to get stuff sorted out again)." I'm only including this because it's the only sort of message regarding what's going on in her end- not even a word towards me and my attempts to communicate with her.

[01/10/13]
I decide to be patient- maybe what's going on is really bad? So I wait until January and post a shout on her userpage to get her attention.
This also has the unintentional effect of having another one of her commissioners contact me in the hopes that I've at least heard anything from her.

[01/15/13]
Nathradas finally me an e-mail and informs me that she needs to talk to her bank about when she can refund me.
It's around this time that I started to experience some serious problems with Gmail such as it temporarily locking me out of my account due to alleged security issues and login conflicts, messages simply disappearing, and in the case of my phone; e-mail not showing up entirely, messages not being sent, and/or being sent in triplicate. This has hindered my ability to reply in a reasonable amount of time.

[02/16/13] - [03/28/13/]
I think this is really my fault here; she gets back to me and I feel as though this was my golden opportunity to get my refund and well. I missed it; I thought I replied much, much sooner and overall, I lost track of time between some pretty busy weeks at work and some family related drama. This is absolutely my bad here.

[04/30/13]
Sent a follow up e-mail. No response.

[05/20/13]
Yet another follow up e-mail. No response.

PROOF:
Commission Journal

Paypal Receipt

Commission e-mail

DeviantArt journal listing my status as paid as well as the commission agreement and terms of service

My initial note sent in August of this year

Follow-up e-mail

Image description posted almost two days after I tried noting her on dA

The comment I posted to her userpage.

Nathradas' e-mail response and mine.

My follow up e-mail.

Nathradas' reply, my reply, and another follow up e-mail.

My last e-mail, sent five days ago.

I'm only missing the note I sent over dA, but there are literally only two notes in my DeviantArt outbox and neither are directed towards the aritst. =/

EXPLAIN:
At the end of August, 2011, I commissioned the artist Nathradas for a single character image with no background. With the Paypal fees, it came out to roughly $155 total. After patiently waiting for nearly a year, I attempted to make contact with the artist for any sort of progress regarding my commission to absolutely no avail until January of this year, when I publicly requested that she contact me in regards to this matter.

I've received two responses from her in regards to my efforts, all the while watching her actively post things to Tumblr, take on more commissions, and be generally involved with the online community. At this stage, I really, really just want my refund.