Beware: Feyvaras/ AmberGroves/ PunkyPanda/ ZappBeast

I remember when this plus the other beware appeared on Twitter. Their treatment of both of you has been abhorrent. I'm glad that you at least got your refund and I'm sorry you've been treated this way. It absolutely is NOT okay to talk about clients like that publically or even in most cases privately unless you're asking for advice. Something else that stuck out to me as a massive red flag is that they did not use your payment to buy the required materials and instead waited and used someone else's payment down the road to do so.

I do agree that you messaged them way too much; unless you two were friend, I dont see the need to do friendly chatter within a business transaction. As an artist this would bother me a lot.

Did they have their TOS in a public place? For a suit, something that will almost always have down payments and non refundable parts, Im surprised they didnt show it to you personally. And the fact that they didnt keep receipts seems odd too. They missed way too many deadlines, and they should have owned up to that. Also 'heads are quick' versus 'over a year wait'.....

As an artist as well, if I were doing this to a customer I would understand why they contacted me a lot. I don’t believe I messaged them a lot, at all, and I only messaged them unrelated to the commission because they were going on and on about life issues and I check up on them. Once.

And no, they didn’t have a TOS anywhere I could access but after this they do now.

when they surpassed the first deadline, I got nervous. After they missed every other deadline, i  was panicking.The con was incredibly closed and I was worried as to why they hadn’t even so much as messaged me about the commission, even with a Wip. So I, personally, think my messaging is justified. I don’t often message anyone i commissions unless it has been a prolonged amount of time.

5 hours ago, armaina said:

I emphatically disagree here. Considering they paid in April and heard absolutely nothing until they themselves until they themselves contacted the artist in June, and on top of the potential proposed deadline (despite the fact that the artist TOS claims they don't follow deadlines) The desire to ensure work is done both before the deadline, if at all, it makes sense to want to check in to ensure the deadline was met, which as we can all see, it very much did not.

All things considered, and with how much the OP was yanked around, the OP hasn't really IM'd the artist all that much. I've seen harassment-level commission inquiries, this isn't it.

I meant the friendly chatter, not the checking up on the progress. Business =/= friendship.

Honestly, some things here kinda rub me the wrong way, like the one message where they said that people asking them for updates stress them out...I can't really understand that logic to be honest, if you're taking commissions/orders, people will ask for updates if you don't give them out yourself. Then there's the fact that they didn't even know how much you paid either and had to ask you for that, and that they never showed you any TOS or material reciepts. Or the fact that they begged for the Paypal claim (I assume it's a Paypal claim that you started) to be taken down and that they vented about you on their social media.

There's a lot of their behavior that I find super questionable about their business ethic, tbh.

15 hours ago, theodor said:

I meant the friendly chatter, not the checking up on the progress. Business =/= friendship.

I agree that you don't buy an artist's friendship by commissioning them. Pretty sure everyone does.

But I've read the above post and I think that the amount of friendly chatter is pretty "harmless". Especially since the artist himself got quite personal later on in order to explain his own situation.

Personally I think a bit friendly chatter here and there just to create a friendly atmosphere is okay (Just like some staff members do at some stores) as long as it doesn't get out of hand and the majority is still focused on the commission. In the end we're humans, not robots.

I don't see a TOS, and I don't know what theirs says, but they can't keep the 30% non-refundable (assuming) downpayment and not give you anything in return. It's illegal to keep money and not provide a product. They can either refund you the remaining amount or give you the materials purchased, they don't get to keep that.

Seconding that the side chatter is harmless. Feyvaras shouldn't be taking money if clients asking about updates stresses them out so badly that they can't work, that's not right, and the "I can't eat/sleep" comments are guilt tripping. It's not the client's fault they can't keep things together and they need to learn to manage their time/money/health better.

Heads up that they've recently changed names again, they're currently under ZappBeast Costumes, @ZappBEASTcustom. Their other account is @ZappBeast.