Beware-Sierra
By SnoWDooM, in Artist Bewares,
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Artists Beware
The namesake database. Submissions are categorized by "Bewares" and "Cautions".
this artist when ghostings many other people and scamming them out of their money, took a lot of people for commissions and never sent back any work done to all of us. on my behalf this was my first time having a comission from a known artist. paid 40 dollars to never see anything done. even contacted them via email AND their telegram. never answered.
This was a commission over Twitter requested September 1st, 2020. It was a couples icon for my SO and I. I requested the collar be added and it was agreed to, and since then I've been ghosted.
My ref. Other character was fine.
Payment:
WIP was shown. Again, usually artists add the collar / glasses at the end of the sketch. This is on me for not asking.
End result:
This is where things get a bit off. I admitted I forgot to add the collar to the request and, again, it was agreed upon. They said they would take care of it when they "get home" and I was prepared to give them a tip. I would've been fine paying for a correction but being ghosted is super rude. A simple "No, I don't do edits after completion" or "It'll cost X amount" would've been totally fine, but not this. They've been active ever since.
Friday post at the end was 11/20/2020.
Still active, posting multiple times every day since. I just feel really disrespected and wanted to get this out there.
Thanks for reading.
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Back in July, I ordered a sketchy custom for $75 (USD) from g.hosting (not realizing the username would be very apt!) Here's the link to the auction: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37221256/. I've attached a screenshot showing my initial win as well as the paypal transaction.
Unfortunately, I nuked all of my Furaffinity notes, but Ghosting and I went to Discord for awhile. I have some screencaps of that. The "we" I'm referring to is my now-deceased fiance.
As I understand that art can take time to complete and the year has been completely insane, I decided to be patient. Not to mention I had to deal with my fiance's passing in August. You can see in the screenshots that months went by. In the meantime, Ghosting was semi-active on their FA and more active on their Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sinscitys/.
On November 6, I expressed concern for Ghosting's health as well as how long the commission was taking. I've been ripped off for almost $300 this year, and between Ghosting's active posting and lack of progress, I was afraid that I was dealing with yet another "push things past the dispute window and then disappear forever" artist. It became one of those awful situations where you don't want to yank money out of someone's pocket, but you also can't be a doormat.
You'll also notice that Ghosting offered me a refund, which I preferred, but suddenly they weren't able to provide one.
Now knowing that Ghosting was more active on Insta and FA, I sent messages to each, which went unread for two days.
At this point, I was fed up. I opened a dispute and escalated it. You can see in the Paypal screenshot that there was an active dispute associated with that transaction.
A few hours later, I received this: https://sta.sh/02dmz8wjlaf5
And responses to my FA note and IG message. The FA note was just to let me know the IG note was responded to, so I am only including the IG screenshot.
The custom's quality is lower than many of Ghosting's other designs. But after some consideration, I decided I did like what I received for the most part and closed the dispute. Juice just needs sprucing up and a clearer ref sheet.
Ghosting has offered to draw a little extra art as an apology, but based on my experience overall, I'll consider any extras like a scratch ticket win.
In summary? Ghosting's designs have a definite charm to them. They are generally colorful and lively. If you like them and can get your hands on a premade, I wholly suggest it! Ghosting as a person seems to be very friendly. But until this artist can communicate and work more effectively, I would hesitate to commission them.
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My apologies in advance for posting this as a caution, first time post and I'm not sure if my situation exactly qualifies as defining it a "Beware", so I went with the lesser of the two, just to be safe.
On or around late February 15th/ Early February 16th, 2020, The Artist @K1NGL3ON put up a public tweet offering up sketch commissions to those who wanted them in the replies. I threw my hat into the ring because the artist genuinely does good work, and I wanted something of one of my OCs. I was then contacted by the Artist via DMs, where we began to converse regarding the details of my commission.
It was at this point that the Artist then requested payment and sent an invoice to my paypal address. Total Paid was $30 ($20 for the sketch commission, and an additional $10 Tip).
Following payment, some light banter about the large response the Artist had received in the thread offering the sketch commissions.
Following this point was the first absence of communication. About a month had passed since initial payment, so I reached out requesting an update. I was given a response back that personal things came up and that they need some time to recover. I responded back that it's okay and they go ahead and take the time that they need to recover. I reach back out again a bit over a month later, in May 2020, checking in, seeing how they were and if there were any updates on my commission. I received a small message of "working on comms" in response. At the time of writing this post, this was the last time I had received any communication back from the Artist.
I then proceeded to reach out in somewhat frequent intervals, from around 2 weeks in May, to 1 month/month and a half gaps, with my latest message to them on October 30th, 2020. No response.
At this point I'm well past the deadline to file a dispute on my commission with PayPal, so that is on me. I wanted to share this to bring awareness about the situation that I'm experiencing. At the end of the day, I'm someone who can afford the loss on the commission I am referencing here. For me, $30 is a negligible chunk of change that I can afford to lose. My main purpose for writing this is moreso on the principle of the situation.
I get that life happens, and things come up that throw us for a loop. Hell, for a time, I was an artist doing my own thing before I got a full-time career, so at least to some degree, Yeah, I get how things can be sometimes. At the same time though, I'm at least expecting some minimum level of effort. At this point, I've waited for months and even over a year and some change for some commissions, be it something still actively worked on, or me still being in a queue (post payment) or whatever. For those situations, it was, and still is, fine for me. In my mind, it's both understandable and justifiable BECAUSE, at the very least, the Artist communicated their current status properly via some method so that I was at least in the loop. I, at least, had a basic understanding of how things were going on their end. Like, if you just communicate, then cool. I legitimately do not care about how long it takes, so long as I at least have an idea of where things are at. When the communication stops, that's when the frustration and the worry and confusion starts.
I hope that this post helps some people in the future, because things like this shouldn't happen.
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Beware - Helbryndjar
By Melis, in Client Bewares,
Hello!
This is my first time posting one of these, so I hope it was done correctly.
August 2020:
Commissioner came by my stream and asked for a commission. A link to my TOS and email was provided in the chat, and in the email I was given references for the first character, and later began drawing said character.
Later 1:
The commissioner came by my stream later on, and was asking me if I ever did free sketches in a whisper. I said yes, sometimes, and then was asked to quit drawing a commission I was already drawing on, and to provide them with a free sketch. I politely declined, and said I had to focus on commissions that have been waiting longer, and that besides, they were getting a commission from me, so they were going to get some art from me in the future anyway. The way it was asked came across as a bit too forward and rude to me, but I just brushed it away thinking that was the way they spoke.
Later 2:
Commissioner then came back to my stream when I had started on their commission, and became very upset because I was drawing the wrong character. It turned out there had been a mistake on their part, and that they thought they had told me to switch, which had never happened. I was sympathetic and willing to be flexible as they seemed very upset, and they told me they would add an extra 100$ for my troubles and the issue was very quickly resolved in the stream without any drama, and new character references was provided in stream.
8th November 2020:
Commissioner later came in another stream, and I was sketching their commission. They became upset again as I was not drawing their character unrealistic enough. I explained that is not my style, and that I draw realistic anatomy. I also referred to my TOS where it says that "I will draw realistic anatomy and genitalia to a size/shape I see fit, and that this is not debateable."
After some back and forth (the commissioner came across as a bit rude, but I figured they were upset and emotional, so I let it pass) I decided to tweak the anatomy to try and save the client relationship I had, and because I want my customers happy. It was a lot more extreme anatomy than I usually do, but was willing to comply. If the commissioner did not like the tweaks, we could end the commission there and go our separate ways.
The commissioner agreed on the changes and seemed happy, and the commission was continued on as normal.
13th November 2020:
On the last stream, the commissioner decided to cancel. I said ok, and that they needed to pay 25% of the work done so far.
In my TOS I have written that if the commissioner decides to cancel on a WIP, I hold the right to upload it as a YCH and then if the auction meets the agreed upon price, they only have to pay 25% of the time spent so far. If it doesn't, it is 50%, no matter how far into the process it's been to avoid arguments.
I figured that uploading it as a YCH would not meet the agreed upon price as most of my followers don't have human characters, and was willing to then just get paid 25%, instead of the possibility of the commissioner having to pay 50%.
They refused to pay this due to several reasons:
- Not agreeing with a signature that they had read and agreed to my TOS
- That I had not drawn their OC's because the anatomy in my style was too realistic and therefore was not entitled to anything as I had not provided a service
- That I had not read their commission terms (which was never provided or given by the commissioner, and is something I have not come across in 10 years of freelance)
I lost a few messages here, but the commissioner thought I would upload it finished with their character and sell it to someone else, so there was so unclarity and confusion, which is why I explained it further.
This is the commission with the two characters that I did, and the references that I used to translate the character into my style.
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So this person recently commissioned me to design a fursona on a base they provided. I have never taken a commission before and accepted. I colored it in and asked them what they thought, made a few edits and showed it to them. They insisted paying me $30 which I was okay with. They then said they sent the payment and I never received anything. I later found that they posted it on FA claiming they colored it themselves. I left a comment on both accounts and am now blocked on both.
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Back on 12/07/2019, Victoria had originally made a post about selling a Wildpup head for $550.
On a deleted quote-retweet around the first of May, she had reduced it down to about $450. It was about May 6th when I got a response to my question from May 3rd.
This is where I began a direct message, asking questions about the head to be refurbished. The original tweet made it sound like the fixing up of the teeth and eyes would be included in the $450/$550 price, but those ended up being about $100 to add those in. It didn't bother me at that time, however.
As a note, I had taken these screenshots as a precaution around the time she had temporarily changed her name to nessi_noodles, after a previous beware post.
The invoices through Paypal.
On June 24th, 2020, I had sent my first inquiry for an update, and how I was not listed on her update Trello.
I thought I'd try poking her on her Telegram, as I had received no reply on Twitter, despite her at the time being active. Per the screenshot, I had asked for updates on September 05, 2020, showing read but not responded. During this time she was active on both Twitter and Telegram. I sent one more update on October 27th, 2020 before I decided to file a dispute with Paypal. The screenshot shows that this recent message has not been read since.
I waited about a couple of days, and with no response despite being active on Telegram, I decided to file a dispute on Paypal before my 180 days went up to file. Since I didn't think I would get any response to a dispute like I hadn't on Telegram and Twitter, I decided to escalate it to a dispute. The screenshots in this beware were provided to the Resolution Center.
Due to RL work, I hadn't gotten any screenshots on the Paypal escalation while waiting for the case to clear. While waiting, it showed "Adjudication reason: The seller has provided a full refund to you," while on the pending transaction, it said, "Credit has been processed and claim is now closed." Up until today, 11/10/2020, the refund was on pending, the resolution center showing it being refunded as an e-check.
This morning 11/10/2020, I had received two emails at the same time, saying the refund was being delayed, then canceled. With some Googling, I found that this can sometimes happen if the seller doesn't have enough in their bank or Paypal account. Since I had to go to a morning shift at work, I couldn't contact Paypal directly to see about resolving this refund.
I had planned to call Paypal the next day, 11/11/2020, to see about resolving. However, when I came home from work in the evening, 11/10/2020, I had found the case had been resolved in my favor, and a refund provided to me.
It's incredibly disappointed it had to come to this, as Victoria is incredibly talented, but I wanted to at least warn others to expect delays or ghosting. I have not personally contacted Furfancy since filing the dispute, as I felt this whole deal had become a lost cause.
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On or around 16 March, 2018, I purchased a YCH for 20$ from the artist. I can't give an exact date as they seemed to have deleted everything relevant from their scraps and gallery (which I will get into later.)
I sent them a not on the 16 March explaining that I don't have a ref sheet, just other commissions I've gotten and screenshots from Second Life and asked if that was okay, to which they replied with yes:
I don't have a flat out notice of payment being sent either in note form or a paypal screenshot as I was using my partner at the time's paypal as I didn't have my own then, and we've since broken up, but I do have proof of them starting the art after I paid them, which they sent a WIP on 21 March (which now leads to an empty stash site) and asked about some colours:
We talked a couple of times between them, mainly about when I was expecting my ref sheet to be done, which never did.
A couple of weeks later on 29 March, I sent them a note asking about the art, as the WIP they had sent me appeared to be nearly done, they replied, and I conceded that maybe I was being a little impatient and decided I'd just let them work. I know, I can be a little impatient at times:
A month later, on 29 April, I sent them another note asking for an update, to which I got no reply again:
Then, between 13 June and 15 June we had a brief conversation about my ref sheet, which at that point I was still waiting on:
On 20 July, I sent them a note asking for an update, as it had been a month and a half since the last update:
To which I got a reply 10 days later on 30 July saying that it was nearly done:
I didn't receive any art, and didn't note them again until 7 October, asking for an update:
And got a reply 2 days later on 9 October, saying that were (presumably) out of town and would send it to me after 20 October, to which I agreed:
I didn't hear from them for a while after that, so I messaged them on 29 October asking and gently reminding them that it's been seven months since I paid them:
And got no reply. This is when they first went dark. I paid attention to their page for a bit and decided to note them again on 30 January, 2019, to which I got no reply:
It was sometime around this time that I noticed his shout page had many shouts along the lines of "Where's my art?" and "Are you going to finish my art?" I didn't think to screenshot these, and they've since been deleted, which I'll address later.
More than a year passed before I noticed in my submissions list that they started uploading art again, so I decided to note them on 25 June, 2020:
And between the 26 June and 29 June we talked and they offered to either finish the old artwork, or to do a new one for me:
They seemed partial to drawing new art, and to be honest with you I was really liking the sketch that they had sent me the first time, but at this point I just wanted to be done dealing with this artist. Full disclosure my replies at this time point were a couple days between, as that's when the pandemic in my area REALLY started to hit and everything was hectic, regardless, we agreed on a pose that I sent them (censored link)
I sent them references, which they asked for (the artist I planned to do my ref sheet didn't pan out) and that was that:
And at that point they went dark again. I noticed on their page that they had cleared out their shouts and seemed to be trying to start anew, so I was patient, until they started ignoring my notes. HOwever, I could see that they were actively favouriting art on FA and that they would occasionaly upload the occasional piece now and then, but didn't even open my notes, either of them that I sent:
I left them a shout on 30 October, letting them know of my frustrations and asking them to at least read my notes:
However that fell of deaf ears, as to this day, my notes are still unread, despite the fact that they even favourited something earlier this day before I typed this:
(Obviously, BlueberryDragon is not affiliated with this artist, this screenshot is only provided as proof that the artist is still active, despite ignoring my notes)
It seems like I'm simply out the money that I paid for the YCH, which some people may say that making a big deal out of a $20 YCH may be overkill, but that's not what's on trial here. I feel this artist has been very unprofessional and I have been more than patient waiting for them, and made every attempt I could to make things right and to contact them, but being flat out ignored is just rude and unprofessional. Oh well, you live and you learn.
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June 8th, 2020: Jors Tweeted that he was offering bust sketches, and that the proceeds would go to Reclaim the Block. The same day, I reached out to Jors to have one of my characters drawn. Jors was asking for $40, but I sent him an extra $15 for a total of $55 through Paypal. Jors told me that he expected to complete commissions within a week. He stated that, once he had completed all the commissions, he would post the donation receipt.
June 9th: Jors posted a completed bust commission for another user.
June 10th-August 19th: Jors is inactive on Twitter.
August 20th: Jors posted two more busts on his timeline. He did not specify that these were donation commission sketches, but they appeared to be the same style. I assumed that it meant that he would soon finish the other busts, including my own.
August 21st-September 20th: Jors was actively posting on Twitter. I did not receive any messages concerning commission progress. After September 20th, Jors has not posted on Twitter.
September 27th: I contacted him through Twitter again to see if he was making any progress on the donation commissions. I did not receive a response.
October 17th: I message Jors again, letting him know that the end of the chargeback period is December 5th. I told him I hoped to resolve the situation within the next month.
November 2nd: Jors did not acknowledge my last message despite having over two weeks to do so. Initially, I intended to wait until December 5th before opening a dispute. However, his lack of response suggests to me that it is unlikely that he will finish the commission even if I gave him the rest of the extra time. I sent him a message that I would proceed with contacting Paypal. A dispute has been open. As it is not yet a claim, Jors still has time to reach out to me and, hopefully, resolve the problem without Paypal's intervention.
I am not really sure if something happened to Jors that was out of his control and made him unable to complete my commission. However, nothing was ever communicated with me so I can only speculate. Also, he never posted proof that he donated the commission money that he received.
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TLDR: I commissioned Cassandra in August of 2018 and have received nothing but delays and excuses until she stopped responding to messages in May of 2020.
Back around August 2018, I had decided to commission Cassandra for a custom plush of a character I created. With it would be included 1 set of clothes and plush jewelry for him. The total for it was $170, which was paid on August 18th, 2018.
In September, I get notified that she’ll be moving soon but that the plush would be finished once that was finished. She next messages me a bit in October with a question about the clothes and I don’t hear anything from her until I message her in December asking her to check with me about the address before sending the plush.
From this point in time, I was distracted by some personal matters that were going on (the reason I would eventually be moving) and kind of forgot about the commission until March 2019 when I sent a new shipping address and asked how the plush was progressing.
She was still recovering from a surgery she had in the month before. From here, I checked in every so often and ask how things were going with my plush and I was reassured she was still working on it while also getting a new excuse each time for further delays (family issues, dog had babies, moving again, etc.).
Finally, we get to May 2020 and I check in again only to hear she had moved her focus to making masks and that she was having issues with shipping things due to COVID. This is the last time I heard anything from her even though I messaged her multiple times from August to November. And full disclosure, I wasn’t exactly nice in my last message to her, but I was very upset after having been lead on and lied to for so long.
Around early to mid-August I start worrying because she hadn’t replied to me yet and I end up checking her Etsy page. She had posted a notice that she was temporarily taking a vacation due to the pandemic and so she can track down delayed or lost packages. It did state that current orders were still in fact being worked on though, which made me feel slightly better even though I was still worried.
Not to long after, I had noticed that the message had been updated to include that her Instagram was hacked, which at the time I figured was why she hadn’t replied to any of my messages. However, I didn’t notice until mid-September that multiple negative reviews had popped up on her store, all of which site either missing orders, lack of communication, or both. So now it wasn’t just me she wasn’t communicating with, but a bunch of other customers as well. Of course, I still wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt though and tried reaching out through Etsy but all I got was the auto reply.
Not getting any replies here, I also try to reach out via email to hopefully clear things up and quell my worries, but again, no answer. Eventually, her Etsy shop was either removed or taken down due to the negative reviews (not sure which). Not sure where to go from here, I post a missing contacts post on here on Artists Beware and also reach out via email. At this point, I has already suspected that I had been scammed but still hoped it was just some problem that had happened. After a few days, I was contacted by another person who told me that she had also done this with quite a few others, them included.
[removed due to third party]
Additionally, she deleted the emails I was using to try to contact her sometime after I had first emailed her about this whole thing.
With all this going on, I felt I couldn’t give her the benefit of the doubt any more and decided that I would put up a beware on her. I’m also inclined to believe that I was given the runaround and a lot of what she told me may have been lies. I certainly do not believe her Instagram account was hacked, as the timing was just too convenient and happened just as all the negative review started coming in. I am also very doubtful that she lost as many shipments as there are people who did not receive their order even with the COVID related postal delays that did actually occur.
I had also even reached out to some family members in my desperation to get any sort of communication with her. I got a couple replies back, one of which also stated that they had ordered masks from her but she told them the package had been lost in the mail and that they are still waiting for their money back as well. Most recently, I had also discovered that she has a Twitch channel where she has streamed many times since I last spoke with her, further evidence that she is not in a position where she wouldn’t be able to reach out to anyone and that she was indeed ignoring not just me, but everyone else as well.
So regardless of whether I’m able to get a refund, I would like to say DO NOT COMMISSION CASSANDRA WISE. It’s been so long since I did and I have nothing to show for it. I’ll admit that I definitely wasn’t as persistent as I should’ve been with this commission, but ultimately she’s the one that run off without so much as a good bye and it seems she is refusing to communicate with anyone that she owes work to.
Proof of names:
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