HaruTotetsu

Final notice on this. After paying the user, they sent me the files for the character I adopted and everything seems to have gone well. Hopefully they'll take the advice I gave them thanks to everyone's input.

I think at this point the staff can close this thread if they want to as there's noting else to add.

Thank you everyone.

Hi again everyone, just through I'd give you all an update. The user in question responded with a simple "pay as it will be more convenient for you" which isn't too bad as I've sent it with buyers protection, plus a bit of extra money to cover the fees. I also relied to them telling them what I've done and advised that they don't ask for friends and family in future, and attempted to tell them the dangers of doing that. So I'm optimistic, but still concerned. I don't think English is their first language so they might struggle to understand, what I've said.

Concerning contacting previous buyers, one said they didn't even get suggested to send through friends and family, the other said they just send it with the buyers protection and covered the cost of the fee's themselves. So again, I'm hopeful but still a little suspect. I'll see how things go.

Thanks again for the advice. it really helped.

Hey guys thanks for the advice (both on here and the comments I've seen on the post of this by AB on Twitter).

I've since responded to the adopt seller in question, and said
"Hi, sorry but I'm not willing to send the money via Friends and Family, as that not only robs me of any protection provided by PayPal it's also a tactic used by scammers. Besides that it's also against the Terms of Service of PayPal as it's deemed an attempt to dodge paying the fees they charge, which could result in both of us having our PayPal accounts closed and all the money contained within it would be taken by PayPal without any way to recover it, as we both agreed the moment we made a PayPal account.

If you demand I send it through Friends and Family then I'll have to withdraw my offer."

The person in question's gallery isn't very large and only has adopts that look like they were all made with bases, makes me concerned, so I'm going to contact anyone else that looks like they've bought one and see how things went for them.

Again, thanks for the advice.

Hi everyone,

Recently I went to purchase an adopt from someone, but when they sent me a note today about buying it they wanted me to send the money through the Friends and Family option.

To be clear I haven't sent any money yet, I'm just a tad worried about them possibly being a scammer.

I guess what I want to know is, what should I say back to them?

After reading the recent post on the artist Kircai, and I noticed that it was marked as resolved but it's very clear from the comments by both effected parties that neither truly feels the matter is "resolved". I'd argue that because of this it being marked as "resolved" may be inaccurate. In their case I'd argue that they've instead reached a stalemate where neither side is actually either able or maybe not even willing, to give any ground and thus the issue can't actually be resolved.

But this creates another issue where the Beware will never progress further as neither party is likely to ever actually resolve the issue. So I'd like to propose a new type of tag that is similar in it's on-site effects to the "Resolved" tag, i.e. disabling comments on said beware post, but makes it clear that the issue was never resolved, thus preventing Artist Beware form getting flooded with people that could potentially keep picking sides but also keeping people informed that the issue still persists.

Now in the case of Kircai's beware I may in fact be wrong and the parties might feel the matter is resolved and one or both of them have decided to just blindly dislike each other for others reasons. But I still believe the issue that posts aren't always going to be resolved and are instead going to reach a stalemate of sorts, and that it would eventually reach a point where AB staff would be forced to disable comments. By creating a new tag that deems things un-resolvable  for the foreseeable future they would more accurately reflect the state of the beware post itself. This would also allow Commissioners and Artists using Artists Beware as a sort of aid in deciding weather to trust an Artist or Commissioner that has a beware about them, as some would blindly trust someone who has a beware marked as resolved even though on closer examination they wouldn't trust them because the issue in some ways isn't resolved.

On 1/16/2019 at 10:48 AM, Mortymaxwell said:

I was looking at peoples' commission info and saw several with wording like: ''Refunds may be available if you have a 'legitimate reason' for requesting one."  "I'd rather not do refunds unless you can show it's absolutely necessary."

1. Would you commission an artist with this in their terms of service? 

2. Do you think it's appropriate for an artist to press for personal details when someone requests a refund? 

1. No I wouldn't.

2. No it's not.

On 1/14/2019 at 12:33 PM, Kei said:

A good portion of my business is selling adoptables that are made on bases that I've purchased.  [All of the ones I use for this are allowed to be used for adopts/sales/profits.]  Sometimes I edit the base in a small way [I work with a mouse, not a tablet, so I'm limited to simple changes like piercings, jewelry, stockings, etc.], but most times I leave the base as-is and just color it.

I've never really considered the pricing of these adoptables in-depth.  Almost all of my adoptables are Pay What You Want/PWYW where I set a minimum price that I'll accept.  Usually I just slap on whatever price comes to mind that seems fair; there's no rhyme or reason to it.  Generally I price mine between $3USD and $18USD minimums.

But anyways.

How do you guys price adopts?  How much [if at all] do your prices differ between on- and off-base designs?  Do you have any system/rules as to what you set prices as?  Any advice about how I'm doing things?

I'm not an artist so I couldn't say how others price their's. be that as it may here's my 2 cents.

The fact you have paid for the base used to make the adopts should affect the price. If you got to use a base that's free to use then it shouldn't be part of the price.

My only question is; do you have to pay to use the bases annually or is it a single flat fee? If it's a flat fee then you'll eventually get you money back with the adopts as time goes by, but if you have to pay it annually then it;s best to only make enough adopts to get back your money for the first year of that annual payment, that way once you've got the money back you can pay to use them for another year.

The only other thing I'll say is I think an adopt made using a base should always be cheaper than an adopt created from scratch. I think as long as your prices reflect this, you should be fine in general.

46 minutes ago, Xaila said:

That just falls under advice for the most part, aside from ToS which is such a big thing in of itself it needs it's own block.

But sometimes legal advice isn't needed as much as morality advice.

But we can discuss it amongst the staff. 

And unless the lawyers are doing these articles pro-bono; that's a cost a volunteer run website can't hack.

I'm sure it's possible some lawyers would be willing to do so voluntarily. There are many lawyers posting their advice online without expectation of financial compensation. I'd suggest that if time ever permits and the staff decide it's worth pursuing that they take some time to interact with some of these people, to see if they'd be willing to write an article or two.

Personally, I'm all for it.

I think that Artist Beware could actual hire a lawyer to write a few articles to help give artists and commissioners better information about what stance they are in legally, hopefully improving the online art communities to have a greater understanding of the laws that can affect them. Who knows maybe AB will one day be able to get a few fully qualified lawyers on staff to give people more specific helpful advice.

Making a "Legal issues" subcategory sounds like a good place to start.