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  • Beware: Tekkenbd30fan / Elara26


    brynhildr
    • Who: Tekkenbd30fan, Elara26
      Where: https://twitter.com/ValnaDarksider2
      https://www.deviantart.com/elara26
      When: 09/04/2022
      What: Commission



    Greetings!

    I'm here to inform you about this client and the ordeal that I had to endure since the last week. Honestly, it all started pretty good actually. The 4th of April I got contacted by this person saying that he had the idea of commissioning me a couple of OC's of its own (since he kept saying that he was a writer and that he wrote stories, fan fictions and so on) and I was like "Sure, tell me the details!". And everything went pretty smooth, he always payed me what I asked for and never complained.

    However, the big problems started to happened the 8th of July, Friday of last week. After waking up, I find three emails from PayPal, in which all of them says that the buyer has opened a claim against me because of unauthorized transactions made. Honestly speaking, I was baffled. Like, why in the first place? Also who was the one responsible for all of this? After tracking down who could've possibly be, I ended up finding the curlprit. 

    Then I decided to confront him, ask him why he did such a thing, but to no avail. What he kept saying over and over like a broken record, was like "I didn't do it. My bank did it" or instead "PayPal did it, it wasn't my fault".

    1.thumb.png.0910b8f6b46756792d0ee538e9b520f1.png

    2.thumb.png.8643683d0bddfc8aa4c048dfb0570d20.png

    3.thumb.png.8c8e63d29a3c6db3a649132b1fa34642.png

     

    Now, I might not be an expert on how PayPal works and neither how the Banks do, but I'm pretty sure that neither of the two without an explicit request from the one who sent the money, does everything automatically. PayPal definitely doesn't do it, and the Bank the least they can do is calling you if they see high transactions, but in here we were talking about 50/100€ at best. Every month. Then, afterwards, he contacted me saying the following

    4.thumb.png.a1f512f763e984a69a9f6b4260d9ef1a.png

     

    After this, he blocked me. If the truth is on his side, then he wouldn't have blocked me, right? So honestly, I really don't get it. Afterwards I tried to reach him even on DeviantArt, since there I was still not blocked from him because I actually talked with the PayPal customer service myself. In the end they told me what I already knew: and that it was him who did everything on his end. And so far, he kept lying to my face. The sad part is that I'm not the only one who got this "little problem" with him. Many other artists had the same ordeal with him.

    5.thumb.png.4b4abd36ef6798841c86b113eb85b8ec.png

     

    I'll share afterwards the claims that he did (choosing even the wrong dates because he surely did everything so fast, in a blink of an eye, that he didn't even sat through everything and thought if the amount and date were exactly those - apologies in advance if you see another language)

    6.thumb.png.babbe34032bd3afec25a4941d294f5d4.png

    (For context, "Denaro ricevuto" translated is "Money Received")

     

    And the fact that the dates doesn't even match to begin with (aside from the first one, which the only wrong thing is the amount that he declared. He gave me 50€, but instead he wanted 56€ back, for some reason)

    7.thumb.png.c1948c9dcf5db975eda2e09d48440a70.png

    8.thumb.png.ae265cb0ae09051dc4df7db0a50e67fd.png

    9.thumb.png.14a7da5d448481cc93b02fb26ab9a79c.png

    (again, all three of them shows the "Money Received" word, translated from Italian)

     

    I'll also share some snippets of our conversation where, after I completed the render, I uploaded it and sent it to him. And he of course, received it. See it for yourself, all three of the claims.

    First one

    511654085_8.thumb.png.687ccadef9af415060a1674ff931fe94.png

    1749093809_9.thumb.png.df72de8c7d771a60d0ffe31d28997015.png

     

    Second:

    1056738981_2.thumb.png.b4341877d3c0bcae2a1d07c1f2ca69f9.png

    (this one here was mostly a variation of the third one that I'll share in a bit)

     

    Third one:

    1343465419_7.png.280758bad44f123bdff4c6b9fa3f8db5.png

    432499498_8.thumb.png.4eeb188c7b4c0e9f7ec6c567720f2d75.png

    Proof of being blocked

    image_2022-08-07_171457168.png.fa51a00d082ee02d22bdcb4d0e20347b.png

    image_2022-08-07_171506967.png.5e6edc476c571fbcdb4424f6b74920d1.png

     

    To this day, so far the problem hasn't been solved (and also currently, the claims got processed and now I'm wait for PayPal to actually talk with the bank of the client. Sadly, it will take approximatively 75 days to get an answer) and when it will, I'm afraid that this person will try again in getting his money back. I made assumptions as to why he did this, but really, I can't even believe it.

    Like I said, also another artist right now is undergoing the same treatment as I'm experiencing.

    Thank you for your attention.

    Edited by James
    added in proof of being blocked




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    I'm sorry this happened to you, and I hope you talked to the right person in PayPal because they rarely take third party screenshots are acceptable evidence. You also need to be careful of PayPal seeing anything NSFW, as that's against their ToS and could close your account.

    Something I've been doing for a while now is send an email to the client's PayPal email with the files attached/a link to the final renders via mega.nz if the files are exceptionally large/NSFW. The email basically explains that I'm sending over the final product and to back up the files because I do not guarantee to have copies if they lose the larger sizes. That way I have a solid proof of delivered product for PayPal in case of a chargeback.

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    9 hours ago, Rendrassa said:

    I'm sorry this happened to you, and I hope you talked to the right person in PayPal because they rarely take third party screenshots are acceptable evidence. You also need to be careful of PayPal seeing anything NSFW, as that's against their ToS and could close your account.

    Something I've been doing for a while now is send an email to the client's PayPal email with the files attached/a link to the final renders via mega.nz if the files are exceptionally large/NSFW. The email basically explains that I'm sending over the final product and to back up the files because I do not guarantee to have copies if they lose the larger sizes. That way I have a solid proof of delivered product for PayPal in case of a chargeback.

    Appreciated.

    Luckily they were all SFW renders, so nothing nude or anything sexual. About talking with the right person, I contacted the customer service so many times and they all told me the same stuff, that unfortunately I have to wait at least 75 days before it gets solved (because, supposedly, they're talking with the bank of the dude), and I hope it will get in my favor.

    Otherwise paypal is dead to me and they can keep that debt because sure as hell I'm not gonna pay it, no matter what. It's not my fault and the screenshots I sent to them are the proof and I really, really hope that they take that into consideration. 

    The fact of sending stuff through paypal, that's a new thing. Thanks for telling me. If this gets solved, I'll definitely keep that in mind!

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    • Administrator
    2 hours ago, brynhildr said:

    Appreciated.

    Luckily they were all SFW renders, so nothing nude or anything sexual. About talking with the right person, I contacted the customer service so many times and they all told me the same stuff, that unfortunately I have to wait at least 75 days before it gets solved (because, supposedly, they're talking with the bank of the dude), and I hope it will get in my favor.

    Otherwise paypal is dead to me and they can keep that debt because sure as hell I'm not gonna pay it, no matter what. It's not my fault and the screenshots I sent to them are the proof and I really, really hope that they take that into consideration. 

    The fact of sending stuff through paypal, that's a new thing. Thanks for telling me. If this gets solved, I'll definitely keep that in mind!

    If Paypal is saying they need to talk to his bank, then this is one of those instances where it's not their fault.  They don't really get a say in what happens because the issue didn't arise through them.

    A chargeback = initiated through a bank.  Bypasses Paypal.  Usually smacks you with an extra charge beyond the initial sale.  Paypal can't do anything in these instances except refund you out of their own pocket if they so wish.  Usually sellers lose these because most banks and cards have fraud protection which guarantees the actual cardholder gets their money back.

    A claim = initiated through Paypal.  This is where Paypal's team reviews a case and decides in favor of someone.

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    3 hours ago, brynhildr said:

    Appreciated.

    Luckily they were all SFW renders, so nothing nude or anything sexual. About talking with the right person, I contacted the customer service so many times and they all told me the same stuff, that unfortunately I have to wait at least 75 days before it gets solved (because, supposedly, they're talking with the bank of the dude), and I hope it will get in my favor.

    Otherwise paypal is dead to me and they can keep that debt because sure as hell I'm not gonna pay it, no matter what. It's not my fault and the screenshots I sent to them are the proof and I really, really hope that they take that into consideration. 

    The fact of sending stuff through paypal, that's a new thing. Thanks for telling me. If this gets solved, I'll definitely keep that in mind!

    To rephrase it more clearly in case my ramblings were unclear, I don't send through PayPal but the email connected to the buyer's PayPal account. (The one that PayPal uses to notify them of invoices/payment receipts/ect.)

    PayPal prefers direct links to the PayPal email for communication in order to verify it was, in fact, the PayPal account holder. (Their logic is that anyone could use a third party social media site and pretend to be someone by giving an other's email as part of a scam/theft.)

    Because of this, we should all be using only email for commission communication, but there's still the issue of NSFW discussion threatening our accounts. A step below that is my suggestion of having proof that something was sent to the buyer, as a lot of scammers will claim nothing was sent to them at all.

    I can't tell how this buyer actually paid you, but I would further recommend sending an invoice with an attached ToS, making sure "shipping info" is set to not required and specifying the payment is for digital goods/commission work.

    While I hope PayPal decides to pay you back out of their own pocket, I would start prepping for a lose just in case.

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    On 8/8/2022 at 12:24 PM, James said:

    If Paypal is saying they need to talk to his bank, then this is one of those instances where it's not their fault.  They don't really get a say in what happens because the issue didn't arise through them.

    A chargeback = initiated through a bank.  Bypasses Paypal.  Usually smacks you with an extra charge beyond the initial sale.  Paypal can't do anything in these instances except refund you out of their own pocket if they so wish.  Usually sellers lose these because most banks and cards have fraud protection which guarantees the actual cardholder gets their money back.

    A claim = initiated through Paypal.  This is where Paypal's team reviews a case and decides in favor of someone.

    Yeah, in fact right now I'm under 200€ because of it.

    I just hope that this isn't the case and I can actually win this claims. Otherwise like I said, paypal is dead to me. Never again i'm gonna trust it for commissions and stuff.

     

    On 8/8/2022 at 2:38 PM, Rendrassa said:

    To rephrase it more clearly in case my ramblings were unclear, I don't send through PayPal but the email connected to the buyer's PayPal account. (The one that PayPal uses to notify them of invoices/payment receipts/ect.)

    PayPal prefers direct links to the PayPal email for communication in order to verify it was, in fact, the PayPal account holder. (Their logic is that anyone could use a third party social media site and pretend to be someone by giving an other's email as part of a scam/theft.)

    Because of this, we should all be using only email for commission communication, but there's still the issue of NSFW discussion threatening our accounts. A step below that is my suggestion of having proof that something was sent to the buyer, as a lot of scammers will claim nothing was sent to them at all.

    I can't tell how this buyer actually paid you, but I would further recommend sending an invoice with an attached ToS, making sure "shipping info" is set to not required and specifying the payment is for digital goods/commission work.

    While I hope PayPal decides to pay you back out of their own pocket, I would start prepping for a lose just in case.

    Don't know if I mentioned that? I don't think I did probably. Within all of the three claims he did, I actually sent them proof of the payment he did voluntarily and the works that I sent to him after receiving money. I sent to PayPal all of the proofs they need to see that is all legitimate and not something false.

    I just hope, hope, that I'll win this.

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    • Administrator
    2 hours ago, brynhildr said:

    Yeah, in fact right now I'm under 200€ because of it.

    I just hope that this isn't the case and I can actually win this claims. Otherwise like I said, paypal is dead to me. Never again i'm gonna trust it for commissions and stuff.

     

    Don't know if I mentioned that? I don't think I did probably. Within all of the three claims he did, I actually sent them proof of the payment he did voluntarily and the works that I sent to him after receiving money. I sent to PayPal all of the proofs they need to see that is all legitimate and not something false.

    I just hope, hope, that I'll win this.

    Just as an aside, since this appears to be a bank initiated chargeback, this can happen on any payment processor that you're using. Changing away from PayPal won't prevent these kinds of incidents from happening.

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    Welp, apparently my other artist friend who got caught in the same web, actually lost.

    I personally don't have yet anything because there's still the thing about them talking with the bank, but in the meantime of course I keep receiving emails about the debt and this last one of today, they're literally threatening me to take actions and ask to third party agencies to retrieve the 200€ amount.

    I'm totally screwed. That's just wonderful.

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    After two whole months.. almost three technically speaking, I finally got the verdict for all three of them.

    And I won. I can't believe that I actually won three claims that I was sure to lose.

    I'm so happy right now that I could cry.

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    • Administrator
    1 minute ago, brynhildr said:

    After two whole months.. almost three technically speaking, I finally got the verdict for all three of them.

    And I won. I can't believe that I actually won three claims that I was sure to lose.

    I'm so happy right now that I could cry.

    That's fantastic news!

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