Artist Caution - BluntGypsy

This issue has been RESOLVED as I have received a refund, but I would still like to WARN others about this artist and their TOS.

On 7/05/18 I commissioned BluntGypsy for a YCH pinup slot that they had put up for sale. The pinup YCH's were offered in this journal:

And came from this DA listing:

I wanted a $20 colored sketch and here is the conversation had with the Artist to confirm the commission:

I paid them that day and added a $5 tip in advance since this was for a 'Fund Raiser' and it sounded like they were going through a rough time. Here is the proof of the Paypal transaction:

As you can see in the messages above she said she'd have it done in about a week or so, so I waited.

She did not reach out to me personally for months and I waited patiently until she began to post some pretty concerning journals. The first came in August. 

I am not a part of her Discord so this was the only update I had seen since I commissioned her, but as it said something may be done by the end of September, I decided to try to wait. The next journal, however, raised some red flags for me.

I had not had any communication with the artist directly before seeing this journal, so it came as a surprise to me that they were trying to sell their tablet (which they would need to finish my commission). So, I sent them an email.

On the bottom is the email I sent to her and above it is her reply to me which came about a month later. I will point out she said she understood if a refund is desired, or to let her know if I still wanted the commission. At this point, with the selling of her tablet and the lack of communication, along with me not playing that character much at the time, I just wanted a refund and knew it may take a little while to get one back but asked for one anyway.

After sending this email I received no further replies through email from her. The only thing I saw of her was another journal posted at the end of December.

It states that her house burnt down at the end of November but also asks for people to file refund requests through her emails, which I had already done, and clearly offers said refunds for clients who do not wish to wait until she can get a new tablet and get to work on art again. I decided to wait a couple of weeks before reaching out to her and sent her a message in January to see if she had ever gotten my email about wanting a refund and to simply check up on things.

Please note that she said she'd put me 'at the top of her list' BECAUSE I'd reached out to her again. I waited another month or so but was concerned when I saw her offering money to those who would get her a tablet and talking about YCH's or designs she had bought in other servers so I contacted her for an update.

I admit that I was getting a bit impatient as I had been nice and had tried to be understanding throughout all of this since I know she had been dealing with a lot of stuff. 

Two weeks later she reached out to me for the FIRST time since I had commissioned her.

On that day she said she'd send a refund THAT DAY or the next. I checked my paypal for the next couple of days and had received nothing. I decided to give her even more time and waited a month before contacting her again.

The reply I received was that I had been bumped down on the list due to a rather 'impatient and rash client' who received priority, likely because of their attitude. I was rather unhappy with this considering how patient and civil I had been trying so hard to be. She said she'd get it to me by Friday (which would have been the 5th). I waited until Friday, received nothing, let Saturday pass by and still did not see my refund so I messaged her on Sunday.

At this point I was -done- waiting and receiving nothing but excuses, but as it had long passed Paypal's refund policy I could do nothing but continue to ask and wait. I finally received a refund on Monday the 8th.

Firstly, I'd paid $25, not $20, but because the $5 was a tip of sorts, which I never should have given, I'll call the refund good. However, she chose to mention her TOS to me, which I was rather unhappy about considering she does not have this TOS listed on the front page of her DeviantArt, nor did I see it when I first commissioned her (turns out it was linked in a random journal). I WISH I would have read the TOS BEFORE commissioning her because I would have never done so otherwise. Here is a copy of it:

First of all, she has a 'Pay Upfront' policy along with a 'No Refunds' policy, which Paypal will not even back (which is how she takes most of her payments). Secondly, it states she will finish commissions in no later than 8-weeks, so the fact that I asked for a refund on an 'Overdue Commission', one that she OFFERED to me first, does not seem so wild, to me. 

After this I did send her a message on Discord letting her know that I was unhappy with the entire process and why. She sent me a message back, defending herself, her policies, and then promptly blocked me. 

As stated before, I count this as RESOLVED because she did finally get a refund back to me, however with the TOS that she has (with the 'absolutely no refund policy') and with how hard I had to try to reach out to her, I am wanting to warn others before they commission her so they know the potential of what they may be dealing with.