On December 10th, 2017 I ordered a custom Gator Dog (A Closed Species Custom Character) from GatorBite.
This was the original custom post, but it has since been deleted even though not all customs were finished and it was the only link to the custom character Trello GatorBite Posted(more on that in a bit).
Here is where the original contact began, as well as one of the first attempts for me to get through to GatorBite about the commission. This will be relevant again later.
Here is the original note where we exchanged ideas about the commission and settled the payment.
After a few notes back and forth to get paypal working I got it paid for in full immediately.
Note 1 - Note 2
Payment Proof - Payment Proof 2
After the initial order I gave GatorBite a while to work on the order. Gatorbite had taken a few othe custom orders so I knew it would take a bit of time, however around April of the next year I started to get worried.
My Note To GatorBite In April 25th 2018 Which Was Read, But Never Responded To.
Another In June 25th 2018 Which Was Also Read, Never Responded To
Then on July 15th 2018 I noted GatorBite about a custom GatorDog I got from another artist with a slot from Gatorbite. For Gatordogs you must have GatorBite approve them before they are official. In this note I asked Gatorbite to approve of the Gatordog, and it was approved with an almost immediate response. However Gatorbite has STILL not responded to my other notes up to this point. (to be clear, this note was about another Gatordog custom by another artist that simply needed to be approved as an official Gatordog. No art or WIP have been sent by GatorBite at this point.)
Going back to the original comment chain on the custom post now, Here you can see that I contacted Gatorbite again on August 8th of 2018 about the custom and about not being listed on the custom trello. Gatorbite said they would note me in a second, but never did. The trello was never updated with me on it, and is still not updated to this day. (again more on that in a bit).
On September 3rd, 2018 I filed a refund request with Paypal. Even though it had been longer than 6 months I was hoping they could do something to help. After it was declined, I got this message from Gatorbite. It is the ONLY time Gatorbite has reached out to me with an update without prompting in the almost two years its been since I ordered the custom. After responding back that I was glad to hear from Gatorbite, I was immediately ghosted again.
On January 25th, 2019 I contacted Gatorbite yet again asking about my refund or for an update, and again never got a response.
The VERY NEXT DAY, Gatorbite posted a journal titled "Sorry If I'm Slow" about not being around to respond to notes much. I found this rather suspicious and weird that it was right after I noted Gatorbite to no response.
On March 4th, 2019 I tried to contact Gatorbite yet again. This time I was much more detailed and to the point. I am usually easy going about commissions, but I admit I had enough at this point. To my surprise I actually got a response this time, however right after it was radio silence again.
My final note to Gatorbite was on June 12th, 2019. Once again I kindly poked Gatorbite to see what the progress was, and once again I was ignored completely.
Here is proof that Gatorbite read my note but still has not responded.
And now finally for the trello. The custom character trello has not been updated since June 4th, 2018. I can link the actual, live trello if the mods would prefer, but to protect the other commissioners I have attached just a screenshot for now. As of now I am STILL not listed on the trello at all, and Gatorbite tried to delete the original submission with the only link to this Trello. If I didn't screenshot all of this months ago, I wouldn't have it now as proof.
During the last year and a half, Gatorbite has continued to take on more commissions and complete and sell adoptables. There have been a few adoptables that would have met almost exactly what I wanted for the custom even. Despite this, I still have not received even a WIP for the commission.
Beyond posting this beware it seems that there is not much I can do to get the art or a refund when the artist is avoiding me so much. I feel like i've wasted precious time and money on this, only to still have nothing come out of it. I will try to contact the artist again soon and see what can be done. If the issue is resolved I will come back and mark the beware as so. Until then I am extremely unsatisfied with the artist level of communication and professional skills.
I paid for a commission that cost me 40 USD plus 5$ to convert it to her country's currency. She told me it would be done in a week or less and a MONTH later there was no update, her last message to me was that it would "be done tomorrow." After that she ghosted me, never did the commission and never refunded me.
This happed 10 months ago. I refrained from posting it here because I assumed something must of happened with her personal life because she became absent from FF altogether. Now she is back. And I nicely asked her for a refund, but, she never answered me. I'm quite sure if she blocked me I would not be able to note her in the first place.
I also gave her time to refund me and even just apologize, but she continues to not answer me.
Paid for a Commission to Olivedrake for a Two character (Recipient's sona and my own) color digital commission. Poses and setting were left up to the artist to choose. Payment also included cost to cover a package to be sent, however artist only used $15 of the provided $50. Agreed amount was decided and payment was sent on February 21st. Artist works two jobs and I was aware of that, and was understanding of that. Paypal payment shown below.
I continued to ask about the commission (as well as the package) off and on during the following months, since the artist is bad at proactively keeping her clients up to date on what is going on.
May 28th, 2019: Package was sent at a cost of $15.58. Less then half the $50 originally sent.
May 30th, 2019: She had sent the package I asked her about it as well as the commission and she said she was going to use what was left from the package to send another one later on. She also stated that it would "take her a little longer to work on art", however she did not say if this meant she had started the commission or not. Simply that it takes her a little longer to work on art. No Work in Progresses or sketches had been sent to me at this point, nor had visual updates been provided from her. As she continued to say "I've been busy with work and haven't been able to work on it yet" until this point.
Something I was not privy to prior to paying for the commission was that she has a health condition that becomes inflamed due to pushing herself too far in Art College.
June 6th, 2019: Went to message her and ask how she was doing, and found out she had blocked and removed me on Telegram, Discord and had blocked my phone number on her phone. There was no indication of a problem from her and no issues with hearing back from her nor getting a hold of her until this point.
Here is the Telegram Chat.
She also cleared the entire Telegram chat history, thus preventing me from getting any documentation from program.
I have no way of getting my money back as of now. Paypal was unable to help (due to the artist asking that I use personal payment to pay for the costs) and Paypal instructed me to go to my bank. My bank was also unable to assist me because they can no longer help their customers with a dispute after 60 days.
I hope this Beware will help others avoid losing money to this artist like I did. Please do not support or buy from this artist, unless you wish to risk throwing your income down the drain. Don't make the same mistake I did.
Originally, I had spoke to Knux to be able to get a pair of icons. Noticing in a mutual group his work, I looked to see that he was pretty fast and seemingly efficient with his icons. I asked if he were able to do romantic based icons and if he were open. He had shown interest and asked to send the invoice. I promptly paid it and waited for my icons.
Feb. 18th - Paid Invoice
May 3rd - I had not heard anything or gotten progress for my items, so I check in to see if my characters were too complicated. I had seen others icons finished and about this time he had started to take were portraits in support of his passion project he was working on. I wanted to change the characters if they were complicated and keeping him from completing it. He stated no, they were not and said he would try to get them to my by Sunday. Time had passed and he still did not even finish or give a W.i.P. for the icons.
May 17th - I checked back in again, and it had been about 3 months since the initial payment was sent. I asked if I could get a refund since I felt that it had been a long time I've waited for nothing to show. He agreed and stated he understood. Stated he had been bogged down for a few days, and rightfully, I understood that and didn't take too much to heart.
May 21st - Asked me for my paypal so he could resent the money and stated he didn't want us at each other's throats over money.
May 29th - I messaged cause I hadn't gotten my refund for the 21st as they said they would send it then.
May 31st - My message was left on read from the 29th, and I sent a message stating I felt they were avoiding me now because of that. Due to previous experiences with artist doing the same thing, it made the situation a bit more anxiety increased and I was wanting to get the transaction over with.
Knux stated they hadn't dodged me and that they were busy with a friend. The money was sent that day.
June 1st - I had stated that while I appreciated the refund, I was going to post a artist beware in review of the transaction process I had received from them. It wasn't the best, but I wasn't doing this to spite him. I just wanted him to improve how he did things and improve for customers down the line.
June 2nd - Knux stated that they felt blindsided for me doing a beware because it was not discussed.
Sometime after, I had been blocked on Telegram by Knux for what seems to be the reason that I warned about an Artist Beware going up. Attached is a picture of me being able to see the icon before and now I am unable to see any as shown in some of the screenshots.
All in all, the beware I am making now wouldn't be here if the commission process wasn't this bad. In writing this, I would hope that improvements are made for him to fix this so it doesn't happen to others down the line when taking commissions.
I commissioned this individual July 28, 2018. I had recieved one WIP image, and then nothing after that. No updates were given to me unless I asked, and I didn't message them often. It got to a point that they weren't responding, so I had to go and see if they had any other social media just to contact them. January 4th hit and I realized I was never going to recieve my artwork. So I asked for a refund, and they said it could take days to weeks. I said okay and left it be for literally months. I then messaged them recently. They read the message, and ignored it. So I called them out on it and they responded very rudely. They are extremely unprofessional, I do not recommend them. Please, do not commission this individual for artwork or even fursuits. You are not guaranteed to get what you payed them for, and I highly doubt they'll ever actually give me a refund.
I paid Gideon Hoss nearly $60 to draw my character at anthrocon 2014. I was unable to retrieve it at the time. I have sent him numerous emails over the years asking about it. Ive seen him at other anthrocons and he still didn't have it on him, but he did finish it.
Back in May 22nd of 2018, I commissioned an artist by the name of Fantasystaples for 2 $5 commissions. The commissions were of anthro pokemon that the artist originally did sketches for as a request, but were open to me commissioning and purchasing the design as my own. Since the artist wasn't very active due to wi-fi trouble and not checking on messages, I let the artist be as I waited for an update of sorts as the months went by. I did try to contact them every month or so, but deleted a few message as to not flood their discord with messages once they returned.
( Payment was sent as Friends & Family. I had no idea how paypal worked as I had turned 18 2 months before this. Now I know how important Goods and Services is )
On January 18th of this year I finally managed to get word from them. Because of how long the commission was taking, and how long they left me in the dark, they offered to compensate with an additional art piece as apology to which I was quite alright with. However, I wanted the focus to be strictly on the commission alone as to keep everything on track. I also simply wanted the designs as soon as possible now that my patience was running thin.
Since it's been over a year after payment was sent, I decided to note them 16 days ago in the hopes of getting a response as it can be really concerning when there hasn't been much talking for a year old commission. Their activity on FA was going very steadily and it felt like it would be the better place to talk more on. I sent another note just this morning to be greeted with "You have been blocked" and no words as to why. Furthermore, I used my alternate account and twitter to try and contact them ( as well as expressing a refund if the art couldn't be done ) only to be blocked shortly after.
TL;DR: I commissioned an artist by the name of Fantasystaples back in May 22nd of 2018 for 2 $5 commissions and have tried to be patient with them. Now all of sudden they want nothing to do with me and are trying to block me from contacting them.
Here is the final artwork https://www.deviantart.com/blue4eagle/art/Vixongoddess-Comm-775141273
VixonAzaria came to me beginning of last year (2018) on Deviantart. Sadly what I've replied to her is not visible for the first 3 notes, she seem to have erased them when she replied. on the 4th reply she left them in.
From here you can see my replies.
I believe I did send more messages on DA after these, but no replies, it's been a year. And sadly Deviantart doesn't show note reference you've send, except only when replied to. Eventually I switched to emailing.
I was surprised when she replied she forgot that she commissioned me. but below was the last message I've ever received from her
Heard nothing for months ever since, even when I tried to note her on Deviantart or Furaffinity. And below is when I tried to email again after months of waiting for replies.
And still no replies. I did note again on Deviantart after this wishing Merry Christmas and trying to be nice. but not even that worked. the mistake I've done there is i didn't take screenshots before sending them. Below was the last email i tried, and forgive the writing as I was aggravated at that point.
And so I was still ignored the rest of this year and i know she is deliberately doing it since she is active on Furaffinity for the past few months, and as recent as 2 days ago, when I last checked. Plus she removed me from her watch and still no replies to this recent post.
Please any advice on what to do, and where I may have gone wrong, or what am I doing wrong. I do agree my mistake was I should have waited with the commission before finishing it until I got my fee owed. Any help from artist she may approach in the future if you could remind her that she owes me, or make sure she pays you for your work if she decides to commission any artist in the future, and not let the same happen to you as it did with me. I've put allot of effort and time into this work. And I've recently got Paypal sorted so I can now officially receive Payments via Paypal. Thanks!
On May 22nd 2018 (could be a couple days before i don't remember if i paid the same day as the commission request) i approached this artist for a commission of me and a friend. all went good and we spoke about the details, i paid 85 USD and they would get started, ofcourse it could be that they had a list going on but i didn't see it on their page so i just waited. I am not someone who send a lot of notes if i get updates but i didn't hear anything in a while so i noted the artist to ask how the commission was coming along ( wich you can see in screenshot "Note 1 and the only reply i got")
i thought they would send me the WIP so i thought nothing much of it, looking back i should have asked myself to send the screenshot. i also wanted to respect the fact they were taking care of medical issues for their mother.
after another while i send another note to wich i didn't get a reply so i thought they were just busy. after another amount of send notes to wich i didn't get any reply (wich you can see in "the notes with dates, unread note and my last notes" i have no idea what i did to get a silent treatment as the only things i said can be seen here in the notes ( maybe i was to blunt ? i don't know)
friends recommended me i should make an artist beware. i also can't get my money back since i waited to long to ask for a refund and the limit on the refund for paypal is over too already.
I also know they are pretty active on their discord server and do regular freebies and requests.
Here is my paypal transcript showing i really paid for it.
I can't get a hold of them as they do not even read my notes. At this point i'm really not sure what to do, should i keep reaching out or just accept the fact i won't be getting art or any money back ?
This was a Character for Art trade: The Agreement was that they would get the character I was selling for 70$ in exchange for a art piece as they were a artist and short on change.
I had posted a character for sell for 70$, it had a slew of art for it! Fen contacted me requesting that they didn't have 70$ but REALLY wanted the character and would be willing to deliver a flat color in exchange for it, they also said they can send me 20$ within a week on top of the flat com.
After seeing no other offers, I decided to roll with Fen's offer, and took the flat color, we exchanged details, I sent her the file of the character, and I moved on and allowed her to start working, she claimed to have a WIP for me within a few days.
After a week I had heard nothing so I reached out, and they delivered a sketch! I was happy with the sketch and moved on.
I waited about 2 weeks after that and reached out again asking if there was any updates, they responded with essentially the same WIP as before, but with the head lined. That's okay! I'm just happy to get a response at this point, I can wait for the art!
I waited for about 2 weeks again, and contacted them looking for a update, but alas no response. At this point it is important to mention I belong to their discord server, and while I sent my message I noticed that they were VERY active in their discord, so I was a bit confused.
I shrugged it off and waited about a week, and then tried knocking again to see if I could get something, this time pointing out that I've seen them posting, but not sure if they just forgot to respond, we're all human after all. Still no response, and like last time, very active in their discord, actually even streaming free art streams! I wanted to make a comment to them in the discord to see if they would respond to me then, but I really didn't want to put them on the spot in front of their patrons like that.
finally on Friday I contacted them pointing out that if they didn't want to do the commission anymore, we can work something out, and find a solution, but they needed to respond to me to do that. alas no response, with the same situation as before, very active in their discord. So I decided maybe discord was broken and contacted them on Twitter DM's nothing.
At this point I got annoyed at them, and was beginning to become agitated, I sent my final signal out in hopes maybe that would get to them, but still nothing.
[This is Fen accepting the offer via discord after I asked if it was still available. After this I sent files, and exchanged what I wanted in the art piece]
[This was the last message I sent almost a month ago, asking for ANY sort of response, otherwise I would try finding a home for the character as they have not upheld their end of the deal]
At this point I'm not sure what to do with the character given they bought art for it already, and I doubt anyone would want to buy it with this drama attached, but I just want to make sure no one else falls victim to this!
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