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  • Beware Geckorobot1

    Charmrage

    By Charmrage

      • Who: buyer
      Where: Twitter - https://twitter.com/Geckorobot1
      When: 06/14/2019
      What: Commission



    Our entire conversation starting at the point where I confronted them regarding the  charge backs here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kytjdKIUkqUK82fOgdv-Rz-1h1-ZOUMn/view?usp=sharing

    Geckorobot1 received their artworks:
    https://www.furaffinity.net/view/30840303/
    https://www.furaffinity.net/view/31188488/

    Starting at 06/14/2019

    The first piece totaling $180 and the second $220, with the breakdowns sent via invoice on paypal, my TOS is listed here : https://www.charmrage.com/terms-of-service, since I want everyone to have all the information at hand. I began by asking them what had happened though already another artist had contacted me since this chargeback happened along with several to 7 artists that I know of in total. They began by telling me that they paypal glitched out and opened all of these cases, and that the account was then deleted. 

    I asked for them to reach out to paypal, and have the disputes removed, at this time I had paypal funds and I had not been in financial danger so I wanted to find a resolution. They offered to send a new payment, which i declined since you are 1. not supposed to take money for services through friends and family 2. would not remove the cases against me on my business account which would affect my credibility with paypal, they also offer a contract which I also reject. I asked if they would call, but eventually called my self and the disputes were removed by paypal, and they stated that the bank denied their clients claims and ruled in my favor. At this time I believed it was over, the situation made me feel uneasy, but the claims were removed. This all happened over the course of the weekend.

    06/19/2019

    On this day I was notified that one of the cases was re-opened and that, I lost the other one due to lack of shipping. I immediately contacted paypal and they informed me that the bank had re-opened the cases at the clients request. At this point I wrote my quick AB on twitter since this person was still getting art and there were too many things pointing to a potential scam. They reached out to me again offering to pay, and I ask them to reach out to their bank and have the cases removed. This also brings up the fact that it was not a paypal glitch or account cancellation that had triggered any of this like I was told, it was a dispute filed through the bank. I told them to reach out tho their bank and they find reasons why they are not able to opting to e-mail them. They continue to ask me several time to take care of it like I did before, which I already mentioned to them was not possible. It seems at this point all of their payment methods are failing and no change occurs. They offer to use square, which the same thing can happen on in the same way.


    06/21/2019

    They continue to try to pay me in methods I refuse since they are not legitimate, I cannot trust this person so I don't want to receive payment in a method they can repeat this. These other methods would then not be attached to the services done so then their disputes would become valid.


    07/02/2019 

    By this time I have lost both my cases with paypal, their bank sided with them. Their bank won't re-open the cases for them and state they opened the cases.

    07/04/2019
    I offer them the ability to pay me back through Zelle which is another payment service, but would not be attached to my business account and is not possible to chargeback on. They offer to use Western Union but at this point I refuse to spend more time going to a location to pick up[ money when the payment service I mentioned can be done via a phone, involving no parties to go anywhere just sent the money.I ask, since I was left under the impression that I was going to receive payment, turns out that they still need to pay other artists.

    07/14/2019

    They offer to mail the cash even though I have explained that I will only use Zelle, which to me is again not safe of legitimate. They then proceed to become upset over the post AB on my twitter.

    They at this point have still not paid me, and I don't feel any progressive change occurring only arguing, I included the rest of the chat so as to not hide anything.

     



     

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    • Administrator
    Eden
    • Administrator

    I don't understand why he keeps saying "I need to make an account".  There is no "account" with Zelle.  The major US banks all came together and decided to make Zelle their bank-to-bank transfer system.  It's right here in my WF account, no Zelle account necessary.

    This whole fiasco is incredibly fishy.

    zelle.png

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    Bourbon

    I'm glad you made an A_B even though he's been aggressively trying to guilt-trip you over your Twitter post. Everything he's said has been fishy, with his story changing constantly. Every time I've talked to him it's gone from my Paypal got accidentally deleted and forced chargebacks to my Paypal was hacked and the hacker forced chargebacks (but only on artists and none of his other purchases). 

    This is really clearly someone who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar trying to scam artists and hoping they wouldn't notice or know it was him that did it. 

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    cknsausage

    Oh man I thought it sounded familiar and yep.. they are already pre-blocked haha. I think I saw another beware post about them.

    I'm pretty sure Paypal cannot 'glitch' and open several (?!?) disputes conveniently against several different artists at once. I can't believe he would think anyone would buy that bullsh*t.

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    Rendrassa

    Is there no way to file a complaint with PayPal over this person doing so many chargebacks? It should be illegal to use their site this way and reprimands to users who abuse their system.

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    • Administrator
    Eden
    • Administrator
    3 hours ago, Rendrassa said:

    Is there no way to file a complaint with PayPal over this person doing so many chargebacks? It should be illegal to use their site this way and reprimands to users who abuse their system.

    It's not through PayPal. It's through their bank, which Paypal has no control over. The most they can do is remove the $20 chargeback fee.

    A good way to distinguish if it's a chargeback vs a dispute is that a fee is involved with a chargeback.  A dispute is handled through PayPal and doesn't involve fees.

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    • Administrator
    Eden
    • Administrator
    Just now, RTKobold said:

    Though with all these charge-backs from the bank wouldn't said bank be suspicious about this?

    From the conversations here it sounds like it was a block of transactions reported.  This isn't abnormal if a CC was reported as stolen. We still don't know if it was his CC or not.

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    RTKobold
    48 minutes ago, Celestina said:

    From the conversations here it sounds like it was a block of transactions reported.  This isn't abnormal if a CC was reported as stolen. We still don't know if it was his CC or not.

    That's true and this is the second beware from this same person in such a short time and would'nt be surprised at all if more showed up, and western union isn't that used often in scams.

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    Bourbon

    There's actually a bunch of artists who were affected and posting posts on Twitter. He himself admitted there were 9 artists he had to pay back, but there might be more affected that he doesn't care about repaying cause they're either small time or not posting bewares on him. He only jumped on repaying people when the bewares popped up. 

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    Charmrage
    On 7/16/2019 at 6:18 PM, Bourbon said:

    I'm glad you made an A_B even though he's been aggressively trying to guilt-trip you over your Twitter post. Everything he's said has been fishy, with his story changing constantly. Every time I've talked to him it's gone from my Paypal got accidentally deleted and forced chargebacks to my Paypal was hacked and the hacker forced chargebacks (but only on artists and none of his other purchases). 

    This is really clearly someone who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar trying to scam artists and hoping they wouldn't notice or know it was him that did it. 

    They are also victimizing themselves in their posts, and making the affected artists seem unreasonable. I think I am one of 2 that have not been paid back? but I don't know if to believe their information or not at this point since it has changed so many times. They for some reason don't think the AB is justified, but I haven't been given any reason for it not to be justified.

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    Rendrassa
    18 hours ago, Celestina said:

    It's not through PayPal. It's through their bank, which Paypal has no control over. The most they can do is remove the $20 chargeback fee.

    A good way to distinguish if it's a chargeback vs a dispute is that a fee is involved with a chargeback.  A dispute is handled through PayPal and doesn't involve fees.

    I know this is being done through the bank, but the scammer is using one PayPal account to originally commission the artists. That's why I wondered if the PayPal account would ever be released so artists can avoid the whole start of this mess.

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    • Administrator
    Eden
    • Administrator
    5 hours ago, Rendrassa said:

    I know this is being done through the bank, but the scammer is using one PayPal account to originally commission the artists. That's why I wondered if the PayPal account would ever be released so artists can avoid the whole start of this mess.

    Sorry, what do you mean by "released"?

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    Rendrassa
    5 hours ago, Celestina said:

    Sorry, what do you mean by "released"?

    Made public. Available knowledge to members so that we can avoid receiving payment from a known scammer.

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    • Administrator
    Eden
    • Administrator
    4 minutes ago, Rendrassa said:

    Made public. Available knowledge to members so that we can avoid receiving payment from a known scammer.

    Oh!  He claims the account is deleted, but Paypal allows numerous emails to be associated with an account anyhow.  We're not in the business of releasing personal information, but if we did he could easily just change out the primary email address.

    Edit:  I also don't think Paypal would do that either as that could be a big legal no no.

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    RTKobold
    2 minutes ago, Rendrassa said:

    Made public. Available knowledge to members so that we can avoid receiving payment from a known scammer.

    I don't think that's going to happen most likely due to privacy reasons as well as laws considering that alone could open a lot of legal issues for paypal.

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    Rendrassa
    2 minutes ago, Celestina said:

    Oh!  He claims the account is deleted, but Paypal allows numerous emails to be associated with an account anyhow.  We're not in the business of releasing personal information, but if we did he could easily just change out the primary email address.

    Ah. I've never had to change my email, so it slipped my mind. I do wish with the frequency of chargebacks through the bank, and complaints filed, he'd have his account limited at the least.

    Just now, RTKobold said:

    I don't think that's going to happen most likely due to privacy reasons as well as laws considering that alone could open a lot of legal issues for paypal.

    I wasn't talking about going through PayPal, but Celestina has pointed out an obvious reason it wouldn't work anyway.

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    Moxxxie

    So, apparently hes a minor. He was using his parents card/account and they issued the chargeback. At least this is the excuse he has given recently. He has at least $600 in chargebacks from what I saw and I only added up totals that i saw paypal screenshots for 😕

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    Rendrassa
    On 10/6/2019 at 9:51 AM, Moxxxie said:

    So, apparently hes a minor. He was using his parents card/account and they issued the chargeback. At least this is the excuse he has given recently. He has at least $600 in chargebacks from what I saw and I only added up totals that i saw paypal screenshots for 😕

    Parents should be held responsible for their child's actions. 😕

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    VosurAekira
    On 10/6/2019 at 9:51 AM, Moxxxie said:

    So, apparently hes a minor. He was using his parents card/account and they issued the chargeback. At least this is the excuse he has given recently. He has at least $600 in chargebacks from what I saw and I only added up totals that i saw paypal screenshots for 😕

    Just to help clarify and cross-reference (last comment on here)
    https://artistsbeware.info/beware/submissions/client-bewares/client-beware-geckorobot1-r331/

    Also, would it be an idea for the Beware here to be in the Client Bewares instead of the Artist Bewares?

     

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    • Administrator
    Eden
    • Administrator
    1 hour ago, VosurAekira said:

    Just to help clarify and cross-reference (last comment on here)
    https://artistsbeware.info/beware/submissions/client-bewares/client-beware-geckorobot1-r331/

    Also, would it be an idea for the Beware here to be in the Client Bewares instead of the Artist Bewares?

     

    For future reference please contact a mod if you see a category error rather than leaving a comment.

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    VosurAekira
    On 10/10/2019 at 6:56 AM, Celestina said:

    For future reference please contact a mod if you see a category error rather than leaving a comment.

    Alright. Thank you.

    On the side note, if geckorobot1 did admit to being a minor, would there be any way to report that to Paypal (as the minimum age to use Paypal services would be 18)?

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