Advice about years-overdue commissions

[roswell]

Hi folks!

I'm looking for advice about how to approach a friend regarding owed commissions. A few years ago, this friend was actually following through on commissions regularly and I was happy with services rendered, so I kept going back to them. Eventually they started producing less work, but were consistently needing emergency money, so I kept getting commissions from them. Their backlog of work they owed me got pretty long after a point, and I wasn't seeing any new work. I asked for updates intermittently and kept getting promises of updates, but never any follow-through. In the meantime, they kept regularly taking on new commissions from others, and I have no idea whether those were actually completed.

This friend owes me at least $1000 total in owed work by this point. Unfortunately, it's been anywhere from 1-2 years since I originally commissioned this work, so I have no recourse for getting that money back through PayPal, etc. I haven't commissioned them at all upon realizing how much they owe me and how non-communicative they've been. I regret not being more forthcoming about asking for the work that's owed to me, and for being too anxious to confront them about it. I was starting to make peace with the fact that I'm probably never going to see this art.

Unexpectedly, a few weeks ago, this friend messaged me saying that their queue is in order and they just need a list of what art they still owe me so they can get to work on it. At the time I said I would try to figure out what specifically they owe me, but... I started to feel frustrated about this interaction the longer I thought about it. Is it not the artist's responsibility to keep track of what's in their queue? Is it really my responsibility to track down every single interaction we've had online to figure out all of what they owe me? I feel like I've invested enough time and money in this person as it is and that it shouldn't be my job to do this.

I've never been in this kind of situation before, so I don't actually know if my reaction to this is reasonable. I feel like their financial situation leaves refunds out of the question, but I also don't want to get my hopes up that they'll actually complete the work they owe me once they have a list of it all.

Ultimately, I'm wondering if there's any good way to tell my friend, "You owe me a lot of money's worth of art, and I don't think it's my job to track down all of what you owe me, and I'm feeling pretty gross about all of this"? Or if there is a reasonable way to approach this situation at all? I'm curious what any of you would have about what you'd do in this situation.

Thanks so much for reading and for your help!

p.s. don't worry, I've definitely learned my lesson about commissioning that much art from someone when they still owe me a lot of work :P 

[James]

Your feelings are definitely valid as it is your friend's job to make sure to keep track of what you are owed.

Unfortunately there's not going to be an easy solution to this.  You know your friend's personality better than us, so how do you think your friend would react?  Either way a good friend should be able to hear you out that you feel concerned that you're having to do the legwork for them.

You wouldn't be out of line to have a polite conversation with them about how your friend is lacking in organization, and now you want a time frame for completion of your work or a refund.

[Rendrassa]

$1000 worth of art is a lot, so getting that paid back with art will take time. Yes, it is the artist's the responsibility, but if you want to see that art, it might be best to be proactive in this and set up a Google document listing each art piece that was agreed on with it's price and share that with them. Make sure only you can edit it, and state that with every completed image, you'll mark it as complete and the artist can work off the list in whatever order they desire. That should boost their art drive if they can choose the order from the list.

Good luck getting the art. At least the artist has reached out to you at all, right?

[Bornes]

18 hours ago, roswell said:

Ultimately, I'm wondering if there's any good way to tell my friend, "You owe me a lot of money's worth of art, and I don't think it's my job to track down all of what you owe me, and I'm feeling pretty gross about all of this"? Or if there is a reasonable way to approach this situation at all? I'm curious what any of you would have about what you'd do in this situation.

You are correct that it is not your responsibility to do this and your feelings on not wanting to do it are totally valid.
However, consider your current position.

You're out of the refund window for paypal. You can't get the money you spent back.
You don't even know (presumably) exactly what commissions you're owed at the moment, so even if you were able to get a refund from your friend (you already said they probably couldn't afford it), you'd still need to dig up what the commissions were to prove how much they owe you for said refund.

"But Bornes, they should be doing that!"

Yeah, they should. But the fact that they came to you at all means they remembered you existed, and that they probably don't have the records themselves. If you also do not have the records, then there might be a conversation to be had there, but it sounds like you keep pretty good records and this issue may not be a huge time investment on your part.

I hate to say this, but you're actually very lucky in this situation. You have no power anymore. And the artist WANTS to right their wrongs (or so it appears). Many artists in your friend's situation just give up and wash their hands of the info, leaving people like you with no refund and no art.

Consider your position, and consider whether you value the art or "putting the artist in their place" more.

And remember, you can always have the conversation with the artist at a later date, after you have the owed art in your hands.

If I were in your position, I'd be afraid that saying anything other than "thanks, here's the info" would result in them dropping the owed art into a black hole, never to be seen or heard from again.
I could be wrong, of course. You say they are your friend, so you should be able to hopefully assess what kind of situation you're actually in, here.

I wish you the best of luck.

edit: Alternatively, you could file in small claims court for the refund, but that's really all the power you have in this situation (and is hard to use if you aren't geographically close to the artist), and it still involves you looking for the records. And if the artist really doesn't have the money to refund you, you still wouldn't get it.

Edited January 11, 2019 by Bornes
typos and added stuff

[Ysera]

Generally speaking, when you commission someone, it's a good idea to keep records of what you commission somewhere, just in case something like this happens. Responsible artists don't typically lose track of what they owe people, but responsible artists also don't typically end up taking on so many commissions that they can owe a single commissioner $1k+ in art spanning multiple pieces of work.

When it comes to emergency commissions, and especially emergency commissions with friends, I approach the situation as if the money is a loss from the outright because I see too many people in a constant state of emergency to fully trust that I'll actually see artwork out of my payment. In your case, compile your list of artwork owed and give your friend a reasonable timeline to stick to in getting it done. And stay in communication with them about the progress.

[PeachyMars]

On 1/10/2019 at 9:46 PM, roswell said:

Is it not the artist's responsibility to keep track of what's in their queue? Is it really my responsibility to track down every single interaction we've had online to figure out all of what they owe me? I feel like I've invested enough time and money in this person as it is and that it shouldn't be my job to do this.

I don't feel like I can comment on the rest of your post, and for that I apologize. But to respond to what I have quoted, it is absolutely the artist's responsibility and not yours to keep track of their work. They are the ones providing a service, and it's up to them to keep track of what the artist was paid to do.

All artists who do commissions for a business regardless of financial situation should keep a queue of sorts and have the type of commission and the amount paid for it saved. Even if it isn't a public queue, they have a way to look back and see what they owe, even if they forget what the subject matter was (I recommend keeping this saved as well obviously, but things do happen such as sites going down if the artist uses notes or DMs). Trello is great for keeping track of commission work.

$1,000 is a lot. I am so sorry this happened to you and hope you're able to reach some sort of solution.