Before the incident, I often repost my commission advertisement on various of art servers. Roughly a simple ad with low-ish prices ($15-20) compared to others advertising up to $30-40+, along with this fact, I was a first time commissioner with 0 experience apart from art trades and collaborations.
On August 12, I received a friend request from Alastra (Client) at around midnight and they messaged me that they’d like to commission me. I was ecstatic seeing this during then, but I didn’t accept their friend request and reply until the next morning.
August 13, From here the process was going well, we were communicating, their reply’s were fast, they did as I asked (filling out my google form for character info, “reading” my carrd) until I got to confirming the payment process, they asked if they could “pay with a $40 Amazon gift card” none of my terms of service said I excepted any gift card except for Apple, I didn’t have any red flags yet and so I thought perhaps they couldn’t pay through these other payment options
I replied saying
“I’m not sure, Codashop doesn’t allow any payments except through paypal, venmo, etc”
They didn’t reply to me until I added
“but I do accept Apple gift cards as payment instead”
They replied fast
((At this point my mistake started here bc based on other accounts of them they blocked/ ghosted the artist after telling them they need to pay through these options. Gift cards were their way of swindling through))
I got to work quickly and sent them the first two halfbody sketches of their commission, They asked for a few changes, I complied
i asked if things were alright with the sketches, they complied
the first red flag I blindly encountered was asking for my 50% payment after the sketch (total for the commission was 30 so they had to pay $15)
they avoided this by convincing me that they’d pay at the end when there’s a watermark on the drawing, this is so to make sure that they do like the commission and they would pay extra for the work.
They were successful in convincing me, I saw on a few other commissioners for reference that they do a similar format to this as well and so I thought it’d be ok to try it out.
August 16 - 17 a line-art and flat color was sent
August 20 the coloring process started
nothing fishy happened here, only reassurance that my work was going well.
The process continued from me sending my w.i.p. for review and revision.
By August 21, I was officially done with the commission I sent them a drawing with my watermark (top to bottom of the image for extra measures) and sent it to them. Strangely they didn’t reply, as fast as they normally would, despite their profile (little dot on the corner) saying that they were actively on. I didn’t think much of it but consider the fact that they’re a person with a life so I shouldn’t bother them.
August 22, by now I got worried they weren’t replying and by now it was around 5. I remembered that we were mutuals on a few servers so I searched through those only to realize that they left them. I checked their bio to see if they really did and I saw the words “no servers in common” and on discord if you don’t share a similar server with the other (unless you friend them) you can’t message the person anymore.
It took me a while to realize that they scammed me after they ghosted me and blocked me when receiving the watermarked drawing of mine.
As of August 28, the time I made this beware, they are still using my drawing as their pfp. I do advice to keep an eye out on this person as their main focus of commissions are hazbin hotel. Their discord name are names of characters from the show so its difficult to find any true social medias from them unless they share any of my drawings around. If you do ever see a repost of the following commission images please report them.
((Extra: this story probably infuriated a lot of you bc I was so blinded to so many red flags that the client replied with. If anything it was also my fault too for falling for a scam and as of writing this, it urks me to read over how naive I was through the process. No I’m not asking for pity, I’m asking for people doing first time commissions to stand your ground and go with the process that you want to do as it may save you from being scammed like me))
Back in 2021 I bought two colored sketches from Miiyori, totalling 85$
Things went a bit wonky from the start, but me being distracted by real life aided in me realizing she didn't get back to me on my payment going through for a while.
Got no response there and Miiyori sort of dipped from everywhere for some time. Eventually there was a blip on her twitch. So I used her publically available discord handle to reach out to her. So I did. That's how I at least got half of what I had paid for.
Turned out right away was another very rough estimate. By then I had waived my ability to chargeback via paypal due to waiting too long.
I'd practically all but given up on ever hearing anything from her again until she just dropped new journals on FA two months ago.
Another DM later (discord was no longer responsive) I got this.
Well, it's been two additional months now and on the advice of a friend I'm just dropping this here.
Back in November 2021 (on the 14th specifically), I saw that netcrow had opened for emergency commissions and messaged them to inquire about a 3-panel page since I love their art and was excited to get an opportunity to commission them. Here is the exact tweet of theirs advertising their commissions:
It was stated that turnaround times would be "very slow" and I understood that they were dealing with health issues, so I was aware of this ahead of time. However I did not expect to be where I'm at currently, going on 9 months since I commissioned them without having received any proof of my comm being started, with every deadline they have provided being missed and very poor (or lack thereof) communication. I'm not writing this out of malice but to make other clients aware and to hopefully motivate netcrow to work out a better sort of routine or workflow for managing their commissions.
Shortly after I messaged them on the 14th, I received a reply stating that my commission had been accepted and we then went over further details:
Initially, I was told that that I could expect the first WIP "that week."
That week passed without me receiving anything, but it was no big deal to me since I understood everything they were dealing with, and I was content to wait longer. I did not hear from them again until February 10 of this year, when I reached out to give them an updated ref for my OC after being reminded of my comm from seeing them open for another batch of commissions:
I received an apology for the wait and was given a new time for when I could expect the first WIP. I absolutely do/still did understand what they were dealing with so again, I was content to wait further but was admittedly excited about being able to lookout for a WIP again. The week after this came and went however, and again, I did not hear anything from them nor did I end up actually receiving one.
Several more months passed, and I still did not hear anything from them. I was starting to get concerned at this point so I reached out again on June 18th to inquire about the status of my commission and ask to know where I was at in their queue:
What really alarmed me is how netcrow stated that they have "no particular queue," but again, I tried to be optimistic and as understanding as possible. At this time I received another apology and was told that they would try to get my commission that month and "maybe even finish it." To their credit I have seen them posting some finished commissions, but almost every one has been captioned as being "very overdue" or "extremely old" such as the ones below:
Between the time of June 19 - August 7 I did not hear from them anytime; it was radio silence again. More recently, I informed some friends and other artists about the situation to ask for advice, which has lead to me now writing this beware and reaching out to them again. On the morning of August 8th, I messaged netcrow again expressing my concerns and requesting that they provide a firm deadline for providing a sketch:
At the time of me submitting this beware, I have not heard back yet.
Like I've stated, I truly do not mean this out of any sort of malice but simply out of concern and frustration. I wish the absolute best for netcrow with navigating their health issues, but this is not a good way to manage commissions and I'm figuring that other clients of theirs may be in the same or similar positions. I'm a very patient person and do my best to be as polite and understanding as possible, but the lack of communication and lack of a proper queue here have me greatly concerned and anxious as I am out of $320 with not even a sketch to show for it 9 months later. I still do love their art and would love to receive my commission, but the long periods of silence and overall experience have me a bit down :[ I don't wish to come across as a spiteful or mean individual whatsoever.
What: 370$ worth of commissions. (A six Telegram sticker pack, and a two-character, three paneled comic.
Harassment and threats of taking back a custom character I had already paid for and had several pieces pending because I "broke species rules."
Now (2022), she has repossessed the character after it has already been sold to someone else.
Initial Backstory: I joined Adiago's Discord server sometime late December 2018 after my (now) ex and I had secured a spot on her waiting list for a "coupled" pair of Abyss drakes (her closed species), a white female and a black/grey male to be our fursonas. (Named Eclipse and Orion)
01/14/2019 - 01/24/2019
Adiago gave me her Google Doc's form to fill out and I gave the other one to my ex to fill out for his. She approved our forms and I paid for two "mack daddy" tiered references (200$ each), then a few days later I asked if I could pay extra to get the next tier of references (called "Ultra) for both references as I wanted everything to be perfect and to her standard. I also wanted couples icons which was something we had discussed in her server that was tacked on to the additional amount. Due to conflicting differences between myself, my ex and Adiago a 1-2 month turn around became six months and Eclipse was officially finished in June.
Proof of transactions:
Google document explaining species guidelines:
Eclipse's original upload:
08/01/2019
Adiago had told me needed funds really badly to fly out her boyfriend at the time, so I asked how much the ticket was and off so offered to buy a commission from her so she could buy him a ticket. I asked her for a comic like the one she did for one of ours friends and she agreed.
The sketch she gave me from the above screenshot:
Over voice she told me she still didn't have enough so I commissioned her for a set of six Telegram stickers and sent payment (see the screen-cap above for payment, cap below for sticker prompts)
08/20/2019
Adiago decided she was going to do my stickers (we were in a voice call), she asked me to remind her of what they were of. (Since she couldn't remember where the details were posted as we talked over several different platforms.) I pinned the message of the sticker details in Discord and she started to get upset that she was reminded that the stickers were of Orion (Her and my ex had had a falling out during this time, and he had left the server) and started shutting down on me and making it very obvious she wanted me to offer to have them changed, she accused my ex (the owner of Orion) and I of trying to copy another pre-existing drake out of anger, and eventually quit responding to me.
09/02/2019
We later had a discussion about changing the character for the stickers, and she agreed to accept Eclipse for the stickers but things were uneasy between us after that.
09/14/2019 - 09/162019
Around this time, the mutual friend of Adiago and I had grown close, and I was hanging out less in Adiago’s servers since I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with her opinions on certain subjects. Adiago did not like this and started dangling my artwork over my head if I didn't come and join in calls, and eventually flat out said she wouldn't do my artwork.
Being fed up with Adiago's behavior, I sent her a goodbye message and left her servers. She blocked me and I found out that Adiago had no plans to honor my commissions due to my leaving; overwhelmed I opened a dispute on Paypal. She immediately went off in her server and was telling people she'd destroy me if the charge backs went through and wrote a journal about it on Furaffinity, accusing me of falsely charging her back and saying that she would write a Beware on me.
Adiago ended up unblocking my ex who handled things for me as I was too upset. She told him that if the claims were not closed, she had a senior account and would have my account frozen for fraud. My ex was concerned for my mental health and logged onto my Paypal account and closed the claims and took Adi on her word that she would do the artwork.
Third-party contact.
I'm sorry about the fuzzy dates of the last two screenshots, as I did not take these screenshots and have no way of retrieving them with the exact date. I also do not have the notes between my ex-partner and her as he closed the conversations and didn't know how to reopen them at the time, and currently we're not in contact anymore.
My ex had asked me if I wanted to change what one of the stickers were supposed to be since one was supposed to be of Eclipse with the friend I had a falling out with so I told him what I wanted it changed to.
(The error image was a screen cap of what I had listed for the stickers originally.)
09/21/2019
I have not had any contact with her directly since we mutually blocked each other. My ex did for a day or two and she later blocked him. Only "updating" us through her Trello where she had made an entirely new section called "low priority" and said she would be decreasing the quality of the artwork as a "hassle fee"
Low priority screenshot:
Comic Trello card:
Stickers Trello card:
09/28/2019
She wrote a journal stating that there was now an update in her TOS to where there where even stricter rules on her species. She also had marked Orion, Eclipse and my warhound as non-canon due to "colours not being right." among other things. I went through a lot of fighting for her to be made and still be considered canon (as originally I wanted the art of my character in her world alongside her sona's ship crew.) so this was very hurtful to me.
Journal:
Old reference of Adiago’s TOS from time of initial purchase:
When I had filled out my form for Eclipse the only two links to any form of TOS was a link to the species Google form listed under the transaction screenshot and this tiny little checkbox of rules at the bottom. She had no other TOS listed on her pages.
11/07/2019
I commissioned a new reference sheet of Eclipse with how I originally envisioned her. I changed her to have paler colouration, additional scars, and made her hair no longer wavy. Adiago, within a few hours of the reference being upload, noted my ex to tell him that she would be repossessing my character since I broke her "species TOS" (which never said I couldn't change my character), and stated she'd "refund what was owed minus labour fees" which completely astounded me.
Note:
She also wrote a journal saying that she is perfectly okay with doing changes if people just come and talk to her but from how aggressive she has been in the past and how she treated me during the development of my drake, I know this is false.
Journal:
My ex and I weren't sure what to do but at the time I knew I wanted to stand my ground as my drake alone had over 1k spent on her at the time. I didn't think she was going to refund me because I knew she didn't have the money to do so and I loved my character at the time so I was not willing to give her up.
Adiago ended up getting banned from Furaffinity for her threats, harassment and openly trying to sell a drake she stole from her ex so I had hoped that was the end of it.
01/30/2020
Adiago was streaming and she was erasing the identifying features of Eclipse and Orion off the sketch of the comic she owed me. She admitted she wasn't going to do my artwork and instead was going to reuse the pose for her own characters and has since used one of the base drawings from the panels in one of her comics.
Admitting in stream as well as name calling:
01/31/2020
She had taken the icons I bought from her back in January of 2019 when commissioning Orion and Eclipse, and she went over them as her own characters. Boasting about how they were "much improved." The icons were not on a base and were meant to be original.
Sometime in late August and then on the 28th 2020.
I had been dealing with her harassment for years at this point and after an incident that I handled (extremely) poorly resulted in me getting a beware on myself over Eclipse (Which I still feel extremely bad about despite the beware having been solved and I'd apologized so many times to the artist.) I had enough and decided to make a new character and sell Eclipse.
I had listed a journal publicly and had someone message me on Furaffinity and we took it over to notes. They knew of the drama behind the character and wanted to buy her privately despite knowing this. Eclipse was worth over 2k at this point and the person was aware I was having her reference sheet made by the artist listed above into a new character and we settled on a sum of 800$ for both canon and the "non-canon" version of Eclipse.
Discord message:
Their screenshot of them sending me payment:
and I had a journal that was pinned to my profile that was a list of where certain characters where re-homed to that mentioned Eclipse had been sold privately.
It's been two years and I still haven't received a single cent of what I was owed nor the artwork. She completely removed my comic from her Trello and I have not seen any progress on the stickers either.
She has continued harassing me online for years, which can be seen on any of the accounts I listed above, even after I sold my abyss drake.
I however, decided to finally post this Beware because recently she has stolen Eclipse back on Deviant art. She has posted that she "repossessed her" back in 2019 (which is a lie) because I had "wrongfully charged back several artist" and that if I'm seen using her anywhere, that I stole her and had no rights to her.
Her post:
As shown above she has no rights to do as she never gave me a cent back towards Eclipse, and even if she did, she was sold off to another user.
I don't expect to see hide nor hair of any of my money but I couldn't let her get away with stealing a character "from me" when it was publicly declared I no longer had her.
Greetings!
I'm here to inform you about this client and the ordeal that I had to endure since the last week. Honestly, it all started pretty good actually. The 4th of April I got contacted by this person saying that he had the idea of commissioning me a couple of OC's of its own (since he kept saying that he was a writer and that he wrote stories, fan fictions and so on) and I was like "Sure, tell me the details!". And everything went pretty smooth, he always payed me what I asked for and never complained.
However, the big problems started to happened the 8th of July, Friday of last week. After waking up, I find three emails from PayPal, in which all of them says that the buyer has opened a claim against me because of unauthorized transactions made. Honestly speaking, I was baffled. Like, why in the first place? Also who was the one responsible for all of this? After tracking down who could've possibly be, I ended up finding the curlprit.
Then I decided to confront him, ask him why he did such a thing, but to no avail. What he kept saying over and over like a broken record, was like "I didn't do it. My bank did it" or instead "PayPal did it, it wasn't my fault".
Now, I might not be an expert on how PayPal works and neither how the Banks do, but I'm pretty sure that neither of the two without an explicit request from the one who sent the money, does everything automatically. PayPal definitely doesn't do it, and the Bank the least they can do is calling you if they see high transactions, but in here we were talking about 50/100€ at best. Every month. Then, afterwards, he contacted me saying the following
After this, he blocked me. If the truth is on his side, then he wouldn't have blocked me, right? So honestly, I really don't get it. Afterwards I tried to reach him even on DeviantArt, since there I was still not blocked from him because I actually talked with the PayPal customer service myself. In the end they told me what I already knew: and that it was him who did everything on his end. And so far, he kept lying to my face. The sad part is that I'm not the only one who got this "little problem" with him. Many other artists had the same ordeal with him.
I'll share afterwards the claims that he did (choosing even the wrong dates because he surely did everything so fast, in a blink of an eye, that he didn't even sat through everything and thought if the amount and date were exactly those - apologies in advance if you see another language)
(For context, "Denaro ricevuto" translated is "Money Received")
And the fact that the dates doesn't even match to begin with (aside from the first one, which the only wrong thing is the amount that he declared. He gave me 50€, but instead he wanted 56€ back, for some reason)
(again, all three of them shows the "Money Received" word, translated from Italian)
I'll also share some snippets of our conversation where, after I completed the render, I uploaded it and sent it to him. And he of course, received it. See it for yourself, all three of the claims.
First one
Second:
(this one here was mostly a variation of the third one that I'll share in a bit)
Third one:
Proof of being blocked
To this day, so far the problem hasn't been solved (and also currently, the claims got processed and now I'm wait for PayPal to actually talk with the bank of the client. Sadly, it will take approximatively 75 days to get an answer) and when it will, I'm afraid that this person will try again in getting his money back. I made assumptions as to why he did this, but really, I can't even believe it.
Like I said, also another artist right now is undergoing the same treatment as I'm experiencing.
Thank you for your attention.
Undelivered commissions x3 from between February and April 2020. See imagery for proof.
- Conversations between Feb and April 2020 is us arranging the commissions and their themes. Don’t mind the NSFW text, it was all NSFW art. The screencap of Dev confirming his PayPal name (as well as the .me link) is simply to verify the PayP screengrab later on.
- April onwards, Dev never directly made contact with me (until the next dash below). Every month or so I’d message to see how he was doing, and nothing was being done. However, others commissions were being prioritised over mine, so he was not inactive.
- 02/10/21, Dev wished to refund the total for the various commissions. Below is that conversation.
- Contact after this has been spotty, and no money or drawings have been done since. His Twitter is also radio silent (in terms of art) since January 2022. Feels like he took the money and ran.
All conversations between us remain on my Discord. If further information is required, message me.
The artist messaged me on Twitter after I made a post looking for paws and a tail to commission. I explained to the artist it was going to be a complicated build but they didn't seem concerned. We talked about details and agreed to a price. They said they could get started right away. I asked for a TOS and photos of previous work. They sent a TOS vis Google docs and pictures of other suits. They asked I send payment via PayPal friends and family (i didnt know the difference and thought i was helping as it reduced fees). As I am new to this I didn't know the signs of what to look for so I sent over payment. The next day I decided I also wanted feet paws. So we discussed that as well. So I sent over a second payment for them. I am now in the hole $1020. They do not have a website, a trello, or any other legitimate business profile, they are using a stolen profile picture and the pictures of the suits they have sent were bogus and not their creations. They have changed their Twitter handle from HD suitz to rldhh. They have since stopped communicating. BEWARE.
In April 2021, KidRhinoBoy opened for commissions. A friend of mine and I decided we would get a commission from him. I messaged him on Twitter (seen below) about availability and pricing. We exchanged a few messages regarding prices and what exactly my friend and I would get. We chose to get a single, colored picture from him. Each of us paid $80 to KidRhinoBoy. (I do not have a receipt for my friend but I do have mine). Initially it was going to be a three person picture, but the third person dropped out due to financial reasons. Figures 1-14
PayPal Receipt on my end shown in Figure 15
In late October 2021 I messaged KidRhinoBoy again, discussing a change to the drawing. I thought this would be alright since he hadn't started the drawing yet. Figures 16-17
It should be noted that at this point, KidRhinoBoy had opened and accepted a new round of comissions in late December 2021 / early January 2022. At this point I was starting to think that perhaps my commission had been forgotten about, hence my message about two weeks after he closed. Around this time I also told a friend what was going on. This friend had KidRhinoBoy's Telegram information and relayed what I had said to him. KidRhinoBoy then reached out to me on January 14th. He told me at this time that the sketch would be started some time in the next week or two (Last two weeks of January 2022) Figures 18-20
I would also occasionally reach out to him about his art, not looking for any updates, but just because I thought what he was putting out looked good. In April he messaged me again asking about my commission. He said he would sketch it soon. (It was not made clear to me what soon meant in this case, however) Figures 21-22
In June I reached out again asking to see if there was any update from his end. This time he said he would get me a sketch the next day. Three days after he asks me about the idea again. (To be clear, I did not delete or make invisible any of my messages in Telegram, so I was a little confused why he was asking again) Figure 23
I sent him a reply a little over 4 hours later, but at the time of writing it does not appear that he has read my messages. Figures 24-25
In hindsight it probably wasn't a great idea to change the art idea when I did. I know he also runs his own restaurant/cafe and suits a lot where he lives, so he's certainly busy. I understand that no one can do all things all at once. I'm not sure what to think about the various times I was promised a sketch, perhaps he's tried and wasn't happy with the results, but I genuinely don't know. Figures 26-27
Fig 1:
Fig 2:
Fig 3:
Fig 4:
Fig 5:
Fig 6:
Fig 7:
(Blanked out to hide artist's name)
Fig 8:
Fig 9:
Fig 10:
Fig 11:
Fig 12:
Fig 13:
Fig 14:
Fig 15:
Fig 16:
Fig 17:
Fig 18:
Fig 19:
Fig 20:
Fig 21:
Fig 22:
Fig 23:
I sent him a reply a little over 4 hours later, but at the time of writing it does not appear that he has read my messages.
Fig 24 and 25:
Fig 26:
Fig 27:
Disclaimer: White boxes with black outlines have been edited in to protect irl information of artist and commissioner, as well as information deemed not relevant to the Beware.
With regards to the transaction, the NSFW piece discussed was indeed completed and fulfilled. This Beware will be with regards to the three character piece.
Outline:
- Original agreement + Proof
I have chosen to provide only this snippet from the Discord conversation and nothing after, as anything past this point is unrelated to the commission in question.
- Proof of payment
Note: as a commissioner, I understand that including "NSFW" in Paypal notes is not warranted for either party. The invoice shown below was created by the artist and they included that information.
- Any relevant correspondence.
The NSFW piece that was completed is as shown below with a Spoiler for NSFW content:
Upon completion of this piece, there was only one correspondence with regards to updating the concept of the piece per request of the artist, but there was never any proof of work having been completed. Sometime after that, the artist contacted me with the following:
One thing I will mention is that when I tried to respond to them, I had been blacklisted on FA as shown:
Their TOS on their Carrd at sizdizzle.carrd.co/#tos, there is no mention of them having a right to cancel a commission not started and keeping the funds.
Sometime later, I went to Telegram and discovered our previous chat history there had been deleted, and they sent the following, to which I responded and currently awaiting a response:
In summary, nowhere in their TOS does it state they will keep funds on work that is not completed. All I'm looking for now is a refund of the work that has not been completed, that's it. If they need time to pay it back in installments, I'm fine with that.
In April I was asked to create artwork of two marvel characters dancing at prom, for $40, originally it was going to be $45 dollars but because I had known them from a previous server for months I trusted him enough to give him a discount. I hadn't done many commissions so because I wasn't very busy I finished it in about 4 days. This guy had pinged the second server we were on together every day asking how their day was and what they were doing, because it had few people in it, it was okay. Knowing he answered and dmed me frequently made me trust him to answer back in our dms. He was on Discord almost everyday so it was unlikely for him to not answer. When I told him I finished the commission he said that he was used to artists taking months to finish so he didn't have the money ready. I understood, and waited 4 more days while continuing to edit and revise the commission.
Two more weeks pass, and he still cannot pay for the commission. I still understood that bills needed to be paid and continued to wait. After nearly a month and a half after I finished the commission, I still hadn't been paid. I asked him for a security deposit and he said he's been broke for the past two weeks. I was starting to get really frustrated. If he couldn't pay for the commission, I told him he could always back out and I'd delete the artwork. You need to understand that we had been talking for a while and even though I did not know him in real life, I trusted him to eventually pay it.
He kept making excuses and saying he's broke until the next paycheck. It had been many, many weeks at that point where he must've been paid from a paycheck. Still, I kept trying to take the professional route and waited more.
It's July 19th, almost 3 months since we last had contact. He has ghosted me entirely, I've pinged him in other servers, asked his friends if there was a family emergency and still no reply. I needed the money because of my chronic illness, I'm in pain every single day and he knew that, yet consisted to ghost me. This is my last resort. I hope nobody ever has to go through this with this guy ever again. I can't even say this is the worst experience I've had this month, because of how many times I've been in the hospital.
Beware jdmarsh.
P.S. Going through these messages to get screenshots make this even worse because I'm now seeing that he did say he was going to pay half at the start and pay the rest upon completion and then PLAYED DUMB AFTER I ASKED HIM TO FOLLOW THROUGH. Also the flag behind my avatar used to be the lesbian flag then currently is the queer flag.
