Beware: Pepapen / Posepedia

Pepapen and her husband, Posepedia, had opened for collaborative commissions on March 27, 2021. I managed to get a slot for a single commission. Pepapen contacted me soon after, letting me know that the pair had accepted my submission for a commission.

Here is the correspondence Pepapen and I had, coming to an agreement of terms for a single full body commission at $150 USD:



Here is the proof of payment for the commission:

About a little more than a week later, I was contacted by another individual with the handle Lainebrary on DeviantArt, who was messaging previous clients of Posepedia and Pepapen with compelling proof that the artist had been found to trace artwork. This prompted me to look for myself on one of the artist's webpages, where I found that I had been blocked by both Posepedia and Pepapen. As that had been the only method I knew to contact them at the time, I checked with an associate of mine to see if they were able to view their page for themselves.

They found that they did have access to their DeviantArt page and decided to message them on my behalf:



A few minutes after sending this message, both Pepapen and Posepedia had deactivated their DeviantArt accounts. As the website was the only way I had previously contacted them, I had no other known way to get in touch, short of emailing the PayPal address. However, because of the sudden closure of the account, followed by other accounts that could be found by searching their usernames on a search engine, I decided to go through PayPal to begin filing a claim.



It was around this time I received this email from Posepedia through a previously unknown email:



I do not have my email publicly available, so I took this as legitimate, since it is associated with my PayPal. I was offered a refund by a certain date, which has now passed and was not returned, and I have received no additional correspondence, even after replying to them and asking for the refund. As such, I have kept the claim with PayPal open and am now awaiting PayPal's ruling on the matter.

While I have personal feelings on this matter, I wanted to present objective facts about my situation separate from them. With no communication, I feel it is appropriate to demand a refund, which has not been met as of the time of writing.