armaina

The artist has attempted to make a claim on their twitter that the image is finished, but as you can clearly see, it's the same exact image that was posted in the record. In addition to this, the artist has decided to make these claims on their twitter, instead of contesting it here, because they know they did not actually finish the image.

And as a reminder since the post is long, this is what the render level was supposed to be:

It is very clear that despite the artists claims on their twitter, they did not complete the image, at all.

Okay First of all, you said you were okay with waiting, the artists said, from the very beginning, it would be a long wait. You've been kept informed when there was update, the artist has not ghosted you, and it's a long wait, just like the artist said it would be. So I don't know why you're surprised by the long wait since you were literally warned about it. The trello is kept up to date and you can VERY CLEARLY see there are other clients before you, so you're further back. There were at least 4 orders ahead of you and you would have seen their own progress at the time of commission.

Second of all, you complain about the spots on the reference (which you did not provide to this post, which should have been provided if you're going to complain about character accuracy in the post) but you did not supply the post with the reference that you supplied the artist. I had to get it from the Artist's Trello in order to apply it to this post. From your own reference, you can see exactly why the artist gave the spots they did, because that's how they are on your ref sheet. It also appears you've changed the character for the daki, TWICE??? since getting it? I can understand there's been a long wait and things change. But if you change the reference and character on the artist, you should know very well that you are pushing back the completion date for the Daki of your own accord.

And I completely agree with her in regard to the cheek, for that matter.

10 minutes ago, Brokenvocaloid said:

and I will firstly say that I do deserve these bewares and currently Im working hard to fix all my past mistakes.

Ive currently opened up a discord that ive urged people to go to since ive been posting constant updates on. Ive been posting almost everyday to almost every hour in it with finished works and making sure I pay out refunds for those that ask it. I know I messed up. I KNOW I messed up and im working to fix it all. Yes UltimateWaifu is my account and its all meant for me to restart , reorganize and work to fix and keep things more under control than I was handling them before. It is not an account to hide on as I see some people may think whats going on.

For those with the question on Sebastian. He is my boyfriend that lives with me, and usually he does linework/sketches for me. We both have talked to the FA Staff and both had to give IDs to prove we are different people. Everything on his side is done by him meaning journals, talking in notes. He will tell me about them and ask me what to say and I would help, but all typing and sending and such, is all him.

I'm not asking people to forgive me, Im not asking for a hand out, but im asking for time to prove that Im working to fix everything

communication was my hugest flaw and im working on fixing all that

taking on WAY too much was also a huge flaw I did but im working on limiting and balancing my work.

I'm glad to see you are admitting the issue that's going on and being forward with the issue. But this issue has occurred not only because of too much work, it's because you're charging abysmally low for the work you do. Completion of tasks aside, you are worth far more than the rate you're charging for, and you're doing far too much work for far too little. You would not be in the hole you're in now had you raised your prices, as you would have been able to take less commissions overall, providing you with more time to get work done for your clients and less work to take on, which means a smaller queue and less need for taking 'emergency commissions'. Seriously, raise your prices.

Something you may also need to consider: Taking out a loan to refund your queue, wiping the slate clean, then raising your commissions by 3X at least and paying off the loan little by little. It can seem intimidating to do, but you may find relief in knowing your slate is clean and starting over with prices much more reflective of the time and effort you spend on it. Paypal offers loans where it takes a portion of your payments toward the loan itself so you don't even have to work with a bank.

Also, if your boyfriend is doing so much of the work, it's very inappropriate to not list him in the credit of your work or to keep that information from your clients. Also he should be paid for his work, you may be romantically involved but you do not know what the future will bring and it's appropriate to pay him for that. (granted if you do the suggestion with the loan you may not need his help, anymore).

While they haven't been active on twitter, I noticed they've been Quite active on twitch. They stream regularly and take donations during stream so it's really looking to me like they're actively avoiding Twitter 😕

On 12/8/2020 at 7:39 AM, bunartist said:

Sorry, but I think youre more in the wrong here. this artist is a 15 year old, for starters- which of course doesnt exempt them from receiving a beware, but i am naturally more hesitant of judgement. 

i do not see how this artist ghosted you, they took awhile to reply- yes, but in these screenshots it shows that you were contacted semi regularly atleast, it doesnt help that you left them with a completed sketch concept for a month for you to turn to them and say you dont want it anymore and you want a refund, and they can just resell it themselves, that is very unfair on the artist especially since theyd already done custom work for you.

i dont take issue with you filing a dispute, especially because of the wait, but i think youre projecting your frustrations of being scammed onto this 15 year old child.

looking through their instagram, their art appears to be the same quality as the custom and i personally feel like youre being overcritical because youre upset with this kid.

i think its honestly really kind that they offered to create you more art for free, they dont owe you that, if its something you want there id be grateful.

While I agree that I think the OP is off-base about the quality as the quality looks about the same to me, I disagree with your other points. First, I'm going to point out to you that on their FA page the artist claims they're 19, that means they are lying about their age and that alone is misleading and deceptive to potential clients and all the more reason why no one should do business with this person. (for the next 3 years)

Minors cannot be legally upheld to any contract (which, might I remind, all commissions are a type of contract) they make without a guardian to sign it with them. That means that they can just decide to not participate in a contract and they cannot be legally be held accountable. In this case they could drop literally all their commissions and decide to just not do them, and there'd be no recourse for the clients because minors cannot be held to a contract. 3 years down the line? sure. That way they can actually be held legally accountable for the contracts they enter. But until that point? Absolutely not.

Don't Do Business With Minors

Mod Note: We do not allow the posting of personal information such as full legal names, in the event that the name is not publicly available.

that being said, in doing the research for this I checked out if there was an archive or cached version of his Furaffinity page, and there was
http://web.archive.org/web/20201016080950/https://www.furaffinity.net/user/starblazer/

On his furaffinity profile, he already lists himself as homeless, and this was capped on October 16th. I don't have the exact date of this change but this shows that his 'homeless' status was a whole month before this all started. He doesn't bring up any of this only until after the charge backs went though. None of the artists were informed of this potentially significant change at or around the date of October 16th at any point.

His steam account logs him as having over 150 hours played in destiny in the last 2 weeks and he was logged into destiny 2, through steam at the time I and the other mods were reviewing the account. He had also logged into his SecondLife account (account name KlalWuf) only a few hours before that.

While I'm very much aware that a person can be homeless by means of couch surfing at a friend's place, thus enabling the ability to use a laptop and be able to game or use secondlife, the strange and inconsistent information for a 20 YO claiming a paypal account is his mother's, it makes all that activity incredibly suspect.

The thing about this to me is I feel it could have been avoided had the artist been up-front about the wait time. They say both in note and on their site that turn around is 2-4 weeks, but their Trello shows that it's more like 8-10 weeks. They seem to be getting stuff done for the most part but you can't tell your clients 2-4 weeks, communicate absolutely nothing to them in that time, and then expect them to not be upset. There's no apology, nothing that conveys any sense of 'yeah I dropped the ball'. This is something that could get worse if the artist doesn't start being honest with their clients and their own time. This is only compounded by the fact that they have inconsistent turn-arounds, some being completed in the same day vs the 10 week wait others have had. I don't blame the OP for bailing.

They already have quite a number of works in progress, I worry about this getting worse if they continue to take on more work without evaluating their time, how they manage it (as well as charging more). Here's hoping it doesn't get worse.

1 hour ago, Sarahcat said:

Hi there!

My auction listings state in the website's refund policy "no refunds," I already have a warning in all caps at the beginning of the descriptions of my auctions about this sort of thing. 

I have been selling fursuits for 10 years. This is the first time I have had someone attempt something like this on a pre-made item (6 years ago on a previous beware, a commission). It's not that frequent. People typically know better. It is an unfortunate learning experience, but it is impossible to outright avoid people with shady intentions. 

As per my TOS I only conduct business for commissions over email, although this is not a commission the client initially contacted me through Telegram about buying the suit but refused to do business over email claiming Telegram (as you can tell that was a lie). There really is not much I can do about it in this situation, it is in the past, and I have already started drilling this into current client's heads since some people claim they don't receive emails or prefer Telegram or Twitter. 

This listing does not link to any TOS, one has to find it on your site directly and voluntarily. And in searching your site, your TOS

https://www.sarahcatfursuits.com/terms-of-service

Lists nothing of Pre-Mades and what your procedure is from incorrect fits. This means there is no clear information for any new client to find out these terms before purchasing it. You need to update your website to include your terms for Pre-Made purchases and their procedure, as well as make your client aware of the terms before purchase especially. That being said, No Exception No Refund clauses do not fly in small claims, so you'll want to keep that in mind when you write your terms.

But lesson learned, if a client refuses to do business over Email, don't do business with them, full stop. It's not worth it.

The thing that I don't understand is, why does Raven not just change the name of the species completely. If she really wants to wash her hands of Adiago, wouldn't it be best to Not keep the name of the species wrapped up in your character at all? Raven should have been up-front with this all from the beginning so that the artist could have made an informed choice.

That all being said, the edit itself isn't a bad thing, the client received PSDs, permitting her to change the text, so for all intents and purposes, the image itself was not edited, such as the art itself. I can understand's Raven's frustration but my sympathy goes out the window once she responded with a charge back instead of communicating with the artist at all.

In doing research on this we found that nearly all of the user's accounts were just deleted. Instagram, Etsy, Weebly, only the facebook account remains with an initial listing of 700$ for the partial. This is exactly the kind of behavior I fear may result in them popping up again under a different name in an attempt to sell the same suit, again. May have to keep an eye out if that suit shows up in other services/advertisements 😕

In case it has been missed all the client provided was: Feline/Bat, Neon Pink, Neon Green, Black, White, Holographic Nose, Tongue, and a moodboard, that is it. Not a single direction was given for the markings, the placement of the colors, the hue/value of the colors, body type and shape, or anything else. To say that the Client 'designed' the character is absurd, there's not enough here that the client explicitly directed that makes it unique to them alone. The design came wholly from the artist themselves and the Client has absolutely no claim to it, whatsoever.

Agreeing with Cel. You've been nothing but polite, considerate, and patient through-out all of this, and have had nothing to show for it. You are not responsible for the other customers, you're also not asking for anything unreasonable.

And calling you 'thankless', exactly what were you supposed to be thankful for? No updates? Being Insulted? Never refunded, no product delivered, money just absorbed and treated as though you should somehow be grateful for that outcome. Both the artist and the manager need to take a step back and evaluate how they conduct business at all.

I do think it's out of line that the artist just.. gave you a lineart background within 3 days with no lead-up sketch that really made it feel like the artist just happened to have a pre-made background they wanted to use on your commission. But that's entirely speculation on my part.

That aside one thing I've noticed is that you never explicitly state you have a problem or want something changed. Something you really need to do is be explicit in the things you want, you can't just assume the person you're speaking too should have known what you meant, that's not how communication works. There's a lot of ways the artist dropped the ball on this, but I think it would have had a better outcome had you explicitly said
"I want the image to be the close up shot you have there, I do not want the rest of the foreground in this art piece at all"
or
"The characters should be the focus, please give them the individual shading and highlights they should have, I don't want the rest of the image darkened, that doesn't solve the problem"

Or literally anything to that effect at all. And just clarify on my own end, I don't think any of the result was your fault, this was really weird from the get-go, and it's obvious here that the artist wasn't really listening to any of your concerns or really tried to work with you, but when you're clear and direct in the things you want, it leave little room for excuse on the artist's part.

2 minutes ago, Snyphlosion said:

Should check with a mod to see if I can get the "where" and title to be updated with this new info?

Gotcha covered 😄

1 minute ago, Bornes said:

As for the rest of it... I mean, what is the artist supposed to say? Maybe they understand enough english to get that OP is upset but they don't have the ability to correct word a defense. I personally found OP's replies extremely confusing at first (the whole rule 63/34/whatever made it much worse) and then afterward when they clarified, there's really nothing else to say. OP says don't use the image and I'm not happy. You pretty much either go into an argument defending your actions or just say "okay" at that point.

you apologize and assure the client the m/m version won't be posted instead of saying 'good luck'

And all that is wholly ignoring the fact that the artist should have asked about other versions before even creating it in the first place. English as a second language doesn't suddenly make it impossible for you to tell that the ref sheet you were provided doesn't have a dick.

21 hours ago, LadyKurai said:

Wouldn't you also find uploads with the "attachment" searching with the correct one?

SauceNao requires direct upload of the image in order to search for it. Tineye and Google Images may let you link a URL but the URL has to exist somewhere in the first place, and can't be private, for you to even link it, otherwise, you have to upload an image for it to search. (and even if that VK url worked, the OP would still need that URL in order to use it. )

Everyone so far has seemed to miss that the OP asks for the URL to the M/M version as the very last thing, and the Artist ignored literally everything else stated only saying 'I made a choice'. Even accounting for English as a Second Language, there's not even any sort of attempt to clarify or reconcile on the artist's part, and it's clear enough that the artist understands English well enough to say that. None of the mods here feel the OP is wrong in this regard, to be upset about an m/m piece being made when it wasn't even asked about in the design process and the advertisement itself doesn't state that there will be two versions no matter what.

It wasn't advertised and the artist did nothing to reconcile when it was brought up, that's worthy of exercising caution for any like commissions with this artist, that you may need to clarify anything you don't want, before the work starts. Otherwise you could get something you don't and the artist will do nothing about it.

Since others seem to be confused as to why someone would want the original of the version you don't want, you use the original image so that you can use image searches to keep track of uploads and move to get those removed on the grounds they're a misrepresentation of the character. It's not fullproof of course, but it provides at least SOME way of doing something about it.

That being said, a character owner still has a right to the presentation of their character and the right to request a removal if the representation could be misleading, harmful or defame the person involved. The demands are well within the OP's right to do and I do not think they're unreasonable. The artist should have asked if an M/M version was wanted in the first place. It does not matter if the other client wanted one, both parties must consent to it.

She posted the image to her FA account, after she filed the charge-back, and has the audacity to claim that she paid for it.

This is no longer a caution, this is now a beware.

23 hours ago, cknsausage said:

Where did you find this maker? I can't find anything about them online except one empty FA profile (which says they are 17??)

I hope you get your money and DTD back - but the price, the lack of previous customers who can vouch for the maker's previous suits and lack of an online presence or any kind of portfolio is a GIANT red flag. I also think it's quite suspicious that they claimed to have made two other suits (or 1.5, if you consider the personal one was only partially finished) and couldn't produce proof of that? I've never heard of a 'private' fursuit commission - I suppose they might exist but it's shady as that the only previous commission they'd done was a 'private' one 😕 

the person in question used the name spacemuttt on most services
http://web.archive.org/web/20181124015225/https://www.furaffinity.net/user/spacemuttt/
Their account is deactivated so all that's left is the archive from 2018, you can see they at one point advertised fursuits on FA

They also had a Deviantart, Twitter, Weasyl, Ink Bunny, and Instagram under the same name, some of those accounts no longer exist. But Spacemuttt was the name they used for accounts, not space meme. And most of those accounts appear abandoned.