Undelivered Commission
I do realize I have been waiting for 6 and a half years for this suit. I have been trying to be understanding and patient with Clementine about this commission. However, after this long of a time period, her lack of communication, her every changing replies, and numerous excuses I have decided to move forward with this post.
Below is a timeline of the communication between myself and Clementine and also her boyfriend the CFO.
Back in November 2013 Clementine was having a black Friday (artistic freedom with limits) sale and I decided to buy it. (I believe the original post was on furbuy, but not 100% sure)
The commission was for a full suit for $1280, with a deposit of $576
I sent the deposit to her with a money order within a few days (because if i pay with PayPal I need to add 5% according to her TOS....which is a violation of PayPal, however that's not what I'm concerned about)
I was under the impression from her ad on furbuy that I would pay the rest once it was completed, so I waited.
April 22 2014, I receive an email asking about the rest of the payment, and I replied that I thought I was supposed to pay when it was done and before it shipped.
September 13 2014 (yes 5 months later) I receive another email telling me she does not work on anything until the payment is in full.
This is when the excuses start, her first reason is work is super slow until they sell their house.
We go back and forth for a little bit about paying and I send her money orders in early October for the balance ($704)
All during October 2014 she sketches up some designs and sends them over to me and we decide on one
Mid October she tells me she hasn't received the money orders and I end up having to call and get them stopped and reversed which took quite a while.
During November 2014 I had a huge expense (over $5500) and told her I had to hold off paying the rest until it got sorted out. We went back and forth on emails for a little bit and that's the time she started getting disrespectful to me saying how she has bills that are way past due.
She ends up getting angry with me and tells me she may cancel my commission and it is on hold "indefinitely" she also tells me that she has used my whole deposit to buy materials.
I ask for a refund at this point, and she tells me that there is no refunds and the deposit is non refundable ( I also would like to point out she has not asked me to sign any contract at this point)
She ends up blocking me on facebook in December, so I am no longer able to message her. She instead has her boyfriend (the CFO of her company) emails me and says he will conduct business with me from this point forward.
December 24th The CFO tells me that I need to make the remaining checks payable to him personally, and I refuse. I told him that my business is not with him it is with Clementine and i will make the checks payable to either her or make them out to fruitsuit creations. He then tells me I can make them payable to Clementine.
December 29th 2014 I sign a contract for the remaining balance
Since the contract was signed I mailed the payments as follows
Jan 15th 2015 mailed $200 ($100 plus $100 credit) - it was received on Jan 21st -- see below for paid in full email
Feb 23rd 2015 mailed $100 - it was received on Feb 28th -- see below for paid in full email
March I had a few extra bills and had to use the $100 credit from Jan -- see below for paid in full email
April 14th 2015 mailed $200 - received on April 19th -- see below for paid in full email
May 1st 2015 mailed $204 (the balance) - received on May 8th 2015 (paid in full) and was told I was moved to the "working queue"
Clementine sends a newsletter out 4 months later with her working queue and I am not on it, on the list is 2 heads, one partial, 3 on hold (with the commission names). She tells me there was some confusion and she will update it. She does not.
October 14 2016 (yes a year later) She tells me she is finishing up 2 heads and I'm a few spots down the line.
Jan 13 2017 she tells me there are six in front of me, 2 of which are just heads
**April 2017 more excuses that she has several breakdowns a week and it's hard to concentrate and work on commissions.
April of 2017 is when something odd happens.....there is another person commissioning her for a rush suit, I'm not sure if I can mention names, so I won't but there is another artist beware about Clementine from this person.
The odd thing is that they paid for this nearly 2 years after mine was paid off, but she was sending WIP pics to this person and I have yet to even be told my true place in line.
April 2017 she tells me my place is "one less then last time I told you"
**July 2017 more excuses of bad side effects from medication, mobile and cognitive Impairment, horribly depressed , separation anxiety, hysterical crying spells 3-5 times a day
[Verified by staff. Lots of medical information.]
July 8th 2017 she tells me "i believe there are 3 or 4 in front of you"
**September 2017 more excuses of her injuring her shoulder
September 2017 She gets mad at me for asking where I am in line saying that I've been waiting for a long time, she tells me that there are people waiting longer, and I signed a contract that has no completion dates.
Dec 11th 2018 (another year later) she tells me "trying to get this done so I can move on"
**January 2019 more excuses of her cat being sick, and not having a place to live with her workshop
May 29th 2019 after 100 excuses from her I am told "Thank you so much for your incredible patience! I do wholeheartedly promise that I will make your wait worth it!"
**August 2019 more excuses of her Mom being sick (not posting conversation due to her privacy on her mothers health issues)
Dec 15th 2019 after more excuses I am told "I really can't thank you enough for your patience.. and I promise I will go above and beyond to make it up to you, and everyone else I've let down.."
May 16th 2020 After asking about my place in line yet again, I am told "i believe you are 6th in line."....I then send her screenshots from 3 years prior of her telling me that there are 3 or 4 in front of me. she tells me she must be looking at the wrong copy and will get back to me.
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I feel that I have been beyond patient with her, I can be sympathetic to what people are going through, or if they have things happen in their life that they need to just stop for a little bit (which she did have a few which I did not include in here due to the privacy of her family) However, with whatever you are going though mentally or physically and still traveling to many conventions and fursuiting while injured instead of working on your obligations, or even keeping me informed about anything that is going on in 6 and a half years, doesn't seem like a good way to conduct business. Waiting 6.5 YEARS from ordering or 5 years from it being paid in full with her story ever changing about where I am in her line, and excuse after excuse, (which I found another post with the same issues) has gotten me to this point of frustration where I feel I need to let others know. Especially since she has taken other commissions AFTER mine and has worked on them before mine.
Clementine has shown me that she doesn't seem interested in working on my suit by not letting me know anything about it, and the things she has told me she contradicts herself many times. For example, about what she has bought for my suit (she tells me she didn't buy anything, then she tells me she has the fur from a previous project, then she tells me she used all my deposit for supplies) another example is my place in line. I'm not quite sure if there is any bookkeeping in where she works on things, but she doesn't seem organized at all about what she is working on. There should be an exact answer to that question, I am not sure why I can't get a straight answer from her on that. She has not posted any updates on her working queue or anything of that sort in a few years, so I am not even sure she has one.
I had asked a few times early on for a refund which was refused, I even had said if she is unable to work on it at all that's fine, I can just get a refund and either do it myself or get it elsewhere, I have asked for a transfer to another person and that was refused, she seems to be banking on the contract saying is does not have any completion dates, however that doesn't give anyone the right to take money and not deliver a product ever, and I think 6 and a half years is way beyond the time limit to wait for something like this.
I feel that I have been very lenient with her and tried to compromise but her excuse after excuse has led me to make this post. Along with her lack of communication in her work order.
In the 6.5 years there has been a ton of emails and messages so I couldn't put them all so forgive me for such a long post.
Please think twice before commissioning anyone, and feel free to reach out to those who have commissioned a person in the past to ask about their experiences.
I was willing in the past to work with her in the past on this problem asking her what she needs from me in order to get her working on projects, (I even sent her a link to an industrial sewing machine for a good price because she was complaining about her needing a new one), but her lack of communication and concern about this commission has led me to believe that she does not intend to provide me with a product.
I am however still willing to accept a refund and turn this post to resolved, if she is willing to refund my payments.
I paid $105 for art back in january of 18 of this year using venmo. I will not attach the photo of that here unless required to due to some privacy issues that can happen but I will gladly share my text history with him on discord, the shout that was deleted on his profile, the note I left for him on FA and the proof that he blocked me. He refuses to message me back let alone give me my money back or the art I paid for. I am just hoping he gives me my money back and i will never talk with or about him again or I can find where he lives and bring his ass to court over this.
I had commissioned this artist around 3 months ago, and under the pretense that a reduced price would be had, in addition to a handmade item being sent to them in exchange for 2 pieces of art.
As far as my end of the deal, it was a handmade blanket, as I happen to loom things and promised her a handmade blanket specifically to fit her couch. I value a normal, full size blanket (around 30$ in materials and usually a 7x5 size) at 80$, and also gave her 30$ cash, amounting to a full 110$.
A WIP of the work done. (The item was shipped off 5/22 to another purchaser after I was blocked, so this photo is all there is.)
After nearly 2 months, they returned to me with a first draft that wasn't anywhere near what I had requested, and she was incredibly rude to me, claiming my character was a trap, as well as turning a SFW image commission into a nearly NSFW one. She had a fair criticism to ask for more details from me, but when I had first commissioned, I had explicitly asked if she had enough details.
After this, she pushed my commissions to the bottom of her queue, and ghosted me for 2 weeks. After this, I confronted her about why she did this and she claimed she would work on others who "appreciate her art" first, and used this to rectify not working on my commissions. I then asked her to either refund me due to her continued disinterest and expressed desire to not do these pieces, and that's when she removed me from her server on discord, blocked me, and is continuing to refuse delivering the product she agreed to. She has since blocked me from contacting her and has kept the 30$ I sent her.
Below I've attached all conversation material.
(date of these caps is May 21st 2020)
Proof of removal/block
Client was terminated from an Artistic Liberty quote before payment was made since the changes requested by them on the concept provided during the first contact were not interesting for the studio production at the time and the unpaid design created during quote was kept by the studio, as described on the TOS agreed by said client during the application process.
Link to our TOS
Client tried to continue the application process but we already sent the email terminating it and we didn't felt it was necessary to proceed contact, since no invoices were sent and no further agreements were made - at that stage we already let the client know that the design created for that commission would stay under the studio property.
Weeks after said client decided to public harass our studio on our own posts on Instagram and after being blocked on multiple accounts for doing so, started to spread misinformation about our TOS, the commission process and also decided to claim the unpaid design as their own under claims that goes against the TOS agreed on before the design was sent to them. We sent a private message to the third account and by that time it felt like the situation was under control.
The harassment continued the next day with another account claiming the studio stole the client OC, tagging other clients and spreading more half truths and accusations.
The studio posted a public note via Instagram stories to spread awareness on the information and also decided to share on beware groups what happened. One of our followers let us know the client still insists on spreading false information and we decided to enlighten the situation public posting everything here.
These are the accounts that continued harassing us and our clients/followers:
@wetsnobblobb < has posted the stories spreading misinformation
@foolish.adopts < has harassed us on posts
@beesandcubs < first account to start online harassment
[Moderator Note: A 4th IG that was harassing OP exists, but the account is held by someone underaged so we have censored it out.]
That user is claiming that the art is stolen and that our character sheet bases are also stolen fro] third party, which is a blatant lie since our lead artist has all the files and recipes to prove that all the art was created by us and belong to Alecrim Carmim brand.
To clarify any half truths shared by the accounts listed before:
- Our art is 100% designed by our lead artist. We have all the files and proof of the authenticity of our creations, designs and production;
- We never ghost any client; in that specific case, we simply terminate the commission and sent an email informing the client on said termination and reason (the project was not interesting for production at that time);
- No designs were stolen from the client; in fact, our design is being claimed without payment by said client under accusations that "since the mood board and directions were given, the character belongs to them”; said claim goes straight against our TOS (that was agreed on BEFORE the commission process even began by the client);
- No invoices were sent to the client before the commission termination. Not the 30% from the commission process nor any amount of money was received from the client by Alecrim Carmim. Preparing / being ready to pay does not mean actually making a payment.
We always ask for future clients multiple times to read AND agree with our TOS before moving forward with the commission process. For our sake and for the sake of our current clients and followers, we’re deleting that design made for that specific commission from our social media and premade library.
We do not stand for harassment and we do not want to associate with the illegal usage of our intellectual property, no matter the claims. We're a positive brand that try our best to avoid that kind of drama, but sadly some of that might hit our way once or twice in our studio development.
For that reason, we decided to expose the situation and upload a client beware so our fellow makers have some feedback on said client for future reference. All the relevant screencaps are attached to this message.
The art itself is being used without credit and the Client is claiming the design to be their character.
In addition, the Client attempted to sell the design, using the full original, unpaid artwork in the advertisement on May 9th
Artist On a public Discord, did not hold up their end of the deal, and choose to try and run away with the money without doing the correct work or even hold up their end of the deal. The First part about the commission remaining private is also a lie on their end. As it is posted on their FA https://www.furaffinity.net/view/36446919/ Also an imgur link in case they try and hide the proof. https://imgur.com/HHNJI1F
Edit: 05.21.20
The artist has put my private email up on their website.
She tried to hire artists on FA under guest name, alex-rose-nitya on mar18, 2020.
She PMed me, but said no Paypal, only Cashapp. I declined.
Then again on April18, 2020 as foxyfluffstudio.
I lost my regular income and was desperately seeking work. So I agreed to accept Bandcamp giftcards. (I had planned to spend the full amount on about 10~20 musicians / bands, some charity to help them through this rough time...)
I noticed that she was having thoughts of selling adoptables created from the bases she commissioned, and Her FB profile was non-exsisted, but whatever who still uses FB.
Total summary of her crime - She commissioned 4 base packs ( 32 full-body lined characters in total ) and paid $60 out of $480.
I finally recieved half of the total payment, after weeks of stalling. Finally, I let her download the 2 completed base sets.
At this time I realized my balance went down, but don't know any better, and bandcamp 's staff was overwhelmed with emails, and their waiting line took a lot longer than usual. She denies that she bounced my payment.
And once I received bandcamp's feedback and did some digging. (thinking she might be a kid)
Found out she is not a kid and asked again if she can switch to PayPal. She kept on lying.
The last confrontation of this sad story - After showing her the copied response from Bandcamp, her FA status went immediately from New member > Pending deletion.
I commissioned this artist back in October 2019. I had previously received completed work from this artist and at first everything seemed fine. So I commissioned him again this time for a new OC character. It was planned to be for a much larger story project, however I ultimately couldn't afford the project it so I called off the project and stopped at just doing the the commission for the new OC character. It was still agreed on to complete the character which had been started and paid for. And is shown by a previous message on December 23 asking for an update on that commission.
The most I have received of that commission is an incomplete sketch, nothing close to the completed piece, and that was over 7 months ago at the time of writing this.
Later when cancellation is mentioned I spoke only on condition of receiving a refund if the work would not be completed. It was either giving the money back for the art or completing the artwork. And I have received neither.
Working with him he acts extremely unprofessionally, when I would ask for an update on the art and eventual refund would completely flip out in a rant and try to guilt me into thinking that I had done something wrong by asking for an update on art that I had paid for. He would cite things such as others have paid him thousands for art on why he's not working and things with life (such as his daughter and other family) repeatedly as another reason why the work isn't done. As well as guilted me for simply asking for an update for art I paid for, calling me selfish and saying I only cared about myself for asking even though I would go months in between asking about the status. And finally threatening legal action for saying I would go to my bank to report undelivered goods.
He mentions doing free work, however that was never the case. There was never any free work agreed on or done, only paid work.
An important note he originally reached out to me to get me to do a commission with him, by complementing my character and generally buttering me up and acting friendly just to ask me if I wanted to commission him.
I previously had posted a client beware message on his Deviantart page as a comment, however he deleted it and blocked me from his page entirely. He operates another page which I am also blocked from viewing.
As of writing this I have received no contact from him it has been nearly a month since the last series of messages. And no updates beside the sketch from 7 months ago on the art I have paid for. While he continues to remain very active and post art on patreon, deviantart, furaffinity and twitter.
Below I have included conversions with him asking for status updates, and a refund. As well as the message showing payment send and the WIP sketch.
I'd like to begin this post by saying that I've finally received my money back, but I still felt it necessary to make a PSA about this artist because this spree of not fulfilling commissions has apparently gone on for much longer than I expected. I greatly respect their talent and think their posted art is absolutely beautiful, but their lack of communication and responsibility for someone who is supposed to be a professional leaves much to be desired.
This was when I first commissioned him and he took the payment. Perhaps I should have done half and half, but he assured me it'd be done within a week, and I always like paying artists upfront, delays or not. Unfortunately, a long time went by when I received no word, despite my attempts at contacting him through email and other platforms.
Eventually, I managed to find his discord server and tried contacting him there too. While the first time I got no answer, I sent a message right when he was about to stream and managed to get somewhat of an answer.
Eventually, however, the result was the same as before. Complete radio silence after the fact.
A refund was only received on June 27th because a dispute was filed. No other followup was made.
He opened up 2 commissions at this point, and I managed to get in contact with the second person that commissioned him, only to hear that they went through a very similar issue. Here is the conversation they allowed me to share.
I commissioned copycatz back in October of 2016, they approached me with interest in drawing art of one of my characters, they were enthusiastic to do so.
I saved up money for a few months so I could commission them at the time and paid for a full colour, shaded commission at the time. I know some artists can take time so I did not contact them too terribly much afterwards. By the point I started to become suspicious/worried it was too late for a charge back from Paypal. I figured they'd deliver eventually, probably had a queue.
I contacted them some months later an inquired how it was going as the last time I had talked to them they stated they had a WIP and would upload it soon. I cannot discuss what they said but they had medical complications (supposedly) and were unable to work for a period of time. I backed off for a few months before contacting again. Shortly after that contact a year after commissioning them they were banned from Furaffinity.
I figured at that time my commission was lost in the ether until other commissioners posted about how to get in contact with the artist and how they owed them work. They were available on DeviantArt and Twitter so I contacted them on DeviantArt. What followed was a run around of saying they didn't remember me ever commissioning them, then me providing the screen caps edited below of paying them then being ran around saying they had a WIP. This continued for some months while they were posting more artwork they were creating.
Again this continued on for several months until I essentially threw my hands up in the air. I had no real recourse to retrieve the amount owed by this point and it was apparent they were not going to produce the work.
Their ban on FA has ended and they are allowed to post on the account again so I decided to make a public airing of this dirty laundry to show what I went through in hopes they do not take anyone else's money. At this point all I'd want is a refund plus interest for the money they received from me with no delivered work.
Take away: Copycatz will approach people first seeming enthusiastic on commissioning them.
They will then try to get the person to commission them.
They will not communicate at all with the commissioner. The commissioner has to engage in all contact.
They will bring forward excuses as to why they cannot work on it now, claiming personal or medical reasons.
They will promise WIPs and progress but never deliver.
There is no other way to put it but this person is a thief. They take money and do not produce work.
I commissioned Patrikthedog 5 years ago for a single page comic. All she's done since then was a single sketch to see if there were any changes needed. Ever since then she's basically ghosted me, as well as several others. She's kept hundreds of dollars from commissioners while constantly making more art, claiming she doesn't have the money needed to give out refunds. When I made a post calling her out on a YCH that other people commented on, she deleted it to hide what she did. She contacted me after that post, but she once again ghosted me after promising a refund. She clearly has no intention of ever giving out the refund as promised.
