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  • Caution: Ghostiebash8


    Beabea
    • Who: Ghostiebash8 (FA) / Cynderthedragon5768 (DA)
      Where: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/ghostiebash8/
      https://www.deviantart.com/cynderthedragon5768
      When: 07/03/2020
      What: Commission

      Resolved

    I'll try my best to explain this case in chronological order.

    I claimed an YCH from said artist on Furaffinity on March 7th, 2020.

    1_YCH_claim.thumb.png.6054168bed53aadd2e88f5cb15312a36.png


    I also paid it the same day.

     2_YCH_paid.thumb.png.f58fdd39dec67402c13f7e00a259108c.png
    The basics, linking characters and discussing the little details. Nothing alarming.

    3_PP_receipt_edit.png.f1e538fc932850a3f4f514c0545d6114.png

    Fast forward couple months, when nothing seemed to happen, I asked them about the delay. 
    It already took over three days to get a reply after being left on read, which unfortunately cannot be seen here.

    4_YCH_delay.thumb.png.644d261ed0b00403179ae1198e1be9a5.png

    In August 2020 I actually got a WIP, well, after asking for it. Little did I know when I thought I'd get updates without asking.

    5_YCH_WIP.thumb.png.49c136c375fe07bee38e2b0f53d907bd.png

    I was still confident that my fear was irrational and that work is being done. 
     

    9 months went by in absolute silence. (Later in the post why I didn't go poking them) I started to get really suspicious about what's going on.

    Anyone familiar with Furaffinity's file number system notices immediately, that their queue has years old YCH's and commissions,
    from which some has been completed, but I'm unable to find the most. Tells something how well clients are updated when even public queue is so neglected. 
    Almost every client update has been a new or old reason why work couldn't have been done. Very unprofessional in my opinion.

    workethics_edit.thumb.png.b73f7d143a5b4614ac80155d4dcacba7.png


    The text above describes my experiences with them until my first attempt here at Artists Beware. Moderators instructed me to give them a final warning before posting on AB, so I did. I went on full disclosure, and said that I've already gone to AB with this case, mainly to strongly describe my disappointment.

    6_warning.thumb.png.e5c23950f923574f59be9fa7e1ab39ef.png

    7_warning_response2.thumb.png.11319f97e88a0939254f670d77d6a0d9.png

    I admit on my end that my actions haven't been flawless either, not even close. But I believe lots of the readers here at
    AB know the frustration when you think you've been scammed. Even in that case, I should have asked some questions,
    no matter how pointless doing so felt at the time. In the other hand however, I've commissioned dozens of other artists and they all provided updates themselves.
    So it's fair to assume it's a standard? Especially when to my surprise, today I found out that their TOS actually comes in two parts. The second part being so well hidden in the clutter of their front page that in all honesty I only found out today, May 19th, 2021, when making sure that none of my sayings is false. To which I never received a link or instructions to find it, neither of them. Well, see for yourself, is it easy to find?

    page.thumb.png.84c15cfcc2ed16046b70467ea5931387.png

    Though it seems that there is a connection in my proof that I have seen both parts. From which I had close to zero memory at this point, I realized this myself when noticing that my statement "I remember being told it'll take some time" was written on said missing TOS half. Honest question, am I expected to remember after over a year who had split their TOS in two, or what exactly was written there? Well at least that I was wrong about the client update policy, but also that the usual waiting time has been multiplied by 14.

    Content of the easily found TOS...

    1507279543.ghostiebash8__.thumb.gif.19c4cc7a7c0f4c7ac1bd10fd72b99ada.gif

    ...and the not-so-easy-to-find one.

    ntoush2b_by_cynderthedragon5768_dchqcca-pre.thumb.jpg.828a0c15229910a32926acf10469c020.jpg

    My initial assumptions were quickly proven wrong, work had been done. To which I tried to apologize and told them that I'll have to reconsider my actions. 
    I explained what has led to this and said I may take down the AB entirely. Well that was a lost cause.


    The main point is turning to their wait time and attitude. I've waited over a year and I get told that queue must be skipped due to a tight(??) deadline.
    How long I would have had to wait? Another year? This time frame is simply unacceptable.
    On top of that, my apology was turned down, with quite offensive wording.

    8_apology.thumb.png.de7c47ae9959ea6f92e229f87ad61730.png

    9_explaining.thumb.png.e229c591f3075ef6cb6704e8f8f5e8e2.png

    10_apology_not_accepted.thumb.png.8414f8e16d31f554bbe9ed546f61e32a.png

    end.thumb.png.ebe074c85d661065add63b963393b83b.png

    It was indeed me who started this, but it was also me who tried to apologize and make things right. They decided to hold to the hostility until the very end. It's apparent that they had no intention to resolve this in a civil manner. I wasn't left with much more options other than showing everything from start to finish.

    By the time of writing this I'm fairly confident that I'll receive the art after all, much work has been done in the last few days.

     




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    • Administrator

    Don't let them bully you.  They let this drag on for a year and then tried to blame you for their lack of time management (10 hours on a sketch? That's not the client's problem) and communication skills.  Communication is part of their job not yours.

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    I don't think you did anything wrong. 90 bucks is a lot of money to wait more than a year for nothing, with no warning. Im sorry you had to go through this! Seems stressful, their messages back to you made me uneasy. 

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    You know I originally wrote out this long post tut-tutting this artist and their attitude and but then accidentally refreshed the page and lost the whole progress, and figured this was a good opportunity to maybe step back and approach this with more empathy. Nothing I say is to excuse the artist, and OP, you don't deserve to have been spoken to this way. I'm sorry you went through this experience. Any faults of your own (i.e. not reaching out to the artist for communication and expressing your concerns before making an AB) you have been honest about and have tried to rectify, and everything after that point was absolutely not your fault or error.

    To the artist, if you're reading this (and since you are aware OP wanted to make an AB about you, chances are you might be reading this): I get it. You've clearly had some really upsetting, negative experiences in the past that left you feeling very burned. There's a lot of frustrated aggression present in your TOS, and you also lashed out with some unrelated issues re: furries reselling your work against OP. It's clear that you've had people in the past burn you and had sales go sour due to unhelpful or disrespectful clients.

    But OP apologised. You were not obligated to accept that apology, and apologies should never be made on the predication that they will be accepted. But it wasn't necessary to continue to be combative and accuse OP of not being earnest. You got very heated and lashed out, and now you need to understand that it is that which is reflecting poorly on you more than anything else. It's perfectly human to get upset and get emotional, but by your own admission this is your work, your only work, and how you pay your bills. This is your business, and as a business owner you need to be level headed, civil, and responsible in dealing with your business. You need to learn when to step away from the computer when you feel yourself getting emotionally overwhelmed, in order to better deal with customers who may upset you with a clearer head. This could have very, very easily been resolved amicably between the two of you without the hostile escalation it came to.

    It sucks when you feel attacked, when you feel that you're being taken advantage of, doubly so if you've already had that happen to you. But the absolutely sucky thing about running a business is that it's your livelihood, so you have the responsibility to always conduct yourself respectably. You don't need to be a doormat to customers, but you absolutely need to be as respectful as the situation allows. If you had just paused, taken a breath, and politely but firmly reminded the client of your TOS and tried to be as friendly and helpful as possible, you could have come out of this AB looking absolutely fine. They were willing to apologise and were no longer looking for a refund once things had been clarified. They also got emotionally rattled because they were worried and scared over the possibility of being scammed, and reacted in a heated way, but were willing to back down and accept their mistakes. These things happen occasionally. It's possible to recover.

    But taking a hostile foot first, repeatedly accusing the customer of things they repeatedly tell you they no longer want, and unloading unrelated issues onto them in notes has burned the possibility of that bridge. It has burned the possibility of other people coming to this beware and saying "well, the artist was a little slow but I don't mind a long wait, and they were perfectly reasonable in resolving the situation, I wouldn't mind working with them myself".

    I'm not trying to say any of this to attack you. My hope is that you stop, take a breath, and learn. It's a really sucky situation; neither artist nor client can possibly feel happy about how things turned out. It's okay to get upset, frustrated, feel hurt. These are human ways to react to what feels like an attack. But you log off, you let the feeling pass, and you put on your customer service face before responding.

    I'm just generally sorry a completely avoidable situation came to such an aggressive head. I hope for both of you that you are able to resolve this in ways you are both content with. Sorry to be a busybody or if my words are out of line. Best of luck to both of you.

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    • Senior Staff

    A comment was not posted due to an excessive amount of unrelated, personal information.

    This has been a recurring theme with many comments lately, and we implore that all users please look over our Submission Guidelines and our Rules for Participation before continuing to provide anecdotes to bewares.

    Please keep your commentary on-topic without an excess of screenshots, and non-business related encounters with an individual.

    If you have experienced something similar to Beabea while commissioning this artist, please submit your own post.

    Multiple posts on a subject help our community by contributing to our tags and metrics.

    All comments are moderated and approved manually. Any subsequent attempts to submit a beware/caution via the comments of another user's post will not be approved.

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    The caution is well warranted especially that no refunds, and the aggressive wording on the tos is really enough for customers to steer away from.

    Artist you really can't enforce a no refunds since that in itself is a major red flag.

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    Very well warranted. The way they spoke to you, how aggressive they are in their TOS, and of course how poorly run their front FA page is and how they are so bad at communication and actually getting art done in a timely are all red flags.

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    I just want to make a comment of the absolute gall they had saying how the 'quality would lessen because of short time limit'

    They had over a year, and then have the nerve to say you're rushing them? Absolutely ridiculous, caution well warranted

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