flucket

57 minutes ago, rikki said:

-snip-

Hi! I understand your point, but you misunderstood what I was saying or else I misrepresented it. I didn't handhold Kino through how to handle this or instruct them on what to do. We talked, as friends, about good steps to take and they were the one that talked about doing a public queue and sending emails. At most I just validated them and helped them with wording.

Kino is literally taking the initiative by organising their queue, writing it out, posting it, writing emails, sending emails, organising the BCC list, etc. I don't want to turn this into a discussion how valid it is or is not for me as a friend to talk to my friend about an issue they are having, I just want to clarify a misunderstanding due to my own fault in not clearly communicating things.

I am not acting as a proxy for Kino, OP is free to bypass me entirely and contact Kino about this, which is what they should do anyway? Nor was I ever requested to act as one? I am just someone here who has had an account for AB already and occasionally has commented and was commenting mostly in my capacity as an AB community member with extra information. My offer is only insofar as "you got lost in the shuffle once, which sucks, and if you wish I could be sure to send Kino a reminder with your details to make sure it doesn't happen again for extra security." I'm not intending to run communications with Kino's clients, that's not really my problem and I have no interest in it, nor do I believe I ever expressed as much. I literally just said I'd pass on one single email.

Also, artists hire managers all the time to organise things like client communications as a third party, while at most I am just passing on a message as a friend. If an artist can recognise that they have a fault or shortcoming in handling something, it is not irresponsible to turn to someone for help in picking up the slack so they can put their focus where it needs to be. It would be irresponsible to insist based on pride or mis-directed "professionalism" to do something that you yourself recognise overwhelms you, to the ultimate detriment of your clients. An artist who disconnects completely without warning or explanation until a third party has to step in to handle things is a different story, but that's really not what we're talking about here.

I won't be responding further should this message be approved because I don't really want to derail the conversation, and tried to keep my response as pertinent to the actual subject as possible in that regard. As I said, I was only trying to clarify my own miscommunication of the situation, and I understand 100% where you're coming from as, I said, I am also a member of this site and have seen similar situations. I only hope I was able to more clearly express what I meant.

Whoofa, this is actually a friend of mine, so I'm even more doubly sorry to see this. I understand exactly how you feel all that being said, since I'm in the camp of "I don't really mind a long wait as long as I'm receiving clear communication".

I passed on this caution to them and we had a talk, friend-to-friend, since I agree the lack of communication isn't great, but as an insider I understand how it came to be that way. I talked with them about essentially setting up a public list of their refund queue of just names, so people can be up-to-date about where they stand on the refund, and also about organising essentially a bi-weekly BCC mass email "newsletter" to any commissioners that want it, to keep people updated on how the refund queue is coming along and any life issues that popped up that may delay things. They should organise that over this week and hopefully you will receive an email about that. If you don't, please feel free to reply to me and if you're comfortable you can private message me with your email and I will pass it along to Kino to make sure it's on the list.

They fully agree they didn't do a great job with communicating and in their own words:

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"I am shitty at responding to emails and I just gotta do better, that’s all there is to it."

I'm so very sorry for your experience. The constant lying and dodging is bad enough, but the attempt at guilt tripping and emotional blackmail on the "I have no family" line is just. Oof. Absolutely shameful behaviour. That's the point I would have stopped being civil, so your continued composure with this person is admirable to me.

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.

RyunWoofie, huh. Thought that name sounded familiar: there's another AB from someone who got the run around for 4 years from her. They are absolutely someone with a history of brushing off people who give them the benefit of the doubt. It sucks you're outside the PayPal window to file a claim, in your place I would absolutely start getting assertive about sending weekly at the very least emails/DMs. The other person who posted an AB got theirs resolved in the end, I genuinely hope you do too.

Very sorry that you were dicked around like this, OP. Your patience and willingness to give them the benefit of the doubt for so long through all of this is really commendable and I applaud you. I'd be sending civil but subtly passive aggressive emails and messages much sooner.

The artist appears to have nuked their twitter and deleted most of their FurAff uploads, but not deleted either, so my guess is they want to go social media dark for a while. Hopefully for your sake it's to get all their work and business sorted out and put into order, but it's more likely they're hoping to wait for this to blow over and come back. Either way, again, my sympathies for your poor experience.

7 minutes ago, Celestina said:

Aw yea good catch.  Didn't put the two together because, well, I'd never dream of doing that.

Yeah, I figured as much. I was also like "I dunno that also seems pretty norma- wait hhhwhat."

12 hours ago, Celestina said:

Sounds like a typical reuse for a YCH, which isn't bad. Moat of us would recoup losses in this way.

Just to chime in, I less read it as "profiting off work done after a commission has been cancelled" and more as "I will have my cake and eat it too". She states she will "further profit" from the piece while also still a) rescinding the commissioner rights to the work and b) also refusing to provide a refund. Basically, "I keep the art and the money, you get nothing."

Further, with the combined point of "the buyer is not allowed a refund under any circumstances" (which like, you plain just cannot do that and furthermore you cannot possible predict every possible circumstances and say for sure that a refund cannot/should not be provided) is what makes it shady to me.

An artist has a right to keep the work and recycle it into something new to recoup losses. But when you're refusing refunds under any circumstance, and then also keeping the art and further monetising it, that's when it becomes shady. This artist isn't recouping losses. They're keeping payment for a commission and the commission itself, when it should be one or the other. That's their business model and I think that's what @AngelEars was bringing up. There are no losses here the artist needs to recoup.

Seconding calling you "love" is really unprofessional, not to mention depending on your region can be seen as super passive aggressive and condescending. Also, I found it personally kind of chilling that when you sent that longer message putting your foot down and demanding better communication, she didn't provide a single apology or explanation or promise to do better. Just another "it'll be done" and then a couple of smiley faces. I mean, not that I believe an apology would even be sincere, but at least it would be a better acknowledgement of your frustrations than ":)".

ALSO JUST WOW AT IGNORING THE REF. Even if it's a case of "this design works in an illustration but when translating it to fursuit doing XYZ would be better" (which this isn't anyway, but best case scenario), you still gotta... DISCUSS that with your client.

😬

On 4/16/2020 at 3:21 AM, GodHybrid said:

Yep, can confirm. Beware.

21 hours ago, RhythmicSlither said:

Was gonna submit my own Beware about this guy but I see I'm not the only ones having problems with him.

I would encourage you both to also submit a beware if you can/want to. Multiple bewares help, as people who search his tag on AB will then be able to see he has a pattern of this behaviour. A single beware could be an artist getting overwhelmed by circumstances. Multiple bewares is an artist with a pattern of irresponsible behaviour.

6 hours ago, ritualnoise said:

While I understand how upsetting this is, I would HIGHLY suggest that something so important be stated up front in any situation like this, just as you would for key details (markings, jewelry, etc) that you would not want left off the character from the get-go. Should the artist have clarified? Yes. But you should have also made an effort to make it known to the artist that despite bidding on a M/M ych, you did not want any version of that, especially given the other position was also up for auction and the other participant may feel equally as uncomfortable with the scene being changed from M/M to M/F. All parties involved should have communicated better.

As Celestina already helpfully pointed, the auction specifically stated it was open to any gender. The masculine genitalia was most likely just there as a base or example.

Personally, it really feels absurd to me that "don't misgender/missex my character" should be counted amongst statements like "don't forget the eye markings" or whatever. I feel like, both within art communities and within larger society, "please don't arbitrarily attach incorrect genitalia onto people" should just be a given, but especially in situations where images of the correct genitalia are right there for reference.

A penis isn't an artistic decision; it's a whole ass extra piece of anatomy. If I got a commission of my character and it came back with an extra set of arms, and when I explained that actually my character only has two arms, not four, I got told "I made a choice" in return, my response would be "and I made the character, so please fix it or provide a partial refund as this is unusable to me". I wouldn't be like "ah yes I see clearly it was my fault in not properly communicating the correct amount of arms my character has, even though on every reference you were given they only have the two. Certainly I shall take this as a learning experience and be on my way!"

I don't mean to be rude, but this response just boggles my goggles.

I get that you made this comment under an incorrect assumption about the details of the auction, but even in the case it was an M/M YCH, speaking from an artist perspective, in the instance someone won an M/M auction off me but sent in a reference for a female character, I would take it upon myself to remind them that the auction was for masculine sex characters, and ask them if they a) wanted a R63 of the character they provided or b) would like to choose a different, male character. I wouldn't look at a female sex reference image for a female identifying character and just "make a choice".

For me personally, this an "everyone here is a bewaree" situation. I agree with everything Celestina said, so I won't re-iterate those points, but my addition is: you also explicitly agreed to doing latex at their specific request, and then later on when you failed to do the agreed upon thing your argument was literally just... "I think this is better." Yikes. I dunno. I wouldn't commission you for that alone, but I'm pretty picky.

Kuro's behaviour was rude but in most instances not out of line (just the chargeback thing, that was wildly out of line and poor behaviour). And while I don't think you're not allowed to give another client a heads up about someone else being this unhappy about a shared YCH base exactly, but... I do know if I were in Kuro's shoes, I would be equally really hurt and unhappy to find out you were talking about me behind my back to others. Personally, I'd like to see a snippet of just your message to this other client (none of their replies for privacy reasons), because nothing in the way you behaved during this commission yourself inspired much confidence that it was just an innocent heads up that Kuro wasn't happy... but that's up to you and the mods.

Yeah, I dunno how to feel about this except while I hope the disputes settle in your favour because he had no right to do that, I walk away from reading this feeling like I'd want little to do with either of you...

Yikes. Considering how active and chatty they are on twitter, at this point they're transparently just avoiding you and dodging the refund (considering this all stemmed from a lack of communication, I don't know what the artist hopes to gain from ghosting you!). This absolutely blows, and please don't stop dogging the artist for your refund. I hope you get it eventually. 😥

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I'm not used to the art freelance industry or what's right or wrong, so I'm going to take the most logical and professional route.

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You can not treat me like I am a business- I'm not. I am a single artist raising money for a person cause, and under no circumstance did I say I was a professional art business owner.

One of these things is 👏 not 👏 like 👏 the 👏 other 👏!

Er, sorry for double posting but I can't edit my post so just to add (if the mods can edit the post, feel free to add this message to my original post rather than approving this double post) - all that being said, just to clear my own personal conscience: as poor as this artist's behaviour was, I do think spamming their twitter beware with replies to this beware constitutes as harassment. That's my personal opinion, no one is required to agree with me, but yeah, I do think maybe just QRTing the original tweet with a link to this beware then washing your hands of it is enough. It sucks they were giving an intentionally inaccurate account of events to make you look worse, but I don't think anything was gained from responding to every tweet in their thread with the exact same message except to make them feel frustrated and overwhelmed and escalate the situation emotionally.

Their behaviour is a different issue and is still absolutely appalling. I just feel the need to say that.

Also:

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At this point, I was understandably annoyed and furious over the whole thing and how I was being portrayed, so I posted the following.

Was there meant to be a twitter screencap accompanying this? Because nothing is showing up for me, so I'm not sure what this is referring to.

What can I say but "yikes!"

This is, from toe to tip, a really concerning commission and I am genuinely so, so sorry for you, OP, that you were put through this treatment. Nobody deserves to be treated this way by someone who is accepting payment from them (or anyone in general, but in a professional setting it's extra yikes!), but I gotta just gripe about the two things that leapt out at me as the most concerning:

1. "my tos does state that if it's been less than 6 months I can do only 75% refunds" - besides being a baldfaced lie, since no where in the TOS (of the caps provided) does this clause exist, it's also HYPER suss to me personally that they would not provide a full refund for mysteriously the same window of time as the PayPal chargeback window. Basically - you're not allowed to chargeback for a full refund while your buyer protection allows it, and only afterwards do you get a full refund, predicated entirely upon the artist operating in good faith? Really? I dunno man. Even if that was in the TOS, it'd be a crimson red flag to me.
2. Telling you that you will be blacklisted for getting a refund. Even if they backpedalled on this, it is wild to me that they really put this threat on the table at all. I literally cannot read that entire interaction at all as anything buy bullying, coercing, and guilt-tripping you out of wanting a refund, and it's a bad look.

I mean that whole exchange was bonechilling. Pulling up nonexistent TOS clauses, threatening you, then after you continue to respond with a great deal of patience and reasonability, "I'm sorry it came off that way" - basically a step down from "I'm sorry you felt that way" as far as I'm concerned - and deflecting their behaviour by pointing out your "hurtful" behaviour as being partially at fault for making them feel "irked". Considering Mugs has a manager, and said manager even took over the conversation later that evening, I can't fathom why it wasn't given to Tabby to handle from the beginning if Mugs knew they were tired and irritable.

Anyway, I don't wanna make another really long comment on a beware again, ahaha. It's just so much of their behaviour was really maddening and really concerning that it's impossible to even react to it all, but just these two points especially, as business practices, are so insanely sketchy and unsettling to me I wanted to stress my discomfort at reading them.

For OP: Again, I am so sorry you had to deal with this. You should be commended on your classiness in handling this, because even when you became short, you were never rude, and your unicorn character is very cute. Just a bit if positivity to end this on. 💛

Person with (severe) anxiety that leads to actual memory blackouts chiming it FWIW (disclaimer: my experience w/ mental illness is not everyone's, what I have to say is pure anecdata):

Anxiety does not tend to make me forget about $450 transactions. Anxiety makes me much more acutely aware of $450 transactions because $450 is a lot of money and that kind of burden of wealth actually tends to stick in my anxiety-riddled brain. So I dunno, there's no way to state for sure what her mental state might be, but "my anxiety made me forget about an entire extended conversation over multiple days (timestamps on FA notes are Aug 2nd and 3rd so it's not like an hour long conversation that it's possible to black out, it's at least two days of correspondence) and that someone sent me $450 dollars" is extremely suspect.

To be honest it's the fact that the conversation about the transaction with the other person took place over at least two days that make me doubt the legitimacy of the "anxiety" thing, as generally, these blackout fugue states don't tend to last multiple days - and also generally, these blackout fugue states tend to come with mental lethargy that makes doing things as complicated as detailed correspondence and large transactions pretty difficult. At least for me, when I have these blackouts, I mostly just do stupid shit like put my wallet in the fridge crisper drawers or peel half a potato for no reason and then leave it in the sink.

Again, this is all purely just me. I'm not going to try to speak with authority on how other people's mental illness impacts them. But even if it is legitimate, I just think saying, "Yes, I did this. It was wrong of me to do, I apologise for my actions. I'll discuss refunds with you and the other person involved to rectify this situation" would suffice.

I'm so sorry you got burned like this, OP. It's such an ugly situation, and I truly hope you get your full refund.

11 hours ago, cknsausage said:

Absolutely, I agree! I would never refer to it like that, it's very unprofessional - I just wanted to point out that having a right to refuse service clause isn't a red flag (IMO).

Calling it an a**hole clause is a red flag though, lol.

Not to harp on you, because you're right, right to refuse service is NOT a red flag at all and every artist has that right, whether or not they put it in writing. I can only speak for myself, but I think others here may agree with me: Goldenwolfen's "Asshole Clause" is just NOT a "right to refuse service" clause. Not just because it has a rude name, but because the clause is "if I don't like how you treat me I will just block you and keep your money", and that has nothing to do with right to refuse service, that's just blocking someone and keeping money you haven't fully earned because you feel it's... I don't know, compensation? Or something?

Right to refuse service would be (to me at least) refunding the client, THEN blocking and blacklisting them if you so wish. Wash your hands of the business, and maybe flip what work you have on the commission as a YCH to make some money back. But saying "your money is just mine now and you get nothing because you were rude" is a hell of a red flag.

It's a problem because what could be counted as, in GW's own words, "belligerent, rude, overly demanding [...] disrespectful, threatening [...] or otherwise mean and nasty" is entirely up to the discretion of the artist, and just listing synonyms of "rude" doesn't really give much framework of what falls into "asshole" territory. If a client who has paid in full and has been waiting, I don't know, three years including the 17 months to just have the commission started, finally says enough is enough and asks GW if they can have their commission done by X date or a refund, and when GW responds that they need to "chill and be patient" or whatever, the fed up client tells them they want the art or a refund in a firmer tone or they'll make an AB, does that count as "threatening" or "overly demanding"? Are they being belligerent or nasty because GW perceives their firm demand for their work or a refund as overstepping a boundary, or them ignoring the TOS ("I can offer NO time frame on commissions. Period.")? Is a client who sends monthly requests for updates on their commission going to be seen as overly demanding, or belligerent, because GW might personally find being chased up on the reg kind of overwhelming - especially if even only half of their waiting clients are sending monthly emails, that's still what, a couple dozen emails a month?

They might not, of course! GW may be perfectly patient and understanding with their worried clients! But they might also not be, and there's really no way to tell because the wording is vague and the terms are completely beholden to how the artist feels and the stakes are a little too high to risk.

Every artist has a right to refuse service. And even if they want to call it an "Asshole Clause" I don't care myself, I can read that as kind of tongue-in-cheek. But when that clause is extremely vague as to what constitutes as bad behaviour and includes getting to keep all the money while the client gets blocked, with no way to try to negotiate a refund, that's... I dunno, to me that just feels kind of threatening, ironically.

TL;DR: Every artist certainly has a right to refuse service but I feel it's a moot point to even bring up because GW's "Asshole Clause" doesn't remotely resemble a right to refuse service clause. It just feels like a clause to coerce clients into not kicking up a fuss or risk losing their money and the commission.

12 hours ago, jarmenj said:

Yes, it's your own thoughts on the matter and you dumbed it down to "take it or leave it", but c'mon, look at that list of other people waiting for work, too.

Okay, well, I don't see how it was "dumbed down" to that when those are literally the only two options here? You can either wait for the commission or ask for a refund. Or I guess give up on seeing your money and your art altogether, but that doesn't sound like a fun result. Forgive me if there's another option I'm not seeing here. ?

And looking at that list of other people waiting for work is... exactly why I'd ask for a refund myself. You posed the hypothetical question "would other people would take a refund after four years", the answer for me would be a resounding yes because at that point even if I got the art, looking at it leave a bitter taste in my mouth. If you're absolutely set on the art, though, I'd recommend being a little less chill and a little more firm. You shouldn't have to be the one chasing the artist around, but as you said, it reads a lot like an artist taking advantage of a very laid back personality to put off giving results, maybe prioritising some of those many other waiting clients who are less chill (This isn't me putting the blame on you in any way, just agreeing that they are probably taking advantage of your attitude).

4 hours ago, jarmenj said:

Asking for a refund after this period of waiting would be admitting defeat and saying it's okay to treat clients like this, to be honest. Would you, after 4 years of waiting?

This is some backwards logic in my opinion. First of all, a commission shouldn't be a competition with a victory state and a defeat state, and if you're at a point where you're viewing it that way, I think it's time to give up the commission personally. Second, asking for your money back and deciding against doing business with someone is exactly how you tell an artist that it's not okay to treat clients like that. Allowing the artist to keep the money indefinitely in some kind of endurance battle to see who gives out first doesn't really translate to "I don't approve of how you treat me as a customer." Refusing to continue to be their customer, by asking for a refund, seems far more effective.

This isn't a fight, this isn't a game of chicken, there's no "defeat", there's just $25 you need to decide if you'd like back or not.

But whatever, that's just me onion.

19 hours ago, Mortymaxwell said:

Wow.  That went south really fast.  Adam was rude, but you were too, especially when you called him an asswipe in that one picture. A better way of handling would have been to say, 'I'm not interested, please do not continue this discussion.' and block him if he persisted.  I would feel very uncomfortable dealing with either of you.  I don't think either side looks great in this situation.

If this were a business transaction, I'd agree. But having someone message you out of nowhere when you don't publicly post your email anywhere (already creepy) asking you to hand over your character, and then when you refuse telling you to "kill yourself fa***t" does not, in my books, warrant any kind of civility from you. Would simply blocking them the first moment they got hostile been a better way of handling it? Yes, I agree actually! Does it in any way undermine the OP for calling someone a fairly tame insult after being told to go kill himself followed up by an actual slur?

Man, I dunno, to each their own I guess, and if that's your feelings that's your feelings. But I certainly wouldn't feel uncomfortable dealing with OP over that. I'd have said a lot worse than "asswipe" if someone called me by a slur and told me to kill myself (over a pony OC).

Also, just a general thing, opening with "I don't care what people think of you" is already pretty dang loaded, looked kinda like he was softballing a threat about using your reputation against you right from the get go, OP. Sucks you had to deal with this!

Uuuh. UUUUUUH.

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I'm tired of people assuming they OWN my time because they paid for a costume

They certainly own the man hours of work they paid for, surely? When you commission an artist or fursuit maker for custom work, you're paying them not just for the product but for their time and skill, which is why a fursuit costs more than just the cost of materials. But on the flip side, they literally paid you for your time, they are owed that time.

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I get no gratitude from people like [you]

From people who paid you money in the four digits and have been patiently waiting two years for any kind of proof of work done? The goddamn gall of this ingrate and their wild demands, right, lmao.

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All my customers should understand this is not an on demand business. This is art

Right, this isn't a business, that's why you charged someone ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS, because it's not about the money, you aren't running a business, this is ART.

I hope they're not lying through they're teeth that they're quitting fursuit making because literally nothing about their business model implies they're really cut out for it. I understand "I thought I could monetise doing this thing I love but the stress ended up getting too much for me", I've reached a point where I don't want to do commissions as a job and only do them occasionally for spending money to buy dumb internet t-shirts, but like. I will either crunch to finish the work and close up comms, or refund my customers in full when I find out my mental illness is getting the better of me. Because when you charge people money for art, that art becomes on demand business. ?

I'm so sorry for OP, it doesn't look like you're going to get your money back but at the very least you deserved to be treated way, way better than this. Two years? Jesus. You have the patience of a saint.