Bornes

"Potential PR fallout" was my general term for them bad-talking you.
This is probably over-explaining it and you likely have nothing to worry about, but here we go anyway:

- If the customer feels like the type to spout on about how bad of a person/maker/your business is
- If the customer has a substantial social presence or "pull"
- If the customer has relentless spirit/motivation in their vendetta

Let's say that you provide a 100% perfect service to (we'll call them) Molly. Molly then decides that they don't like you. It really doesn't matter the reason why.
Molly decides to go to social media and scream to anyone who will listen that you are a terrible person, that their business with you was horrible, etc. Maybe they even conjure up some screencaps that, out of context, make you look bad.

Nobody cares about Molly if they have, like, 3 followers. But suddenly Molly becomes a huge issue if they have 100+, a relentless agenda to post their vendetta on every social platform known to man, and seemingly limitless free time to bring up their vendetta any time your name gets mentioned anywhere.

Of course Molly has completely unsubstantiated claims, but people who don't know your history (or your history isn't perfect enough to completely override Molly's story entirely) will likely form an opinion about you and your services if they see Molly's story everywhere. You might lose customers. If Molly's story gets to them first before your good works do, then you may lose potential customers.

If you have enough business as-is and/or don't want to work with people who believe Molly, then obviously the "PR fallout" isn't a big deal for you, and you can continue on, totally ignoring Molly's screaming in the background. Plenty of people are able to do this (furry community included).

However, some people/businesses are really hurting for customers or don't have much of a history, or for some other reason have a very important relationship to their online presence being entirely positive. Those people don't want Molly's screaming, and will do whatever they can to prevent it from happening.

The thought process behind the calculation of whether your customer is going to be a Molly and whether or not that actually matters is a determination only you, as the business owner (and the person who presumably knows your business's social and financial standings best) can make.

So that is why I say, it depends on how you value the $14. Will this customer turn into a Molly? Can this customer make you lose more potential/future money if they become a Molly? Are those risks worth pushing for $14? Or is it better to cut your losses and write it off now so you don't have to deal with any of it?

Sidenote: this is why I would never be able to run a profitable business.
Good luck to you.

I mean if you want to recover the money, do you really have anything to lose by asking for their email?

If you're certain they're not going to pay on their own then I would imagine an invoice would be the last thing you could do to coerce them to pay. Otherwise there's submission of a client beware.

You could try to message them again and ask that they pay you for shipping, and ask when you might be able to expect the money. 24 hours is a short time - usually I'd say give it longer - but from prior actions (such as seemingly going out of their way to meet you in person to get fixes) they seem like they either don't care or don't have the money to give you.

It's really up to you and how much you weigh $14 vs this client's relationship with you and the potential PR fallout should the client decide to get nasty publicly.

If it were me I'd kinda just write it off at this point.

But this sounds like the type of person who might actually answer honestly if you just randomly go "Hey, what's your email? I'd like to send you something." lol

Send them an actual invoice for the shipping and see what happens.

I'm a little confused...

In the way your wrote this, it really seems like you offered to fix everything and never discussed a price. If that's true, then of course the client won't pay you... they assumed it was free...

Did the tracking say it actually arrived at your country or did it say it has left the origin country?

What I remember of international shipping is that the tracking stops once it leaves the origin country.  Depending on the countries involved, you may still receive the book. It depends on how the book was shipped. If it was airmail, it's probably gone. If it was surface mail (by ship or truck) then you might get it next month, or even later.

That aside, unless it was stipulated in some contract, the seller is responsible for the item until you receive it. You were within your rights to request a refund. If paypal denies you the refund, you're technically within your rights to pursue other avenues (the only one I can think of is a credit card dispute) but it's in bad taste and the bank will probably side with paypal's decision.

6 hours ago, SomftLynx said:

I was wondering what to do just because I know paypal has a 20-day window is all.

Paypal has a 180 day window.

If you file a dispute, the dispute has a 20 day window.

You have 180 days from the time you paid the invoice to file a dispute or claim. If at any point you file a dispute, only then does the window become 20 days. When the dispute is closed (or escalated to a claim and that claim is resolved), the transaction is completely over and there's nothing you can do, regardless of what day you opened the claim originally.

So since the head has taken such a short time to be completed, I would wait nearly the full 180 days before even thinking about a claim, to give the maker some time to fix this. Regarding your concerns, yes, many times a maker "fixing" something is tearing apart most or all of it and starting over. But usually it is easier to use the old base instead of making a new one.

180 days is approximately 6 months.

You have plenty of time unless you paid the invoice nearly 6 months ago.

13 minutes ago, SomftLynx said:

Is it kosher to start the dispute now to get that process going just in case and to withhold the funds? I'm kind of worried that they'll be unwilling/unable to repair it now that they have my funds.

NO
DO NOT DO THAT

So if I'm understanding you correctly, they already sent you the fursuit head?
Where are you at in the paypal claim window? How long has this commission been ongoing? You have 180 days from the date you paid the invoice to file a claim.

If they've said they are willing to repair it (at no cost), then they're likely willing to repair it.
If you'd rather have a refund, you need to tell the maker that.

I'm having a hard time following why you think this maker is out to scam you. It seems you've already decided that's what's happening, despite them appearing to work with you on this. From what you've given here, the maker hasn't been difficult to deal with and is attending to your concerns. Yes, the lack of quality in your head is troubling, but there are so many reasons why that can happen that has absolutely nothing to do with you (or a potential scamming).

I think you might be confused as to how paypal claims and disputes work. A dispute only gives the seller 20 days to address your concerns. 20 days for fursuit things is not enough time to get anything good quality. And this is setting aside the time needed for shipping back and forth. If you escalate your dispute to a claim, the money in their paypal account gets frozen and it effectively forces them to stop business to only focus on you. This is something you should only do as A LAST RESORT.

With art, there's a chance you'll get your piece in these circumstances. But you've ordered material, custom-made goods. There's a much higher chance that you will not receive anything back and just get refunded, forever blacklisted from that maker and possibly badmouthed to other makers.

I understand you're worried, and that is fine. If you want your fursuit head fixed, give the maker the benefit of the doubt here that they are willing and able to do it.

If you don't think the maker can actually fix it, and/or you just don't want the head anymore, give them a chance to work with you. Don't be a jerk by freezing their funds and potentially halting their business. Especially over something where (again, if I am reading this situation correctly), the maker actually seems very willing to work with you.

Now, if you are close to the 180 day window closing, that's slightly different. But from what I am reading of your posts, you are not near the end of that 180 day window, so you have plenty of time to solve this amicably without paypal getting involved.

I'm with Celistina, unless you have decided you'd prefer the refund over the head. If you open a dispute, it will be closed in 20 days. Let's assume the maker wouldn't just send you what they have and try to redo it anyway. 20 days is going to be extremely rushed.... again. There's no telling if they will be willing (or even able) to make the correction in that timeframe.

Talk tot he maker about correcting/redoing the head, and if the situation doesn't seem good, ask for a refund. The maker may be willing to work with you. Maybe you could compromise and get a partial refund and recieve the head as-is. Or they could tear it down and give you the base. Who knows.

I'm not sure how paypal would rule on somethign that's delivered but not up to quality, but if the difference is as obvious as you say it is, they'd probably rule in your favor.

At this point, it's really all about how much you trust this maker to make the situation right.

Sorry for the doublepost, I just want to reiterate that what you did / are doing is absolutely a bad move.

- You're rewarding them for being a pushy jerk
- You're validating that your broken wrist isn't a big deal and you can still draw anyway (meaning they believe you WERE lying, and you've proven it to them now, regardless of the facts)
- Despite [possibly] blacklisting this person from future commissions, word travels. Other people may hear about this and push you to move them up in the queue too. Or get bitter you won't do the same for them.
- You're ACTIVELY HURTING YOURSELF FOR THIS JERK (you don't just GET OVER your injury)
- Let's be real, someone this pushy has a 90% chance of also demanding a bunch of "corrections" or just being super difficult to deal with in general
- Regardless of what you do, they're probably going to come up with an excuse to lambast you. Weren't fast enough, lied, blacklisted you "for no reason", etc. You lose either way regarding this person's word of mouth, so why make this harder on yourself and reward this person?

Don't fall into the sunken cost fallacy. This person should absolutely NOT be rewarded. Tell them they're not getting the art and if they don't want to give you the payment info, it's a donation to you for your medical bills.

Don't roll over. You're only setting yourself up for failure with future pushy clients.

@theodor You realize you just rewarded this person for being a jerk, right?

In the future, it might be better if you make invoices for everyone and add a character name or FA/art site username to the invoice details. That way it's still not really PII and it's easier to find in the future.

I have never had an issue where I could not match payment with a name before, it was just because the timestamps were all the same.

It's going to be a recurring problem, because doing art in batches is normal.

They can't make a beware about you. At least not on this site. You did nothing wrong.

has examples.

If the adopt is 100% finished and you just need the file? 5 days max.

Just ask for a refund.

@pikpik No. Forum topics must remain anonymous. But you schould screenshot it and include it in the beware if you submit one.

2 minutes ago, pikpik said:

WTF have I gotten myself into?

A situation where you should probably post a beware on them?

If it were me, I'd probably just ask for a refund in the form of an ultimatum a la "refund within X amount of time or I post a beware on AB."

But if you still think it's remotely possible you'll get the art, I'd send a note/email along the lines of "Hey, I just wanted to know if you could give me any more specific detail about how much longer this commission may take? I realize your TOS said it could be a long time, but I was not expecting it to be over 2 years. If you could give me a time frame for how much longer, that would really help ease my mind. Alternatively, maybe we could work out a refund instead if you're no longer interested in my commission?"
or something similar.
 

Send them an ultimatum.

On 5/31/2019 at 8:49 PM, BaronVonClop said:

Personally, if I were in your shoes, I'd challenge their claim that their ISP has blanket banned Telegram, and point out that they are reading my messages so they obviously have access to the service.

I think this is pointless, honestly. The artist might be lying, but who cares? You really think they're going to be like "Oh no, you caught me, guess I have to pay attention to you now!" Unlikely. Maybe they have an issue with their service somehow (could be the ISP's problem, could be computer user error) or maybe they just don't want to deal with telegram as often and made up an excuse to let people know they won't be on tg as often. The next step in any of these situations is email.

That's why I say just pretend to believe the artist (or really don't even form an opinion on the lack of tg use) and go right to another form of communication that has been provided. Skip the drama. There's no point, it just makes the called out person move to the defensive and makes them less likely to want to work with you.

Take this with a grain of salt. If it were me I'd ask for the full refund in the ultimatum (or at least I wouldn't specify what type of refund, just "I would like a refund") and then I wouldn't fight them on it if they came back with a reasonable partial refund offer.

The totally proper way to do it would be to figure out what a sketch costs and deduct that from your full commission price though, and ask for the resulting dollar amount returned.

Use their paypal email to email them asking for an estimated time of completion for your stickers. Assuming they're not lying about telegram being blocked, they still have an email address and therefore a way to communicate with you. If they don't contact you back within 7 days from asking for an ETA, I'd just go ahead and send them an ultimatum about either the stickers or a refund by X date.

Then I don't really see the problem. You've done your due diligence as an artist and merchant. If they don't want the badge, then consider the shipping a convenience fee.

(And by "refund" I was referring to the extra price of the physical badge, not the whole thing, of course. Apologies if I implied otherwise.)

@Alkraas Make sure when you contact them you tell them that the deadline is the 21st, and that if they don't pick it up before then you will not be resending it.

Also tell them you won't issue a refund if they refuse to pick it up.
Of course, only state that if you really don't want to refund them (I personally wouldn't, butt hen again I don't sell things).

At the very least, if you have not stated a deadline, the customer may think the issue is not time-sensitive.

I am supposed to get a daily digest for the following categories:
- Artist Bewares
- Client Bewares
- Bewares (the root category)

I've watched them all anonymously. I get daily emails for the forums I watch with no issues, and the last time I tried to troubleshoot this I got the beware emails if I had them set to instantaneous.
But I'm not getting the daily ones.

Is anyone else not getting emails for bewares? Or are you getting emails?
I dunno I just want some feedback please. ;-;
 

The internet is full of misinformed people. Some of these misinformed people write guides and offer advice.

As freelance artists, they effectively run their own business, and thus have the ability to run it however they like, even if that is based on misinformation.
 

As a commissioner/consumer, you are always free to choose to do business with people who are not misinformed.