Sarahcat

Howdy! I have never had anything like this happen before and I will try to keep this brief, but I am at a complete loss for how to proceed. 

Client commissioned me in August for fursuit parts. Paid down payment + a large chunk off. It took him some time to get me a DTD but he eventually did. Because it was only parts it didn't take me very long to have his entire commission done (3 days) and it was finished on February 9th. 

I have not heard from him since January 29th. Someone reached out and showed me that he is incredibly responsive on Telegram and he runs some of the largest VR Chat furry events, so he is incredibly active online. He owes me a final payment and his address so I can ship him his commission.

I sent him a Telegram message that has been unread. No response to my emails. He does not have social media so this is the most I can do (I don't use VR Chat). Is there anything more I can do? I have limited space in my apartment so I can't start new commissions until his is mailed out, and I have never had a client take this long to answer me back. Usually people want their commission, haha.

2 minutes ago, Celestina said:

For sure.  If you don't want it anymore or don't have any use for it in the future, then a refund is totally normal.  Did they have any policies posted about what will happen if the scarf is already in production?  If it's non-refundable at that point, can it be given as a gift later on?

The store policies are two sentences long, but there's nothing about it being mid-production or anything. I highly doubt it's being  worked on right now, sadly. 😞

Hi all!

Commissioned a custom scarf from a friend back in late June. It's now mid-January and I have yet to receive it, let alone receive any sort of feedback if it has been started yet. I feel guilty asking for a refund but it has been several months, we are midway through the winter and I plan on moving to a significantly warmer environment where I won't need a scarf next winter, plus I look up to this individual. Should I ask for a refund, keep waiting, etc.? 

Oh, to add (since I can't edit my comment a second time), he said he doesn't think the Coronavirus is a "viable issue" and not an excuse to deny a refund because he claims it's not as big of an issue as people are making it out to be... which is frightening. 

Update: They sent me six paragraphs on how "safe" their state is and how to disinfect a fursuit... but then declined to have the changes made to get it to fit and ignored me saying that I'm not comfortable with having it sent back to me.

I said that they can do an online auction but they knew of the measurements when they bought it, that is not my issue (especially since they are rejecting to have changes made to have it fit) and that I will not take it back because I live with immunocompromised people. 

At this point, if they respond and continue to insist that I owe them a refund, I'll probably tell them again to put it up for auction themselves but that if they send it to me without my consent I will have it forwarded back to their address. If they try anything else, I'll write a beware. It's bad to try to force someone to take something back during a pandemic and ignore "no" three times. 

Just now, Bornes said:

If you posted all the measurements then I would say they don't get anything. You did your due diligence. If it doesn't fit, that's not your problem.

If you want to be nice I guess I'd compare the price of that fursuit with what the price would've been if it had had a static jaw, and just refund the difference. I definitely don't think they should get a full refund, especially since you'd still lose out due to shipping and the time involved with trying to resell and/or sanitize it.

If the person has been problematic from the start, you may have to accept that they will be unhappy no matter what you do.
I don't know what your selling listing was like, but perhaps you could rely on "no returns due to covid"?

All this being said, I think returning the money excluding fees is technically within your right. As a customer I would feel a little jilted by that, though. Then again... As someone who has bought a few fursuit heads... I wouldn't be demanding a refund in this scenario either. So. I don't know. 

I completely forgot about COVID, shows how a lack of conventions and going outside have made me think about that kind of stuff. Thank you! I sent an email about offering fixes but I might send a second about that because it was sent to a state that is on my state's high risk list and has been tried on by two different people, which isn't ideal for reselling purposes. I also think refunding for a static jaw/misfit could be another thing to offer but yeah, I will do anything to not issue a full refund for such a minor issue. 

10 minutes ago, Celestina said:

Just for clarity's sake:  The jaw is supposed to move, but because the fit isn't custom to the client they don't fit in it enough to get jaw movement?

Correct. When the fursuit was sold I posted measurements, the head arrived and it does not properly align with their face so it doesn't move. I've had this happen plenty of times with suits that aren't custom built, it takes less than a minute, a hot glue gun and some foam to fix, but this person has been very erm... serious with the whole purchase. It's very clear they've never seen a fursuit in-person before but have been very hard to deal with the entire transaction (talking down to me like I don't know what I'm doing, making it seem like the price is an issue because they had to get money from others, etc). I'd much rather have them make the fixes than receive a fursuit and have to resell it, especially during a pandemic, but I'm waiting for a response. 

Hi all!

I've been selling fursuits for 10 years. Once I've had to issue a refund (which turned into a beware on the client) and unfortunately I'm dealing with the same thing now, but need some advice.

This person paid for a partial over several months. The money was sent from various PayPal accounts and differing amounts. They received the fursuit yesterday and want a refund because the jaw does not move (it is not a custom fursuit, it's an artist-designed piece, and I've offered to show them how to fix it).

In the chance they do not want to fix the change, do I owe them the full amount or the amount after PayPal fees?
I refuse to even issue a refund until it is back in my hands and unscathed, no smoke damage, nothing. 

Thanks!

4 minutes ago, Bornes said:

and the potential PR fallout

If you don't mind, can you explain what you mean by this? I assume this comment would be about the potential beware, in which case how would that make me look bad? They asked for a service to be done, the service was finished and I was never paid for it, albeit the bare minimum of having the item shipped as what was originally agreed to. 

Usually I would just shrug it off (ex, if I charge someone $30 for shipping and it's $50) but they agreed to pay for the shipping in return for the job that was done. The item is now in their possession and I'm out $14 I could use as gas money to get to college. 

1 minute ago, Bornes said:

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?" lol

Do you think they would give me their email? There's a part of me that feels kinda crappy sending them an invoice, but to be fair, it's REALLY crappy to have someone do a service for you and not pay. 

1 minute ago, Bornes said:

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

From my post, 

Quote

Unfortunately I did not invoice them for the commission a year ago so my PayPal doesn't have the email stored in there. 

2 minutes ago, Bornes said:

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...

No actual price was discussed (I feel the length problem is an issue on my end and not the client's) so I offered to do it for free as long as shipping was paid for. This was agreed to by both of us, at least I am assuming such since it was mentioned twice. 

1 minute ago, Celestina said:

So was there an agreement for payment?  You mention doing repairs for free at a con, and then say you'll add length to the arms for shipping.  How much did you quote them to repair the suit itself?

The only payment was to be for the cost of shipping. With how my TOS was previously I said repairs are on a case-by-case basis but this wasn't so much of a repair as it was an initial issue with the suit, albeit it was finished nearly a year ago and has been worn to multiple events so I'm not sure how that issue wasn't caught sooner. I feel it is my responsibility to fix an issue like that for free, even though the two previous sleeve jobs I've done the clients were kind enough to tip me on top of paying for shipping (which was agreed to much like it was with this case). 

Hi all! This is going to be a bit complicated so please bare with me.

Back in January I finished a fursuit commission for a client and delivered it to them. Immediately they busted a seam in it but didn't want to pay shipping to send it back to me so they found a local tailor to do the repairs. They wear the suit to another event and pop another seam but have someone else fix it for them. Fast forward to July, we're both at a convention together when they discover the tail hole (a hole for the tail loop to go through) was sewn up. I offered to fix it for free at my booth and give it back to them within the span of an hour. So right off the bat, this seems to be an issue for them and I've never had a client in my years of business bust a seam before so this is very new to me, especially having it occur multiple times.

Recently they wore the fursuit to a convention and messaged me after the con that they wanted the sleeves lengthened. I offer to extend the sleeves as long as they pay shipping. To avoid shipping costs we agree to meet at a local furry meet (I drive 60 miles to pick up the bodysuit). 
I had other work to do so I did not get to repairs until this Sunday, two weeks after picking up the bodysuit. Immediately upon removing it from the bag I can tell it has not been washed and has an odor, again, something I've only read about but never dealt with myself. Not only is it unwashed but there's a 10" seam rip in the arm pit, as well as multiple holes in various places along the sides and front. I resew everything (including adding to the arms) with upholstery thread twice in the areas that are damaged, package it up and mail it back to the client.

Except... they don't pay me. They offered to buy me food when I picked up the bodysuit (which I declined) and offered to pay for shipping at the beginning (which was compromised when we met up) but now I'm out $14 in shipping and did work for free. I gave them a tracking number, gave them my PayPal and in the 24 hours since mailing it have yet to be paid. All they said was "thank you," they've read my message, been active on social media, just never bothered to pay me for my service. 

I've lengthened sleeves before for clients and easily worked out a compromise but never had someone bust so many seams. I've also had clients pay me every time I did this, or at least give me a tip on top of shipping, but I haven't even been paid for that. I admit it was very stupid of me to mail out the bodysuit before payment but man, it really sucks. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Unfortunately I did not invoice them for the commission a year ago so my PayPal doesn't have the email stored in there. I changed my TOS to reflect this incident and build off of it but I'm not sure what more I can do. 

A little over a month ago I commissioned an artist for some Telegram stickers. Mid-May they sent me a GIF of 3 of them as rough sketches but that has been it. Shortly after that they sent out a "mass message" claiming that their US state's internet provider blocked Telegram and they are no longer able to communicate avidly, however Telegram claims they're still online. I've sent them two messages this week asking if there's any updates and both messages have been read and ignored.

There's so many red flags at this point I'm not even sure what to do. I think it would be kind to message them about a refund first but if they don't reply that does nothing. It's been a month so I don't think that warrants a beware right now. What would you do? 

Hi all,

I commissioned an artist nearly 3 months ago for something that they said would be done that week. The past two months I've reached out to them and they told me it was being worked on with other commissions, however when I reached out to them yesterday they had no idea what I was talking about and I had to show them a screenshot of the PayPal transaction.

Should I ask them for a refund if no work has been done? This is such a huge red flag and I've never had an artist just admit to completely forgetting about my commission. 

2 hours ago, Mortymaxwell said:

If it were me I would send something like:

Hi! I ordered a commission from you of [DESCRIPTION HERE].  I noticed you have a business e-mail address and I would like to take communication to email from now instead of Twitter if that's okay? E-mail would be better for me. Could I also get a peek at the sketch, too please?  I'm really excited about this commission.  Have a great day!

They replied to me last night but it sounds like no work has been done, it was a generic "it's in progress" reply. I haven't seen a sketch or anything but they could be one of those artists who don't send a WIP (which i don't mind) as they had done for my first two commissions I got from them a while ago. Unless they reply again soon I'll poke them again in a month and copy your response- thanks! 

5 hours ago, Ysera said:

Give it a few more days before messaging them again. When you check in with them, try to make it come off like a check-in, low pressure. Based on the fact that they're subtweeting commissioners (even if it's just one), there may be an underlying issue with their queue. I'm not saying that you would be the issue, but they're likely to get defensive when messaged, regardless, so trying to stay lowkey will probably go a long way toward getting a response.

One thing to note, an artist doing things like free or personal artwork around commissions is generally a thing that's going to happen. Artists are not machines, and different kinds of artwork, especially personal interest artwork, serves as kind of a palette cleanser that helps keep creativity flowing. It's especially helpful when stuck on a piece that might be particularly hard to work with for whatever reason.

I'm an artist. I know we're not machines, I've had clients who believe such. That said, hiding from paying clients and not answering to get work out for free is not an excusable business practice. I've only messaged them twice: the initial check in and a "Hello?" the next day after they said they would have an update for me the previous evening. As I said in my post, even a "I'm working on it" is better than receiving no response at all. 

The artist replied to me last night and said that commissions are "in progress" but gave no real answer about the status of mine (let alone anyone's). I haven't seen a commission posted from them since they posted being open and gave examples. It's just been personal artwork and free art. There's no public queue/Trello so it's anyone's guess how many people paid and what their lineup is. 

Hi all!

I've commissioned hundreds of artists and never had this issue before.

Over a month ago I paid an artist for a commission. We discussed details over Twitter DMs, I paid them and that was it. Fast forward to now. The other day I asked if any progress had been made and they replied with, "I'll get back to you tonight." 
It's been a few days, I've asked again and even tweeted at them ("Hey @_____, I send you a DM!") but no reply. They have the 'seen message' button ticked off so I don't know if they even saw my replies. What baffles me is that they are very clearly online at the same time as I am and are now drawing free artwork for followers. 

They have a business email listed on their profile but I am terrified to reach out them as shortly after I had commissioned them at their last opening they made a subtweet about their commissioners, saying they're asking for too much. I know that commenting on their art posts would be rude. 

I just want to know the status of my artwork is all. I've never had an artist hide like this before, even a fabricated excuse is better than no response at all. :s