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  • Beware: Lilpinkghost


    Rainissance
    • Who: Lilpinkghost
      Where: https://twitter.com/lilPinkghost
      https://www.instagram.com/lilpinkghost
      https://www.facebook.com/LilPinkGhost
      https://lilpinkghost.newgrounds.com
      https://t.me/pinkghostart
      https://pinkghost.carrd.co/
      When: 06/01/2021
      What: Commission

      Resolved

    I found this artist via a group chat on Telegram that was made for advertising art advertisements, and decided to commission this artist for having an art style I considered to be appealing as well as having affordable prices.

    image.thumb.png.2835e1bce17a28495db8ff1df6969c32.png

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    Inkedimage.png.1eb2637337d1f5c354989cf419af1c2a_LI.thumb.jpg.463990d1fe6e0477cfedbcc27c5b599b.jpg

     

    image_2021-12-02_131323.thumb.png.1fe96f5a8a67a100b9f53f9d902ff6ed.png

    I agreed and paid the artist, expecting to have my commission eventually completed.

    However months passed and I never got any kind of update. The only communication I got from them was me asking if I could update a reference.

    image.thumb.png.f400e06958a96fc42b7731cb15553795.png

     

    November comes, and I'm getting concerned. I also look over their Trello queue and TOS and realise something is very off.

    First thing that comes to mind is that my queue placement is not labelled with 'paid'

    image.thumb.png.6961f16d439839dec43da3193a9b9b72.png

    As well as still accepting commissions despite having already a large backlog.

    image.thumb.png.35da1d9a46be50d6724617f5356df7eb.pngimage.thumb.png.4d41ccdb43d76f74e22be8dc76fddc70.png

     

    Their TOS was extremely sketchy and unfair, rules such as being able to keep your commission in waiting status as long as they'd like, and once started, a max up to five months.

    image.thumb.png.b56ccb6f2be5559c1644c7c787e3c588.png

    I contact the artist about an update, and an estimated waiting time.

    image.thumb.png.ae16c6ae90b9bdc540b465f33db1eb60.png

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    I decide then to file a dispute on Paypal and explain my grievances as politely and honestly as I could.

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    Something that caught my mind was that the artist said that they would only finish my art if I closed the dispute. If I ended up following with this, I would've never been able to reopen it again, and there's no guarantee I'll have my sketch started by then.

    image.thumb.png.b57dc9a7f569ed20d581589c9b0149e4.png

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    They claim that if I win the dispute my money would not be refunded anyways and ultimately be a waste of time, which sounds sketchy to me, however I cannot find a official Paypal source claiming otherwise so I cannot say for definite if this is true or not.

     

    image.thumb.png.86d36fc963d589766a42d38df5f2b98d.png

    Lilpinkghost claims they have done nothing wrong, as I have agreed to their TOS. Their TOS is not legally binding, as well as having numerous issues with it.

    here is a link to the PDF they submitted.

    image_2021-12-02_131711.thumb.png.189b7399f659de5789bee8322ea3f816.png

    image_2021-12-02_131824.thumb.png.f1e39539e07ccca421e00ae85626ae83.png

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    image_2021-12-02_131929.thumb.png.1817bd5c7ba8d4f68346d312171724a4.png

    [Mod note: there were more pages, but we parsed it down to the text the artist submitted as the rest are just caps present here.]

    After I escalate the dispute, they become rude and patronising. 

    image.thumb.png.9fa043dcb5093da11173d83ca268e304.png

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    My experience with Lilpinkghost has been overwhelmingly negative. Please do not commission this artist.

     

     

    Edited by James
    removed duplicate caps, added caps sent in




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    • Administrator

    So a few things:

    -  She links directly to her ToS to Paypal, where she's advertising she's charging Paypal fees.  I hope she knows if Paypal sees that they may close her Paypal account as that's very much against their ToS and way higher than the actual fees Paypal charges to the seller.  Also, all it takes is one disgruntled client to report that Paypal fees are being charged to lose one's account.

    -  No refunds ever clauses are unethical and we at Artists Beware do not honor them.  If your wait time is so long that you have to force people to wait until nearly the end of Paypal's protection time, then you both need to up your prices and stop taking on so many commissions.  Commission money is not yours until you've delivered the finished product to the client.

    This is why we tell people to not touch "no refunds ever" artists with a 10 ft pole, because it usually comes hand in hand with other bad business practices.

    Anyhow, as we advised privately, the best course of action is to call Paypal. They usually will resolve these types of issues immediately over the phone in your favor.  Doubly so now if you bring up this seller is violating their ToS and making clients wait beyond the end of protection to get their item. 

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    20 hours ago, RTKobold said:

    Also that is very smart of you to make an archive of said person TOS as well as the stash since that should help in your favor.

    I've seen too many times where when people were called out for callous or incriminating behaviour they ended up deleting everything. God bless internet archival websites.

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    On 12/3/2021 at 3:28 PM, Rainissance said:

    I've seen too many times where when people were called out for callous or incriminating behaviour they ended up deleting everything. God bless internet archival websites.

    Waybackmachine is a good one if I remember correctly. If you have the link to it, it has the various versions of it even if it was deleted. Screenshots are good for a permanent reference too.

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    Alright so an update on the situation:

    I called Paypal today and asked them about the claim I submitted and asked the lady on the line if the artist was violating Paypal's TOS (i.e charging paypal fees). She said it wasn't as they were being charged with the fees anyways, and while she agreed it was morally wrong and scummy of them to do, she couldn't do anything as the artist by Paypal terms wasn't doing anything violating on Paypal's platform.

    She told me just wait out the dispute for a response and couldn't do anything yet. So yeah unfortunately I couldn't get my claim resolved over the phone unfortunately 😕

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    3 hours ago, VosurAekira said:

    Waybackmachine is a good one if I remember correctly. If you have the link to it, it has the various versions of it even if it was deleted. Screenshots are good for a permanent reference too.

    I was going to use that, but it wouldn't load properly so I just used the archive site for the TOS. Wayback is the one I normally use, however sometimes websites get exempt from it or have issues with it so I just stick with alternatives. 

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    • Administrator
    7 minutes ago, Rainissance said:

    Alright so an update on the situation:

    I called Paypal today and asked them about the claim I submitted and asked the lady on the line if the artist was violating Paypal's TOS (i.e charging paypal fees). She said it wasn't as they were being charged with the fees anyways, and while she agreed it was morally wrong and scummy of them to do, she couldn't do anything as the artist by Paypal terms wasn't doing anything violating on Paypal's platform.

    She told me just wait out the dispute for a response and couldn't do anything yet. So yeah unfortunately I couldn't get my claim resolved over the phone unfortunately 😕

    It sounds like you got a bad rep, which unfortunately happens. Especially if you get assigned an international rep, which aren't always as versed in the ToS.  Which line did you call, but more importantly which country are you using?

     

    The US agreement for instance spells out clearly no fees may be charged. 

    https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full#accepting-payments

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    4 minutes ago, James said:

    It sounds like you got a bad rep, which unfortunately happens. Especially if you get assigned an international rep, which aren't always as versed in the ToS.  Which line did you call, but more importantly which country are you using? 

    I called the 017617395 number, and I think I used the Irish one since that's where I'm located but I'm not entirely sure. The vendor is located in Mexico if that information is relevant.

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    • Senior Staff

    If you didn't also make a note of it within your call, you should make it very clear that the vendor was making you wait for your product beyond your 180 day protection window. On top of the paypal fees being an issue, it's massively wrong for you to expect your product so far beyond their parameters with their platform.

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    Not sure how bad of a observation this is but halfway through the dispute beginning it seems this artist had no intentions of giving you anything, especially since they started to basically hold your art hostage because you started taking issue with their practices.

     

    I'm a little taken back at the attitude and sort of blaming you for losing your money they started to bring up? And the ocnstant bringing up of the frankly not very good term of no refunds and the waittime, this person just seemed to be using commissioners as loan money with all those queues and more they keppt taking on.

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    • Senior Staff

    A comment was not posted to prevent misinformation; i.e. Legalities on the TOS of Paypal.

    We are a site with decades of experience in posting and moderating business transactions, and we are well aware of what is and what is not acceptable via their Terms of Service, even as it has evolved over the years.

    We are not here to discuss legal implications of someone's Terms of Service, be they the payment facilitator or the individual using their services.

    It was plain and clear through the Artist's ToS that they were charging for the Paypal Fees in their Commission Terms, there is nothing ambiguous about how this, coupled with a 'No Refunds' clause is meant to be interpreted. It is explicitly a fee being charged to the client for the use of this service, and this service only.

    The costs were not factored into their commission costs, as is acceptable by Paypal's ToS

    image.thumb.png.ce0c2536ec9887940b49ed5756ea0653.png

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    • Administrator

    A comment was not approved as it does not meet our standards:

    Please note that while we are a beware site, we do not believe in penalizing artists for who they choose or choose not to do business with as per Item 1 of the Submission Guidelines.

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    • Senior Staff

    Under normal circumstances we would not allow blacklists as a part of a beware, however, we have been informed that our OP is a Minor and the releasing of their legal name by the Artist is an attempt at Doxxing which is completely unacceptable and puts this client at risk for harassment.

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    *Sigh* The doxing really just solidifies the beware even if the OP here is a minor at she pretty much handled this well unlike the artist. I would not be surprised if this happened with other customers of hers.

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