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Who: Holomouse Where: https://x.com/MouseHolo When: Apr 1st, 2021 & April 9th 2021 What: 2 digital art commissions This has dragged on for almost 3 years due to a combination of life happenings, and the fact that I was on my way out of things I had been involved with for almost a decade, and it sat on the back of my mind for a long time because of that. No WIPS were ever shown to me after multiple claims that they would be done. Initially this was for a 2 character NSFW MLP commission, but subsequent offers were made that I accepted (regretfully). Much of the details of things are blacked out to maintain my privacy as best I can. My first commission inquiry was in March 2021, and I initially made contact on Discord to ask if they could provide with quotes so I could get the money to pay them with later: After that exchange, they provided a quote of $135 for a two fullbody character piece, and I told them that I would get back to them after my next paycheck: On April 1st 2021, I paid for the first commission: Proof of payment: On April 5th, Holomouse messaged me on Discord asking me for $20 and said they would pay me back in a few days. They cited personal matters stressing them out and needing some help. This is unrelated to the art I paid for, but I did end up giving them $20 as a gesture of kindness. This also started the trend of Holomouse coming to me in private begging for handouts and money, and this happened multiple times: On April 9th 2021, Holomouse messaged me on Discord and begged for money, but this came with the offer of another 2 character art piece at a discounted rate of $110. I accepted this offer and sent the payment to them on CashApp. Told them I would give them the commission prompt after they completed the first commission: Proof of 2nd payment: On April 16th, 2021, the first commission had no progress, but I gave them the prompt for the second commission: April 20th, 2021, Holomouse begged me for another $50, and I declined. On April 28th, 2021, I poked Holomouse on Discord to try and see if any progress was made on the commissions. They sent back with an excuse: May 7th 2021, Holomouse came to me and said that they would be starting work on my commissions soon, but also begged for $25 at the same time: The next day on May 8th, they sent me a big message with a screenshot of a note that mentioned paying me back and other personal matters that they needed to tend to: Another 20 days pass, and there is no progress to show. Holomouse messages me and begs for money again, and shares an image of their bank account being in the negative as an attempt to manipulate me into sending them money. I declined: Another week passes, and Holomouse comes to me wanting to reconfirm the details of the commissions. I told them to scrap the details of the 1st commission and that I would give them a new prompt. Also told them to take the prompt of the 2nd commission and work on that one first. I would give them details for the 2nd after the first one was completed: On June 17th 2021, I poked them and gave them details of the prompt for the commission idea that was scrapped. It took them another 2 weeks to respond to this message: Now we jump to December 27th 2021. I poke them on Discord for an update and did not get a reply for another week. Things started to get very chaotic after this point, so my attempts at keeping up with this matter become much more delayed going forward: On February 11th, 2022 I messaged them and asked when they would be able to start working on the commissions. I got a response, but it was another fake out: Another 3 months passed, and on May 26th 2022 I poked them to try and get an update. This went nowhere: We get to September 21st 2022 and I poked them yet again. Took them 3 days to respond, and also went nowhere: More time passes and this sits for months with no updates. On February 12th 2023, Holomouse sends to me and says that they will be starting soon, and also wanted me to reconfirm what I had wanted. Blacked out section was a Discord screenshot of previous exchanges between the two of us: I changed the prompts for the art I wanted from Holo, and gave them references so they could start working. The references and details of these prompts are blacked out to maintain my privacy: Several months pass after this, and after confronting them on twitter I was mad because they had taken commissions and completed them several times in the times that I was waiting for the art that I paid them to do. They had deleted Twitter posts of their offerings, and also posts of them begging for money to the public. This is a screenshot of me responding to a deleted post of them offering new commissions to their followers. Note the username that it is a reply to: I had already contacted their other customers and clients that Holo had completed work for, and also clients that had waited for months for Holo to do art for them. There were several others affected, but this post is about my experience with Holomouse and not theirs. Needless to say, it was a big problem. After confronting on Twitter, this moved to Discord in private. They try to tell me that they will be starting to work on the art soon, and I was having none of that. This all went down on September 14th 2023. At the same time, I was trying to be merciful and set up a way for them to work with me and make it easier on themselves. They could pay me back partially with some art, pay fully in art, or pay me back fully. In their replies they mention that they owed back $2000 to other customers... We set up a payment plan to pay me back $300, and Holo also took an extra step and said they would fulfill the art while paying back the money they owed me: The next day, I gave them a prompt for art they said they would do as repayment: 3 days later they message and ask for a few clarifying details, and I provide those: September 23rd 2023, I message them asking if they will be sending the first $50 as a part of the payment plan, and I received an excuse: I message again after another jump in time, and get a delayed response: On November 16th 2023, I finally get the first $50 back: After this, I continue to get ghosted, and so I gave them an ultimatum after discovering from one of their other customers that they refunded them $95. The whole time I was coordinating with other clients of theirs to try and pressure them at the same time as one another, but this did not work out. Holomouse had already started to pay me back, and then decided to tell me that they are prioritizing other clients money before mine. I informed them that I would be making a beware post to this site, and they acknowledged this. As of now, they still owe me back $250, and they have scrubbed their Twitter account of recent examples of begging and some posts of commission offers. There are screenshots of many of these posts, but they have a fuzzy time format so they do not hold much merit. Holomouse has started to become active again on Twitter and has also started to stream on Twitch. I still want my money back and it will hopefully make its way back to me eventually. Holomouse is still likely going to continue to beg for money on Twitter, Twitch, and in private, but I hope this makes it clear how irresponsible and manipulative they are.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/1017903.html WHO: SnowPaw2927 , humansfurry12345 WHERE: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/snowpaw2927/ https://my.secondlife.com/humansfurry12345 WHAT: Tracing digital artwork and making profit out of it. WHEN: July 9th 2018 — September 30th 2018 EXPLAIN: I recently found out that an FA user named SnowPaw2927 has blatantly traced several of my artworks and made profit out of it! This person has tried to commission me in the past only to ghost on me. I then later this year find out that they are tracing several of my artworks without my permission and selling it as original commissions. This person also repeatedly advertises that they take commissions within the virtual game "Second Life" and accepts Lindens (ingame currency), which can be converted into real money. Their gallery consist of mostly traced artworks of mine and other artists. Most of their profile descriptions and journals are also copy/pasted of others. They eventually took down my traced artworks (after some protest) from their gallery. Initially I wasn't going to bother making an artist-beware, not until I found out that they were also making profit with this unethical behaviour and I want to prevent future scams or other artists getting ripped off. They've claimed to be a big fan of mine. But please, there is so many other ways to support an artist you look up to! Tracing their work and scamming people into commissioning that, is far from the right path to grow as an artist! PROOF: IMGUR album with all screencap proof provided (NSFW art!): https://imgur.com/a/QwE4f4z Community Tags: artist-snowpaw2927, artist-humansfurry12345, beware !mod post

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/1016815.html (UPDATED 01 December 2018) WHO: FarisBatwan (FBsuits) - http://www.furaffinity.net/user/farisbatwan & https://twitter.com/fbsuits WHERE: Initial contact via gmail, conversation/discussion also via Twitter DM's & Discord. WHAT: Digitigrade Fullsuit - Head, Hands, Tail, Bodysuit, Outdoor Footpaws and Indoor Sockpaws WHEN: Initial contact on August 22nd, 2017. Paid in full on Septeber 02, 2017. Initial suspicion that things were not progressing as planned began in June 2018, especially moving into July 2018. EXPLAIN: I commissioned Faris after seeing her gallery on FA and seeing a couple suiters at Megaplex 2017 wearing her suits. Initial contact was good, and she was pretty responsive to messages. I was assured that Megaplex 2018 was more than enough time to complete this order, and told that paying in full sooner would assure me an even higher place in the queue. (1) After I paid communication began to go south. There were days, even weeks in between responses in gmail. Faris claimed several times that messages were not arriving from me, or that she had sent something I had not received. I thought this odd, but we agreed to move off-site for communication to Twitter DMs, and shortly thereafter to Discord. Communication problems continued throughout the beginning of 2018, although I always (eventually) received a response after prodding her several times. I was given a "100% guaranteed" completion of the suit by July of 2018. After this passed she told me she been handling her Anthrocon rush, but I would definitely have a fullsuit in time for Megaplex. On June 04 I was promised WIPs "this week" which never materialized until July 22nd, after a LOT of prodding, multiple failed promises of delivery on various dates and times, and eventually having to get pretty harsh with her and threatening chargebacks/legal action. As this date drew nearer with no updates - despite me asking several times - things definitely started to seem amiss. The bodysuit turned into a maybe, but the partial was "100% guaranteed." I did receive photos of a completed head, hands, and tail, and a tracking number only hours before she had to get it shipped out. I paid a premium for Priority Express shipping, but had no updates on tracking past "Pre-Shipment" until I left for the convention on August 02, 2018. (2 - collage of missed deadlines) After I got back from the con I dove into this with Faris, trying to figure out what happened. After an excessive amount of prodding I finally got a screenshot proving she had actually purchased a label - for a Priority package only, that wasn't destined to arrive at my location until August 02. I called her out on it and she had an extremely implausible excuse - I decided it was best to move on from that since I was still out over $2000 at this point with nothing to show for it, the shipping costs only being a fraction of it. (4, 5) During August and September I brought up numerous complaints from other customers to her. They were always "lying" or "not telling the whole story," or "out to ruin her," but she was never at fault for any of it, according to her. On the 31st things came to a head and I had a discussion with her about the poor communication, repeated failures to deliver WIPs as promised, and other issues. I gave her a 30-day ultimatum - if I had nothing in hand by September 30th, I would be moving on to expecting a refund - voluntary or otherwise. I made it very clear then, and at several other points throughout September, that chargebacks and small claims court were absolutely on the table. In the meantime I attempted to treat the unshipped package as a USPS issue, although I'd never heard of the USPS losing a Priority package without so much as an acceptance scan - it seemed extremely implausible. I did almost all of the legwork to initiate claims/seaches with the USPS, including talking to my local office on September 4th. My postmaster wanted to talk to Faris. Faris told me on September 6th that she had called in and given him all the info he requested. I called back on the 7th to verify as I was at a point where I was no longer able to take Faris' word for granted. My postmaster remembered specific details of my conversation with him on the 4th, but had no memory of talking to anybody about the case on the 6th, just a day before. After confronting Faris about this I was basically just given the same story: she had really called. My postmaster said they get at most 5-6 calls a day and that he definitely would have remembered a call about that. (3) I had no choice but to just move on from this point. Dealing with the original package and the constant delays and excuses over the bodysuit was taking a lot of energy from me. On the 22nd of September she was still claiming "100% guarantee" of delivery by month's end. I was also told on this day that the only thing remaining was to sew the front and back together, and sew in the padding. On the 25th she told me she may have to work out Friday shipping with her. I let her know I was not happy about this but as long as I had a tracking number that showed movement before the 30th (an acceptance scan or more) I would consider that acceptable. On the 30th was my last message from her - she contacted me to let me know the back had to be sewn together, and then the front and back had to be sewn together. Somehow in the span of eight days /backwards/ progress had been made, according to her. I was told proof would be sent later that day and that she would be willing to work with me on a refund. I told her that a refund would be best. I contacted her again Monday morning, Monday afternoon, and Tuesday morning to let her know I was expecting her to work with me on setting up a refund, and that Tuesday afternoon was her last chance to get in touch with me. While I normally would allow more time than this for a response, her past track record with communication and near countless other clients waiting on suits, partials, and premades from her, I decided it was best to move on to legal options. At the current time I have a claim in progress with PayPal for a payment made for shipping & indoor sockpaws, and a chargeback with Discover for 50% of the commission price (she has a chance to attempt to refute both of these, currently). The other 50% was unfortunately paid via my PayPal balance which I have no easy recourse to outside of small claims court. Currently I have started that process and am awaiting small claims papers to be mailed to me. I will update this posting as more happens. I just felt it prudent to warn people that Faris is not a trustworthy person to work with. I don't believe she does anything maliciously - she's not trying to run a scam, but she is disorganized and doesn't have the integrity to tell her clients the truth when she gets behind or misses a deadline. For the most part she was polite and pleasant to talk to - but ultimately, I paid a four-digit sum of money for a product that never arrived, with suspiciously similar circumstances to multiple other clients of hers. I would feel remiss if I did not do my part to warn others in the community to avoid making the mistake I did. ~ 06 October 2018: I submitted a claim to the USPS earlier in September regarding the supposedly lost package. An initial payout was approved of $60.15. I thought that an odd number, so I appealed (Faris insisted she had purchased insurance for it, but never procured it when asked). Today I got a letter back with the results of the appeal — it was again denied, and as requested, they explained the $60.15 payout. No additional insurance was purchased to cover the value of the item at time of mailing. The baked-in insurance is $50 plus the amount of postage — meaning she spent $10.15 on the label for this, after I had sent her $107.30 for Priority Express. (6, 7) Faris made no mention of this when I confronted her with this evidence (I already knew she had spent less to do Priority vs Priority Express, via evidence she sent me, I just didn't know the actual amount). She is still insisting she purchased insurance, however, she says she doesn't have a receipt or any other evidence to prove it. She did say she was going to start making regular repayments later this month. At the current time she still owes me $839.85, pending the PayPal chargeback cases resolving in my favor. I am not holding her responsible for the $60.15 the USPS paid me. ~ 18 October 2018: Since posting this I've gotten in contact with multiple other people dealing with undelivered fursuits from Faris, conflicting stories and accounts, etc. I have evidence that Faris submitted, as approval images, the exact same fursuit parts for both hands and feet for both me and another client — and in the case of the hands, she even sent us both the EXACT same image, down to the pixel. See images 8 & 9. PROOF: https://imgur.com/a/uu8eRgf (1) https://imgur.com/BKYiNx9 (2) https://imgur.com/dqEMLK9 (3) https://imgur.com/xp2wZSl (4) https://imgur.com/TwD8QyU (5) https://imgur.com/6ToDOrQ (6) https://imgur.com/j1W8bPy (7) https://imgur.com/8CHFShz (8) https://imgur.com/1yzI5vc (9) https://imgur.com/RAxem7q ~ 01 November 2018: Faris has sent a small repayment toward the total amount she owes me. She says she is planning to make monthly payments until the debt is paid off. 01 December 2018: Next refund payment has been made.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/1013574.html WHO: ToBeABird/Bird/Pheonix/Otternonsense/PB_Willow/@StrawberryJemma on twitter. Old known aliases include CynicalSergal on FA WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/tobeabird where I initially contacted them and bought the commission. WHAT: 2 Sided Digital (Open Species) Bat Dragon Reference $40 WHEN: 5/6/16 May 6th 2016 to present day (ongoing) EXPLAIN: I specifically commissioned bird because they did the reference sheet of a character that I liked and I wanted something done of the same species. I had found the character through youtube, then found out they were purchased by someone, and actually stumbled on their FA page finally finding the artist behind the reference. I messaged them asking them to help me make a character of the same species. I asked for some basics for the character, it would wear a skull on its head, neck fluff like a bat, a long tail like a dragon, and big ears like a bat. They told me they didn't feel comfortable doing that because it would be copying their friend's character. Whatever I understand that though it is quite disappointing when generally most bat characters have all these characteristics. I was just thankful someone was actually going to be able to help make me a character from scratch with no images at all. I gave them some artistic freedom but generally its a bat dragon, it needs to look as such. The agreement (https://imgur.com/byYQg1X ) and the proof of payment. (https://imgur.com/b95ZIn9 ) Bird said in the messages the estimated time for the completion of the reference sheet would be finished in 7-25 days. So it should have been finished between May 13th 2016 and the very end of may, and if I'm being generous, end of June of 2016. Messages took place on May 6th 2016. The dates came and went, and I sat wondering what happened. I don’t feel like dragging their personal life through the mud, or trying to locate every single journal they posted about art delays, needing money or any other kind of inconvenience because there are many. I remained understanding and considerate during this time because it is the human thing to do. I am aware things can be delayed and people have home life and personal issues to deal with and it's fine because at the time the art was only a month late. Sometime in June or July of 2016 they did a stream on picarto and I saw the line art for the character they would be making for me. I saw them open the file of the old bat dragon reference they made for their friend, and they just edited the lines, as in directly opened the line art file for an older commission, and shorted the ears, changed the tail, the nose, the mouth, everything. The character didn’t look like a bat at that point, it just looked like a dog with wings. I do not have a copy of the line art because their queue/trello is no longer available. I didn’t feel like fighting them so I said the lines were fine but I really felt cheated. June came and went, July came and went, August was coming to an end so I decided to message Bird about the commission mostly to get an update if they finished or if I was able to get some things changed (https://imgur.com/A89OtmH ) this was mostly a message to remind them they had a commission due to me. Months go by with no update to their trello (which was available at the time,) I at one point in time they whispered me on picarto in October 2016 saying they hadn’t forgotten about the commission and they’ll work on it soon. Another time they said they would start working on owed reference sheets during a stream, and ended the stream earlier never touching any art. I sadly have no proof of these things because I never saved the messages and it was all on picarto so there's no actual saved evidence. I was never contacted again, nor did I contact them until they messaged me on my twitter in July of 2017 accusing me of sending my friends after them. (For the lazy, I don’t know who this person was, I never sent anyone after Bird, I solve problems on my own.) Bird's first message accusing me to of sending "my friends" after them https://imgur.com/ftj67RR the continuing messages https://imgur.com/ThYfcFM (obligatory "I know you've been waiting a long time," it was over a year at that point). Bird also asking me to find this person (despite me not knowing them) to get them to stop "harassing" him https://imgur.com/C5F0mHD . At this point I had started to scroll through the main feed of my twitter and saw Bird had tweeted these out https://imgur.com/SM68woa and https://imgur.com/Gp15wux . Whether or not they were actually about me I still made the notion to call them out for it since they previously accused me of sending people to harass them. Probably unprofessional on my side, but I also found it unprofessional to come after someone and accuse something they did not do. Also in the proof 4 they mentioned that my commission was 85% finished. https://imgur.com/sPv6Uzj and finally https://imgur.com/6m78KTM . Since the final message I had not received any kind of update about my commission being "85%" finished. I never received the line art and there were no updates to a queue, a trello or message to me. All updates from Bird of any kind seem to be journals about their personal financial issues. Their journals seem like a general place for them to ask for them to ask for money for overdue bills and vet trips or uber money. I had quit following their FA over a year ago because I was tired of seeing them open for emergency commissions and in stream commissions every other day but never actually show up with anything completed. If you just delve into their journals on FA you can see how chaotic and ridiculous it has been as a commissioner trying to get any kind of information from them. They have constantly locked, unlocked and deleted their twitter and since these previous messages from @pb_willow, they made a new one. I had to actually find their twitter from their fursuit business account in order to get ahold of them a year after they said the art would be completed in a week. I contacted them on twitter JULY 13TH 2018 The First Message https://imgur.com/PrvCE6Z My first message to them asking for a refund because I have been waiting over two years for this piece. The Second Message https://imgur.com/xTfAVy0 : Bird mentioning that on their FA journals (I stopped following them over a year ago) that their computer has died and they have debts to a cable company equalling over $500? They also mentioned to not contact them through this twitter and contact their art manager. The third message https://imgur.com/9ELAJAi They’re now saying they owe $900?) They said I need to wait Saturday to find someone to give them the time to use their friends’ laptop to plug their external hard drive into. I don’t know how long their computer has been broke, but why they didn’t get this done this as soon as they could makes me really skeptical of everything they’ve told me. If I delved deeper I feel like I would have been met with a ton of excuses. I told them I want either the art or the money whichever comes first, which sounds really rude, but it has been over two years. I do not trust this person to get me either the art or the refund. Every promise they had made to me has never been achieved. I feel like I have been lied to several times about this commission, and any time I have ever asked about seeing a work in progress I never see it, I am given a bunch of excuses among other things. I said I was going to message them saturday (July 14th 2018) but I gave them some time and messaged their manager (since they told me to) July 16th I messaged their manager https://imgur.com/vaPwZbF and never received a response. (JULY 23RD 2018) https://imgur.com/30j8Ww2 I messaged bird on FA asking for an update because their manager never messaged me back. I get a short message stating they sent me an update via twitter, which i can assure anyone, even if I could provide proof, I NEVER GOT AN UPDATE on twitter. Nothing else was in the FA message. Not even an update. Even if they did message me an update via twitter then they could have provided the update in the same message in FA as well to be professional. Instead I get a short and snappy message replying to me me asking about a commission that is TWO YEARS overdue. Message on July 23rd 2018 https://imgur.com/30j8Ww2 July 24th 2018 https://imgur.com/0Dctzas my patience has gotten very thin. I’ve not been given a real update, thus me lashing out. I’m tired of dealing with this individual. This is completely out of hand, two years waiting on a commission and I’m getting treated like I’m the one inconveniencing them. That Night July 24th 2018 https://imgur.com/6Vy6882 They asked me for my paypal email so they could send me the refund that night, later changed to when they wake up https://imgur.com/zmMAZLI to no one's surprise the refund never came. I gave them 5 days. (July 29th 2019) I messaged them to tell them I never received the refund https://imgur.com/UZixicK gave me some excuse about it being "summer in the south," (it's also summer in my state?) They have also seemed to forgotten that THEY TOLD ME THEY WERE GOING TO REFUND ME that same night several weeks ago because they no longer wanted to deal with me. But in this message they are accusing me of "not wanting to wait for the art." (Again it has been WELL OVER two years, I think we have gone above and beyond wanting to wait for this art.) It is now September 4th 2018, I still have not received the refund, only tons of excuses which is apparently the only thing I seemed to have paid for(?) I've checked their FA there's no indication that they've made an attempt to reach out to people to give them refunds or the art they're owed. I don't know how long it takes them or their friend to build a computer but over a month seems a little ridiculous (I know people work at different paces, but it took me four hours to build my computer and it was my first build.) Remember in previous messages they said they owe 14 people art that are stuck on their hard drive. I'm assuming since I messaged bird they have made zero attempt to try and retrieve these pieces for myself or for people by either a completed computer or by visiting a friend to use their computer. I have not been contacted to be paid back, this all started May of 2016, it is now September of 2018. Will Update As Necessary (September 9/4/2018) Most recent update (September 9/14/2018) Most recent update (September 9/16/2018) Sept 14th https://imgur.com/essiCtS (outgoing message) Sept 14th https://imgur.com/sTXgJvc bird’s message to me. I’m sort of dumbfounded and have zero idea of how to go about replying to this mess. This is where I get tilted and I’m sorry for that, this has been an emotional rollercoaster of all this back and forth nonsense. To recap: they had told me they “finished” the art (whenever that was) and I was never once notified before their computer happened to die. All this is riding on the fact we would not be having issues if they had either given me the art or refunded me when I asked a year ago. Several weeks ago they just told me they bought a computer (messages in the beware, but also here:https://www.furaffinity.net/journals/tobeabird/ in their journal where they also talk about going to IFC) So no money to refund people, but money to buy a new computer and go to conventions? JANUARY 4TH 2019 They sent me a PM in FA asking for my paypal and wanted to search through our notes to find how much they owe me, which I told them straight off the bat (eheh ) because i had a feeling they'd be searching for several months. In any case they finally sent me my refund today. So not exactly three years but close enough. Tired of ads? Upgrade to account with Professional package of service and never see ads again!

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/1004598.html WHO: Otter'n'Daughter (FA) / WaterdogWharf (FA) / Keryu (FA) / KeryuOkami (twitter) WHERE: Initially - https://www.furaffinity.net/user/otter.n.daughter/ Later - http://www.furaffinity.net/user/waterdogwharf Also - http://www.furaffinity.net/user/keryu WHEN: Payment took place from 6/14/2015 to 3/29/2016, the only visual progress was 11/29/2016 (referenced in emails below) EXPLAIN: The overall process started June 2015. Below is the string of emails regarding the quote, details and the agreed upon payments: https://imgur.com/a/6w2ywB1 As of this time, while I had the initial concept art for the sake of the quote, the full turnaround reference wouldn't be available for another five months. However they were made aware of this from the initial quote. (Referenced in the gallery above at 006 with the initial ref below it.) The email with the finished reference would explain that it was layered to view various details (ei. arms, legs and other pieces could be hidden to see the shapes): https://imgur.com/a/LCCwePu The final payment would be sent March 30, 2016: https://imgur.com/a/94JDLy6 Later on in June / July 2016, I would ask about cancellation. https://imgur.com/a/OkYfA45 Fast forward to October 30 and November 29, 2016, these would be the only signs of visual progress for my own suit. https://imgur.com/a/UO1Xk47 The DTD would finally be sent around February / March 2017. Unfortunately, correspondence that took place on Twitter before October 2017 was deleted because I had assumed that things were moving along. However there is a DM referenced in an email for May 15, 2017 whose contact was unanswered until June 15, 2017. https://imgur.com/a/1SEjIY2 October 23, 2017, I bring a proposition regarding the change of the suit design and offer the majority of the fur to be used: https://imgur.com/a/98Ih8Cp After that, I found the most success in contacting them through twitter and would follow up about once a month. https://imgur.com/a/IO8siPx And the last final emails recently sent: https://imgur.com/a/WELE6Ce As of the time of this submission, there has been no reply from the final email on July 4, 2018. However I will correct myself regarding the large July 1st email as the body suit for the previous customer is incorrect, that I’m aware of. This was the rest of a full suit commission, to which they had only recently received the bodysuit for, over two years after the head (and assuming partial of the full) was completed. The following gallery is to show posts documenting visual progress on their commission list in general, as well as public client posts that I’ve been able to search for. The purpose is only for timestamps for the completion of parts or projects altogether, how they correlate with Keryu’s public Trello page, and the time elapsed for the length of the project based on dates. https://imgur.com/a/mrG7Xcs Here is also collection of visual posts regarding from or around November 2016 up until recently. This will be broken down into categories: Auctions and Commission Openings Bases Premades Collaborative Premades Commissions or designs not listed on Trello I've probably missed a few things here and there, my apologies. I won’t deny that progress has been made on their list in general. However, with no way to gauge that other than whatever pops up on a search or the few posts there are, I have no confidence with this transaction any more. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there was some consistency in the queue, updates or progress actually occurring when said instead of just being pushed back further and further. Not to mention premades and unlisted work looking to be on priority. It also seems that they rarely do body suits themselves, if at all nowadays, or has them done by another maker. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong as I’m only aware of the collaborative bodies. This post is not meant to be against the other makers either considering I don’t know how aware they are of Keryu’s workload or practices when agreeing to these collaborative, premade suits. Even more baffling, for a short time, they had a senior seamstress that worked with them on at least one body suit. (Referenced here: https://i.imgur.com/OMCqDGo.png ) More often than not, Keryu only makes heads, tails, hand paws, and at one point feet. However those haven’t been posted in roughly a year. Granted the majority of the commissions they’ve taken on are usually for heads or partials without feet. In the end, if you absolutely wanted a costume piece from this person, you’re likely better off getting a premade or a base and finishing it yourself. ------ Update - August 23, 2018 There has been no reply since the final email. I made a couple attempts to contact there after to request the dtd and fur sent back by email and twitter, including a mailing address and requesting a tracking number. No replies. Not surprisingly, they're open for more commissions: https://imgur.com/a/2EAyd4S I also attempted disputes on the payments. Paypal directed me to speak with the source of the funds for the transactions. Upon attempts between a credit card company and bank, they were too old to dispute, which was expected. However, something I did learn from the credit card company. Based upon what the rep told me, Visa and Mastercard type cards have up to 540 days to dispute transactions of which they have the ability to request funds from the merchant. But again, only if your dispute holds up.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/995528.html This imgur album may be easier to follow, but I will copy the relevant information in the proper template as well. https://imgur.com/a/vqw5xcR WHO: The artist is named Fr0stbit3 on Furaffinity. WHERE: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/fr0stbit3/ https://www.furaffinity.net/view/26222681/ https://www.furaffinity.net/view/27231252/ WHAT: Digital art, solo character NSFW commission, offered by the artist in pre-posed slots. WHEN: Initial contact was February 3rd, 2018 when the commission was accepted. Payment details were provided on February 4th, and payment was also sent on February 4th. On March 19th, email communication began inquiring about the commission, and then a month's deadline for a refund was communicated and accepted. On April 20th, I opened a PayPal dispute to reinitiate contact. The refund was refused, and the dispute was elevated to a claim. On April 24th, the claim was resolved in the Buyer's (mine) favor. On May 1st, the Seller/Artist, Fr0stbit3, reopened the claim to appeal to PayPal. On May 4th, the appeal was denied by PayPal. Fr0stbit3 proceeded to post an unauthorized image of my character, using the title and description to insult and defame me. I decided to create an Artists Beware entry. EXPLAIN: This began when I asked for a pre-posed commission slot Fr0stbit3 was opening in February. The idea was a line of dragon characters in pre-made poses would be completed individually for the buyers and then posted in a group pic at the conclusion. https://imgur.com/m6Yru9V This is my initial comment on the submission page inquiring for a slot. Page is still available as of 5/4/2018. I inquired after a slot for the "Dragon Wall", pre-posed pictures for dragon characters to be lined up in a group picture. [NSFW link] https://www.furaffinity.net/view/26222681/ https://imgur.com/cm67HUZ Here is the note after the comment. I provided references and my paypal information, he replied with the price and his PayPal information. https://imgur.com/Qst1p6l As you can see by the date I paid the same day (with tip!). The payment has since been refunded after I filed a dispute, which the following screenshots will show. https://imgur.com/8Kje8Iz About a month and a half later, I checked Fr0stbit3's Furaffinity page to see if he'd made any progress on the Dragon Wall. When I tried to navigate to the page from my note inbox, I got the error "user has voluntarily disabled access to their userpage", which was a big red flag for me. He has since reactivated his page. Worried that an artist had taken my money and run, I tried using his paypal address to email him, and to my relief he responded the next day. He assured me he would be providing a refund as soon as he could, but couldn't due to issues in his personal life. https://imgur.com/LHNOaEr I expressed my sympathy and asked for a deadline for a refund, and he said it could be up to a month, but he'd try to get it to me earlier. After this, I had no contact with him for a month. https://imgur.com/fF6AtiY This image is read from bottom to top. After a month of no contact and no refund, I reinitiated contact via Paypal by opening a dispute. Paypal's first step of the dispute process is simply the Buyer (me) contacting the Seller (Fr0stbit3). I explained what had already happened and informed him I had opened a dispute for this reason. He responded with "I told you to be patient with me" while simultaneously denying he had received any previous email from me. After that I realized that he was not going to be willingly provide any refund to me, was providing no revised deadlines, so I escalated the dispute to a Claim in order to have the transaction refunded. https://imgur.com/qkgo9uV He proceeded to send me several messages on FA, urging me to check my email. I did, and saw nothing, until I thought to check the email address I use as my Paypal. He also seemed to be confusing me for someone else named "Matt". https://imgur.com/YKjhrvO I checked my alternate email and found this from him, finding out that he'd gone back on his promise of a refund and went ahead and completed the image. I found this surprising, as he'd never even mentioned the possibility of him actually completing the commission, he'd only spoken about refunds. I also found it surprising that rather than actually send me the completed image to complete the commission, he'd chosen to hold it hostage instead. https://imgur.com/yBjpVIW For organization and clarity's sake, I forwarded the email he sent to my own email address, that I'd used to initially contact him, forwarded it again to him and then reopened our email thread, so that he could easily see my prior messages and stop having me confused for whoever Matt is. https://imgur.com/gK4yCmt I used slightly sterner language in response to his decision to hold the image hostage rather than fulfill his end of the transaction. I made it clear that he had communicated to me that the image was not going to be completed, and that I had been waiting for a refund. At this point, I had no interest in the completed image, as this commission had proved to be an extremely frustrating experience. However, I was very much looking forward for this experience to be over, so I made it clear that if he wanted the dispute to be resolved, he could just send me the image and I'd call it even. He responded as you can see above, with a pixelated/censored version, insisted that he could not trust me, and that he would only send me the file after I dropped the dispute, reiterating it with two emails in a row, making sure to mention in both that I could not be trusted. I was honestly surprised to see that he had done the image, but he still had not sent it to me, only a blurred version, so his part of the transaction was still incomplete. https://imgur.com/WnHAltB I did my best to clarify my position and made it clear that the Paypal claim existed because he had failed to provide what I had paid for, and that if he fulfilled the transaction, the claim would be dropped. But he doubled down, refusing to provide the image, and also claiming he never provided refunds. https://imgur.com/qqWOPKn Despite my better judgement, I tried to make the situation crystal clear about how the ball was in his court, and that he could either let PayPal settle the dispute or provide the full image to satisfy the claim. I did not have much hope for the results, and I was tired of arguing, and made it clear that it was my final communication. https://imgur.com/GTO96pO He then proceeded to be far more public, filling my shoutbox with messages. I provided a shout back asking him not to contact me unless it was with the image or a refund, via Paypal or email. I then blocked his Furaffinity account. https://imgur.com/KwZcvIF PayPal resolved the dispute in my favor, and they forced the refund. I was content to drop this particularly frustrating experience and move on, but I then received another email from Fr0stbit3 informing me that he would be appealing the claim and providing screenshots to PayPal, and also threatened to write a Buyer Beware against me. I was not overly concerned, as the screenshots demonstrate several times that he refused to provide the image he was paid for. https://imgur.com/7AfpLsB A few days passed and the PayPal dispute was closed, again, in my favor. Fr0stbit3 responded by posting the image to his FA scrap gallery, which includes a depiction of my character and my character's name, with the title "Scumbag Wall", claiming I had cheated him. I reported him on FA for harassment. At this point, the situation has concluded. I have received my refund and am happy to leave it at that, though I hope the submission he posted is taken down after my ticket is reviewed on FA. I hope this Artist Beware entry will help provide context for this transaction and help warn other commissioners from attempting to do business with this individual. PROOF: All screencaptures are in the following Imgur album, as shown above: https://imgur.com/a/vqw5xcR Update: At this time the submission he was using to defame me has been taken down and his FA has been suspended, along with another user who was posting death threats to my shout page. Their suspensions lasted about two days.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/990259.html WHO: exitoricanqueen/exitoricanbean WHERE: https://exitoricanqueen.deviantart.com/, https://exitoricanbean.deviantart.com/ WHAT: animated icon WHEN: initial conversation and payment: october 11th, 2017. asked for an update march 12th 2018. pinged their alt account exitoricanbean march 20th. offered to take a refund march 29th. noted about previous messages + request to refund april 3rd. noted again about previous note april 11th. EXPLAIN: i commissioned them october 11th for an animated pixel icon. they responded to my request approving my commission and letting me know they set up the widget for me to pay (initial conversation - https://sta.sh/012cq1844cnp) (proof of payment - https://sta.sh/01voj3nv3v84) because i had seen the vast amount of people asking before me, and as an animator myself i knew an icon of the sort would take time, i wasnt very concerned about the wait for a while. around january/february i wondered about it but didn’t think much. however, what i noted was that if they were working on all of the commissions owed before me, surely around this time mine should be done. and i watch both their main and side accounts on da, and i could see this wasnt the case. a lot of their recent art is either gift art or art for themself. i figured if they had such a big backlog, they shouldnt be doing much else besides their commissions. i questioned them about it here (https://sta.sh/02huower20g) and i received no response. after i commented they changed their taglines to say they were "slow and dead", and they stopped posting for a few days. however, i glanced at their favorites and noticed that while they werent posting, they were still online, because one of their recent favorites was posted after the supposed hiatus. i asked another commissioner about them and learned that they seem to have become overwhelmed by the workload they have. its hard for me to feel bad for them, as they shouldnt have taken 34 commissions in one day (this isnt an exaggeration, i started a chart to see just how much work they had and how much money they owe and here it is https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DIvkpo3SrVCKU_2vps8yA3v39Yu62vjwB2BUzjhHcyE/edit?usp=sharing), and while it would be uncomfortable to have to admit to having little to no progress on my commission, id greatly prefer it to being blatantly ignored like this. i know im not the only one dealing with this issue with them. im asking for a refund tonight but i dont expect a response, and judging from the other commissioners experience, i doubt ill get my money back even if i do get a response. ive never done something like this before, i hope i didnt do anything wrong here i just want it to be known that exitoricanqueen seems to have a lack of communication and lack of priority for owed art. update: this was orginally written march 29th. it is now april 11th, and i have asked about a refund 3 times now, on the 29th (https://sta.sh/0286sl77e5xj), 3rd (https://sta.sh/01deygrow1lu), and today, the 11th (https://sta.sh/063uojq9adm). i have received no response despite exitoricanbean being clearly active, posting art and talking on their page. in my sent folder the note is shown to be unread, which means that it was either set to be that way or they just never bothered to read it in the first place. all screencaps here: https://sta.sh/2c1yt75xddh update: finished the backlog chart. this is (almost, at least everything i could find on their commissions journal) every commission they have taken from october 1st 2017 onwards, and the costs, and which are finished or not https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DIvkpo3SrVCKU_2vps8yA3v39Yu62vjwB2BUzjhHcyE/edit?usp=sharing update 2: on april 20th i noted them again here (https://sta.sh/01bf6t8a9xyz). after a week of silence exitorican began posting again on both their main and alt accounts, but have still continued to blatantly ignore me. im running out of hope for this because it truly seems like they just dont care about what theyve done. all of my notes are unread (https://sta.sh/0iuwhutaa11). i have contacted this person 6 times now and there is no logical explanation for them to have not seen my messages. they are ignoring me and i genuinely dont know what to do. im considering noting again and telling them ill post this to my deviantart if they dont respond but at this point im losing hope.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/987286.html WHO: Athena(TheJackal), ScribblyTees WHERE: Vancoufur 2017 WHAT: Pearl/Bead Badge WHEN: March 10th 2017 in the Dealers Den. EXPLAIN: I spoke to Athena at her booth while she was still setting things up. She had a BUNCH of pearl/bead badges on display including one from a popofur I thought was the most amazing pearl/bead badge I set my eyes on. I told her I simply must have one and she was extremely helpful and happy to help. I gave her all my details and I sent her the appropriate amount she asked for both the badge AND shipping. She told me right then on the spot she would have it done by MAY of the same year guaranteed. So here I am, a FULL YEAR later and haven't got even one image of at least a part of it done. I had her on telegram since the day I walked out of that DDen and I've messaged her many times asking for updates and I was always either told some story (Whether you choose to believe it or not isn't my problem, she had AMPLE time prior to that shit) or I was simply ignored. (The classic two checkmarks but no response) So here I am, finally making this post because any normal individual would. At this point I don't even care if I get it anymore. PROOF: http://furchee.com/files/athena/telegramchatlog.jpg & http://furchee.com/files/athena/paypalpayment.jpg EDIT: 18/07/2018 So after a couple days of backs and forths, we came to an understanding (or at least I thought we did) and things seemed to be coming together until yet another disappointment ocurred. I wrote Athena and actually got some progress. I'll attach an image of the badge she did in fact put together but never actually sent. She claimed she was going to melt it and send it at some point at the end of March and yet nothing seemed to have happened. At this point I do not care if she sends it in the mail or not. I do not understand why even after the conversation we had why this would still be an ongoing issue. It seems I lost nothing but valuable time and more importantly the 160 big ones I gave her. Oh and yes, I did see the twitter post on March 31st showing my badge apparently ready to ship. Sorry babe, it doesn't take almost 4 months to send or receive it. PROOF: Badges: http://furchee.com/files/athena/badge.jpg & http://furchee.com/files/athena/badge2.jpg Chat: http://furchee.com/files/athena/idgaf_edit.jpg

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/985962.html (Update at 7th Jan 2019 for 21st April 2018: See Below) WHO: Faris Batwan / Fuzzy Bat Suits WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/farisbatwan/ / http://www.furaffinity.net/user/fbsuits/ / https://www.facebook.com/pg/fuzzybatsuits/posts/?ref=page_internal WHAT: Partial fursuit / paws (Initial payment $975, been refunded $350, $300, $186 ($139 remaining)) WHEN: Starting March 8th 2017 – Still ongoing as of 28th February 2018 EXPLAIN: Everything was fine to begin with as was usually the case. I ordered a pre-made head that came with a tail and custom paws, the maker was very eager for the sale and replied very quickly on FA notes until I payed via PayPal. [FA Notes screenshot] A couple of days later something happened in my personal life that meant I had a large bill to pay for, as things hadn’t been shipped yet and I hadn’t been told that the paws had started being made or received other notes so I tried to cancel the order. To which I didn’t receive a response for another few days, and was ultimately told that they had spent all of the money on new equipment as soon as they received it and don’t have any money to refund me. [FA Notes screenshots] We went back and forth in notes a few times before I was told that the paws couldn’t be refunded since they were custom and so was the tail, even though the tail was in the listing to begin with and there had been no photos of the paws sent to me to show they have been completed. [Telegram screenshots] I reminded them the tail was from stock and therefore not bespoke to me and then I still had the paws sent out to me since the quality of their work seemed excellent. There were no photos taken of paws that were sent to me at all, additionally I was told that they had been sent by priority mail. [Telegram screenshots] Up to this point I had been told a few times that they were having bad weather pretty much seemed to be on a daily basis that didn’t allow them to check emails/telegram/notes etc. I had also been told to contact them on Telegram as it was their preferred method and then after not replying to me for a long time they said they preferred email and would definitely respond within 48 hours which they didn’t unless it affected them monetarily later on in the year. [Telegram screenshots] I originally bought the partial, and ultimately just the paws, for CFZ17, but they never showed even after the delivery time frame was weeks in the past, remember it was supposed to be priority mail. I asked the maker to contact the delivery company about it and the maker waited weeks until they eventually did and told me that we had to wait until half way through July before a claim could be made for a lost parcel. [Telegram screenshots] July came and went after I sent a number of messages to no response, which is around about the time they changed their mind and said to email them since they no longer like Telegram. Time passes and I still hadn’t received a response from the maker so I filed a PayPal case on them since they wouldn’t refund me or respond to me after numerous attempts to reach out to them. [Telegram screenshots] I had an message effectively calling me a scammer and saying I was damaging the business and she couldn’t pay me anyways even if I won the case [Telegram screenshots] After a few messages they eventually agreed to pay part of the money owed to me, but not the full amount. [Telegram screenshots] I was however promised once more that they were going to sell some pre-made heads to be able to refund me the final amount due to me. [Gmail screenshots] The last communication I had was in November from the maker with no final refund or communication, I contacted them again in the new year at the start of February and also got no response. [ Gmail screenshots] Apologies for the length of this post and any incidental errors, it has been ongoing for a year now. PROOF: FA Notes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kgo77onymfvhmwx/FA Notes Screenshots.png?dl=0 Telegram : https://www.dropbox.com/s/s1rldas9khzz0nx/Telegram Part 1.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/nj8fq4iakomlbdd/Telegram Part 2.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/sa5lvtq0kxud0ev/Telegram Part 3.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/2dozgo95j38b3mx/Telegram Part 4.png?dl=0 Payment Screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kwt966haw4l53by/Payment Screenshots.png?dl=0 Gmail: Update 7th Jan 2019, overdue from 21st April 2018 Faris got in touch with me on 21/04/18 via email apologizing and stating she will issue a refund for the remainder when she can. I replied simply that I would like to be able to mark it as resolved and to let me know when she could refund the final amount. As of 7th Jan 2019 I have not heard anything further. Tired of ads? Upgrade to account with Professional

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/982743.html Who: CrystalUniicorn Where: https://crystaluniicorn.deviantart.com/ What: Custom Draft Horse Stallion Lineart/ base When: Commissioned on August 11th 2016 EXPLAIN: I commissioned Crystal on August 11th 2016 for a Draft horse base because she and I had talked about lineart custom previously via comments on one of her submissions, she explained a custom lineart would be 15$ and I agreed, explained what I wanted and left it at that. I didn't note her about it afterward because I trusted her to finish her list of commissions in a timely manner, she was very kind and professional. Around mid September she posted a journal stating she'd be catching up on commissions and posting them soon but after one batch of horse adoptables she disappeared. I posted a Lost contact and never received any info other than a locked instagram which I found out she doesn't use anymore, she hasn't responded to commissioners even when she came back to deviantart for a month. I've sent her a note which has gone unresponded to. Proof: (Tried to make these as big as possible) Original Note; https://imgur.com/IpUTNvJ PoP; https://i.imgur.com/Mx6R9ew.png Journal Mentioned; https://i.imgur.com/l8sa5L5.png Unread note status; https://i.imgur.com/104QthE.png Unread note contents; https://i.imgur.com/vhoV9X6.png Not really sure what to do at this point. EDIT/ 1/29/18; Sent an email to the last known email / email I paid through paypal to see if by chance she'll answer me, highly doubt it due to people saying she's ignored them but I'll cross my fingers. EDIT: 2/18/18; My email and note have still not been answered and from what I can tell she's still avoiding deviantart even though a commission widget is still on her page ( can be seen here; https://i.imgur.com/PghBT4r.png ). I'm sick of this tbh EDIT: 7/9/18; She's made a full return and has been posting, albeit infrequently, but still hasn't posted commissions/ given refunds from what I've seen. She HAS posted p2u (pay to use) bases/ linearts and persona reference sheets though which leads me to wonder... but I digress. I sent her a note 3 days ago as seen here: https://i.imgur.com/wq79Unh.png it's been read but not replied to. (Contents of said note: https://i.imgur.com/TZykIzK.png )

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/981816.html WHO: Sugar N’ Spice Costumes: Primarily CorpseCat aka Kittencheshire aka Prince Mocha aka Neo via Sugar N’ Spice Costume email contact. Other members of Sugar N’ Spice Costumes should be noted: Cackle aka Bullie and Fortune WHERE: Mainly dealt with them via Email and Telegram; their business is based on FA under Sugarandspice, http://fursuitcontact.wixsite.com/sugarandspicecostume, and http://www.sugarnspicecostumes.com/ however they do deal with business via Telegram WHAT: 2 Partial Fursuits WHEN: 1st payment was on April 24, 2016 with final payment on May 26, 2016. Trouble started around August which was two months before the original deadline. EXPLAIN: At first everything seemed fine and was going as planned; I asked about their turn around for suits and they state it’s about a month or so after 80% paid off (See capture here: https://imgur.com/w21eazp ). I ask if final payment was done in July if it would be done and shipped before October in which I was assured it would. We spoke about the suits periodically and on June 13th they stated they were ordering a base for the head as they work off of bases (See capture here: https://imgur.com/lGaKQkm https://imgur.com/ZbaBTgr ) and on July 14th I inquired if they had gotten the base for the head in which they then told me it takes 3-5 weeks to cast them let alone ship it plus the dealer had to deal with AnthroCon and another con (see capture here: https://imgur.com/r3vj5Lh ); at this stage I started worrying naturally as things sounded a little shady, but gave the benefit of the doubt. As time progressed I contacted back around August 5th to see how things were going on our partials with zero response until the following day on the 6th in which I heard nothing from them about it. On August 8th I asked again and received no message from them until the 12th in which they reassured it will be done by October as planned. (see capture here: https://imgur.com/PMdTcad ) and then proceeded to check in on the 30th of August and finally on September 3rd they show me they have the head; the previous screen cap shows this as well. Back and forth takes place and by October 1st they finally state that they are trying to get our suits done on time while dealing with other things and no word about it again until I contact them on the 11th which proceeded to fall on deaf ears until I got word on the 16th; however nothing was said about the suits. Needless to say the deadline, as it was for us to wear at a specific convention, came and went. On November 29th I asked casually if I could put some design changes in as they hadn’t been working on it just to see if I’d even get a response in which they said sure and would resculpt the head as if they were still working on it; though at this point it really red flagged me as no suit maker in their right mind would agree to something that would be significant in the way of change to simply resculpt it no problem (See capture here: https://imgur.com/f4gqaPr ). We converse from time to time between then and February 27th with no message about my two partials. I ask again on the 27th (See capture here: https://imgur.com/lsq0Btp ) and no message until March 15th of 2017. April 24th comes by and I ask about my partials with putting my foot down; they said progress is slow, but would be before Halloween in which that was the con we needed it for again (See capture here: https://imgur.com/N8xAvmp ). June 8th comes by and I am getting even more concern (See capture here: https://imgur.com/uie6Ep4 ) in which I state if we should even continue with it after all this time; they tell me if everything goes well it should be September 1st when they are done. Next time I talk to them in August I find out they switched to another Telegram handle and on August 25th I am getting really concerned as they’ve shown me no WIP images then they try reassuring me that they’ve made 2 partials in 3 days… Another red flag that I was pretty sure wasn’t possible (See capture here: https://imgur.com/U5zlvBG ). On September 29th I voice my concerns again with a more “putting my foot down” tone. They tell me they are working on it which considering all this time it should have been done three times over (See capture here: https://imgur.com/1niS9Vn ) and we even talk about shoe sizes (which I have captured here to show they then eventually give us the wrong shoe size: https://imgur.com/owCHbbp ). We speak periodically with no updates on the suits until October 11th where they ask me for a reference in regards to BOTH of the suits (See capture here: https://imgur.com/xVLbIRI ). On October 16th, mind you again all this time I have had no WIP shown of the partials, I finally put my foot down as the deadline has passed once more (See capture here: https://imgur.com/XcVI4VC ) and time goes on with no response until I ask how they are on the 18th where they tell me they’ll send screenshots soon. I ask again the following day for those screenshots of the partials with no response. I proceeded to bombard them with messages between the 19th to the 23rd in which they finally say they weren’t ignoring me, but was having issues with Telegram. They provide a picture of the feet (See capture here: https://imgur.com/4e0fgAb ). Another blackout and multiple demands later, between October 24th to October 29th, I finally threaten to get Paypal involved for a dispute (See capture here: https://imgur.com/kVSFHpB ). I then start emailing them over this and they proceed to tell me that it was lost in the mail and that they would remake them (See capture here: https://imgur.com/CxvrpwZ https://imgur.com/Pt6yUoz https://imgur.com/R1jp1Wz ); this would be the final red flag that told me they were scamming us as no artist would just simply say this and then just “oh well we will remake them no problem!” attitude. I give an ultimatum and they accept a November 10th final deadline and even state (in the previous capture) that they’d provide an extra gift for our trouble with all of this. Time progresses and no response nor reply to my email on November 11th. Finally I get pictures coming in here and there; we talk briefly from time to time. Eventually January comes around and they ship it. I receive both partials on January 12th with something interesting; the feet that were supposedly “lost in the mail” that were shown to me before AND the extra gifts mentioned were not even there which was the final straw that lead me to make an artist beware about this business/person. I also would like to add that you can clearly tell the partials were rushed and attention to detail was missing in which ear heights are miss-matched, heads were too small, feet too small, misaligned jaw, and other problems that should have never happened. Main purpose of this is to warn others that this is a common process with them as I was informed by others after my experience that I was not alone in how flip-floppy they are with their business with some not even receiving anything be it a refund or product. PROOF: The proof provided in this section are various screencaps of comparing the original “lost” suit images to that of what came in the mail. I only have the feet to provide, but those are exactly the same. This also contains the Quality Promised image to compare to the Quality Received. Shoe size issue (Told them one size and they send the wrong size): https://imgur.com/vcwBn31 Proof of first payment: https://imgur.com/3Tr0svb Proof of final payment: https://imgur.com/X43Qnxv Quality Promised (Notice uniformity, proper trim of the fur, and attention to detail): https://imgur.com/EmcnLXp Quality Received: >Head/cheek proportions are off - https://imgur.com/C4AoQrF >Misaligned jaw - https://imgur.com/h01lafA >One ear is larger and higher up than the other as well as horn being stuck on the top of the head rather than forehead area - https://imgur.com/cfjjPrg >Hair was too short so they threw on extra hair at the end of the head making it look messy and done in a hurry - https://imgur.com/5tzZg1w >Jackal ears misaligned and misshapen as well as eyebrows being misaligned https://imgur.com/zMSCpWk https://imgur.com/LgvX2Pw >Jackal face being misaligned and skewed - https://imgur.com/M101jk2 Lost feet compared to feet received (notice they are exactly the same; as in they were never “lost”): https://imgur.com/8Uyn1DG Received feet: https://imgur.com/9nHs987

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/975718.html EDIT: Paypal Customer Protection Refunded me the $50 that was owed. Artist never tried to talk to me or solve this problem thus this beware will still be kept up. WHO: Telegram: @BarkingEllie https://www.facebook.com/pg/DorkyDogSuits/ http://www.furaffinity.net/user/Ellieshepherd http://www.furaffinity.net/user/dorkydogsuits https://twitter.com/barkingellie?lang=es https://barkingellie.tumblr.com/ https://www.instagram.com/barkingellie/ WHERE: Telegram WHAT: A Fully Detailed Reference Sheet. Value of $100. Got Refunded $50. WHEN: April 30th I Got the offer from her, and after a few days we got a deal. May 10th is when I paid for the comission. ($100) with a plus of $50 that I did as donation. Problems started in August when she started to ignore me for long periods of time. EXPLAIN: Everything started fine, we discussed prices and options, etc. I would often check on her afterwards since I consider $100 to be quite a high price, though I was willing to pay a lot because of how complex the character is. This person denied giving me access to a ''to-do list'' at all cost. (seen in screencaps) She would often give excuses to explain why she ''doesn't'' have a to-do list. We had a few random days where we would have long chats about life and this one time she mentioned her friend and her run a fursuit business and her friend wanted to buy some fur supply and I donated $50 to help them buy it. I want to say, I am NOT interested into getting this $50 back since it was donation and plus has nothing to do with the actual comission. After August is when I started to feel discomfort towards the treatment amongst the artist and me. Being ignored for almost a whole month made me doubt about this comission so I asked again about the to-do list. Got again another explanation why it doesn't exist and decided to keep quiet for some time. During ALL this time I was given the same ''I will do it this upcoming week'' message over and over though NO sketches OR Work in progress were shown to me AT ALL. Once September arrived I gave her a final message asking for either a To-Do list, to see a WIP OR a Full Refund. Got a reply two days after that telling me they were doing the lineart. I got frustrated and asked why would they be doing the lineart already if I had not seen any work prior to that nor had I aproved it. Artist replied with a short message saying ''If you don't like it then it's not worth finishing it :)'' I got mad over this message and decided to ask for a full refund. She promised to do it 'next week'. I had to wait for a whole month until that happened. BUT I only got half of it refunded. Got a promise of the other half being done as soon as she gets her next payment. A whole month has passed and this person has been ignoring my messages since. Plus I got adviced by one close person to check her furaffinity and facebook (Dorky Dog Suits, her business page) since people have been starting to show up leaving comments about her ignoring them and not getting refunds either. PROOF: Transcript of the Conversation here in both spanish and english(translated): https://sta.sh/2qsuuicgafp?edit=1 All Screenshots of the Conversations both in the telegram group (decided to keep the name of the group hidden) and in private: https://sta.sh/21mm46gupc6e?edit=1 PS; Conversation Transcription was cut in certain parts because the topic that was discussed in those parts had nothing to do with the comission. It was all just simple daily life chatting.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/974050.html WHO: Customer- Levi (Telegram: @Leviathan95 ) EDIT: Telegram username keeps changing every so often. WHERE: Telegram WHAT: Digital Ref(refunded $20) WHEN: Between Sept 7th-October 19th EXPLAIN: I had Levi commission for a fursuit ref on september 7th. He was 7th in line when he commissioned me with a lineart project in 1st and 5 small projects inbetween. Sadly I got sick with an infection the entire month of September and could not work on his reference sheet. In October I had stopped working on a big lineart piece that was first in line to focus on his ref for the entire week of October 16th-19th. I had completed the linework of the ref and was going to color it on the 20th since I had a family emergency on the 19th but he tells me he is getting another artist to make his ref because I'm not working fast enough and I was working on other stuff that isn't his. (Unfinished ref: https://imgur.com/hHKooX4 ) 1. He was 7th in line on September 7th 2. As any normal artist working on smaller projects like icons, badges, etc is a way to take a break from big projects like lineart and refs so you can feel refreshed to come back to the big project. 3. Someone paid for a deadline for 1 week and I finished it in a day It was stated in my Telegram art channel that he was in and was able to read other messages like for example how I had halted work when I was sick. (Proof of alerts what was posted on Art Channel: https://imgur.com/tSxpnee ) 4. He was 2nd in line and I stopped working on the 1st commissioners lineart for him. 5. In the beginning of our conversations he had stated numerous times that he was in no rush for his ref to be completed. (Moments where he said it was no rush: https://imgur.com/tqgLmQD ) So he decides to lie to the fursuit maker that he was getting said fursuit from saying I pushed him to 12th in line when that wasn't even true, The maker informed me of his concerns and I had approached him with his problems. My ToS states I only give partial refunds but I had no choice but to give him a full refund. Due to fearing he would spread rumors that I didn't give him a refund at all. (my ToS: https://goo.gl/forms/New1kFb0HQwYtOzS2) PROOF: Here is the entire conversation https://imgur.com/a/tjpFK UPDATE: I had got in contact with the artist who had made his new reference sheet and they can confirm about his behavior that made them worried that Levi would attempt to get a refund if they did not work fast enough. https://imgur.com/meBYbmu

WHO: Astropaws on FurAffinity WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/astropaws/ WHAT: I purchased one of these badges. It is a traditional badge that was $25 USD. WHEN: I purchased the badge in January 2017 and recieved an update via note on April 8th, 2017 saying that it would be mailed shortly. EXPLAIN: I purchased this traditional badge from Astropaws in January 2017. I asked if it could be completed for March as I was going to a convention. He said he was sorry he missed the deadline (not a big deal to me, I said if it was possible but no worries if it couldn't be completed) and provided me with an updated image to approve which I did. I really want my commission and I do not mind waiting a long time, as long as there are updates. PROOF: Under Cut *The bottom of this first note is cut as my email is my entire first and last name. I basically said here is my email and he sent me the invoice which I paid. Unfortunately I did not keep the invoice information. Update in April, 2017 Last image: I sent a note on August 31st asking for an update. He hasn't read it yet.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/964292.html WHO: Soy-una-puta WHERE: http://soy-una-puta.deviantart.com ORIGINAL POST: http://soy-una-puta.deviantart.com/art/YCH-couple-unlimited-slots-OPEN-639057637 WHAT: Digital Couple WHEN: October 10, 2016 to Dec 7, 2016 to June 20, 2017 to Current EXPLAIN: I commissioned this artist back in October for a YCH couple, to which things started out a little rough because English is their second language, which was fine. We were able to come to an understanding and an agreement of what I wanted done, and they sent me their PayPal email and I sent payment. ( Screenshot 1) (My username on Deviantart is Nigou.) I hadn’t heard anything from them so in December I asked for an update to which they told me they were working on and were having a lot of life problems. Totally cool, it was only two months since they accepted my commission no big. (Screenshot 2) Now we fast forward to June, which is the first time since December they’ve responded to me. They now are saying they lost all the files because their computer crashed and they won’t be able to finish my commission and they won’t be able to refund my money. I wasn’t allowed to request a refund because they had no money. (Screenshot 3) Now at this point I am getting increasingly upset, because it had nine months since I commissioned them, and seven months since I last heard from them, so I demanded either the commission or my refund. (Screenshot 4) After that they sent me another message saying they don’t draw females, even though that was the same characters I sent a year ago. (Screenshot 5) If you refer back to the original post they draw both MxM and MxF. Then they sent yet another message stating they would refund me in point, and I responded saying I didn’t want point, I wanted the cash that I had sent. (Screenshot 6) Then they told me they couldn’t send money on PayPal because I ‘blocked them’ and they no longer had PayPal and kept insisting on Point. (Screenshot 7 & 8) And that brings me to the most recent exchange. I basically told them I would dispute the transaction on PayPal because it wasn’t fair they kept dodging my request of a refund. They basically told me I was irrational for not thinking about what they are going through in life and why they can’t refund me. (Screenshot 9) And now I get the joy of dealing with their friends telling me I am a horrible customer everything else because I don’t want to accept points. (Screenshot 10) I don’t use points as a way to commission so it wouldn’t be a fair refund. UPDATE : So they messaged me again on a different account this time, basically giving me an excuse for why their friends came after me, also telling me why they no longer draw women, despite accepting my commission last year. (Screenshot 11) And their solution is a refund of points, not my cash. The journal they refer to is one I posted on dA, per the advice of a few people there. UPDATE TWO : So I just recevied a refund some a different paypal email adress, so I suppose this has been resolved, but I am rather disapointed they lied to be about not having paypal. All of this could have been avoided. (Screenshot 12) In under no circumstance would I reconmend doing business with them, but I did receive my refund after a few grueling days of arguing with this person. Anyway, this is long winded, and I am sorry but after all of this here I am posting my first AB because I am so frustrated. I apologize in advance if this is messy or not the proper way to post, but I don't want anyway to have to go through what I went through. I would also love advice in how I should continue to approach this artist. PROOF: 1. http://imgur.com/tw9RvTv 2. http://imgur.com/yquWSwa 3. http://imgur.com/5SGyQJQ 4. http://imgur.com/U3vy5Zr 5. http://imgur.com/u8Pi6TU 6. http://imgur.com/gWwLhlM 7. http://imgur.com/a/ZOqo8 8. http://imgur.com/WY53ZaH 9. http://imgur.com/f5JXZ5j 10. http://imgur.com/LkzKIAN 11. http://imgur.com/iZPbYNV 12. http://imgur.com/a/sah6V Current Mood:uncomfortable

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/956264.html WHO: Remix Angel Dragon / Nightwolf Costumes WHERE: Facebook –business page apparently deleted; tags/links to business page are broken, did most business through personal page FurAffinity - http://www.furaffinity.net/user/nightwolfcostumes (business, has been cleared out and no submissions are in gallery) Furry Network https://beta.furrynetwork.com/nightwolf/ Twitter https://twitter.com/remix_dragon WHAT: Full digitigrade fursuit valued at over $1800 USD , fleece hat valued at $25 WHEN: Dec. 2014 (when first payment was sent) to present (suit was paid in full May 2015) Read below the cut EXPLAIN: I first commissioned Remix for a fleece hat of my Dutch Angel Dragon character back in September 2014. In December that same year she opened for fullsuit commissions so once again, after seeing her previous work decided to commission her. It was agreed upon that the fleece hat I had previously ordered would be sent along with the suit once it was done (however, I had never seen any shots of a WIP or even a finished hat). We agreed on a payment plan of 25% each month until the suit was paid off. January 2015 I sent her a payment of $450 USD(via Friends and Family to avoid the conversion fee, I was told -strike one on me) then mailed a DTD, a pair of shoes and a hand tracing. As soon as the next month rolled around I was messaged for the next round of payments, but I had to adult (to put it simply) and told her they may have to wait, in which I was then told if I didn’t pay I’d lose my commission spot but that she also wasn’t going to do that. I was able to pay her toward the end of February when things ironed out. Paid her again April 2015 and asked about a possible completion date of Anthrocon 2015. Was told she would start working in May after the last payment was sent. The last payment was sent in May 2015, and work began. We talked back and forth about furs and measurements. It was revealed that the suit would not be completed for AC ’15 but I told her I was fine waiting. September rolls around and we’re still waiting on fur. No other WIPs, such as foam work, were shown. She also asked to keep our conversations between her business page and myself instead of her personal one, but this transition never happened and we continued talking for another year on her personal page. Communication stopped Nov. 2015. After that I’d heard nothing from her again until April 2016. In the meantime she was posting other suit work and finished costumes, as well as sharing excitement over having a character of hers made by a popular maker. April 26 I am finally shown my first WIP picture: the handpaws. In May 2016 I received another WIP photo of the tail. After that I was told she couldn’t finish the bodysuit because my DTD had somehow fallen apart and was full of holes, thus requiring me to send and make another one. I didn’t hear anything for a couple months while the artist went to Eurofurence, despite seeing her post a redo of her own personal suit as well as more work. I messaged them August 20th to ask for updates and was told they were still settling in from the con and wanted another week. I reconfirmed sending a new DTD and was promised extras because of the wait. September 2016 I am notified that they received the DTD, but still no new WIPs. Finally, in October 2016 they send me an invite link to a telegram chat they had created to keep all their customers informed. This is the last time we spoke over Facebook messenger. After the move to Telegram I no longer received any updates regarding my suit, but the artist continued to show off work on other suits, her own suit being made by a popular maker and mention things going on in her home life. She mentions she will have four more hands in the studio to help her with suit work. November she posts another finished head and mentions she will change my sculpt to match that one- keep in mind I have yet to even see any WIP shots of a head at this point. Halfway through November she posts more suit updates but no mention of mine, just alludes that everything they have been working on will be shipped out. There's talk of having everything shipped in time for Christmas, yet still no mention of my commission. Updates in January are sporadic, she's posting that she's sick and disappears for days at a time or even a week. January 23rd she tells us things have gotten worse since she worked instead of bedrest so she's stopping for a while. February she lets us know more about her health, and because of this she is stopping all work, and no refunds are going to be given to anyone. She calls in another person to speak on her behalf and again states there will be no refunds, and to sympathize with her as it is a very difficult time for her, we have options, take them or leave them. I stated my case to this new person, first in the chat then in PM, explaining that while I understand the severity of the situation I can’t just walk away from that kind of money, especially where no other WIPs had been sent since May so I couldn’t even be sure the suit was that close to being finished. I even offered a partials refund of $1200 to cover the material costs and labor already put in and her “spokesperson” stated no, no refunds at all, and “this is the risk you take when commissioning”. They finally do agree on a $1200 refund, as a payment plan, and that they would ship me the parts finished and the remaining fur that I could then take to another maker. I was told I would get a track and trace (tracking number) when it shipped, and the first refund payment was due to start in April 2017. Towards the end of February I reached out to this person again for an update and was told they'd get back to me. I haven't heard from them since. It is now nearing May 2017, and I haven’t received a tracking number, my package, or even a cent of a refund payment. Inquiries to Remix herself are met with “I don’t have the money to refund you, I am ill,” and when asked about the package I am told her father shipped it and she would get it from him as soon as she could. I never have, and my messages are now going on ignored. The Telegram group for her business is now shut down and any business pages relating to Nightwolf Costumes are now wiped clean. Meanwhile, Remix posts actively on Twitter about her upcoming fursuit from a large maker, which as of this writing has been finished and is being shipped to her. She is also very active in a telegram chat for Dutch Angel Dragons, that I am also part of. I warned her about writing an artist’s beware if I wasn’t given the tracking number, and I have yet to get a response from her other than “I’m ill”, so here we go. I know I have a slim to none chance of ever seeing my full refund back, or even the fur. I know I shouldn’t have sent the money without an invoice, or without ticking Goods and Services. I learned the hard way, and I’m hoping others don’t make the same mistake I did. I'm posting this to not only warn people about what happens when invoices and paper trails aren't made, but to also stay away from this person, even if they get back in the business. PROOF: All aforementioned and linked screenshots. ADDING: At the beginning of May Remix reached out to me and asked for my email and phone number – she was referring me to a third party to get this resolved as soon as possible. As of this writing I have heard nothing from her or this third party. I reached out to her May 14th asking if she’d heard anything from that third party and I have heard nothing since. 5/26/2017-ADDING MORE: A rather lengthy response from the maker: here here here here here here here here here here here here I've also been called out on Twitter by Skypro herself, my name isn't used but it's passive agressive enough that I can figure out it;s about me. Note that not once in this entire beware have I ever said I'm insisting Remix finish building my suit. All I've asked for is my refund and the supplies to take my commission to a different maker. Proof is here. 5/27/2017 Woke up this morning to a messge from Remix, with photo proof she has shipped two boxes to me, and a refund via Paypal of $1,080 ($120 was witheld to pay for shipping). I had tried to be reasonable and suggest a payment plan again to make it easier on her but she refunded the full amount. I'd consider this mostly resolved, once I get the boxes in the mail and find what she sent is as she described (all the work she was able to finish, plus the remainder of the materials) I'd say this could be completely resolved. 6/8/17 I came home from work to find that two boxes had been delivered, but they required a signature to be turned over to me (they had been delivered at 9 am, I didn't get home till 6 and I live alone). I was away all weekend so I was only able to pick them up today. Frankly, I'm disappointed. I was told I would be getting handpaws, a tail, feetpaws, and a half sewn bodysuit, plus my fleece hat and materials to finish the suit. Instead I got no hat, handpaws that barely fit my hands despite the hand tracing I sent her, a pair of foamed feetpaws with only one showing the carving process, a tail that isn't even backed and closed up (basically unwearable), and a barely even sewn bodysuit, many pieces still have pins holding them together. I also received both DTDs back (one was cut up to make the fur patterns) and almost all the fur used to make her (I don't have the brown or the green used in the tail). I'm disappointed, largely because I was led to believe more work had been done than this when I agreed to a partial refund but also because any quotes to try to get this finished are going to be through the roof, there's still so much work to do.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/952036.html WHO: kij3k WHERE: http://kij3k.deviantart.com WHAT: 4 flat colored full body images WHEN: payment was sent june 12th 2016 http://i.imgur.com/kzZdMOg.png EXPLAIN: I commissioned this person to draw 4 images in june as shown above. I changed the characters june 28th since they had not gotten any work done http://i.imgur.com/i5QUHp4.png In july they said that since they took so long theyd like to shade them, which i responded with this http://i.imgur.com/eIS7sIB.png and that day they got the first one done http://i.imgur.com/iBpTChf.png The trouble started not long after when they said their computer died and they'd have to take a hiatus http://i.imgur.com/Qebo8tr.png so i decided to ask about my commission and if i would get a refund. I was told that id have to wait http://i.imgur.com/2WwmgT9.png They returned in september and got a lot of work done but still did not get to mine. In november I sent them a note asking why and got this as a response http://i.imgur.com/F0RYYpg.png once i gave them the references it didnt take them very long to finish another one of mine http://i.imgur.com/WAwaJev.png as you could see here http://i.imgur.com/q6FElBE.png there was a misunderstanding, i mixed up notes and thought that i had paid for shading instead of them offering it for free. I let it go pretty fast, and only found the original notes with what i commissioned later on. Only a few days later they posted this http://i.imgur.com/ZkNHgwX.png though they did not link me to it, i found it on my own while checking their gallery. I figured everything was going well but then realized i hadnt heard from them for a month. I left them a comment here asking http://i.imgur.com/lq7230B.png and they redirected me to their journal here http://i.imgur.com/5z3xoDc.png They have a comment on their page saying not to ask about it http://i.imgur.com/krjHDcy.png A big reason as to why I'm making this beware is because I noticed them taking on more work despite owing me art for about 10 months as you can see here http://i.imgur.com/q5BSvAD.png and here http://i.imgur.com/H925fgn.png PROOF: everything should be posted above in order. UPDATE: they posted a journal in response here http://i.imgur.com/rdIc85q.png UPDATE2: I reached out again via note and i gave them the references again. hopefully it works out now. UPDATE3: I got one of them. not resolved yet but progress. http://kij3k.deviantart.com/art/good-habits-677623981 im unable to post screencaps at the moment sorry UPDATE4: Last one was completed this is resolved http://kij3k.deviantart.com/art/cant-feel-my-eyes-680473035

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/949564.html WHO: purqleguy WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/purqleguy WHAT: Fursuit head, one time payment. WHEN: April of 2016 was when I bought the head, the deadline was supposed to be July 2016. At the time of writing this (3/24/17) it has been almost a full year past the deadline, and he will not respond to my emails asking about the tracking number of the package he told me he shipped (he said he shipped it a month ago.) PROOF: Emails: http://imgur.com/a/txDnh Paypal transaction: http://imgur.com/x5G4jo5 I don't remember why I sent it in two parts, but it was sent on the same day as you can see. EXPLAIN: Long story so I put it under the cut In early 2016 I had plans to go to Youmacon with a friend that year. So I was on the hunt for a fursuit head commission that I could wear to the con. A big problem I was running into was that at the time I was 17 and a lot of people didn't accept fursuit commissions from minors. I was turning 18 next month, and was hoping I could use that to hold a spot with someone. I found a commission ad for purqleguy on furaffinity, that he was selling cheap heads as an emergency money maker. I like helping people out, they were cheap and I liked his work, so I bought one. (Initial emails: http://imgur.com/onQQ1kU http://imgur.com/v2yLQUO (a big chunk of the convo has been cut out here, since it was mostly just talk of what material I wanted the horns to be made out of and isn't relevent to my case.) The initial agreement was I wanted it completed by early July. He told me that was doable, and he thought he could have it done even earlier than that. (Email: http://imgur.com/8Ca1JUy ) I got one update ten days after the payment (April 30th) showing me the completed face of the foam base. ( http://imgur.com/0LsBJAh ) After that the only updates I got were from me emailing him to ask. ( Email, note the date, continuing to talk about this in the next paragraph: http://imgur.com/vXC831l ) At the very begining of July, I sent him an email, hoping to confirm that he would have it finished by my deadline. He did not send me photos, but he told me he hadn't begun furring it. Keep in mind, I had not heard from him in a month, and seeing as he sent no photos and said he was sewing the fur pieces, I am to assume he had not made any progress on my head since I last contacted him. He promised to send photos the following day, he did not. His excuse was he went on a mountain trip, (for over a month?) and that's why he wasn't able to contact me. I didn't get on him about this but he should have told me he was going to be away and would not be able to update me. I told him as long as I got it by October then I would be fine with not meeting my July deadline. A few weeks later, I contacted him again, asking if he could send some images of the fur pieces he supposedly cut so I knew he wasn't lying. (Emails: http://imgur.com/jrmTg8d ) He did not reply until early the next month (August) with update pictures. Once again, he told me that a huge thing came up he couldn't work on my suit. He did not tell me that this was happening, this is the second time he had to pause on my suit because of life events without telling me. At this time I told him I was extending the deadline, as I had cancelled my Youmacon trip. (Email: http://imgur.com/8w63Gwg ) For a little bit after that, he did start updating me regularly, and then suddenly stopped without warning. Again. (Emails he sent me, I didn't screenshot the emails themself since it wasn't really much relevent to my case. Just some progress photos and comments on them. These are mostly to prove the dates and that he sent them. http://imgur.com/Z0k4iNL ) He stopped sending me emails until late December, I asked him for an update because the last he checked with me he told me he was almost done. (Email: http://imgur.com/nRJNrrI ) He told me he was going to put in the piercings and then he'd ship it off to me. I did not get any correspondance until February. I sent another email asking for an update, and his exact respond was "[your head] has been packed up for a while now!". He had my head packed up, I'm estimating for at least a month, and he did not ship it off to me. He told me he shipped it February 23rd. (This is the last email he has sent to me, so there won't be any more embedded in this post: http://imgur.com/fvTwOBD ) It has been a full month since he told me he shipped it (I am writing this on March 24th), and I have not recieved the head. He did not give me a tracking number, he did not give me an official confirmation he shipped it. On the 22nd he told me he was going to ship it out the following day, he did not confirm he shipped it but I was hoping he did. I don't know where to fit this into my story here, but it should also be mentioned some updates he didn't even send to me. I had to dig up his instagram account and looked at some photos he had posted to there (ones he didn't send me). I have sent 2 emails at this point asking for a tracking number, in the 2nd I said if he didn't give me a tracking number I was demanding a full refund. I was willing to give this maker a little bit of leeway since he told me he was a minor (didn't give me an exact age, I was guessing 16-17), but this is unacceptable. Do not buy from this artist until maybe he learns his lesson and gives some better customer service. Until then I'm hoping to get that refund I'm demanding and am going to a more high-profile maker with some good reviews. UPDATE; After having to hunt down this guy's tumblr to send him a message asking what was up I FINALLY recieved the head. And the condition is terrible. Here's a photo of the head, it looks fine from the outside but the construction is horrendous. http://imgur.com/Y1NGstB From the outside, notice; no piercings. My character has a nosering and two ear piercings. I even TOLD the maker how he could make the piercings, and he said he couldn't find green paint and I said he could cover it in fleece if he had to. I was very lenient with that because I know green spray paint exists online, but at this point I was tired of fighting with him so I was letting him do whatever he wanted. He didn't even do that, he just put no piercings in at all. From the construction; god where do I even start? I'm guessing he used matrice's head making method, but he did not ventilate the head AT ALL. The mouth is open and that's about it. The foam piece between the head base and the muzzle wasn't cut out, as from my understanding is standard for foam heads, and I had to cut it out myself. He was expecting me to get all my ventilation from the eyes and slightly open mouth, in an all black foam head. The horns don't look anything like I wanted them too, I gave him a link to an etsy store (I believe it was DVC) who had resin ram horns that looked how I wanted but he said he didn't want to use them. There isn't even ridge lines (I'm not sure what the lines on ram horns are called, sorry) on the horns. It's super easy to embrodier something like that on, he didn't even bother. The pink hair piece is tiny, and isn't even pinned down in anyway. If I move too much it flips up. My character I asked some artistic liberties to be taken since my actual fursona has his hair covering his eyes, but I need to see so I asked to make it a little smaller.but not THAT small! The jaw looked like it was about to rip off when I got it, and I had to put some more hot glue in it as I was paranoid it would fall off. And the neck mane has foam under it to make it stand up, which isn't that bad in itself, except he didn't cover the bottom with fabric or more fur, the foam is on display whenever I move my head. I will admit the eyes could've been a little bit tricky to work with, since I asked for slit pupil goat eyes, but the vision isn't very good. The pupils aren't even placed where they would be over my actual eyes, and they're pretty thin. I waited almost a year for a horribly made head. I am not happy. I basically wasted 300$, since I don't want to talk to this guy anymore to get a refund. I'm going to a more reputable maker to get a new head since I'm in the market for a bodysuit anyway.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/948168.html WHO: Dao on IMVU/DauxyCheeks on FA/Xashy on DA WHERE: This took place through Facebook through her personal profile. This is her IMVU account, the products were to be made and delivered through IMVU. IMVU for Dao My IMVU account, where the products were supposed to be delivered WHAT: This was for a custom furset for IMVU. Custom AdSkin, kini, ears, tail, hands, feet products. I sent her my reference and all of the mesh links she would need for the set. She said $30 was fine, I sent her $32. (As I normally send a couple of dollars more to cover fees) Here are the screenshots of our conversation that took place via Facebook. Dao1, Dao2, Dao3, Dao4 WHEN: I first contacted her December 5th of 2016, December 6th I canceled my order and was blocked, December 7th I filed a claim with PayPal, December 15th I received the email saying she provided tracking information and the case was closed, December 17th first appeal denied, the last email I received by from PayPal was March 23rd of 2017 saying that my second appeal complete with screenshots of my IMVU account was denied. PROOF: PayPal Case, First Appeal, Second Appeal, Blocked FB, Friends Only on IMVU, MY IMVU INV - SEARCHED, IMVU STAFF CONFIRMED NOTHING WAS SENT FROM DAO EXPLAIN: Well I posted an ad in one of the furry Facebook groups asking if anyone would be up to making a furset for me on IMVU. Dao (Facebook name omitted for privacy) messaged me via Facebook messenger and I sent her the mesh links and the cash for what I wanted. I had a personal emergency come up and needed to cancel. I felt bad for having to cancel, but I thought since she stated she had another set to finish before she got to mine maybe it would not be too bad. To my surprise, she tells me she finished the skin and already submitted it to the IMVU catalog without even showing me first. I was a little confused by that but decided if she could just show me proof/show me the skin then I would let her keep a portion for her work/time. That's when things got odd because she told me I was really putting her in a bind and that PayPal was where she paid her bills? I did not find that to be appropriate or relevant but it was right after she said she would "get that processed" for me that she blocked me. I tried typing out a response and I got the little pop-up message telling me "this person is not receiving message from you at this time". I honestly took that as a big red flag and consulted with my friends and family on what I should do/did. I waited a day for the refund/reversal and then just went to PayPal to make a claim. It was going to be a dispute but at the time since she had me blocked I thought a claim would be best. I waited until the 15th, that's when I got an email back from PayPal telling me the case had been closed because the seller (Dao) had provided tracking info and confirmed I received my merchandise. I was confused and very frustrated, it was a digital product I ordered. How could they have taken tracking info from her and say it's confirmed when I have proof showing I have nothing in my account from her? I decided to call again and appeal my case. It was shot down almost immediately, on the 17th they had denied my first appeal stating that the seller had provided "compelling information" for my case in their favor. In truth, I gave up for awhile. I figured she just won and I was never getting anything back. I just got ripped off for $32 for nothing. Then a few days ago I had to file a dispute for a totally different issue and the supervisor I spoke with said I should send more screenshots and appeal again. I didn't even know that was an option but I figured I might as well. After another hour or so on the phone the supervisor told me she would contact me directly. Well, that never happened and some representative named "Bob" sent me an email yesterday telling me my screenshots did not prove anything. So I guess I'm just posting this here in hopes to either have this resolved or at the very least share my experience with you guys/potential customers of hers.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/945778.html WHO: OtterN’Daughter, KeryuOkami, WaterDogWharf WHERE: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/otter.n.daughter/ https://www.furaffinity.net/user/waterdogwharf https://twitter.com/KeryuOkami WHAT: Fursuit, Full digi-grade with extra padding in legs/arms/tail. WHEN: First payment was made to Keryu on 7/15/15. I completed my payment plan (Paid in full) on 11/7/15. I did not receive my suit until 2/28/17 PROOF: http://sta.sh/0fch8p7k9cm All payments including shipping EXPLAIN: Before getting my suit: The biggest problem I experienced with WDW was their lack of professionalism, time management, and manipulation via contract. WDW had a contract that protects her very well but does not at all hold her accountable to her end of business. Not only did she not take deadlines but she did NOT stick to her public queue. I commissioned Keryu back in Mid 2015 for a fullsuit(with additional padding in the tail, arms and legs). I often had problems with her ignoring or just not replying to emails. I eventually had to contact her on Twitter publicly to get her to respond. From then on we talked mostly over twitter. I only got updates from her if I asked her directly and my messages would go unanswered for days if not weeks despite her activity on twitter. I confronted her in Decemberof 2015 about her lack of communication( http://sta.sh/01ehajotfho9 ). She apologized and for a short time was better. However things got really spotty again maybe a month later. She was hardly showing progress and I had to poke at her a lot to see anything or know where she was at. In October of 2016 I confronted her again about the lack of work she was doing on her queue and the fact she was putting out premades more often than suits on her queue(http://sta.sh/0t5egnpnyh6 , http://sta.sh/0awufn79jq , http://sta.sh/02a4hdnoxwfp , http://sta.sh/01kxj6w3zvha , http://sta.sh/0tpxdgasxw1 , http://sta.sh/029rl5mp7po5 , http://sta.sh/01tjnclpu6rj ). The premades were incredibly frustrating to me as she was making little to no progress on my suit but was making multiple premades during the time she was supposed to work on mine(http://sta.sh/2b0lsxb0dga ). She snapped back at me and we went back and forth for a short bit before she said she would send me a free head mount for the wall. I said no but offered to commission a second tail because she had not made the tail the way we had originally agreed. She did not respond. I had to message her again later on for updates. In late january I asked where she was at on my suit and was told she had finished it but hadn’t told me yet(http://sta.sh/0iysrwc7rwx ). She then told me she would ship the suit out on 2/14/17. She also told me that the suit would arrive in time for an event I had on the 25th(http://sta.sh/02fwjvo5xevl http://sta.sh/017x9xkfjsez http://sta.sh/0s1q4mf86w9 http://sta.sh/077ih0wftoq).However she then didn’t ship until the 21st and the suit did not arrive until the 28th. She told me she had misplaced my quote forum and asked me to find it in my emails. She eventually found it(http://sta.sh/0itfq51jvwm ). She disappeared for a few days without saying anything about why. It had been 20 days since I knew of the completion of my suit and she wasn’t shipping it. I waited about 18 Months to get my fursuit and it still came with problems. Upon receiving my suit I knew not everything could be perfect but I was still incredibly disappointed with the things undone despite her taking so much time. I ordered large stompy feet, she left all of the inside foam exposed and the ankle area does not go up high enough for the leg to stay down over it ( http://sta.sh/01tj44b4btih ). The paws are large like requested but there is no foam inside to keep its shape or keep the paw from sliding down and off the hand completely( http://sta.sh/021ueii3k1c8 ).. The one area there is foam is around the claws which is left completely open. The head is too big and moves around a lot, I find myself touching the muzzle a lot just to keep it in place while I’m moving. The holes for the tail are not reinforced in anyway, they are just cuts in the fabric which is very worrisome especially with the size of my tail. The tail is a bit lumpy in areas and the foam doesn’t fill all areas properly, instead it slides around a bit, not stuffed enough. http://sta.sh/0258ef8joryb fullsuit arrived.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/944483.html WHO: Cuttleb0ne WHERE: twitter.com/cuttleb0ne WHAT: A plantigrade fullbody fursuit WHEN: Quote sent 12/28/15 Down payment sent 01/13/16 PROOF: Proof of all current payment Only wip I've ever recieved EXPLAIN: Cuttlebone quoted me $2,500 for a fursuit of my saber character with a payment plan of a 30% down payment and the remaining 70% due on completion. I was very excited for this commission so I sent the down payment on the 13th and told him that my only deadline was this coming MFF in December, expecting that this would be plenty of time to get things done. For a while things were going smoothly, I sent my DTD and some extra payments because I was nervous about making sure I could pay him all off on time, since I wasn't quite sure when he would be complete. I would ask for updates periodically, as there hadn't been any progress on the suit other than him sending me a picture of fur samples in June. He suddenly stopped responding to my inquiries from September to November link . When I finally got an update (no progress) I told him I didn't mind if just a partial were done by MFF, trying not to cause stress. He did not respond again until the weekend of MFF, telling me he had no progress, but was going to give me a schedule of when the parts would be done, hoping to finish the suit before the end of the year, I never got that schedule link . I asked for another update on January 12th and got no response, noticing that he was active on twitter I got a little flustered and sent a message saying that I was tired of having to fish for updates and that if he didn't want to do business with me anymore to let me know and we would talk about refunding. We agreed to continue the commission , but I stated that I would need weekly updates even if no progress had been made. He complied for about a week until I got no response from Jan 23rd to Feb 12th link and I had to threaten an AB and Paypal chargeback to get him to respond. I have currently been waiting since the 18th for a reply from him link . In conclusion, do not commission this maker if you don't want to have to threaten an AB to get a response. UPDATE 02/28 After letting him know about this AB and a dispute on one of my older payments (since it was the last day I could do it), along with firmly asking for a refund when I had previously asked him to decide whether he wanted to refund or continue, he replied and apologized for the unpleasant experience I had. He said he was unable to work on the suit due to not having access to materials. I confronted him about some suspicions I had that he was making premade suits, and he confirmed, stating that they were to refund other customers (and myself now). Currently I am waiting for a payment plan for the refund.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/942850.html WHO: SugarNSpiceCostumes or as she goes by on social media, Corpse Cat WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/sugarnspicecostumes/ WHAT: The product was a full fursuit, $1,918. 2 full bodies, 2 sets of feet paws (indoor/outdoor), 1 set of hand paws and of course a head and tail. The quality of the suit was to be the same as the ones advertised on her FA page WHEN: I made the first payment for the suit in 2015, she claims that she started it in April 4th of 2016. I was the only suit she was working on (so she told me, which I have screenshots of and will display) PROOF: This is a small section of screenshots. To screenshot our ENTIRE chat it would be too many links, but this is times where she's ignored me, times where's she's lied to me, and times where we discussed the product quality, when it would be completed, and the price/payments. I blurred out her paypal and the addresses that are there All payments. The last one was refunded by Paypal but the rest of the purchases are over a year old and I can't refund them http://imgur.com/brixFYe The original advertisement in the Dealer's Den http://imgur.com/4hVMoGx Talking about prices/payment plan http://imgur.com/EeHH6Hg http://imgur.com/ZkHGTX1 The date I finished enough payments for her to start on my suit, she already had all of the materials and she had my DTD http://imgur.com/pqNzufp The first progress update I got, then being ignored for a few days while she comes online and offline of telegram, but still ignoring me http://imgur.com/g02hjo7 http://imgur.com/iHv3vYn A small update she gave me with no pictures, then being ignored again. She's never sent me a picture of the 2 body suits, 2 feet paws or the tails http://imgur.com/OilUrwR Her reading my messages and still ignoring them even after going online and offline repeatedly http://imgur.com/HDg8Ni8 Her finally responding, but with more excuses. She changed her settings on telegram so I couldn't see her last time online so I got a little upset. She was active in her SoCal Furries telegram chat while ignoring me. She got a side job and had even less time for my suit http://imgur.com/h7t93TH http://imgur.com/aPxIUio Her ignoring me again and giving me ridiculous excuses like "Yea sorry I'm out grocery shopping for a week"... http://imgur.com/BDoTuHh http://imgur.com/zxVLIit Gave me a picture of my paws with fur and pads, I came back a week later asking what's new and ignored again. Another case of coming online and offline and being active in other chats during the time http://imgur.com/uib5pY1 For a while she kept giving me the excuse "I put your suit back in my shop and I can't get to my shop right now". Then she said she would go to the shop and instead ignored me the entire day and did nothing http://imgur.com/ELxjWZk After being ignored for a long while I just asked for my money back and got this. This is what I will be using when I open the small claims file because she explicitly says she will give me either my suit or money by a specific date. I of course have neither right now http://imgur.com/HMMbDK2 Still saying she can't get into her shop, but she said she finished it and needed my address to ship it. It was never shipped http://imgur.com/4rcOCB3 The 2 partial suits she made for MFF while ignoring me and telling me that my suit is finished but never sending pictures of the body, or mailing the suit http://imgur.com/Rn9GSw9 http://imgur.com/G0wWW2T Constant struggles to get her attention http://imgur.com/xcaOOk7 Final proof of her ignoring me and blaming it on being "Spacey" http://imgur.com/uke09GA Ignored again even after she told me she won't ignore me anymore, and another fake deadline where she didn't finish it http://imgur.com/QPCAJwR She told me she had the box with the suit in her new apartment after she moved and just needed to "find it" before she could ship it. Apparently it takes a week to find a box http://imgur.com/Pd3NI8r http://imgur.com/P58ZBz4 http://imgur.com/QeoT2do Another excuse. She got a tooth pulled and said she can't ship the box, even though she has a roommate who could do it for her http://imgur.com/u6weqDm I had to bother her roommate in order to get her to respond and stop ignoring me again http://imgur.com/N11eRkI Lying about the suit being shipped and the USPS "losing her package" but the package was never brought into the USPS. She bought a $22 shipping label and never brought the item in http://imgur.com/VwWsT7I The unused shipping label/tracking number http://imgur.com/AN6blhe Her threatening to put a cease and desist on me just for posting about this on twitter http://imgur.com/XfeRG2g http://imgur.com/rPWbWqn Some screenshots look different because they were taken on my computer and not my phone EXPLAIN: I payed her in full and she never delivered the product, but the thing is that she lied to me long enough and gave me enough fake deadlines that I ran out of time with Paypal, my only option now is to go to Small Claims Court. I've threatened with that and she just keeps giving me these lies, and even bought a $22 USPS tracking number and sent it to me saying "I shipped your suit" but never brought the "package" in to USPS, so it's still not in use to this day. There are constant times where I had to threaten to take my money back on Paypal in order to get her to respond. In the end, she's still ignoring me, my only response from her is her telling me on Twitter that she'll give me a cease and desist because I posted about this on my Twitter. After all of this she still swears up and down that she shipped the package and says she has an open claim with USPS about the "lost package" but has no proof of that, and still has no proof of the "$2400 in insurance" she bought on the package, because she sent me a receipt for a $22 shipping label but the insurance alone on a package that large and that heavy is $34. On top of all of this, when she was supposed to be working on my suit, she went off and made 2 partials for MFF (they're in the screenshots) during the same week she said it would be shipped to me. Then she ignored me for another 7 days until I threatened with a refund again. After she started ignoring me I started to get a little more aggressive, as you can see in some of the screenshots. Eventually she told me "I was ignoring you because I'm spacey"... that makes no sense, no one should ignore their customers especially if you owe them money/a product. I took back $440 because that is all I could get back from the payments. The rest is over a year old and Paypal won't touch it. Just getting her to give updates was a pain, and I really do hope that no one has to go through this again like I did, this is the reason I'm making this Artist Beware, not as revenge or in anger. She's still open for commissions and keeps taking on suits while apparently working on mine. It's obvious she's either doing them instead of mine, or stealing other people's money as well. UPDATE: After speaking with Vitai Slade to get her removed from Dealer's Den, she "found" the unshipped package inside of her apartment and took it into USPS once and for all. After all of this mess and drama, the suit is the right quality and there are no missing parts. Glad it's finally all over http://imgur.com/a/wKPpS http://imgur.com/a/3cF4t The suit! http://imgur.com/a/xf2zI http://imgur.com/a/kOYlx

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/942680.html WHO: Victoria10717 known as "FurFancyCostumes" on Furaffinity WHERE: Links to their Furaffinity accounts http://www.furaffinity.net/user/victoria10717/ http://www.furaffinity.net/user/furfancycostumes WHAT: Fursuit handpaws, feetpaws, bodysuit with tail attached (fursuit items) WHEN: First agreed upon commission on the 16th of March 2016, it was also agreed upon that said items would be delivered to me by June 17th 2016, this is still ongoing however and they have not started the commission as I am writing this 16 February 2017, I finally worked up the courage to ask for a refund 2 months ago PROOF: Proof can be found here: http://imgur.com/a/RAgOm Proof is in the form of screenshots of conversations I have had with the maker EXPLAIN: This all started after I purchased a fursuit head off the fursuit auction site "furbuy" from someone who bought it from the maker. I decided I wanted to upgrade it to a partial so I reached out to the maker as I needed it done for a specific date which I wouldn't be able to finish the parts by due to life circumstances, this was my only reason for commissioning the maker at the time so I'd have the partial to wear to an upcoming convention. The maker agreed and assured me it would be there in time for the convention http://imgur.com/rCI396A so I went through with the commission and paid. http://imgur.com/HZDcMjl I know artists don't like being bombarded with questions from commissioners so I gave them space and just assumed that they would work on it. Time passed and I hadn't seen any progress at all so I contacted them and they told me it was fine and will be done. I contacted them again 2 weeks before the date they assured me they'd have it completed by (as shipping from the USA to Australia takes 2 weeks) and by this point I knew they wouldn't have it done in time, which I was upset about but I let it slide. Time continued to pass and I was getting more stressed and worried about the commission, I was constantly given sob stories for why the commission wasn't worked on (moving house, relatives dying etc.), which I gave her more time because of, however I was noticing too that she was working on commissions that were paid off after mine. It became difficult to get into contact with the maker as they began ignoring my messages, I tried switching over to email on numerous occasions which were ignored completely, whereas with notes I would receive occasional replies. Late September to early October I messaged her asking what was going on and she told me that she was working and making great progress and I started seeing a lot of work from her that she was doing on others commissions suits and I became confident that soon she'd do my commission as she was posting progress as well with her assuring me my suit would be worked on soon http://imgur.com/rrnAKmd so I decided to add a bodysuit to the commission as they also assured me it wouldn't slow my commission but be done with it. Time continued to pass and more and more I noticed other commissions being done over mine and when I tried contacting the maker I was ignored. Eventually I decided I was putting too much time into this and it was making me too stressed so I wanted to put an end to it and as they had breached the agreement many times I believed I was entitled to a full refund and all they responded with was to follow their "trello" http://imgur.com/oT70pkB to try and get me to no longer ask for a refund. On other occasions I had told them they hadn't made a slot for me on trello which they ignored so even looking at that list, I had no idea where I was on it or if my commission was even being considered in her queue Then the maker proceeded to provide excuses and reasons as to why they couldn't or hadn't worked on the commission http://imgur.com/AZ7StD9 then claiming that I hadn't paid it off before others she had placed ahead of me, this continued for a little longer with conversation difficult as they continued to ignore my messages http://imgur.com/OhKbuo8 Finally I was able to get them to agree to send a refund and at this point I was so over it I didn't care about the 35% anymore, so I waited. I hadn't heard anything in over a month later after them claiming they'd send the refund that never came. So I proceeded with the Paypal claim, in order to actually receive a refund. I called PayPal customer service and explained the situation to someone there who told me that I was entitled to a full refund as they hadn't made a proper effort to work on the commission, regardless of what their TOS stated they had broken the agreement. That's when they finally replied however I still am yet to receive a refund from them as they claim they "don't have the money to refund".

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/925839.html EDIT 11/2/2016: Received both sketches in the mail this past Monday as well as one of the WIPs that was not chosen to be completed. With a lot of poking and prodding, I can happily say this entry is now resolved. EDIT 10/22/2016: Received the second sketch this week! They actually ended up redoing the WIP of the second, doing two different versions which was super cool http://sta.sh/01937bqah6te http://sta.sh/0t3usskymsy (and will be getting the wips sent to me along with the finished sketches). So here's the finished product! http://sta.sh/0vujuwdnoqh It turned out absolutely fantastic, and I honestly couldn't be happier with the result. I was also told that the sketches would be shipped out sometime this week. Waking up today, I got notified that both sketches and all the WIPs have been shipped and was provided with a tracking number. Once I post another update receiving the sketches, I'll ask for this post to be marked as resolved. - EDIT 10/7/2016: I'm assuming the artist knew about the dispute automatically closing on the 4th if it was not issued to a claim. So in spite of that, they did complete one sketch on Monday ( http://sta.sh/017w66edr8e2 ). I have to say, it turned out really beautiful, and makes me super pumped to see how the next one turns out too. They added a bit of extra detail to it too, to make up for all this trouble, which was nice, although since then I have not heard anything back about the second one. Not only that but I only received a photo of the sketch..no high res scan (though I wasnt expecting one as I did pay for the physical copies to be mailed to me as well). I don't know..I'll send another message asking for an update this weekend..but I'm really hoping they don't decide to just..ditch now, considering the dispute is now closed and I can never reopen it again if I don't receive the second sketch or the physical copies of both. We'll see...but I'll continue to keep you all posted. - EDIT 9/14/2016: Issued a dispute over PayPal. Artist immediately contacted me via Twitter and has agreed upon a completion date, that being towards the end of the month. (https://www.dropbox.com/s/if8mxpaqzt3horm/Screen%20Shot%202016-09-14%20at%206.47.48%20PM.png?dl=0 ) If I do not receive an update, refund, or the artwork itself, I will be getting PayPal involved by filing a claim. - EDIT 9/12/2016: Added some examples of what the finished sketches SHOULD look like to dropbox! WHO: Vani / AshKetchumSays WHERE: Twitter WHAT: Traditional Portrat Sketches ($86.50USD Total) WHEN: Initial Conversation: Began June 4th 2016 Payment Agreed Upon & Sent: June 14th 2016 Received first pass/WIP of commission: June 25th 2016 Signs of Trouble Began: July 21st 2016 PROOF: All messages are through twitter, stamped with appropriate dates, PayPal info as well-> https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oeaqa7f60h04n7k/AAAwREd1IFwb0rshXCNV3uPEa?dl=0 What my finished commission SHOULD look like -> https://www.dropbox.com/s/yypupu1d604gljn/Ck7aZUzUUAE2odg.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/084xnnkgzv0optk/CkH1H4HUUAEEWTv.jpg?dl=0 Explain: First of all, I am an artist myself who does freelancing, and normally I wouldn't make reports on other artists as I am a very reasonable person when commissioning other artists as I understand how stressful the process can be and how long it can take. But anyway! Always been a fan of Vani's work, and seeing that they were offering sketches for a good price got me super excited to finally order something featuring my characters. June: Communication started off really well! I knew they were taking a lot of commissions, so I honestly wasn't worried about how long they'd take, as I am a very patient person. An agreement for the final paymet was made, and commission progress began. Within a couple weeks, I received WIPs. They DEFINITELY didn't seem as good as her previous sketched portraits she was doing..I could tell they were likely feeling burnt out, but I didn't bother judging too hard as they are just WIPs. Still looking forward to the final pieces. July: Towards the end of June she gave me a good long update about how they'll be busy prepping to sell at a convention, therefore making a delay on the sketches. Completely fine with that, as I had seen the roughs so I knew they'd get done in no time..or so I thought. Sent in an update of a reference for one of my characters...no response whatsoever, even though they were/are on twitter quite frequently. If you check their twitter account, this was also around the time their troubles rose and they began taking on more commissions, creating adoptables and selling them, trying to earn more money and moving old commissions, including mine, back in their queue. August: Tried contacting them again for an update. Finally got a response; a lengthy one at that, which I honestly don't care about. I just want to know a time estimate for completion. This was when their housing troubles and whatever else were brought to me personally, though I already sort of knew about based on their twitter posts. I come back rather short, as my frustration began kicking in, knowing they clearly have time to work on my commissions, but is yet, focusing on others, new orders at that, in order to make quick money. I bring up the option of a refund (partial, considering they did have WIPs completed), because at this point I'm doubting itll ever get done and I'd rather give my money to an artist more reliable and professional, despite how talented Vani is. No means for refund at given time, so we agree that the following week she'll have them done, and once again, I remain patient with them. September: At this point I'm just fed up and frustrated. Way past the date we agreed for completion, so I ask for a refund. Comes back saying they're completely unable to, yet, oh look! In one of the screenshots I provide, they just received money from a recent auction, but yet, still can't refund me my portion of payment for the pieces I commissioned from them (no idea how much the Auto Buy went for in the auction, clearly a lot more then the previous bid though). At this point I stop replying. I'm not getting my money back, my art will not be completed. If it's done, it'll be a miracle, but for now, I HIGHLY recommend NOT commissioning this artist until they smarten up, sorts out their financial situations and develop a better professional attitude when doing business with clients such as myself. I've spoke with other friends who have commissioned them and they're also waiting on art from them (though at a much longer wait period than myself) and they're equally frustrated. I'm just completely disappointed in this whole situation, and definitely don't want others going through this with her as well. I'm fine waiting long periods of time for art, but when I see her posting more art, adoptables, commissioning openings, etc, its like a big slap in the face to those still waiting on art from them.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/917946.html WHO: Thatdangcat / Toradoshi WHERE: They have heaps of places to contact them, these are all the ones they have listed on their Furaffinity. All contact we had was via emails or FA notes. https://www.furaffinity.net/user/thatdangcat https://www.furaffinity.net/user/toradoshi/ https://beta.furrynetwork.com/toradoshi/ http://thatdangcat.deviantart.com/ https://inkbunny.net/Toradoshi https://www.weasyl.com/~toradoshi https://toradoshi.sofurry.com/ https://e621.net/post/index?tags=toradoshi https://twitter.com/thatdangcat https://www.facebook.com/ThatDangCat https://payhip.com/thatdangcat WHAT: Premade partial on Furbuy to be made into a digitigrade fullsuit. Purchased by myself and my partner as a joint commission with him doing the majority of the contact for ease of commission. WHEN: Premade was bought around 4/4/15 and stopped responding after 7/25/15 Premade partial was bought from Furbuy around the 4/4/15th, the furbuy page has long gone so not sure on exact date. 3/6/15 - Picture of the suit from the makers account, same image used on FB auction - https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16108694/ / http://sta.sh/024rc3ccl2xt 4/17/15 -7/25/15 - A list of all the payments sent - http://sta.sh/0s05lkb1rkh 4/8/15 - 4/11/15 - Details worked out with payment plan and details for suit http://sta.sh/011ulmr8x6gw Some progress was made towards making it into a fullsuit 5/15/15 - Hands and claws were started https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16558995/ / http://sta.sh/01hr2nqi3a14 6/12/15 - Padding was made https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16815559/ / http://sta.sh/01w4ocx52yro A full list of the emails + content http://sta.sh/2d1uiynbyjz?edit=1 7/25/15 - Where emails start going unresponded to http://sta.sh/09t98px9sjc Repeated unread notes on both their FA accounts http://sta.sh/013qhfpa8g9v 2/4/16 - 6/5/16 More unresponded emails http://sta.sh/01qcb3sj803y / http://sta.sh/0n78pdoevi 7/27/16 - After repeated ignored/unpened notes and emails I sent them a note from my FA account asking about a commission enquiry on the 7/27/16 which was replied to on the same day. I sent them a note saying they obviously weren't having any issues getting notes and to either update us, or refund us. http://sta.sh/0ukeca1eaq1 That note was read, and I have yet to recieve a reply but they have been uploading art to their Toradoshi account since then. http://sta.sh/010e0yogvhvy Obviously this has gone on way too long and we should have followed it up over a year ago. The suit was intended for my partner and myself to be able to wear. He was the one organizing and doing the transaction itself along with the details for it so the artist wasn't communicating with both of us, but the commission was for the two of us. Most of the details were run by me to agree with as well, but all emails and payments were sent by him. Unfortunately he's pretty new to the commissioning game and while I'd have bailed out and followed this up a year ago, he kept going in the hopes this would actually get completed. In putting together this AB I saw (He actually probably told me at the time but I forgot) that this suit had a timeframe of 2-4 months 😕 We're in the process of trying to contact paypal and his bank to do a chargeback on Toradoshi in an attempt to get our money back. I'm not holding out hope on a refund seeing my last note has gone unresponded to and going by their Trello https://trello.com/b/pQoLLQU4/tdc-commissions they have other people waiting on refunds (See Blue/white wolf head card) and no suit work done since November 2015, but with two new suits added this year. EXPLAIN: Bought a premade partial from Thatdangcat/Toradoshi on 4/4/15 and they stopped updating us after the 7/25/15. At first chalked it up to emails not getting through, so I bugged my partner to send them a note on their FA to their fursuiting account (Thatdangcat) and their main account (Toradoshi) which was being updated almost daily. Repeated unread notes and unreplied to emails I sent them a note from my own account, which they promptly responded to then stopped replying to once I asked about our suit. ADDED: Since writing this the artist has contacted us again http://sta.sh/0b7tpy16bg4 At the moment still deciding how best to proceed. *edited to fix spelling and unfilled dates* Update: so Toradoshi has been replying since all this, and we've decided to continue with the commission but with a 3 month deadline with weekly updates. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly now! [Editor's note: Update from 2/2017] https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/917946.html WHO: Thatdangcat / Toradoshi WHERE: They have heaps of places to contact them, these are all the ones they have listed on their Furaffinity. All contact we had was via emails or FA notes. https://www.furaffinity.net/user/thatdangcat https://www.furaffinity.net/user/toradoshi/ https://beta.furrynetwork.com/toradoshi/ http://thatdangcat.deviantart.com/ https://inkbunny.net/Toradoshi https://www.weasyl.com/~toradoshi https://toradoshi.sofurry.com/ https://e621.net/post/index?tags=toradoshi https://twitter.com/thatdangcat https://www.facebook.com/ThatDangCat https://payhip.com/thatdangcat WHAT: Premade partial on Furbuy to be made into a digitigrade fullsuit. Purchased by myself and my partner as a joint commission with him doing the majority of the contact for ease of commission. WHEN: Premade was bought around 4/4/15 and stopped responding after 7/25/15 Premade partial was bought from Furbuy around the 4/4/15th, the furbuy page has long gone so not sure on exact date. 3/6/15 - Picture of the suit from the makers account, same image used on FB auction - https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16108694/ / http://sta.sh/024rc3ccl2xt 4/17/15 -7/25/15 - A list of all the payments sent - http://sta.sh/0s05lkb1rkh 4/8/15 - 4/11/15 - Details worked out with payment plan and details for suit http://sta.sh/011ulmr8x6gw Some progress was made towards making it into a fullsuit 5/15/15 - Hands and claws were started https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16558995/ / http://sta.sh/01hr2nqi3a14 6/12/15 - Padding was made https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16815559/ / http://sta.sh/01w4ocx52yro A full list of the emails + content http://sta.sh/2d1uiynbyjz?edit=1 7/25/15 - Where emails start going unresponded to http://sta.sh/09t98px9sjc Repeated unread notes on both their FA accounts http://sta.sh/013qhfpa8g9v 2/4/16 - 6/5/16 More unresponded emails http://sta.sh/01qcb3sj803y / http://sta.sh/0n78pdoevi 7/27/16 - After repeated ignored/unpened notes and emails I sent them a note from my FA account asking about a commission enquiry on the 7/27/16 which was replied to on the same day. I sent them a note saying they obviously weren't having any issues getting notes and to either update us, or refund us. http://sta.sh/0ukeca1eaq1 That note was read, and I have yet to recieve a reply but they have been uploading art to their Toradoshi account since then. http://sta.sh/010e0yogvhvy Obviously this has gone on way too long and we should have followed it up over a year ago. The suit was intended for my partner and myself to be able to wear. He was the one organizing and doing the transaction itself along with the details for it so the artist wasn't communicating with both of us, but the commission was for the two of us. Most of the details were run by me to agree with as well, but all emails and payments were sent by him. Unfortunately he's pretty new to the commissioning game and while I'd have bailed out and followed this up a year ago, he kept going in the hopes this would actually get completed. In putting together this AB I saw (He actually probably told me at the time but I forgot) that this suit had a timeframe of 2-4 months 😕 We're in the process of trying to contact paypal and his bank to do a chargeback on Toradoshi in an attempt to get our money back. I'm not holding out hope on a refund seeing my last note has gone unresponded to and going by their Trello https://trello.com/b/pQoLLQU4/tdc-commissions they have other people waiting on refunds (See Blue/white wolf head card) and no suit work done since November 2015, but with two new suits added this year. EXPLAIN: Bought a premade partial from Thatdangcat/Toradoshi on 4/4/15 and they stopped updating us after the 7/25/15. At first chalked it up to emails not getting through, so I bugged my partner to send them a note on their FA to their fursuiting account (Thatdangcat) and their main account (Toradoshi) which was being updated almost daily. Repeated unread notes and unreplied to emails I sent them a note from my own account, which they promptly responded to then stopped replying to once I asked about our suit. ADDED: Since writing this the artist has contacted us again http://sta.sh/0b7tpy16bg4 At the moment still deciding how best to proceed. *edited to fix spelling and unfilled dates* Update: so Toradoshi has been replying since all this, and we've decided to continue with the commission but with a 3 month deadline with weekly updates. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly now!