Who: Mo
Twitter: MugsTheAlien, MugsTheGoblin, MoTheGoblin
FA: PigeonsAndPeaches
Instagram: shrimpgoblin
What: Sticker Pack, $125
Where: Twitter
Why: Misleading queue presentation, trying to break own TOS, lying about/omitting parts of our interaction in a Commissioner Beware
Short version:
I commissioned under the impression Mo had a reasonable-length queue. I then watched them do multiple adopts and personal art without any explanation or reason for the delay on my work (or anyone else’s). When I asked for a refund (in accordance with TOS) every attempt was made to discourage me from it until I pressed enough to get them to agree. I later gave in and agreed to continue the commission against my better judgment, accepting stickers in place of the original in hopes that it would help clear the air on the original concept. My commission was subsequently rushed and I was made to feel the villain for asking for updates and that it be finished within the buyer protection window. They left the drop shadow and stroke off the stickers and refused to let me add them myself. When I expressed I felt this was unfair, they did a beware on me with misleading and outright wrong information.
Long version:
In early June, my partner Ri bought an adopt (Hardy) from Mo as a surprise gift for me. I got in contact with Mo to get the name and details added to the ref sheet.
In the course of our conversation, they convinced me to get a commission from them of the character. I’ll be honest and say I felt a little guilty because I dropped the whole “I might commission” thing and then kinda felt like I should. That’s on me. I really shouldn’t have commissioned under pressure.
So, I went ahead and commissioned. The commission was promised at around 2 months. Which I wasn’t in a rush, but I figured with the small amount of commissions on their queue, it wouldn’t be too long. Mo did not mention to me that their queue was WAY out of date, leading me to believe there wasn’t much ahead of me, especially since they added my project almost immediately.
In early September, Mo posted that their Trello was not up to date. I waited a couple weeks, thinking there were just a few things missing or something that had been taken after my commission. Then I checked in with them on Sep 17th. They verified that it still wasn’t up to date. I waited quietly, hoping this would be updated soon, but I was starting to get pretty stressed and worried. And resentful. In the time I was waiting to hear or see anything, Mo posted plenty of adopts and personal artwork, and advertised constantly for more commissions.
I have nothing against artists having off days, doing personal work, etc., but there’s something very shady when you’re constantly open for commissions, your queue is out of date, and nothing you post seems to be related to completing or even working on commissions.
I was seriously considering asking for a refund when I received a message from Mo’s manager on Oct 7, asking what I had commissioned, when, etc. Tabby (the manager) was updating Mo’s queue and rearranging things. I started to think that maybe there was some chance I’d get my stuff.
After the queue settled out, I noticed there were a lot of people placed ahead of me, and certain people had been marked as a priority, but I was not one of them despite being one of the oldest comms in the queue. After waiting another several days, I reached out to see if I could arrange a refund (and yes, understanding that it wouldn’t be immediate and that it would not be in full). It was immediately demanded that I explain why.
I explained that I felt I had been misled regarding the amount of stuff in front of me and that I was uncomfortable with all the stuff getting done ahead of me and the personal art. I was told why the delay was justified, including that they’d taken comms for “seasonal” things, were doing “minor” edits, the queue already was out of date, etc.
I was told they weren’t “comfortable” giving me a refund since they’d started (note again I didn’t say I wanted a 100% refund, nor did I ever; I fully expected to only get a partial refund but I just wanted to be done with it all). I will admit that I shouldn’t have accused them of slamming out the sketch without proof, but it did feel very weird that the sketch appeared about 30 minutes after I asked about a refund. Please keep in mind their comment about how their sketches are “always rough” for later.
Once the pose was explained to me, I could kind of make out what they were drawing, but honestly I still couldn’t really see many details. They also made a comment about “finding it odd” that I was asking for a refund after they started the sketch. I’m not sure what they were implying, since I hadn’t seen the sketch? And I never said I wanted a refund on work already done? I also found myself having to justify not asking for a refund when Tabby initially contacted me, but nothing was said about that being an option or a “last chance” to ask for.
I was also threatened with being blacklisted for canceling, despite that being stated nowhere in their TOS.
The flurry of texts after, I honestly didn’t know how to respond. I was trying to handle things as gently as I could. I get that refunds are stressful (been there), so I didn’t have any intention of demanding anything.
I was handed off to Tabby, which was fine. She added me to the refund list.
I was told there would be a delay, and at that point I didn’t know what else to say. I mentioned my buyer protection being a ways out, and that I would be comfortable waiting that long. In response to my “ok,” it was pressed that it would be faster to get art done, which again felt like being pressured to not do a refund. (I honestly wasn’t in a hurry, but at that point there were like, 6 weeks left?)
After a few days, I started to feel bad for asking the refund. I really do love Mo’s artwork, and I thought maybe a compromise could be reached. I reached out to Tabby about possibly getting stickers instead of the original request. I figured I’d get 5-6 for what I’d paid. I was offered 15 instead, which I thought was pretty cool.
While I was waiting, I noticed a friend of mine had gotten a (non-holiday) full body done, and I couldn’t recall having seen their stuff in queue earlier.
Fortunately, I was provided with the sketches a few days later, and I finally started to feel like things were going well and I could get my art and have something to enjoy.
I gave feedback on the expression/pose on one sketch which was fixed. I was a little surprised, though, when the next WIP I got was full color, since their TOS states there’s a line phase to refine pose etc. Still, the only gripe I had was that since he was supposed to be “puppy eyes begging” in the sticker, I wanted his eyes shinier. I specified that I wanted it only on that particular expression, but Mo added eye shine to the rest of the stickers later on, too, which I thought was nice.
This was the next WIP I got
Mugs has characterized my requests for edits as “rude” and excessive. I will let the reader be the judge.
You’ll see the next interaction I had above as well. Mo had posted that they were going to be on hiatus to “deal with some family stuff,” but that clients could reach out if they had concerns. Which I did when I saw it about two days later. I was made to feel as though I had no right to ask about this, as an artist deserves a vacation, etc. etc. Again, didn’t really know what I could say or do, so I just stayed quiet until I got more updates. I was, at that point, pretty annoyed with how I’d been treated, but I wasn’t in the mood to be confrontational as I figured it would just result in my stuff being rushed.
Updates continued, again without any WIPs between sketch and color phases. I didn’t want to ask for major changes since I wasn’t getting a chance to give feedback on lines, but I didn’t feel like most of what I was asking for was out of line. Lettering should’ve been a matter of just drawing over again, and they were nearly invisible on my phone (showed up ok on my laptop, though).
Over the weekend, I saw that the last three had been uploaded.
With this one, I felt like the fingers on the top left were really rushed (and honestly the whole sticker)? And looked odd. I asked for a fix on that. I also asked if there would be drop shadows like in this example that Mo has been posting as an ad on twitter for $5/each YCH sticker packs. Telegram recommends a stroke and drop shadow on all stickers, which is especially important since you can put complex pics in the background, so it didn't seem unreasonable to expect that those would be added in the finishing phase.
Asked if the fingers on one sticker of three could be corrected (the top left). They were very sausage-y and looked nothing like the sketch (though the sketch is very rough). After being told no, no shadows, I was told that if I was happy with it, they could send the link. I asked if it would be possible to get them without a background so I could add simple outlines, drop shadows.
I’m told I’m “rude” for wanting that, and “oops, I forgot to include the packet link!” Which tells me the stickers had already been turned into a pack and I was expected to accept them before I was even asked what I thought. I’m also told “I understand you may want things to your liking”. Well, yes, yes I do want things to my liking, since I paid $125 for this custom commission.
I’m told I’ll be blacklisted once “the conversation is over,” and it’s made pretty clear that there is no intention to further update my commission.
I write back with my reply. After which, Mo makes a “beware on commissioner” making several false and misleading claims, including that I approved the sketch for the original full body commission (addressed in next section). I have been blocked by the artist, and no attempt to make these stickers usable or correct the fingers on the one sloppily done one seems likely.
Mo’s “Beware on Commissioner” and Counterpoints:
Mo made a beware on me, which was misleading and inaccurate, and even contained an outright lie. They also posted excerpts of our communications out of chronological order, making it even more confusing. Please refer to the Long Version section to review transcripts for proof of any claims I make.
They claim I approved the sketch before requesting a refund. If you look at the transcript above, you can see I never even saw the sketch until after I asked the refund, and I certainly never approved anything.
They themselves state they completed the sticker and got approval without running the lines past me. Blatantly outside of their TOS. They claim I asked for changes after the stickers were completed, but I had no choice since they went from very rough sketches to completed with no input from me in between. Remember they said to me that their sketches were “very rough”? How was I supposed to know from a Very Rough sketch how it would look completed? I asked for fairly minor changes, and I would have requested them at the line phase had I been given the chance (if the lines were the applicable phase). At no point did they inform me that these were difficult changes.
They claim I was impolite in my messages. The last two, yeah, I got "impolite". But I feel that most of my feedback was very polite, and at no point did Tabby say I was rude.
Here they state their hiatus was due to an injury, contradicting their earlier claim that it was a family issue.
They state they’re not comfortable with me wanting things done “while can force a refund.” But why should I be comfortable commissioning if I have no protection? They have $125 of my money. I have… what, a hope that I’ll eventually get my art???
I asked for a drop shadow before the pack was sent to me. I was direct with my request, but I wouldn’t call it a demand. I was not told there would be no drop shadow, and the only example of Mo’s stickers contained one, so I’d say, yet again, I was misled.
They stated their beware “is not an attack” but then send it out to their followers with inaccurate information mischaracterizing the entire transaction to 10x the followers I have. Not sure what else I’d call that.
I also never used the phrase “force a refund.” It’s odd that my hope to have my artwork completed in 180 days while I still had some reassurance that I had a way to get either the commission or my money back is something that made a professional artist uncomfortable.
I didn’t ask for “one edit per sticker.” I maybe asked for four total? There was an entire sheet that I loved and thought was great and didn't ask for a single change on, and others I was willing to accept as-is even though they weren’t quite what I wanted.
Regarding the following screenshot, their claim that that is how they responded when I asked about the break is a lie as well. That was a response to me asking about the drop shadows and edit for the fingers.
While I absolutely could extract the stickers back to PNG and edit them from Telegram, I’m not going to. Frankly this whole hideous deal has left me with a very expensive pile of stickers that I really don’t know to do with. I don’t enjoy looking at them, even though intellectually I know most of them are really cute. I don’t want to use them. Basically, Mo technically fulfilled the letter of my commission with enough ambiguity to say they did what was promised.
The commissioner beware was deleted when I posted a link to my version of events. However, Mo made no effort to correct the misinformation in the beware and has claimed I have been directly harassing them and continuing to cause them problems, and I am therefore still getting their followers turning up on my twitter to harass me.
TOS Issues/Other Info and Proof:
Proof they say that refunds are available at any time with no stipulation requiring justification. (And remember, at no point did I demand a full refund.)
Proof they claim there’s a line phase of approval. Which I never got.
Trello card showing the lack of a line phase:
UPDATE 11/27/2019
In response to Mo’s beware, I posted a link to this beware and asked that people consider my side of the story, since there was inaccurate information in the thread. Mo subsequently deleted the first tweet in the thread, more or less hiding my reply as well. However, the rest of the tweets were still on their timeline, so I used my alternate account to post links to each of the tweets with incorrect information in hopes that I wouldn’t be silenced again. Mo subsequently deleted all but that last couple of tweets.
After this, Mo made several posts claiming that it was “harassment” and that my partner (who had engaged them to refute misinformation as well) was also harassing them. At this point, I was understandably annoyed and furious over the whole thing and how I was being portrayed, so I posted the following.
In response to this vaguetweet, Mo decided to release the stickers for public use and refund me (minus about $5 because they sent it as Goods and Services instead of refunding the original transaction). While I suppose I’m glad for the refund, I am of course concerned that they sent it G&S as a separate transaction, meaning they could chargeback at any point in the next 180 days.
In consideration of the fact that the refund can still be revoked, and the possibility that other folks may have similar experiences, I will not be removing this beware. Mo continues to make claims of harassment and spread disinformation, and has failed to appropriately address any of the concerns raised in this beware publicly or privately.
So, I commissioned TattooRexy for a two character NSFW piece (bits covered, but still sexual), and after showing me the sketch they proceeded to stop replying.
I of course kept trying, and sent a few more messages their way that they didn't even bother to look at, so I tried messaging their partner, asking them to please inform the artist that they need to get back to me; She was very friendly and told me she would get on it.
I don't know if she did, but either way nothing happened. I waited a few weeks and sent them another message, asking yet AGAIN to have them inform their partner; They didn't reply.
Now, a few months later, I open up a refund request through paypal, and only NOW does the artist look at my messages (on FA, when you look at a note it goes from yellow to black, indicating that it has been received and read), but still haven't replied, neither on FA nor paypal.
TattooRexy does state in their TOS that a commissioner can get a refund at anytime, but will ALWAYS be blacklisted afterwards, I now see why they do this, and it is such a dick move. By doing this, most people who would get upset and request a refund, will simply just accept the total unprofessional nature of this artist and wait the months, or years, it'd take for them to reply, or let alone finish the piece.
I won an auction for a Noivern fursuit a while back, and before I made my bid, I asked if the suit could be altered up a little to fit my size. She agreed.
After winning the auction, I agreed to pay the extra charge, and I added her personal account on Facebook.
Fast-forward to May 2016. I asked about updates, and there wasn't anything to show for.
Fast forward two years, I asked again, and she claimed that her suit was lost in a move, and would have to remake it.
Fast forward again, after more occasional and unsuccessful attempts at getting an update, this was the last correspondence where she had actually replied, which was on Discord.
There has been no communication from her ever since that one message. I honestly should've made a post like this years ago, but what's done is done. And during this entire, years-long ordeal, she had continued to complete other projects, including other fursuits. I hope that this post serves to help people not go through what I went through.
Alright this is a bit lengthy but I'll TRY to keep it short since this transaction started way back in May of this year. I ordered a plush commission on a discount price of $55 from Ghostly_howl on May 19 2019. She immediately accepts my commission and tells me a time frame of which this will be done. Great! I'm fine waiting five months for this to get completed. It's an anxiety plushie for my significant other, of his dog that passed away last year. I SPECIFICALLY tell them not to ghost me...and well, the pictures tell the rest of the story pretty well. Eventually I find her second account and contact her there, to which she EVENTUALLY gets back to me. She provides me with a "business email" Which I emailed, and NEVER got a reply. The ONE TIME she's ever consistant about talking to me, is the DAY I submitted my paypal dispute against her. I thought we had finally come to an understanding, as we had a VERY lengthy chat. But well, guess I can't be surprised that she just continues to ignore direct dm's for days on end. It's even more frustrating knowing we came to a conclusion, she finished my plush, and then HAS YET to send me tracking info after PROMISING SHE WOULD SHIP IT ON THE DAY SHE MADE THE LABEL.
I'm just so tired and done. I am NOT the only person she has ghosted. I was in contact with another user who just said screw it, and got her money back. I saw another user waiting for over A YEAR for their commission. This person takes on WAY TOO MANY COMMISSIONS and then leaves everyone in the dark and upset for not getting back to them in a timely manner. This is NOT how you treat customers, let alone run a business.
Most of the info for this story I've provided in the images.
The jist of it is that I feel this commissioner deliberately backed me into a corner to send them a refund with the intention to get free artwork.
I also feel they misunderstood what they were ordering. I will admit that I was not as clear as I could have been in the advertisement for this offer however
that does not excuse the fact that this person didn't give me sufficient info in order to draw this project accurately and then proceeded to demand a refund over errors
when I had already delivered a completed piece of work to them and even took the time to fix these errors.
Most of the issues they had with the delivered content was not addressed before hand such as the fact they wanted NSFW content and full nudity on their characters
and that the accessory were mandatory.
and I'd also like to state that had they ordered this piece of work based on my regular prices it would have been 90$ instead of 60$ so it is infact a sale. They did not pay for the quality of work they were demanding
and though I tried to address this to them they did not seem willing to accept that. This is why I have posted this to warn other artist and hopefully prevent anyone els from having a similar experience with this person.
Disclaimer: there are errors on both sides and I will openly admit mine first and foremost. I delayed to ship the item out due to mandatory overtime and not having the opportunity to ship. Our area isn't good for having a postal pick up so me dropping off was the option at the time. I made sure to respond to Taks email inquiries about it to keep open communication.
The other error was the possibility of the suit having a mildew odor. We had taken care of a mildew issue a few months prior in our basement (costumes are stored upstairs) and no one else spoke up about any smells so I didn't feel the need to state it in my auction as I normally would about any possible odors. I take 100% responsibility on that if it does have any odor. I wanted to provide options first as well as offering to send supplies to help make things work if they wished. Had I known beforehand it held a mildew smell I would have either listed it with a warning or not listed it at all.
Included are the emails that were sent between us, the auction listing, and screenshots from Telegram. Most shots from Telegram were of other people demanding Tak keep the costume so I won't be including that as that's not relevant.
INFORMATION WALK THROUGH:
It started off as an auction sale that went smoothly. Tak asked to make payments and completed them at the end of June. Between going out to Idaho for my father's surgery in July (I let them know I would be gone) and mandatory overtime, I wasn't able to ship until the end of August, keeping tabs with Tak as they emailed me.
They received the costume at the start of September and noted the strong smell of mildew a week later in an email and asked what could be done. I walked them through a baking soda and vinegar process I had used in the past with great success. I didn't hear from them till almost a month later on October 15th. They mentioned throwing out several of the pieces and purchasing an expensive cleaner that failed to remove the smell, asking if a refund was possible at that time. I got back with them Oct 20th asking what pieces remained to gauge the proper refund and offered to help them resell it if they wanted to.
No response came till November 1st asking for a 2/3 refund plus cash to cover the chemicals they purchased as well as a list of things they had thrown away such as the arm extensions, chest padding, and tail core. The feet were also 'damaged' while washing. During this time I found telegram chats from the buyer in a Furry Business group making it very clear they had no intentions of returning the suit while others encouraged to do a full charge back and throw the costume out entirely. Most of the chat was others demanding they keep the costume/throw it away while pushing for a full refund. I've only included the screenshot where they are openly stating not wanting to send it back. Due to dodging my requests for it, I have no other reason not to believe that is their intention.
I emailed her around November 3rd stating I would refund more than their asking price if they returned the item in question, I would provide the funds extra for the shipping. I figured I could use it as a "what if this gets fried in the dryer" tutorial before recording the leg pattern and dismantling the costume myself. I also offered to send one final cleaner I had here if they wished to try it. Their response was opening 6 PayPal claims in attempts to get their full payment back without responding to me or mailing back the costume.
PayPal doesn't cover multiple payments on a single item so after providing the initial invoice as proof of it being one item, the cases were closed. I'm still willing to refund her a little over 2/3 of the auction with the return of the costume to me as it is. Since some of the pieces are either damaged or gone, I cannot refund in full.
Had they returned the costume in place of the refund, I wouldn't feel the need for this posting. Since they ignored my return request and tried to do a charge back on the entire amount paid, I do feel people should know of this. They claim in a few of their messages that I said no returns were allowed in my auction. I have included the auction description section involving this to show otherwise. I have sent them 3 emails, one before they posted to PayPal and 2 after reminding them that I would give a refund around what remains of the costume and that offer still stands if the costume is returned. I don't believe they are a bad client as they generally did respond quickly and paid on a reasonable payment plan. That said, not returning the item and trying to force a full charge back is not in good taste so this is more of a cautionary rather than a beware.
TL;DR: I commissioned an icon. It had a couple things that were wrong and it wasnt up to par to her examples. After agreeing to redo it, she hasn't responded to any of my messages. She has been online posting that she is open for more commissions, but has yet to reply to me over several months.
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Detailed version:
Back in Feburary 15th, I commissioned NekoArt for an icon after she had posted opening for commissions to pay for some things.
($35 in USD)
A few days later, she sent me the commission, but there were a couple things wrong (long eyelashes, no horns, ears going down instead of to the side). She never sent me a WIP so I never had the chance to correct them. They replied saying they'll fix it, and this was the last I heard of her (Feb 25th).
Later I also realized the quality didn't match those of her other icon examples
2 months go by and I haven't heard anything, so I sent a new note on April. No reply, then one in August and one in October. None of them were opened. I emailed their paypal email back in August.
I messaged her through telegram, which says she was last online in September.
She has posted on another website just last month that she is opened for commissions (this was translated in chrome, so its a little rough). She has also posted a couple of times on her Tumblr in June, confirming she has been online.
(For privacy concerns, I have censored my username on these images)
This was the 2nd time that I had ever commissioned WaifooBuns (who had been known as Loodii at the time)---I decided to commission her again based off a prior satisfactory experience I had from commissioning her prior to this (sometime back in mid-2018).
This was me asking her if commissions were still open, to which she replied "Yes" to.
This is what she wrote back in reply, to which I replied back saying that it was understandable and whatnot.
This is the last message I've ever gotten from her. After she sent that, I decided to wait a few months to let her relax, get things back on track, and whatnot.
However in April she suddenly disabled all comments on her pictures and deleted all journals. So I sent her this:
Got left on read.
Sent her another PM in July. This one hasn't been opened yet, Idk if she's been offline from dA or if she's purposely chosen not to open it.
I had decided to given her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she was still dealing with family issues...however I immediately changed my mind when I checked her Instagram and saw that she posted this:
Apparently Belle Delphine herself had commissioned this artist and she posted it onto her IG. I checked her profile on other sites, this was not something she had previously done uploaded before.
I'm not even honestly sure if she's still dealing with IRL issues, but I got REALLY skeptical seeing that she somehow had the time to accept a commission from her of all people but somehow she wasn't checking her notes on dA. At this point I had decided that I no longer wanted the commission if she was going to behave in this manner but sadly I couldn't dispute it with PayPal as it had already been past the 6-months since I paid the invoice.
I'm more than willing to change this post in the future and mark it as "Resolved" if she ever comes across this post or anything of the sort, but yeah...not really sure where it'll go from here.
On the 22nd of February, I decided to commission Edjit on Twitter and asked for a NSFW piece with me and and a friend , during this time the replies took normal length and I wasn't starting to panic about it at all. Once they took the money I ask on the 23rd if they received both the funds from me and my friend and they confirmed that they did. From this point on-wards communication stops nearly all together unless I started it back up again.
On the 24th and 29th of March I ask them if they have even started the commission as no communication was given to me since the start of the transaction, they then responded on the 30th claiming that they are still working on the other commissions before me.
This is when it starts to get a tad worrying I contacted them on the 22nd of April, 14th and 28th of May asking them how the commission was doing to no response until the 30th of May where I get a message saying that they are now doing commissions again even tho they didn't even tell me that they stopped doing commissions.
Nearly a whole month later I get a message on twitter from Edjit with a few sketch designs which made me excited that this commission was finally under way but after these images I got nothing for a whole month.
On July 23rd I asked them how the commission was going and got a response claiming that it was going slow and that I could request a refund if I wanted one, and I didn't take one as I still thought in my mind that they have more than sketch sooner or later. On August 13th I asked how it was going when he then responded 12 days later?! that he was still tweaking it.
Then nothing, it has taken so long that I mainly forgot about this piece until now that is how bad of a communicator this person is. I wouldn't even be mad if they just communicated better and not left me in the dark.
I still want this piece but at this point I think I might have to accept the loss of money.
So we commissioned one of our favourite artists, lupinprincess, to redraw our irl engagement photo. we have worked with her before, so we knew it was a good bet to drop $110 usd on her. the paypal fee took $6 of it, so we actually tipped her the extra $6 cause we trusted her. It is gorgeous, the background, the poses, just beautiful.
but, my red panda nose looks not quite right. a little off. so i asked her if she was willing to change it slightly. not the whole picture, not the pose, just my nose. she immediately said no, and blocked me.
all the money we spent.... the good faith we had in her.... and all i see when i look at it is my big nose... I wish she would have taken even a second to look at the drawing with me to find a solution. Maybe it wasn't the nose, maybe the eye and lips just need to be moved forward. But she wouldn't give me any more time to talk about it before she blocked me and ceased all communication.
This is a once in a lifetime commission of our actual engagement and now every time i see that photo she redrew, all i can think of is how rude she was about it.
so so so sad 😞
