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https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/892163.html WHO: Jace Wallace / Wakkawa WHERE: http://jace-wallace.deviantart.com/ & http://wakkawa.tumblr.com/ WHAT: $150 digital painting commission WHEN: November 26th, 2014; sketch received and payment sent December 12th, 2014 PROOF: Initial order: http://i.imgur.com/8VBVvr0.png http://i.imgur.com/szyi0dE.png Proof of payment: http://i.imgur.com/QV4EzFw.png EXPLAIN: Well, it's finally time for the official A_B post. I asked for advice back in June, and since the situation is more or less "resolved", it's time for me to put it all together and post this as a warning to others. I commissioned Jace at the end of November in 2014, the same day he put his commission post up. He's an art idol of mine and I'd wanted art from him for ages, so I jumped on the opportunity. He always seemed very professional to me, so a $150 commission seemed like a good idea at the time. The original commission post said they would be finished by Christmas (2014), and he sent me the sketch WIP on December 12th. http://i.imgur.com/Jy4btWg.png The WIP at this time: http://i.imgur.com/Vs5UUDe.jpg At that time, he said his plan was to send out more WIPs that weekend and have them finished the next week. http://i.imgur.com/TpYsWTe.png After that message claiming that WIPS would be sent out that weekend, I didn't hear from him again. In fact, he seemingly disappeared from the Internet altogether. Not too strange, possibly, considering it was the holidays. However, he had made a firm promise of a deadline, and with the commission being $150, I was a bit more wary than I normally might have been. I let the Christmas deadline come and go, but on January 10th I noted him asking for updates: http://i.imgur.com/keQ7LmU.png As it is still, it went unread and unopened. I continued not to see any activity on DA, Tumblr, or anywhere else. I was getting worried, mostly due to the $150 amount and the fact that I have been burned before. Since I hadn't seen him open my note, I decided to email him in hopes of getting an answer that way, on January 24th 2015: http://i.imgur.com/rvEROmB.png And I never got a response to that either. On January 30th, I sent Jace an email and a note on deviantArt telling him that I would be opening a Paypal claim. http://i.imgur.com/dDiUr7J.png As I say in the message, it was mostly to get the money back in case he was unable to access the computer as I didn't want to let Paypal's claim window come and go. Even with Paypal's claim window having been increased to 180 days, I felt uncomfortable enough to do it at this time given his complete lack of responsiveness. Jace must have seen the claim, for he mysteriously reappeared just a few days after I opened the claim. I received the next WIP on February 2nd, 2015. I cancelled the Paypal claim at this time, despite the fact that he made absolutely no note of it or that he had even seen it. http://i.imgur.com/S3umDjv.png The WIP he sent at this time: http://i.imgur.com/ZTqd2N0.jpg It was quite off putting to me that he made no mention of the claim or the wait much at all. But, then again, I felt a bit bad for filing the claim in the first place -- especially with his reasoning of mental illness. I figured, since he had given me an updated WIP, he would have the piece done pretty quickly. My response to him is here: http://i.imgur.com/kiuiFpu.png which he never responded to either. More radio silence. I sent him a note on May 15th, 2015: http://i.imgur.com/8gJHWmT.png to which I got no response. (I do believe he opened/read this note.) The next time I heard from him was in June of 2015, strangely and conveniently after I sent him a note telling him that I would be contacting my bank about the money (given that Paypal's claim window had then passed for me, by a few days) and posting an Artists Beware post about the situation. http://i.imgur.com/RXa81Ov.png (He was still active on tumblr during this time.) His response, with a slightly updated WIP: http://i.imgur.com/fwz0yd0.png The WIP at this stage: http://i.imgur.com/UHguQJN.jpg This was when I posted asking for advice on A_B. I was mostly just pleased to actually have him RESPONDING to me again, and at this point I assumed that if I went ahead and posted the A_B on him right then, I would NEVER get the piece. So I tried to get him to agree to a deadline. He then agreed to have the piece finished by the end of July, 2015. http://i.imgur.com/aIMFmDP.png http://i.imgur.com/YVLH7OX.png So, another month and it would be done. Obviously, that came and went. Surprisingly, he took the initiative to note me on his own on August 1st, telling me that his tablet had broken. (I had already seen him post about it on his Tumblr, which he was continuing to update regularly with paintings and posts.) Again, pleased that he was CONTACTING me and not ignoring me, I accepted his claim that he would have it done the next week. http://i.imgur.com/1Nk8ri2.png http://i.imgur.com/A3sUxI3.png Aaaand that didn't happen, either. He did not contact me again past that point, AT ALL. (I send him another note on September 3rd, 2015: http://i.imgur.com/BbhcdiY.png ) In fact, the only way I got him to contact me again was rather direct and annoying. On top of updating his Tumblr regularly while ignoring my messages, he had gotten into the habit of streaming quite regularly on his Twitch account. Sometimes games, sometimes painting personal works. I subscribed to the channel, and was receiving emails whenever he started streaming. At first I was just happy to see him working on something, and didn't interact with him. However, when he continued to ignore/"not see" my messages, I decided to bite the bullet and reach out to him during a Twitch stream. On October 25th, 2015, I entered his Twitch stream and inquired after my commission. He had his mic on, so I don't have a record of his responses, but here's the chat: http://i.imgur.com/jOrPowU.jpg Basically, he reassured me and told me a very long story about how he had gotten locked out of his DeviantART account AND the email account associated with it, so he hadn't been able to log in at all. He promised to email me after the stream. He sent me an email that night and he attached another WIP and claimed it was pretty much done, just needed to be cleaned up and tweaked. (Note: this was quite a small screenshot that didn't allow me to see closer details.) http://i.imgur.com/d7KZdbe.png My response: http://i.imgur.com/vW59uJl.png The WIP he sent at this stage: http://i.imgur.com/3kNQwSj.jpg And, again, that was the last I heard from him. I actually let him be for a while after that email, mostly due to how incredibly fed up I was at this point. Plus, he said it was close to being done, so I figured it wouldn't be long. Again, wrong. I emailed him on January 12th (3-4 months later) asking if he had any updates on the piece or on his situation. http://i.imgur.com/Lr2bYa6.png I got no response. He continued to be active on Tumblr, quite regularly posting text posts and art. So, on January 27th, I emailed him. http://i.imgur.com/1uUNoke.png Of course, I do realize asking for a refund at this point may seem out of line to some, but like I say in the email I figured it would be the easiest way to resolve it. I didn't want to wait around forever to get the finished piece and would have been satisfied with the file as-is and a partial refund, even 10% of 25%, ANYTHING so that I could FINALLY take it off my list and forget about the heartache. On January 28th, 2016, he emailed me and claimed the piece he had sent in October was the finished piece, minus the rendering of one hand. He then claimed he would send me the finished file as soon as he smoothed out the hand. As well as a quite P.A. comment about the fact that if this had been for a freelancing company, it would have cost me $2000. http://i.imgur.com/V2OP8si.png Half an hour later, he sent me the .psd of the 'finished piece'. It is almost entirely unchanged from the screenshot from October. And, to my dismay, it's quite rough and not as refined as the sample piece he used for his commission post. There's a part in one of the character's irises that bleeds into the eyelashes, really badly. The ear is a block of unrendered, unfinished painting. The male figure is very rough and untouched compared to the female figure. Overall, the entire thing is quite sketchy, quite unrefined, and quite unfinished -- when compared to his sample. At the very least, it is not what I would hope for after over a year of waiting for a $150 commission that had a much more refined example. Here is the final file he sent me: http://i.imgur.com/91E4qbU.png Note that it's barely changed (if at all) from the WIP from October. Over 3 months for that lack of work done on the piece. Here are some closeups of a few of the problem areas I identified: http://i.imgur.com/ePJmE2v.png http://i.imgur.com/FRBDd1n.png Again, here is the image he used in his commission post: http://i.imgur.com/t0PaIRP.jpg As it is, this situation is "resolved". I'm NOT happy with the piece, but I sincerely doubt he will ever give me any partial refund (the piece is, after all, 'finished' according to him) and I don't care to see how long it would take him to refine the piece more (I'd prefer not to wait another full year, really). And while I feel the end result is not in line with what he was offering, my complaint is about his unprofessionalism rather than the art itself. Art is subjective, and though I may not be happy with the piece, it is "finished" in his eyes. My gripe is his refusal to keep in touch, the constant ignoring of my messages, and the continuously broken deadlines. In the end, this is a beware to all other artists and commissioners out there. Do not commission Jace Wallace. I have no clue if he plans to ever open commissions again, but if he does, it's not worth it. This is hands down the most frustrating experience I have ever had with an artist. It's not even the year+ wait that bothers me -- I've waited that long before, I'll wait that long again. But EVERY time I attempted to contact him, I was ignored, unless I had made a direct claim that I would be pursuing action against him, or I approached him directly IN PUBLIC. (There were a few times when I commented on his submissions on DA or profile on DA, but he has hidden the comments at this point.) He set deadlines, and then he broke them with nary a word. He made excuses, avoided contact, and continued to be active on Tumblr regardless of the owed work. At least with other artists I've had this problem with, they disappeared entirely. With Jace, he was still active on Tumblr almost this entire time, just deliberately ignoring my messages on DA, Tumblr (where he was active, WHILE HE WAS ACTIVE) and via email. In the end, I feel disrespected, insulted, and disappointed - and I don't want anyone else to go through the same situation. EDIT: The final email he sent to me, after I submitted this A_B post and informed him I would be doing so.

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.

Amtrask reached out to me and requested I make them a plush on Nov 14th 2023. We went back and forth a bit discussing this. They wanted a plush that looked like their OC, a human named Max. I said I would do this for $250. They agreed. However they said they had issues with their bank card. I said this was fine and we agreed on split payments. Here's the story of our transaction. Amtrask commissioned a custom doll from me and has received it. They were pleased with the plush and said quote "Max finally arrived today, which was amazing and such a relief! He's gorgeous!". They also received the fabric they requested. The only request I received was to send them more of the fabric from my sewing supplies, which I never agreed to. I explained there was a misunderstanding and that I sent them fabric for their clothes. Amtrask was unable to accept this and demanded I send them more of my fabric. While making the plush, there were various stages that went through personal approval with the customer. Each step before I continued I would reach out to Amtrask and they would accept the work before I moved on. This was a long and lengthy process. I finished the body of the plush and it was approved by the customer. Then I moved onto the process of making clothes. The customer requested the clothes be made as removable so that they could play with them. Since these are handmade items, the plushies I make can definitely be cuddled and played with but they aren't suitable for rough play since they do not have safety labels or certifications. I suggested that the clothes be sewn on. They insisted I leave the clothes as is. The customer then asked if I could send the leftover material fabric so they could use it for their own personal sewing. Since we are at the stage of discussing the clothes, I thought this would be fine since the clothes did not meet their expectations, that way they could make their own clothes. I gave them a quote for the fabric and they agreed to buy it from me. It was sent and received with the plush they bought. Everything they paid for is accounted for. The only reason a claim was filed was because I did not send them more of my personal fabric, which I explained that I never agreed to do. Their next message again demanded I send them the minky fabric I used for the body. They claimed it was something I promised. Again I explained there had been a misunderstanding. This time I decided to block them as our business had been concluded. They were happy with what they received and only asked for more fabric from me where I was not going to be sending them additional fabrics. In retaliation this customer went on Etsy and began sending me aggressive messages. They begin demands for 1/3 of the payment for the plush be returned to them and the fabric they paid for to be refunded. I respond to them refusing the refund since they received the plush happily. The only problems you will see arise after I refuse to send them the remainder of my sewing supplies. I also make a request for them to stop contacting me. In retaliation for refusing the fabric and blocking them, the Paypal claim is then filed at this point. They file two separate claims against me. The first is for the fabric ($15.33) fraudulently stating that it never arrived. The second is for roughly 1/3 of the plush ($83.00) now claiming it was not as described. After I responded to the Paypal claims Amtrask sent me messages on Etsy attacking my character, questioning my character for responding to their Paypal claims. After not getting their way, Amtrask begins to refer to me by my legal name instead of my artist name. This is a tactic (in my opinion) to intimidate me. I do not go by my legal name online, I go by Starful on every platform. The only reason they have my legal name is because on Paypal it is required. I also believe Amtrask attempted to gaslight me, making me feel as though these events did not happen as I perceived them to. Except I have proof that they were satisfied and thankful during the process of creating their plush. I will also explain after I accepted the order and after Amtrask sent me several messages with revised references, they went on my Etsy store and purchased two small plushies from me. I will include those as well. This is why they decided to move to Etsy to begin harassing me after I blocked them. We had no previous communication on Etsy. This smaller order was in November. Unfortunately if you block someone on Etsy they can still continue to send you abusive messages as much as they'd like. Some additional details about our transaction. These weren't necessarily blacklist worthy to me, they just caused me a lot of unnecessary grief during the process of completing their plush order. After I accepted the commission, I explained that it would take me some time to fill. I wasn't exactly sure how long, but I explained I had other orders and that I would fill their order last. I gave an estimate but still explained I wasn't sure how long it would take. This is not the type of order I usually take after all. While I worked on other orders Amtrask began sending me their reference over and over. The pictures had very little difference between them, if at all. They would also delete their previous photo that they sent me so it was hard for me to compare. I did not save any of the reference photos to prevent myself from being confused, I have the first image they sent me as well as the final reference photo. You can decide for yourself if there are clear differences between the first and last image to warrant the amount of pings I received to my inbox. This plush was sent internationally. Amtrask requested that I upgrade the post, but it had slipped my mind at the time. After the plush was sent, there was a period where the tracking did not update for 4 days. Amtrask began to send me many messages concerned their package was taking a while and that it was lost. I reassured them to wait and apologized for not upgrading their post. I gave them the estimated date I had been given. In their response they projected their feelings onto me and were unreasonable. I tried to reassure them after this. I reached out to Etsy two days in a row on the phone calling to see if I could get information for them to comfort them. Even after the tracking was updated they expressed worry that the package would not be delivered. [removed cap was here] - admin

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/910500.html Included are links to screenshots of the journals etc in case of deletion. WHO: soaru@dA (old account) / hatchimi@dA (new account/formerly Dollrot) WHERE: http://soaru.deviantart.com/ http://hatchimi.deviantart.com/ WHAT: Digital art - Pixel icons x4 - $40 total (+paypal fees) (92 total icons owed to others on her to do list) WHEN: Soaru had claimed to have been diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in early May 2014. We were all very understanding of her situation and that there would be delays with her commissions. ( https://i.gyazo.com/2d18a1584409cebc7fd6d15f3f87241e.png journal link: http://soaru.deviantart.com/journal/Carpal-Tunnel-Diagnosis-453965909 ) and then another notice to commissioners: ( https://i.gyazo.com/cda7fca79f835063a19bd737fd96fc10.png journal link: http://soaru.deviantart.com/journal/Attention-commissioners-454227201 ) I first noted soaru about the icon commissions on July 17th, 2014, then the agreement was made and I sent the payment the same day. (see screenshots in ‘proof’) Soaru had then made a journal on July 26th 2014 to state that she had unlimited pixel slots open for the summer ( https://i.gyazo.com/ff5ccf459452bb685191edc39e486352.png Journal link: http://soaru.deviantart.com/journal/work-work-work-470968786 ) Unlimited slots never being a promising sign, but I am a patient person, and didn’t think much of it at the time. A few more updates regarding soaru’s recovery and commission progress were posted between August 2014 until August 2015 (I will get into these in my explanation below). The final update on August 25th 2015 was about her recovery and any updates for commissioners, and since then the account has been dead. PROOF: commission note paypal transaction EXPLAIN: As stated above, soaru had been diagnosed with Carpal tunnel syndrome. She posted a journal about it on May 14th, 2014 and continued updates on her situation. When soaru had opened commissions, I sent her a note expressing my interest, and the agreement was made on July 17th. I sent the payment the same day. On July 26th 2014, soaru posted a new journal stating that she had unlimited pixel slots open for the summer, ( https://i.gyazo.com/ff5ccf459452bb685191edc39e486352.png Journal link: http://soaru.deviantart.com/journal/work-work-work-470968786 ). I didn’t think much of this at the time. On August 20th 2014, Soaru posted a commission update ( https://i.gyazo.com/1b08df12e524cd8658c41b2a8160a8c6.png journal link: http://soaru.deviantart.com/journal/Commission-update-476955835 ), stating that she was working very hard on completing her commissions right now. She asks for our patience due to work and having to take breaks because of her carpal tunnel. I was in no rush for my commissions and only wished for her recovery, as I really couldn’t imagine how awful it must be to suffer from carpal tunnel as an artist.. She adds “I did not forget about your commission, don’t worry.” The next update was on October 6th 2014. Soaru states that commissions are now closed for a good year or so. She tells us that she is very busy with work, so commission progress is moving very slowly, and apologises for the wait. I can appreciate that she is going through hard times, so a few months isn’t much to wait given her situation. “I will not update you on how your commission if coming along because there are too many of you to note. I assure you I WILL complete the commission as soon as possible. So please be patient with me. You will receive your commission when you get it.” And no, I have no idea as to when you will receive it, and for that I'd like to apologize. I also won't be providing any refunds. You will get what you paid for.” I’m a patient person and I could appreciate that taking unlimited slots as there would be a lot of people on her to do list, but looking back now, not receiving any kind of progress report on how your commission is coming along is a pretty bad sign as well as stating that you have “no idea when a commissioner will receive their commission.” But again I was willing to wait and a few months wasn’t anything to complain about given her life situation. (https://i.gyazo.com/83b4d48b277187c21701d02963b5f5f7.png journal link: http://soaru.deviantart.com/journal/Commissioners-PLEASE-READ-486724217 ) Between October 2014 and February 2015, there was no real update on soaru’s commission progress or her condition. Apart from posting a journal in December asking if her commissioners would mind if she used her new base for their commissions or not. (I requested to stick to the original base I had ordered as it fit my characters better). ( https://i.gyazo.com/934a152cd6297a6082aef184dc9e00f3.png journal link: http://soaru.deviantart.com/journal/Question-for-people-who-have-commissioned-me-498366584 ), though you could hardly call this an update. Finally on February 10th, 2015, soaru posts her public to-do list and an apology for the delay with her commissions. (https://i.gyazo.com/67931c13a0edf8575e38623994e9681c.png journal link: http://soaru.deviantart.com/journal/TO-DO-LIST-UPDATED-PLEASE-READ-THIS-OMG-512941211 ) On this list there are a total of 96 commissions yet to be completed. At the time, I simply thought she’s stated many times she is working hard to get these done so over the course of months hopefully her list will get shorter and shorter, and she will get through these and can look past this tough time in her life. The next and major life update was posted on July 13th 2015: ( https://i.gyazo.com/8e096687c3b8c8bc92baef371ba68a41.png https://i.gyazo.com/7e8bc4738ff1ea001597797b8e525eec.png journal link: http://soaru.deviantart.com/journal/Life-Update-ADDED-546016180 [screenshot & link to updates journal linked at the bottom: https://i.gyazo.com/12e87e334c506d2f8477ef92f83e50d7.png journal link: http://soaru.deviantart.com/journal/updates-447349674]). Soaru talks about how she realizes how unhappy a lot of her commissioners are with her services, her surgery and the date being under negotiation, and that she has been going through recovery. “I'd like to assure ALL MY COMMISSIONERS that I am not running away with your money. I WOULD LOVE to provide refunds to all of you, I cannot stress that enough. But I simply do not have the funds to do so. I know I've already asked you all to be very patient with me, and some of you have and I'm very grateful for that. I do not expect everyone to be understanding of my situation financially/mentally/physically, but you WILL receive your commission.” Her last update and sign of any activity on her account was on August 25th 2015. ( https://i.gyazo.com/0153602488fb599d70ff0bb7bad6a9fa.png journal link: http://soaru.deviantart.com/journal/Recovery-Update-556158826 ) A promising recovery update stating that soaru’s wounds are healing well, she still experiences some pain but it should disappear soon. She says she should be able to start commissions mid-September. She says she’ll be sure to post a journal update, as well as join.me streams of commission work, and finally that “You will also be provided with WIP's of your pixel so you know I'm actually doing your commission.” I cannot speak for everyone on her list but I have not received any kind of work in progress shots from soaru. Since then, soaru had provided no updates about surgery dates, delays, or any kind of work in progress to assure people that she was indeed trying to work on these commissions as she had been stating for the last year. Many of the comments on her page and in her journals talk about the lack of any kind of update given the situation and the wait for all of her commissioners. Soaru is even ignoring notes and comments from her clients. Many of the comments urged her to think about trying to refund even just a few commissioners to lessen her workload and to just resolve the situation as quickly as possible. Soaru also states that once her recovery is over she will be working her hardest to finish all of her commissions in response to another comment. I tried to note her back in January: ( https://i.gyazo.com/cf393ed24d2d8fe08285099283e79359.png ) to ask about changing characters since it has been so long that I had forgotten who I had even requested, but there has been no response. However, in my sent notes it is marked as read. Around late February, a friend and I (who is also on soaru’s to do list) came across a deviantart account named dollrot, but recently changed to hatchimi. At the time there was no evidence that hatchimi and soaru are the same individual, however we did find her art style to bear very close similarities to soaru’s. For some time we just kept an eye out since there wasn’t much posted to hatchimi’s gallery at the time and it could just be a similar style. Here is a comparison we compiled of all the similarities we found (style wise) : http://orig03.deviantart.net/d537/f/2016/154/f/1/comparisons_by_theangelofmemories-da4ubbh.png Over the course of the last few months we’ve tried to gather as much evidence as we can that links hatchimi and soaru as the same person. A few things we noticed: Her icon style is in the same style as her old one (they’re not made from the same base, but the way the eyes are pixeled have the same technique done on them, plus they almost overlap in terms of head placement over body) She still uses bases extremely frequently and they all have their toes pointing inwards with their hands by their sides with closed fingers. A similar technique with the way she shades her noses, and the highlights in the character’s eyes Handwriting comparison http://orig02.deviantart.net/06b4/f/2016/166/2/f/handwritting_by_royal_jelliefish-da6ck3m.png The first semi-concrete proof comes in the form of a work in progress shot from soaru, and something I noticed when I popped in to one of hatchimi’s picarto streams a few weeks ago. This is Soaru's wip screenshot with her file location atop the SAI window. notice the "C:/users/mew/desktop/file/cootiewootie.psd" Now, look at the location on this screenshot taken from Hatchimi's picarto stream. Same user name and location as to where the file is saved. "C:/users/mew/desktop/file/BASEA.psd" Along with the similarities of their style, noticing that they share the same user name and have the habit to save on the desktop is too much of a coincidence. Now, the evidence we have found that positively links soaru and hatchimi as the same person was something I noticed when hatchimi posted her artvsartist meme. She has since taken it down but you can still view it via google cache here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://hatchimi.deviantart.com/art/artvsartiste-611370644 screenshot: https://i.gyazo.com/ad467bb0d3af2f1e4794c2464916a57f.jpg A while back soaru had posted a self portrait to her deviantart, and looking at the two images it’s hard to think they’re two different people. Please note the same piercings and gauge in her ear as well as the facial similarity. http://fav.me/d8hcuq8 screenshot: https://i.gyazo.com/090fdf9f9535898df2d0febda19d16d6.png A friend had found soaru’s old paypal/email address through the icon commission transaction. Hatchimi’s current paypal does not contain personal information linking her to soaru, but with some digging with the ‘soaru’ email address, we have discovered it is used for her instagram account that has been up since 2012 and is still active: https://i.gyazo.com/b536e315ee2473202d9842807a0a1561.png When lined up side by side from the image from the artvsartist meme: https://i.gyazo.com/09f0a7f2270ec47712465a1e29420878.png The name that appears in the transaction for the payment to soaru from 2 years ago also matches the name on the instagram account if there is still any doubt that they are the same person. The evidence collected in this case was through a group effort from her dissatisfied customers I have reached out to. **Edit : 17/06/2016 We have posted jorunals on deviantart revealing our findings and to spread the word. my friends (who has been in contact with hatchimi to send her the beware post and to see if the situation could still be privately resolved) : http://royal-jelliefish.deviantart.com/journal/ARTIST-BEWARE-Soaru-Hatchimi-615658826 Hatchimi has also posted a journal with her defenses and some evidence of a conversation between herself and soaru through email, as well as a note she sent inquiring about commissions to soaru. http://hatchimi.deviantart.com/journal/Harassment-soaru-drama-615813488 Someone picked up that there is a tab open in this screenshot for 'msn canada' it isn't by any means concrete but it could confirm her location, and this could be another piece of evidence that links another similarity between them. http://orig06.deviantart.net/ce3f/f/2016/165/e/a/ccb568bad3054274b7fe6f00b4a87a34_by_hatchimi-da6aqen.png anoher edit: a user found a page in the waybackmachine that has her country listed as canada: http://web.archive.org/web/20151024030234/http://dollrot.deviantart.com/ So we can prove that she and soaru share the same location. A big question for me in all of this is that why now of all times would she choose to reveal this screenshot of her noting soaru about asking about commissions? Surely its a strong piece of evidence to support that the two are different people, so why wouldn't she send it to us sooner rather than this much later? http://img10.deviantart.net/289a/i/2016/168/6/a/proof1_by_hatchimi-da6mxv6.png (screenshot in case of deletion: https://i.gyazo.com/f95a0191f17fd6a7aa8e13112f34e47b.png ) At first it looks fairly normal, but someone commenting on the beware journal checked their old notes from before they changed their username, ane the previous username shows up in older notes, not the new on since hatchimi was formerly Dollrot until earlier this year, why does it say "Hatchimi said the following" and not "Dollrot said the following"..? Another commenter then claimed that it is possible to run a test on images which will tell you if the image has been edited, and the screenshot came up as edited in photoshop, so this tells us that the note screenshot is fake. Here are the websites one can use to detect a doctored image: http://fotoforensics.com/ http://imageedited.com/ Hatchimi is still denying that she and soaru are the same person, despite all of these new revelations, I will continue to update as more light is shed.

original: https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/655276.html EDIT 2/19: I got this note and I replied today: http://i48.tinypic.com/b8pb43.png (Fixed Link to hide my Address) I'm just really sick of excuses that may or may not be true and want my stuff sent. WHO: PuddingCup88 WHERE: PuddingCup88.deviantart.com WHAT: A Trade for a Fursuit Head and Tail (From Me) For A Keyblade prop, Tail, Feet Base, and some fur. (From Her) WHEN October 14th, 2012 - Maybe January when I started having trouble. PROOF: http://oi50.tinypic.com/2it2791.jpg http://oi47.tinypic.com/24pky75.jpg http://oi49.tinypic.com/2zqalcm.jpg http://oi47.tinypic.com/1pckmx.jpg EXPLAIN: So, I saw her work in a group, and really loved her feetpaws, so I sent over a note asking about them. That's what her first comment replies to. We struck up a kind of friendship during this. This was my first trade, and I was new to the business world. I really loved a keyblade she had made as well, which became one of the items in the trade. All went well, easy contact and exchanging necessary information. I do believe -- this should have been a red flag for me -- My biggest mistake was to agree to send it in time for Halloween. I sent out the package, and I asked about her sending the keyblade. I should've taken "My Mom Sent it" as another red flag at that point. I'm thinking I missed some Notes here (Went through all my notes) or the messages were through skype, as she had failed to tell me that Pakko arrived, and I only knew because of shipping. I had posted an advice post around now about this, as the keyblade was taking longer to arrive than it should have. Luckily it arrived around a week after that. Contact seemed to have died after she got Pakko. She decided to sell him after Halloween ( http://oi48.tinypic.com/13z5u15.jpg ) which I wouldn't really have minded much if it was not for the fact I had only ONE of the items she needed to send me. So, I proceeded to send her a note in November or December for updates. Come January and still nothing, despite her stating she's going to send everything out. By now I had gotten more experience dealing in business, and simply was quite angered at this, and wanted to get it over with and get my stuff. Now it's February. I've completed 1 complete head, 1 almost complete head, and 2 head bases in this time, so I have gained more experience in buying and selling and simply do not comprehend how she is not done and shipping things to me. I'm just really annoyed, and decided it's finally time to make a Beware on her.

sailorpawz is a deviantart creator that frequently hosts contests where users can draw her characters for money, da points, or custom pieces. In Feburary 2018, I decided to enter one of these contests, after seeing her advertise it on Furry Amino. It was a contest to see who could design her a brand new character, after she gave a few examples of breeds, colors and aesthetics she'd like incorporated. After a month after the due-date and origionally listed 'judging day', I contacted her via Furry Amino to discuss the situation, as she had deactivated her deviantart account for a few days at this point. She explained she was going to reactivate and announce the winners, which she did soon after. She then mentioned that she couldn't pay up, then redacted and instead said she would need to wait to pay the winners, which I said I would be willing to wait after she mentioned she wanted to choose my design as the top pick. It was a few back-and-forths between us before she was gone for good. I would check in on her from time to time, asking her about how things were going, talking about life, etc. so we could remain on good terms. However, one day she had suddenly deleted her furry amino account, and I have not heard from her since July of 2018. It has been over a year since the announcement of the design contest. Do not participate in her contests unless you want to get nothing in return if you win. Our Furry Amino chats have been posted below, I am redacting any personal information for the sake of the both of us. There were two separate chats--the first one in December, she suddenly left, but still had her account live. The second one, she left when she ultimately terminated her account for some reason. She has not attempted to reach out to me on any platforms, nor respond to my several invoices on paypal.

Back in May 2023, Aslley had finished a YCH I had a slot for. It was very late. It was a valentine's couples YCH that I had originally requested and paid for 9th Feb 2023. I have had late commissions before so I didn't think much about it. When I finally got the finished YCH in 5th May 2023, they also said that they were doing a promotion for a half body commission. I did like the work of the YCH so I was happy to think about a scenario and discuss. A final amount and scenario was agreed upon with payment settled on the 10th of May 2023. But afterwards there were no updates, so I reach out on the 3rd of June for updates and was told that they were busy with Pride YCHs and so unable to work on my commission and also tried to sell me a Pride YCH which I declined or knew anyone that would want one. Again no updates. So I reach out in September 8th, September the 30th and October the 8th. All of which had no replies. With Paypal's 180 days buyer protection coming up. I then started the chargeback process on the 18th of October 2023. Later that day I got a refund and an update by Aslley later that day. Saying that the Twitter DMs were empty and could only see my messages on PC. Said that they have ADHD, a spreadsheet to keep track of all open commissions and family issues in the last month. But said they would still be interested in working with me. To which I replied if you an start working on it ASAP, within the week then sure. I'll go ahead with the commission again. So I paid via Paypal again on 16th of November. I also added them on Telegram has they said it was a better way to get in touch with them. They also tried to sell me a Halloween YCH as well which I declined. For this new cycle, got a message the 16th that the next steps was the sketch. On the 17th November, got a message asking if I was interested in a Christmas YCH. But I said let's work on one commission at a time. Knowing they struggle with ADHD, the last thing I would want to give is multiple commissions and would rather let the work on one commission at a time. This conversation around the Christmas YCH keeps going onto the 23rd of November. Being keen to keep this commission quick and aware that it's now been more than a week getting any sketch. Reached out on the 28th & 30th of November and 65th of December 2023. Got a reply on the 6th of November saying that they were busy with family. But would be able to show a updates the day after. Nothing appeared the day after and I reached out the 14th, 16th and 19th and got a response on the 20th of December. But again no sketch or any updates just 'what are the next steps with approving a sketch'. With Christmas now in fully swing I held off until the 2nd of Jan 2024 to ask for an update as in the screenshot before. Again on the 6th and 21st of Jan will no response until asking on the 1st of Feb. And got a response. Said they were in hospital was finally got a light sketch. Just outlines, no expressions or anything to make it identifiable as my fursona. Had some back and fourth about amendments. And I gave the go ahead ono the March the 4th. Reached out on the 4th, 12th and 19, of March and no responses. But this time they weren't delivered. Only sent. At this point, life got a bit hectic and busy so I forgot about it. I also usually have a calendar reminder about the Paypal 180 days buyer protection, like for the last one. But this time, I accidently put it a month later than I should've. I remember about the commission and asked on May the 20th for any updates on the screenshot above. And no responses. Unfortunately but this time, the 180 days was out by 4 days so I was unable to claim a refunded anymore. I've also reached out on Twitter on the 20th of May but no reply either. I have also sent an email in early June 2024 but with no reply. If you think about the full picture, I've requested a commission and paid for the 10th of May 2023. A year on, there is a sketch that only has an outline. No expressions or identifiers of my fursona. A lack of updates and communications. But would heavily promoting other YCHs even though not completing the current commission. Tried reaching out on Twitter, Telegram and email and got no responses. But there are still active on Twitter, making posts and retweeting and 'last seen within a month' on Telegram.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/1004177.html Who: AshleyZombie/AshleyZombieArts When: May 16, 2018 — July 11, 2018 Where: http://ashleyzombiearts.tumblr.com/ What: A finished digital painting for $100 This artist usually gets a positive reputation from her fans and community, so this might seem like a shock. No artist is perfect, and surely no artist is bulletproof. I hope any fans of hers will see reason, and not an intent to do harm. This is my story. About a week ago from writing this (July 1) AshleyZombie canceled my commission because of con booth prep and "personal issues." I asked her to not do this, that I was willing to wait until con season was over and she was ready. But she did not want to hear any of it. She then kept half of the money I gave her for the commission and sent me a terribly done rough draft of the image, which is not what I was paying her for nor do I think it's worth half of the amount she charges for a fully rendered painting with cleaned lines and refined color work [see example here]. I expressly told her I don't agree to these new terms for a half payment, and that because she is the one canceling our project, that she is breaking our contract. She then slapped me with a bunch of horrible terms from her ToS page, which we never discussed beforehand. I initially contacted her on Tumblr after seeing a post about her being open for commissions — which was back in May, so over a month ago — and we hashed out the beginnings of what I thought would be an amazing commission project. Not once did she mention her ToS, and furthermore that because she was the one breaking our contract that she has no right to enforce her ToS onto me. It's already bad enough that to be on her commission list you have to pay 100% upfront. But now that she's able to cancel any commission she chooses, and is able to keep half the money for doing very little work, is a VERY BAD business practice. If all you are going to do is open for commissions, then cancel the commissions you just took while barely working on them just to keep half of the payment, then maybe you shouldn't be doing commissions in the first place if you do not plan to complete them. I understand bad things happen in life. I am completely forthcoming about personal issues, and I am willing to bend over backwards to help you out if I can. But this is something I feel she is doing to take advantage of clients, who will mostly remain silent and let these things go. I did not feel this was fair for her to do, and I was more than happy to negotiate a new settlement for the work she has done. However based on separate terms unrelated to the canceled commission. If you start a commission for a digital painting, and the end result is a rough doodle, then I am willing to pay you for a rough doodle. Just to put prices into perspective here, she was offering commissions for half-body and full-body paintings, at $100 and $180 respectively. I am glad I only purchased the $100 slot, because if she considers what she gave me to be worth half of $180 I would legitimately lose it. Either way, the practice of canceling someone's commission and charging them half for very little work is most unbecoming of her reputation. I haven't even mentioned the communication timeframe, usually taking weeks before getting a response. For the most part I was quite unassuming. After the first day of making payment, on May 16, she told me she would be able to send periodic WIPs. About 8 days later, on May 24, she sends me a rough sketch of my character which I absolutely adored, and told her to continue on after making some small fixes on the character. Again, another 8 days of waiting for a response, and on June 1 she informs me that there are no updates and to check her commissions queue. That didn't help clarify what was her situation was, but I reassured her that if she needs time to just let me know what's going on and keep me in the loop. At this point I ask her to let me know when she thinks she will be able to resume or get back to me about my commission, but no response. Twelve days later, on June 12 she finally responds with an update asking me to confirm the color palette and eye color. I comply, and I confirm the things that are correct and things that aren't correct. However I expressed slight dismay at the fact that we never discussed the changes to the preliminary sketch that was first drafted almost four weeks ago, and that the changes needed were not reflected in the update. I even clearly stated the issues unaddressed at the end of the email, verbatim. She then reassures me that the corrections will be reflected in the final painting, but I was already having doubts — my trust in her to do what she says was really all I had left to rely on. I tried to press on a conversation about the initial changes to the first draft, however that was shut out with another 4 days of silence, and finally on June 17 I received a response comparing the first draft to the second with color. At this point I was somewhat troubled by the lack of progress on the commission. An entire month has gone by, we haven't discussed the details or how we should go about fixing said details, I am receiving updates arbitrarily which only address the artist's concerns and not mine, and I personally found myself frustrated and contemplative about the appearance of the initial draft. So I withdrew my responses for a time, as it seemed the artist was not interested in having a conversation about my commission. I had the intention of responding later, or looking forward to AZ keeping her word that she will make the changes I am asking for in the next update. That was not to be so, because a week later on June 23, she sends me an email. "Hi, i hate to be doing this but im send out refunds to clients that's waited over a month or so due to the fact that i have con prep to worry and i've been slowly burned out with work. I've got a lot going on irl too and I've been stressed about it I don't think im doing this character much justice and im not following the guild lines too well with whats shown on the page. This character's been sketched and colored already so i'll be giving you a partial refund. I Just need your paypal email and i'll send you the full image when i send the money back !" Basically she's decided to scrap the project for her own reasons, but also — by the way — she'll be keeping "part" of my funds as tribute for her efforts thus far. Under different conditions, as I stated before, I'd have been happy to compensate her for her efforts. But the way this was imposed upon me, with disregard for her own incompetence by not completing her end of the deal, seemed to have disingenuous intentions. I sit on this email for about a day, contemplating alternatives and then I arrive at a solution. I ask AshleyZombie to reconsider putting the project on hold until she is able to collect herself and is ready to continue, preferably after "con" season. I was open to a new timeframe, and expressed that I'd be happy to wait. She refused, twice, and it was basically a one-sided conversation. Actually, come to think of it, the entire conversation since day one was very one-sided. I'm not very aware of many one-sided business conversings, but they usually don't end well for the receiving party. A few more emails, and it seems she's actively pushing for me to just accept what she's saying. From her tone, I can tell she's frustrated with my noncompliance and pleading. And to be fair, I am just about as equally as frustrated with her unresponsiveness and authoritative diction. I grind our pleasantries to a halt and let her know my thoughts on what she is trying to do. Specifically that I do not agree at all with her new terms for a partial refund for an item I do not want in its current state, at a price of her choosing. I lay out the barebones of our contract and how she did not complete her end of the deal. As a result, I asked that she consider completing the piece at full price — or that I demand a full refund and that she keep her incomplete efforts. Perhaps to count it as practice work or something to stuff into a sketchbook. I tried my best to be reasonable and logical, also taking effort to acknowledge her "apparent" hardship. But even this was met with incompetence, as she accused me of trying to bully her into not paying. I told her I would consider paying, but under arguably different circumstances. Nonetheless, seeing as how negotiating with her has gone so far, I wasn't optimistic that she would agree to anything else. Then she slaps me with her ToS. Which states that if the client should ask for a refund, and if she is halfway finished with the piece, that her terms would apply as such and a partial refund of "half" of the original commission price. And that would make sense, if I were the one requesting the refund. I even told her if I initiated the refund, I would be okay with paying half. But that isn't the case by far, and the complete opposite is true. She has termination terms, but she's exempt from terminating herself? And because she's broken contract, I don't understand how her terms can still be enforced. That got cherry picked to mean what she wanted it to, and as such she says it doesn't matter who initiated the refund. That if the work itself is halfway done then she is entitled to half of the payment. No negotiations. Had she simply imposed a cancellation fee, she wouldn't be able to enforce it. Our situation wasn't any different. That out of the way, this argument continued for one additional response from her, basically telling me that I'm bullying her, that her ToS are to protect her, etc, and that she will be enforcing her terms regardless of how wrong she was for breaking our deal. So far, I am taking this up an echelon with PayPal. Hopefully they will be able to resolve this issue where I cannot. And if they can go no further, I'll take it to civil court if I have to. It's the principle that's going to cause more harm in the long run, in my opinion. And not just from AshleyZombie, but from other similar-minded people as well. This is what I expected to get. [link] And this is what I got. [link] Still, the issue isn't about worth. It's that the original deal was not honored. We agreed on $100 for a finished digital painting. But instead of that, a new deal was shoehorned into this one, involuntarily, for a partially completed work for half the cost of the original price. Which I never agreed to. However it will be difficult for her prove what constitutes as a "half work," and what justifies "half payment" based on her ToS. Had this been a normal cancellation fee, I'd gladly pay it but... wouldn't you know it, I didn't cancel? Please beware of this artist, and others like her! Proof: Emergency Commissions Post | The original was deleted, saved on archive.org Payment | on PayPal Email conversation [PDF][NSFW?] PayPal case is ongoing! UPDATE (July 11) PayPal has ruled in my favor. The case is now closed! Proof of decision (July 10) I also discovered that AshleyZombie reopened commissions not even a few days after canceling my commission! This means she lied about her reasons for needing to cancel, in stating that she needed time to de-stress, etc, yet just hours later she reopens extra fresh on Twitter. In other words, AshleyZombie is accepting commission slots, only to later cancel any commissions she doesn't want to do while keeping half of the money given to her by clients. Do take note she leaves that part out, as if a full refund was offered. This is beyond reprehensible. Please be VERY aware of this before commissioning her. I'd offer to help revise her refund policy, but for someone to scam their clients like this I cannot bring myself to want to help. My perspectives on AshleyZombie have definitely changed after this discovery, and not for the better. Archive.is link: [Reopened Commissions] Rant on Twitter: [Rant]

Before I begin, let me reinstate that I wish no ill will or harm towards DaskerLizard or their business. I am simply posting my experience about my time with Dasker so that others my avoid the negative experience that I have had. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I contacted Dasker/BlueFoxFursuits the morning of June 16th, 2016 via email asking if it was okay for me to order being 17 (turning 18 within the next few weeks) and what their payment plans looked like. I was responded to 4 days later with both my questions answered. Given the okay to order, I then submitted a application via their google docs quote form. I was responded to almost immediately with the approximate due date and how much my suit (which was/will be a partial) would cost. I responded back within a few minutes saying I would like to go ahead and reserve my spot within their queue. After a few hiccups, (me paying in the wrong currency), I finally had paid off my deposit and had a reserved slot for May 2017. I paid £190 ( $287.16 ). A few emails from me about what furs they will use for my suit were exchanged so I could order a bodysuit to match with no problems. I have since received my bodysuit from another maker. The real problems started when it finally reached the due date for my commission. I was struggling for with money due to unforeseen car problems, so I emailed them on the 15th of May, 2017 and asked for an update on when I would be up so I could prepare on when I needed to pay/how much to put aside. They replied telling me they had to "do a lot of shifting around in my queue due to confuzzled suits overrunning" and how they had injured their back moving fur supply boxes and that they will be "starting up the queue again towards the end of june when I'm back from confuzzled, and also back from visiting family for a late birthday meetup". I was both upset and relieved on how I would have time to save up further and put aside my money problems, but also a little sad considering they had taken more con crunch commissions and put them ahead of other preexisting commissions. The next time I contacted Dasker was 5 months (October 9th, 2017) past the given completion date of end of June 2017. I simply stated how I had not received an email from the regarding my commission and how the queue was looking/when I would be up. I was then informed unknowingly that I had been once more pushed back to February of 2018. At this point I was rather upset, so I did not reply. I emailed them ONCE MORE on July 21st, 2018 (another 5 months after the due date they had given me had past), asking what the wait time is looking like since my slot had been missed once more. They responded a week later on July 28th, 2018 saying they had moved and had eurofurence deadlines to focus on. Again, putting convention crunch commissions ahead of regular commissions. I was told that I would have my commission and "all older orders out by jan-feb next year". Again, moved another year back. I did not reply. After waiting so long, I then took it upon myself to contact Dasker one more time on January 8th, 2019. They replied saying that it "should be february". Seeing as it was the beginning of the month, I was VERY excited to finally get around to getting my suit. That is until as of late. On February 17th, I contacted Dasker after finding out that they had once more opened for more commissions. This has had me extremely worried that my commission from 2016 would be pushed back once more to make room for other, newer orders. I asked them if there was a problem with my character and asked that if they did not like the character given, that they would tell me and refund me my deposit instead of pushing me back over and over. They then confessed to me that I am not the only person who has been waiting since 2016 for their suit and that I should have my suit by March. I was upset by this information considering how I am 1) not the only one going through such an experience and 2) my slot had once again been pushed back. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ To reiterate, I am a very patient person. I from the above evidence, it is obvious I have only emailed one to two times a year asking for updates, often waiting months after the date I was told to contact them. To put it into perspective, I ordered when I was 17 years of age, I am now not too far off from turning 21. I have given Dasker the benefit of the doubt one too many times, and I can say that I am very unhappy and disappointed with my experience so far. I only paid the deposit needed to reserve my spot, but I have had the rest of the money needed within my Paypal for up to 2 years now. They do not email/contact commissioners when they come upon hard times, leaving one to basically chase them to get a vague answer on when your commission will be started. Dasker seems like a nice person, they not once seemed rude and often replied in a very professional manner. However, it seems their queue is VERY disorganized and unprofessional. At the moment of writing this, I still do not know what spot I am in their queue and do not recommend working with DaskerLizard/BlueFoxFursuits. I will update further when/if I receive what I have paid for or if anything else unfolds. If you see any inconsistencies within my writing, please let me know and I will fix them!

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/968610.html WHO: Eltalite/Elty/Demu/Rhey WHERE: FurAffinity (x3) - https://www.furaffinity.net/user/elty https://www.furaffinity.net/user/demu/ https://www.furaffinity.net/user/rhey/ Weasyl: https://www.weasyl.com/~demu DeviantART (x3) - https://eltalite.deviantart.com/ https://inkydemu.deviantart.com/ https://demu.deviantart.com/ DeviantART Group - https://whitevale.deviantart.com/ Tumblr - http://eltalite.tumblr.com/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/eltalite Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/eltalite (There may be others I am unaware of. I apologize for this.) WHAT: An Original Species Adopt Found here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/18744417/ was sold to me for $250 and has since been reclaimed. I was not given a refund for it, and the individuals that are aids to the seller as well as the seller in question all refuse to even speak to me. WHEN: I bought the design on January 10th 2016. A dispute between me and the artist occurred sometime in October 2016 that got me blocked by them everywhere, including emails after an email exchange with the artist. The adopt was "reclaimed" on August 24th 2017 and after a brief attempt at an email exchange I was dismissed, and ignored. (Please note that I live in the UK which will cause time zone differences between me and the artist as they don't live in the UK) EXPLAIN & PROOF: On January 10th 2016 me and the artist entered an exchange via notes that displays my interest in buying the adopt in question. The artist accepted and I sent them the payment without delay within the space of an hour. (Notes: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzhBESqCaxDiUDFVS3EydDlvSGs/view?usp=sharing, PayPal: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDiQUJHNFdFWi0yVjA) On October 2nd 2016 Demu posted a journal concerning the his original species Ferrin, stating that female Ferrin no-longer had breasts as they lay eggs instead of producing live young, negating the need for the females to produce milk. I posted some comments on this journal and Demu took offence with them and blocked me, on every platform they knew or could discover I was on. Now when I purchased the adopt they make it a requirement that we adhere to an agreement called the Ferrin Adopt Agreement. this agreement is updated regularly and I can not provide the version that I initially agreed to or the version of it that was enforced at the time I was blocked. The current version is here: http://whitevalestudio.com/athenaeum/doku.php?id=documentation:adopt_agreement . The reason this is relevant is because it was last updated on November 2016, after October 2nd 2016 when this incident be tween us took place. The oldest version I can find is here: https://sta.sh/0kw73r0l6sq which was updated October 2015 Now after being blocked initially I felt terrible and disgusted with myself to the point it had a negative consequence on my mental condition, so I panicked somewhat and emailed them to apologize (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzhBESqCaxDiaGR3RUxRT0FqVGs/view?usp=sharing) . This didn't go down well. But being in the panicked mood that I was and the overly emotional state that comes with my depression, I kept talking (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzhBESqCaxDiMnFveHFWY3pkem8/view?usp=sharing) because that's how I am. It's how I've been forged and is a sad factor of how I work no matter what. This I can explain, for those that wish to know. That also did not go down well (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzhBESqCaxDiU1NQaXl1T2FTSEU/view?usp=sharing, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzhBESqCaxDicVlVVTNGVmt2QkE/view?usp=sharing), they blocked my email and I could not reach them (not sure how you "block" an email) so anything I sent to them after a certain point would not be seen by Demu, or anyone else with access to the email. The reason this is important is because in the version of the Adopt Agreement I was bound to it stated that if I wanted to sell an adopt I needed to inform Demu of it first, with me being blocked, I could not do so in any way shape or form. So this for me potentially dissolved our agreement as that can happen when one makes it impossible for one party makes it impossible for the other party to fulfil their part of said agreement. So by blocking me everywhere, Demu essentially nullified the Adopt Agreement between us meaning it did not apply to me any longer or the Ferrin I adopted. But the opposite could also be true as the full legal depth of it is rather tricky as it's essentially impossible to copyright a species based on a design and words alone, because of how copyright law works. So for me I was left in a sort of limbo, and wasn't exactly sure how to progress. So I settled on a compromise. I would bind myself to the majority of the Agreement as it was written on the date of me being blocked from contacting them via email, I would check Demu's account once a month to see if I'd been unblocked to establish that the Adopt Agreement would then be reestablished between us as the original issue was resolved, and in 1 year (October 2nd 2017) if I was not unblocked, I would check the new Agreement and decide if I wished to follow it, if not I would ask a friend to contact Demu and notify them of this and state I wish to sell the design to not cause a conflict of interest. i tried to illustate this ion the ferrin I adopted with the Artists Comment box that comes with everythign one uploads to FA and such sites (This screen shots were sent to me by Demu's staff as their evidence against me https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzhBESqCaxDiUFhKQVg0M1RmN3hHNVZUcEhnNllseHJzWkpN/view?usp=sharing)That was the plan anyway. But on August 24th 2017, a member of staff working for Demu contacted me and stated that they were reclaiming the mentioned adopt (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDibkJNRW14SlpMUnM). One reason for this is because of the above linked part of my Artists Comment box, where I say I will not follow it after the point of being blocked, and the others were because I keep a public list of the people that have blocked me (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8003830/, Print Screen provided by Demu's aid in case it gets deleted: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDicGlMbkJwelhFdnpqUmJUSUpjdFlYWXNWcHQ4) on an Announcement Board style Journal, this is to ensure anyone that follows me is aware that those artists shouldn't be recommend ed to me since I'm blocked, I can't communicate with them. trying to would defeat the purpose of suggesting them, the other is because I have a journal entry entirely dedicated as an apology towards Demu (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7838301/, Print Screen provided by Demu's aid in case it gets deleted: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDiX0JCdi1WMzdEdUZFcl8tMGRZTUtURmM3LVV3). These are notices and a public apology which is in of itself an acknowledgement of wrongdoing. The apology itself was posted in September 2016 and in my previous emails to Demu I informed them about them, and yet are only now bringing it up as an apparent issue. So I responded, again panicking as that's just in my nature and as such it's not going to be very...elegant (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDiWGNvMUlCaEI0SU0). After that my mind started to swirl with the idea I'd been robbed blind and so I looked up about how PayPal deals with the issue. too late as it has a 180 general limit after the original exchange. This lead me to worry, but then a friend calmed me down and said that it might be best to file a dispute anyway so you have a filed objection but make it so Demu gets a chance to respond. So I did, but the options of what was "wrong" didn't fit the description of what was actually wrong so, i just picked one at random, and filed my complaint with some of my argument included as well as my suggestions on ways to resolve this (Link 1: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDiNzJobktUOWh6cHc, Link 2: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDiTUNlNlF0aTRQYkU). This didn't go down well as I then received another email, that not only dismissed everything I've said but also made many accusations towards me as an individual (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDiYjl0LXpmOHFTcVE). So to this I responded, with my friend keeping me calm throughout the exchange so that I could put things more elegantly as shown here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDiNnJFSloxM3ItQzA. This email has been ignored and will likely continue to be ignored. Throughout the exchange since being blocked Demu and their associate has made personal attacks against me as an individual, which for me adds insult to the injury of being left $250 worse off. So for me they have established themselves as a scam artist. I once had further evidence that would support this claim entirely, but I have lost it since my laptop broke and my bookmarks did not import entirely when I used a temporary one. Anything else would be conjecture at this point and I'd rather we all deal with facts. I as an individual know my faults in this and can learn and grow from it, I can explain some of the issues Demu and his aid have with me but again that would be conjecture. If Artist Beware staff permit I will elaborate in response to any comments that inquire about it. UPDATE 1: The artist RamTheDragon has offered to do their own version of the design for me so I'm not using Elty's art anylonger. For free. The finished image of said piece can be found here (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDiVXJZMy1xd04zTUU) and here (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24790880/). They have expressed a willingness to be named, for their kind gesture. Also in my upload of the image here (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24790880/) which i have also Print Screen here (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDiMWpJZ3Zla0JJTVE). I have also sent an email, shown here (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDiY3FpbDdaVmR5Rkk), to Elty/Demu, to express my intent on keeping the character. UPDATE 2: The artist (Elty) of said Character has contancted me via email here (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDiWlN2dm9mMHp5SzA) and here (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhBESqCaxDiSkZ6YUtfTnVuT0U). The artist has commented below. Any future conversations between the artisst and I share in private will either be expalined or shared here, to help anyone that see's this Beware in future be as aware of what has transpired as transparent as possible. UPDATE 3: The artist Elty, has been entire appologetic about what has happened. It seems that a friend they trusted to help them manage their emails abused their position of power. This is presumed to be because of issues in their personal life which has nothign to do with either I or Elty. Their original act of reclaiming the character was not a power they were granted by Elty and as such the official statement by Elty the Whitevale team is that it never should have been taken and that the act was more or less a type of theft on their part, caused by a singular member of the team (who has now lost their position). So the issue is resolved.

Back in January 2022, I contacted scaretactik via email to inquire about a commission. I originally came across their art via twitter and at the time and still since then, their display name has always read as their commissions being open; they have taken more comms & emergency comms since. I did read in the artist's carrd beforehand that they can be slow with completing comms, but I admittedly still didn't expect to be waiting over a year later– this and the lack of communication and other surrounding details has me unsure of whether the art will be completed, hence why I am submitting this beware. Here's the initial email from January of 2022 and a receipt for the PayPal payment: Before sending the payment, I instead DM'd scaretactik on twitter since they stated it as being preferable, and that's where we would continue to communicate up until October of 2022: After January 2022, the next time I heard from scaretactik was when I reached out 6 months later in July to ask if an update was available. Scaretactik got back to me and brought up being agreeable to a deadline, so I asked if a month following this would be alright but that I would also just be happy to receive a WIP rather than the full finished piece. I did not receive an answer to my response/I did not hear back from scaretactik further at this time: The next time I spoke with scaretactik was when I reached out a second time in September of 2022, another 2 months later. I was told that I could expect to receive a WIP shortly and that they were appreciative of my patience; I did understand that they had some things going on so I was still content to wait at this point: However, I did not receive a WIP/any further messages from scaretactik at this time until I reached out again in October. These are the last DMs we exchanged before moving over to discord: Scaretactik soon after messaged me via discord with a WIP on the 18th. It was very barebones, but I was happy to finally receive something and stated being okay with the idea they were going for: The next time I heard from scaretactik was on November 4th then the 7th when I received another update, though the sketch/idea had been changed. I liked how it was looking so I didn't mind the alteration and also gave it my okay: After this, I received another update on November 10th, but the sketch for my piece had once again been changed. I didn't mind the revision so I gave it my okay as well: This is where the periods of silence started up again. I reached out a month later on December 11th to inquire about any possible updates and to ask if scaretactik had a trello or queue tracker. I did receive another picture of my piece, but there didn't seem to be any progress made and again, it had been revised without my knowledge. This time, I was unhappy with the direction of the unexpected revision, so I wasn't entirely sure how to respond & initially forgot to and didn't get back to scaretactik until the 14th when I voiced my concern: This is the last time (December 14th of 2022) I have heard from scaretactik. I've reached out again on February 19 of this year and more recently on March 15th, but neither of my messages have been replied to. I don't know at this point if I will receive my comm or if the quality will be what I paid for/if more unexpected changes will be made since it's now going on 5 more months of silence, so I'm submitting this beware: I don't mind waiting as long as needed but do feel forgotten about and am just disappointed with how communications & updates have been handled. I would be glad to still receive my comm but dislike pushing for updates and am already exhausted with this situation; I'm open to hearing from scaretactik and working something out, I harbor no ill will towards them.

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.

On December 31, 2018, I commissioned Bree Drake for a full body badge while we were both vending at NYFB. I have screenshot proof of this transaction, despite the fact that it was a verbal, at-con, cash transaction, because I sent them a digital copy of my ref sheet via telegram:, at which time they asked me to confirm the type of commission I had purchased from them. On January 10th, I was contacted via telegram with an update as to the status of my badge, at which time Bree informed me they would be starting work on my badge soon after having some personal issues. Two months later, on March 18th, 2019, I attempted contact on Telegram for an update. My message was read, but not responded to, meaning that Bree elected to actively ignore my message there. She has not been active on telegram since July. Shortly thereafter, on March 21st, I sent her Facebook Page for her studio a message, asking the same question. At this point I was concerned because I was not listed anywhere on her Trello and had not even received the promised WIP. As you can see, some point after this exchange Bree deleted her business page, leaving me unable to contact her here either. As of September 6, 2019, I have not received a badge, a WIP, any further contact (nor can I contact her, as all her accounts seem to have gone dark as of March 2019), or any attempt at a refund.

Commissioned art and YCH purchase on 5/24/2023 This Beware does contain NSFW elements, All communications were handled in discord After some difficult communication due to a language barrier, we finally came to an understanding and payment was sent These are the two payments through boosty, one of these is an error as boosty charged me twice. Here is the YCH that was purchased along side a REF sheet slot Here is the initial communication between me and the artist, it took a while to come to an understanding but we came to agree that its two ych slots and one commission if they are able to get boosty to send me a refund for the extra $200, knowing boosty from my perspective they is no way to really get a refund unless i want to get my account banned by doing a chargeback as in their eyes it would be considered fraud from some of the other cases i have seen They made an announcement on their discord saying that they are burned out due to them working on furry art and would prioritise working on working on human art if some of the people in their discord would like that instead So five months have passed from the initial commission DM's so i sent a DM in discord to see if they have a trello to see where i am in the queue, they apparently do have one but they keep it in private access and its supposedly in their language (even though i could work it out with a translator) in addition they state that the art would be worked on in november, After two months have passed including november which was the supposed date that the commission's was being worked on, so i sent another message to see what is going on... and no response, i waited until january to send another dm and still no response (image includes overlapping DM's from earlier images) I gave them a warning that if they continue to ghost me, i will be forced to look at my options such as posting an artist beware, after i gave them the warning they responded with this reasoning for their absence despite them streaming on twitch days prior Image includes another member of the artist's discord who also became frustrated with how long they are having to wait Due to the nature of this i decided to give them time to sort things out on their end and continue to wait, i waited a week as they would supposedly be working on art and sent another DM, they still did not reply, I then waited until this February to send another message and still no response still no message from them to as of typing this 2/26/2024 Here is their twitch activity for this month and prior They seem to be working on art for themselves such as emojis for their twitch discord and personal pieces it even seems some some of the newer streams are missing

Explanation and issue: Merciful was to exchange one character named Yeshua in exchange for 3,000$ USD. It was agreed upon a payment plan of 400$ a month then changed (by myself) to 200$ every 2 weeks. Once the character was paid off there was a substantial delay in transferring the character with multiple excuses. The character was still actively up for sale during this time and a user had inquired about their sale, which Merciful then attempted to resell to them. A ToyHou.se admin then had to transfer the character over to me (with proof of purchase). They were informed that they could appeal the transfer with substantial proof that the character was not resold, or a chargeback was filed. Merciful then remade the character and asked the original creator of the design to add their creator credits to the profile. I was informed of the the recreation and put in a ticket to have the character removed. It was removed by a TH admin. Merciful has claimed she has been hacked and never actually resold the character. She stated it was sold by her ex's fiancé as an act of revenge. However the correspondences between her and another user don't seem to match this claim. There are substantial conflicting details between what I was told and what another user was told. this information is private and has been provided to the AB staff. Agreement: The original agreement was made over furaffinity (Littlychibiteddybear). I had commented and then PMed her. She wished to take the conversation to Discord for ease of contact (sinned_raven). Proof of payment: *Please note there are cancelations of an invoice; noted by the strikethrough of 1800, and 200 on may 8th and may 3rd respectively. These were not paid by me as they were canceled prior to payment. They were meant to be payoff points on my part, and I had to push payment back. (See below reference) Our interaction relating to payment delays. Start of the issue: -My confirmation to her that payment was complete and her confirmation that she received it and would send Yeshua over when she could. -A delay in transferring the character to me. I had asked a few times, of which she had said she was busy and could not transfer the character. -My reaching out to the user that she attempted to resell the character to -My exchanges with a TH admin forcing the transfer -The creator of the character reaching out to me about the recreation of the character -My exchange with the TH admin about the removal of the recreated character. Other relevant correspondence: -Our discord conversations over the length of the transaction. This detailed various instances in which she would send me invoices to pay and idle conversation (redacted). -A confirmation that LittleChibiTeddyBear is her alt sales account Our current conversation regarding the issues, and her claiming she was hacked. For transparency. I opened disputes with paypal. I am no longer comfortable owning this character and I will be returning it. I am unable to tell if she was actually hacked and her claims are true. It's weird to me how she just switches from not being okay with it to being okay with it after I threaten disputes and legal action. It's always weird to me that she's being allowed to use her "hackers" paypal and is in constant contact with her. I can't keep my personal opinions out of that matter. I consider this character "stolen goods" and I will not keep her and do not consider her to be owned by myself as it is illegal to own stolen goods. Final update and outcome: I received a full refund of every transaction listed for a total of 3,000$. As the case as a whole was multiple transactions and they were all refunded under an umbrella "case". The character was returned to Merciful.

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!

Had commissioned this artist back in July of 2018; the piece was a 3 character Studio Ghibli themed pic of my character as well as two of my friends. Here are screen caps of payment: At first I was super ecstatic about getting this piece because I really adored this artist and at the time, they were seeking funds to help them out via a journal (which they conveniently deleted before I could take screenshots of it). After payment was sent, I noted them asking if they had gotten the funds in which they replied yes and a WIP would be sent shortly (1 to 2 weeks). I figured at the time all was good: Some time goes by so I send them a reminder note and they state that, yet again, they will have a WIP for me soon: More time goes by and still no WIP and no reply from the artist. I get a little worried but don't think too much on it because, as an artist myself, I know how commissions can sometimes take a bit more time and personal life can throw some unexpected loops. I send another reminder note, this time letting them know that this is a shared piece and others did pay for it as well and if things are going to be too much for them to handle, they can just cancel the piece and we'd be fine with a refund: They quickly reply that they will get it done by Dec. or so: ... and yet I wait more: Still did not get a reply. My note is ignored and I figure, they are busy yet again. I myself get a bit distracted with my own commissions and personal life. When I catch back up on things, I still haven't received a reply from the artist but I do seem them uploading art. At this point, it's already well past 6 months and so I tell my friend that we may never get the piece and should each note them letting the artist know that we would like to get a refund. Soon after my friend notes them, I get this note from Yajuuu: I was shocked at this reply, especially since my friend told me that the artist told them how they were going through medical issues and such at the time and etc. (which they not once mentioned to me this whole time mind you). My reply to they're outlash: I was actually hoping that things would be different and give them another chance, but after being informed and seeing another artist post a beware on them, a few weeks before I had put in a commission with them, I changed my mind. I told them I would like a full refund on the $110 but as you can see, they tried to talk me out of it: I replied again: After this, they then agree to refund me but I have to wait another 3 months before they can send the payment. They also pretty much black list me then and there from commissioning them ever again: I acknowledge this and also take note of the date. Soon after this note was sent. They leave FA and later block me on their twitter account; I wasn't talking to them there. I managed to screen cap this before the block: So irritating that they make it sound as if they left because people were being "mean to them" and not the fact that they failed to keep their commissioners up to date, failed to give updates on works and pretty much played around with others money. Yajuuu even went as far as to also block anyone who was in association with me after informing them of a negative outcome with them (wanting to push for a refund). If they were watching me or I watching them on the site, they were automatically blocked. Now I'm afraid that I may never get my money back for there is no way for me to contact them when the date comes and there may be a possibility of them not keep their prommis of them refunding me at this specific date. Edit: Additional screencaps added on behalf of the OP by moderation staff.

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.