Beware - Mischief Makers / BongoQueen / Sadie

On September 30, 2019, I was made aware of a special auction Mischief Makers was holding on Dealer’s Den. The auction was for a summer 2020 completion commission slot.

Tweet Link

Archived Tweet

The promised deadline was the catalyst for my bid on this auction. At the time of the bid, I was not made aware that Mischief Makers had a queue going back years. I had a positive experience commissioning them in 2016, so I expected this commission would be another positive experience.

PLEASE NOTE: Mischief Makers (or Dealer’s Den) has removed the auction listing, so I cannot screencap it. It now leads to an error page.

On September 30th, I sent my design to them for approval, and the design was approved.

I won the auction for $7,100, as shown in my Dealer’s Den history here:

I informed Mischief Makers of my auction win on October 12, 2019:

I received my invoice from Mischief Makers, and sent the payment shortly after:

I did not receive any communication from Mischief Makers from October 2019 through April 2020. Concerned about my commission’s deadline, given the summer deadline advertised in the auction, I reached out to Mischief Makers on April 1, 2020:

When I did not receive a response from Mischief Makers, I followed up on April 7, 2020 and asked them when I should send my DTD. At this point I became aware that the auction page was removed either by Mischief Makers or by Dealer’s Den. I did not receive a response to my email.

I contacted Mischief Makers via Telegram. I sent a message on April 5th that was unanswered. My message from April 8th was answered:

In this message, Mischief Makers informed me they would improve their communication. I decided I would be patient sometime longer.

Fast forward to July 2020, I sent Mischief Makers some follow up messages via Telegram, asking about the start date to my commission. My messages from July 13 and July 20 were not answered.

I started looking around on Twitter to see if anyone else was having trouble with Mischief Makers, and came across numerous people indicating that Mischief Makers was ghosting them on commissions that were years old.

After some callouts from other customers, Mischief Makers posted a Tweet on July 27th acknowledging their poor communication and committing to fixing it.

Link to Tweet

Link to Archived Tweet

I sent an email to Mischief Makers after reading this post on July 27, 2020, in which I expressed that I was not willing to wait for them to finish their years long queue to get to my commission, as the commission was advertised with a specific deadline, and I bidded accordingly:

I also sent this same message via Telegram:

I did not receive a response to either message. I followed up on August 18, asking for a chance to discuss the commission.

This message was not responded to either.

On August 22nd, there were numerous customers discussing Mischief Maker’s lack of communication and lack of commission progress or updates within in the Mischief Makers Telegram Chat. One customer noted that Mischief Makers had a queue of 28 suits, with a number of other customers not present on the queue.

 At this point, an individual named Keitel came forward and asked that customers direct their inquiries toward them. This message was placed in the Mischief Makers telegram chat:

On August 29th, I contacted Keitel per these instructions:

I did not receive a response from Mischief Makers, so I followed up with Keitel on September 1st:

I continued to not receive any communication from Mischief Makers, so I followed up with Keitel on September 8th again. At this point, I was informed that my suit was delayed, but that I should get my suit by the end of the year, and that it would be worked on alongside other suits. I found this reasonable, and hoped for the best.

Fast forward to December 2020, and I hadn’t heard from Keitel or Mischief Makers regarding my suit. Given the new promised deadline, I became concerned and contacted Keitel on December 2nd asking for an update, and when I should send my DTD.

On December 7th, I still had not heard from Mischief Makers, so I followed up with Keitel again:

On December 8th, Keitel responded to me and said that Mischief Makers hadn’t responded to them yet.

On December 13th, I informed Keitel that Mischief Makers still hadn’t contacted me. Keitel informed me that Mischief Makers had not contacted them either.

At this point I informed Keitel that if the suit wasn’t complete by the end of the year, I would expect a refund.

On December 14, I followed up with Keitel and informed them that Mischief Makers still had not responded. On December 15th, Mischief Makers finally reached out to me.

The message I received from Mischief Makers was as follows (along with an indication that Keitel seems to no longer be involved with communication):

I informed Mischief Makers that I was happy to give them more time if I could get consistent communication and a reasonable frequency for updates. I asked them when they expect the suit would be completed. 

As of December 21st, today, Mischief Makers has not answered my question despite having viewed it. I sent this message today:

At this point, I am sad to express that I do not trust Mischief Makers will provide me the consistent communication or updates as I have requested. My willingness to accept a later deadline is contingent on trusting my fursuit maker will not ghost me and will continue to provide updates, even if the progress is slow. The silence has spoken. At this point, to resolve this situation, I would like a refund of $7100.