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

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/928784.html WHO: Sugar and Spice Costumes / SugarNSpiceCostumes / Kittencheshire WHERE: http://www.sugarnspicecostumes.com/ , http://sugarnspicecostumes.tumblr.com , http://www.furaffinity.net/user/sugarnspicecostumes/ WHAT: Artistic Liberty Fursuit, won in auction on FurBuy in late 2013. Proof of Purchase: [Payment Pic 1, 2] WHEN/EXPLAIN: The original due date was around April 2014. I had been a bit late in getting a DTD to them, so I was not pushy at first. They also had some convention orders to address, so it wasn’t until a full year after the initial purchase that I reached out via email. [Email 1] After this came the drought of absolutely no contact. I started looking at their various webpages for other emails and began CC’ing those in with the hopes that that one of them would restart some contact. [Email 2] As one can see, my efforts were not successful. I received advice from a few people to post here or to try reaching out to the makers through Twitter. I attempted the latter and managed to get in contact. [Twitter Post 1] My hopes at this point were rather high, so I went and asked for communication details and an update as to where things were. [Twitter Post 2] However, I found more of the same: no contact for nearly another two months with no end in sight on a commission I paid in full nearly three years ago. I feel as though I have been kind and cordial in my attempted interactions. I feel as though I’ve been a decent customer, but I don’t feel as though I’ve been treated as one. And I have no idea what to do at this point. UPDATE: 2017/09/07 Back in February, I went through my usual endeavor to gain contact. This time, I decided to be far more direct in my statements and chose FA as my route. Well, it's now September, and the message was never even opened! [The Message] Over the summer, I noticed more people getting vocal about this issue, leaving little shouts on their page along the lines of, "Hey, I've been waiting since XXXX" <-- Insert year here. Woo, I'm not alone! Again, I took the opportunity, having waited without an answer to my message from February. Their response is what you see linked below. They closed their FA, claiming abuse. Now, I looked at their Trello and saw that the suit was still in the queue, and it was slated for an August completion. I decided to wait. August is over, so here's what I have to say. [The Response] SnS, I'm not the abuser. I'm the victim. At this point, you've essentially stolen from me. I have literally no power here. FurBuy can't do anything. We're well past PayPal's period of influence, so all I have left is to complain--and complain loud enough until maybe you listen, or until somebody listens who might be able to help me. I paid you promptly in 2013. I sent you everything you asked for, and after four damn years, it is my right as a customer to pursue this problem! I am the one who has been abused here. You have abused my trust, my patience, and my health. UPDATE 2: 2018/11/1 In January of 2018, I did manage to get in contact with SugarNSpice through an email that actually works. I've put my email chain in here again to prove a few points. First, my message had an emotional element. This has been a stressful thing for me other the years, could we please bring it home. I've had so many questions that have just gone unanswered. Second, the response just seems flat. No sincerity at all here. It's been five freakin' years. And there is another promise to have the queue cleared out by June. [2018 Email] The next image shows that once again this time frame has slid. It also shows that I am still being dragged through the queue. I just don't understand how many iterations of action-->excuse-->timeshift can be taken before there are real consequences. [2018 Queue] See you all in another year when I update again.

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

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/973487.html > SUBJECT: ARTIST BEWARE: FurFancyCostumes/Victoria10717/Vixxens > > WHO: Victoria10717, Vixxens, or her official business FurfancyCostumes > > WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/victoria10717/, http://www.furaffinity.net/user/furfancycostumes, and http://www.furaffinity.net/user/vixxens/. More proof can be found on her instagram https://www.instagram.com/_victoria10717_/. Her business sites are http://furfancy.webstarts.com/ and http://www.furfancycostumes.com/ > > WHAT: Stretchy handband ears > > WHEN: The journal where I asked for ears I cannot access but payment was recieved by her on January 30th of 2015. I spoke to her in person at AC about them. then there were a few notes exchanged on fa about the status of my commission. > > EXPLAIN: In February of 2015 I had paid Victoria for a hand made item (paypal transaction https://imgur.com/a/qAJnV > ). A set of headband ears which I was told would be finished by July at Anthrocon. The convention came and went and I still did not receive my item (asking if they will be ready https://imgur.com/a/oYsYu. I was placed on her public Que for completion along with others. Earlier this year I was removed from the list without notification and I myself had to reach out to her. The reason I got was as follows: "ive been trying to get the extra cash to actually refund you for them since its been a crazy amount of time :(" I was also informed she wanted to focus solely on large scale projects (Trello removal? https://imgur.com/a/peEsU) (Trello response https://imgur.com/a/yd4Df). I also know between all of this she had moved several times and was having issues so I was patient and understanding. Since all of this she has bought quite a bit of house items, a large 3-d printer, and a large 22hd cintiq drawing tablet for herself within the past two months so I do not understand why I have not received my refund from her. She is using both the 3-d printer and the tablet to take on many commissions and pre-orders and has been very active online in doing so. On the 24th I issued a two week warning on an artist beware, believing this was more then enough time to rectify the issue of either my refund or the product. She has read these messages but has not responded since (Follow up https://imgur.com/a/mX8Kr) (following up again https://imgur.com/a/GdTjK) (Ultimatium issued https://imgur.com/a/NgsPk). Now I understand should not have waited this long for such a small product but with her moving a lot I thought it was the right thing to do. I would get paypal involved but it is now going on almost 3 years of waiting for ear headbands. She also claims she doesn't take small parts orders but her trello and her pages show otherwise. > > PROOF: (paypal transaction https://imgur.com/a/qAJnV > ) (asking if they will be ready https://imgur.com/a/oYsYu) (overdue Acknowledgment https://imgur.com/a/Rrju8) (Trello removal? https://imgur.com/a/peEsU) (Trello response https://imgur.com/a/yd4Df) (Follow up https://imgur.com/a/mX8Kr) (following up again https://imgur.com/a/GdTjK) (Ultimatium issued https://imgur.com/a/NgsPk) (business email and possible refund? https://imgur.com/a/0vDdk > ) (New Graphic Table and price https://imgur.com/a/TPpc6 https://imgur.com/a/L680s) (New large 3-d printer and price https://imgur.com/a/wJkBR https://imgur.com/a/0hVhO) (proof that all messages on furaffinty were read by Victoria as requested by AB staff https://imgur.com/a/tiqIA) ::EDIT AS OF 10/20/2017:: Full refund has been recieved by Victoria via paypal So I am owed nothing else. link for proof: https://imgur.com/a/wynPx

May 16, 2014 https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/766036.html EDIT: The money has been refunded, now I'm just waiting on Paypal to approve the refund, but this has been resolved. WHO: Isabella-Price of FA, also has an account Costumes-by-Belle WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/isabellaprice/ WHAT: A Balaclava foam base head for a fursuit. WHEN: Payment was sent on April 5th, with an estimated time of "one to two weeks" As of writing this it is May 16th and I have yet to see a picture. Every time I would ask about the progress the ETA would be moved back, and obviously that deadline would pass every time. PROOF:Here is an image with all of the emails, including dates, as well as the proof of payment http://sta.sh/023ordupo2v5 EXPLAIN: So in late March I inquired about getting a foam head base from Isabella here, and after a week, payment was arranged with an estimated time of completion at one to two weeks. I did say that I wasn't in a huge rush, but I certainly didn't think it would take any more than a month. Well weeks went by with little contact, and only when I myself initiated. After a few weeks I switched from the FA forums to FA itself to speak with her, and she consistently gave me new completely meaningless deadlines. I made it clear that I was running out of time and specifically said at one point that if it could not be completed within the week that I would need a refund. Of course it was NOT completed in that week even though she said it would be. It should be noted that after I looked at her journals I noticed she had a very long queue of both digital art and head bases (and I wasn't even listed in them, I might add). Clearly, she had overbooked herself and should have known very well that it would be impossible to finish my base in one to two weeks. The fact that she omitted this truth to me I find to be a bit insidious. I will not reveal their identity but I did seek out another client to ask if they were having similar issues. It turns out they've been waiting for their base since November! At this point I have opened a paypal dispute to get my money back. I have not gotten any responses from the artist in a few days now but the best thing to make me content would be to just have a quick refund and be on my way. Though the quality of her bases looks to be well above average, don't commission her if you want your base done anytime this year. It seems very clear to me that this artist is quick to take on too much work (and all the money that comes with it) but is very slow to show anything for it.

I originally contacted Furfancy for a fursuit as of Sept 14, 2019. They provided me the link to their website and we continued with conversation from screenshot1.jpg: We had discussed the details and around December I made the initial payment for my partial fursuit for $2000 and the start date to begin working on the suit around the end of 2020. After December, I started making payments via Paypal. Thankfully, I requested a written contract on Jan 2, 2020. The contract was created and signed. (Not provided since it contains personal information of both client and seller) Aside from the occassional late response, things went fairly smoothly as I continued making payments. It wasn't until September that I started seeing some big red flags. I'll also note that in the contract provided, there was a 1-4 day window for communication which I thought was fairly reasonable. Going forward on this beware, it was mostly the lack of communication that resulted in me wishing to end this contract. On September 18, 2020, I sent the following message on telegram: At this point, the lack of communication was already becoming an issue. This was something that I tried to contact her on so that we could continue working around this but kept getting worse as things went on. Throughout this process, other commissioners were having the same experience as me and were backing out. On top of the fact that she was so far behind deadline and also the lack of communication, I was (and still am) worried that she has no intention of really completing my fursuit. Despite no work being done on the suit and breaking her own terms on her contract, she never offered me a full refund, and when I requested one eventually, she said that she could not provide a full refund. My initial $400 payment was non-refundable. If any work was done on the project or parts were already purchased, I may have understood. However, at this point, we are already a year after the initial request to commission a fursuit. There was no work completed and still 20 people in the queue before me which meant I would need to wait approximately another two years before she could even start working on my fursuit. At this time, I had also joined her group chat which I will not provide screenshots of since Victoria largely provides updates via voice messages. Every update that was provided has been about personal problems and why she needs to extend her deadlines for all of her clients. These were the only updates that were provided for approximately a year. I can sympethize with these problems. However, I paid $2000 for a commission. This means that I'm working with a company to provide me with a product. I understand that roadblocks occur, but at no point of the process did Victoria hold any accountability or responsibililty. This screenshot is from September 22, 2020. Please keep that in mind while you look at the next screenshot from October 2, 2020. This last screenshot I found out that she had apparently purchased my furs apparently months ago and didn't bother to inform me. "If a charge back is made, I'm going to assume you no longer want the slot. If you are backing out 35% is non refundable." If the communication up to this point was a red flag, then threatening me for 35% of what I paid so that I can guarantee I don't get screwed through this process should be just straight up illegal. At this point, I managed to call her. Only after a full year, did she share her trello board with me. I contacted her asking her to update her contract for a deadline and a full refund if she did not complete the fursuit by August 1, 2021. After signing the new contract, we stopped communicating for a while. Then we pick back up in February. At this point, this brings us up to where we are currently in the discussion and I'm mentally checked out of this whole process. I just want my full refund so I can move on with my life. I was really looking forward to commissioning my first fursuit and now I'm not sure if I want one anymore. Victoria has completely ruined the idea of fursuiting for me at this point.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/974901.html Where: Furaffinity.net/user/sharpe19 What: Premade head, to be upgraded with a matching tail. When: September 2016 Explain: Sharpe was taking offers on this premade suit nicknamed at the time Alchemy https://imgur.com/fdz80W1. Sharpe did make it known that a new hood (neck/ears) would be made for the winner which I thought was too cool to pass up. I sent them an email private offer of 1800 with the request of a payment plan on 9/19/2016 https://imgur.com/6n2vueu.This was the highest bid at that time, and the payment plan was welcomed! I also inquired about a design (this is prior to being the “chosen” buyer) which Sharpe seemed intrigued by. She asked if a deposit of 800 would be doable https://imgur.com/BCS4ls6 and that my offer is very interesting to her. At this time, I also asked if at this or a future time she would be willing to make me a tail and maybe hands/feet as well for extra funds of course. She agreed to a tail and to possibly add crystals as well! By this time, I was notified that I WAS the buyer (I’m not sure where that message is... I literally don’t have an email or a FA note so weird) and asked for her Paypal to send the first part of my deposit https://imgur.com/ryQN3in. By now I had made my first deposit payment of 600 and was going to get the remainder the following day. I was waiting on Paypal to clear funds of a sale of mine to finish my deposit to Sharpe https://imgur.com/DyhGIzK and was able to put the remaining 200 down on September 30th Some time passed (about a month) and I had sent another 750 to Sharpe while awaiting my first check from my new job https://imgur.com/HlCaOS3. NOW all was going extremely smoothly Sharpe was very quick to respond and lovely to work with. I had 0 issues with communication. I’m going to switch from email to FA notes as I was assuming photos would be uploaded to FA instead of sent via EMAIL (what my previous makers have done in the past). I let a few months go past, I was off FA for a small break, but decided to send a poke her way to see where we were at with the commission https://imgur.com/Qy5NYzz. Now this is about 6 months after the payments were made. I know sometimes life gets busy and I am VERY flexible when people are up front to me with what’s going on… but this response was honestly a little awkward for me https://imgur.com/opSPYdv it appeared she literally had no idea who I was. NOW that being said our primary form of communication was through email, and I’m not sure how others work but for me I document peoples Emails/FA/DA/FB whatever methods of communication I can just so I can keep in touch. But I brushed it off as just simple confusion as to who I was! It happens. https://imgur.com/r0J7p5B this is just me clearing up which commission I was and getting a few verbal updates. Sounds like the Hood didn’t turn out as well and needed to be redone-reworked before progressing. Sure no problem! Quality over speed in my opinion! https://imgur.com/DaoaH0p first talk of getting some updates. They never came but that’s ok life gets busy I suppose. Now were onto June of 2017 where I again asked if we had any updates https://imgur.com/1SGuIdv to which I was responded with a note that seemed promising and that work was almost complete (unless I’m reading into it wrong, to me it sounded like all it needed was airbrushing) https://imgur.com/JYUUm4S. This got me quite excited so I decided to let her work and try back later if she didn’t get back to me first. Well now were pushing the “Almost a year” mark and I am honestly starting to get antsy as I had conventions I was planning to wear this to and really didn’t expect it to take a full year to complete a hood replacement and a tail. https://imgur.com/mix1MqY I was a little confused by the response as I thought we were almost done with things and apparently it was just a first test run? Of the fur? https://imgur.com/1BtiaAr and at this point I had given up mentally that this project would get done. Sharpe was spending (I follow her on twitter) most of her time working on personal costumes/cosplays/projects and I felt like I was completely tossed on the backburner. This is when I asked a SECOND time (because she either ignored or didn’t read) for an estimated time of completion https://imgur.com/CisL4Jc.She said it would be Most likely August, but for sure before Halloween. Finally, a date set I can stop pestering her! https://imgur.com/Z5F4JO9 Well were officially at/past the one-year mark, august came and went and so I inquired one more time to be sure were on track for Halloween https://imgur.com/tyrNaxi to which they assured me we are https://imgur.com/HH4PmBV.To me, and please let me know if I’m wrong, I was under the assumption my suit would be IN HAND by Halloween when I asked if we were on track… Is that wrong of me to assume? Completed Payments https://imgur.com/AnCPEK6 So the original plan was 1800 but I did not complete my final payment of 250 dollars. I was holding on to it until the product had either photo proof, or completion proof or SOMETHING because I have been burned MORE than a handful of times. Well Halloween is tomorrow. I have 0 progress photos, proof of work, I literally have only her word. She messaged me asking for my address, however when I did ask for photos I was met with a really odd response of “Depending on how late you’re awake” https://imgur.com/wXg9Yilwhat?? What difference does it matter how late it is... why is it SO hard for Sharpe to provide me ANY proof of work?? At this point I just hope I can get my refund as I have ZERO desire for this character anymore. I’m not sure if it’s just my expectations or what but a year of waiting with no progress updates proof or anything really left a sour taste in my mouth. I’m a very patient person but I really feel like my commission was not taken seriously or professionally in the form of timelines/completion. It just seems like my commission didn’t/doesn’t matter and that I was only a quick paycheck for someone to use. As of 10/29/2017 I was relayed it would be shipping out "this weekend" (the weekend before halloween) however it was not, and I still have 0 photographic proof of ANY work. Sharpe is a really nice gal, super communicative and will respond very quickly. I just think her time management is lacking. Personal and new projects took priority over my paid commission. I just hope I can get my refund promptly. Beware is only warranted for lack of time management and prioritizing issues. She makes great work, and she’s very communicative. I missed out on every event I wanted to wear this piece to and actually ordered a new costume in the meantime as backup for Halloween as I had a feeling it again, wouldn’t be completed on time. I hope Sharpe steps up her game on her time management and prioritizing pieces. Update 11/8/2017: At this time Sharpe and I have agreed on a full refund, she will be selling the suit (this is the current listing link https://www.thedealersden.com/listing/alchemy/129915) and the profits will be coming to me. Im glad we could come to an agreement. I will update as soon as refund payments are made. Update: 11/16/2017: I have received the first payment of 450 dollars, with an agreement on a payment plan that will total just over 1300 dollars in a matter of 5 weeks. I am currently at work, and unable to get a screenshot but I will update this post promptly.

Back in late September 2019 I saw Fur Fancy advertise on their twitter they were taking commissions for 3D sculpted and printed custom bases ( you use these to cast foam fursuit heads from). They advertised each slot at $300 USD + shipping, which for the sculpt and actual printing I thought was a great price, so I proceeded to message them about ordering two custom bases. As you can see they were very prompt about answering my questions and sending me a PayPal invoice It took me a few days to get the example sketches commissioned from another artist, but by Oct 5th I had sent them the rough ideas for how I wanted the bases to look. After that I did proceed to ask them about upgrades to the bases such as eyeblacks but decided against them at the time. Come Nov 20th 2019 I saw them post again about taking on another custom sculpted/printed base. I had a bit of extra funds and thought I'd add to my existing order. At this time I had not received any updates about my previous bases, but wasn't worried as not much time had passed. Paid the same day I inquired and sent along the 3rd example sketch I commissioned for them to work off of On December 17th 2019 I was sent a picture of this first feline base rendered in the 3D sculpting program. Come January 10th 2020 I had received no updates so I thought I would start inquiring about the status of the commission. I was still waiting to hear when the first sculpt I was shown would print as well as see the other two 3D rendered as well as an ETA on the printing time. I heard nothing and messaged again on January 16th and 21st. I did not receive a reply until January 22 2020 , which at that point the lack of communication was starting to bother me. At this time I did follow their twitter and saw them make very frequent posts ( every couple days or so) This was the first to my knowledge about the 3D printers needing repairs. I honestly know nothing about 3D printers so did not think it was a huge deal. I just wanted to make sure the PayPal window would not close before I received everything ( 6 months is the timeframe for PayPal). I received an update come February 11th 2020 that one of the printers was back to working order. I assumed this meant that my first 3D sculpt would be printed soon. I still had yet to see the other two as digital sculpts. That was the only update I received in february, the rest of my messages on the 19th of February and 2nd of March were ignored. At this point due to the lack of communication I did bring up opening a PayPal dispute as it had nearly been 6 months since my original PayPal transaction in September 2019. That claim window would close on March 26th. Come March 7th 2020 I did receive screenshots of the other bases being sculpted in the 3D program That was all I had heard though. I inquired for an ETA on the printing come March 16th and reminded them that my first PayPal window closes soon on March 20th. To the last message I did not receive a response until March 23rd, only days before my first PayPal dispute window would close. At this point I did proceed to Paypal and opened the dispute, I did not notify FurFancy of it which is why I think they started messaging me more. Though they only would communicate with me on twitter, they would never message through PayPal . At this point I have only received the 3D sculpted screenshots, no ETA of when they should print or even ship out. I was more than willing to take a partial refund of the 3D sculpted files, but I would not close the PayPal dispute until they had been provided to me as I did not trust FurFancy to take my money and give me nothing in the end. With the dispute FurFancy did bring her family issues into play, I assume to try and guilt me into closing the PayPal dispute. Personally this left a bad taste in my mouth. FurFancy then proceeds to name drop another fursuit builder whom they are also sculpting bases for that is apparently ahead of my in her queue. At this point in time I had never had any ETAS given, seen a queue or even a TOS. The only form of contact I have for FurFancy is their twitter, though apparently they dont use it that often ( yet I see them post periodically selling misc parts and showing off suit wips) At this point I honestly feel like I am just running around in circles with FurFancy. I ended up finding their TOS on my own, which as a client, even if not for normal suit work, I feel should have been sent to me. If twitter isn't an ideal way to communicate give me an email or telegram I can contact instead. For the last few messages I did have a friend help type up the response to outline why I am keeping the dispute on PayPal open and reinterate that I am willing to pay for the 3D rendered files. So that is my last interaction with FurFancy on twitter. I submitted all this information to PayPal and they ended up siding in my favour as FurFancy never responded to the dispute by the looks of it. In the end I did receive a full refund thanks to PayPal, but the entire transaction was a learning experience. I assumed that because of FurFancy's status as a larger builder commissioning would be professional and easy. I didn't loose anything but my time luckily TL:DR Commissioned FurFancy for 3 3D sculpted and 3D printed head bases, ended up not receiving them and opened a PayPal dispute to receive a full refund.

I decided to write this review of my experience with Furfancy costumes, after my paypal case has finally closed. I feel it's important to share my experience so other people might not end up in my situation, and I hope that Furfancy will learn from their mistakes and improve on their customer service and communication skills in the future. A little background information that goes before the situation that in the end led to a Paypal chargeback of 373$. I have previously commissioned Furfancy for 2 of her big cat expanding foam bases. These two bases were commissioned 10/10 2017 and 14/1 2018. Both bases were in perfect condition upon arrival and I was very happy with the quality and looks of these bases. However, I did have some communication issues with Furfancy during this time (lack of updates, slow to no responses) and it took about 1 month before the bases were shipped out. I have described this more in detail in the overview timeline I’m posting after this section. At the time I didn’t think too much about it but it did worry me a bit, but since I in the end did get my product and I was happy about it I wanted to commission them again when they offered more bases for sale through Twitter summer 2018, and this is where things went terribly wrong. Furfancy foam base issue timeline 10/10 2017 - Ordering 1 foam base 23/10 2017 - Asking for updates (no response) 2/11 2017 - Asking for updates (no response) 3/11 2017 - Gets answer from Furfancy 10/11 2017 - Contacts to confirm shipping 11/11 2017 - Shipping confirmed 23/11 2017 - Base arrives 14/1 2018 - Ordering second foam base 1/2 2018 - Asking if the base has been shipped 3/2 2018 - Get a picture of the base in a box 5/2 2018 - Base gets shipped 13/2 2018 - Base arrives 19/7 2018 - Ordering 2 foam bases 31/7 2018 - Contacting to ask if they have received payment. It gets confirmed its recieved. 6/9 2018 - Asking for update and ordering an extra additional base. Also pay more shipping for all 3 bases to be shipped together 19/11 2019 - Asking for update (no response) 20/11 2018 - Asking for update again (no response) 29/11 2018 - Asking for refund (no response) 3/12 2018 - Asking for refund again. Tries to work out a private payment plan with first payment in January. 5/1 2019 - Contact seller asking for status of refund (no response) 6/1 2019 - Contacting again because no response (still no response) 8/1 2019 - Doing a PayPal dispute and first here do I get an reaction 11/1 2019 - Pushes for a PayPal claim due to no response on the dispute 21/1 2019 - Paypal closes the case, ruling in my favour due to Furancy failing to respond or provide additional proof regarding the transaction. Now, I am terrible sorry this had to go this way, but I am very unhappy with how this business transaction has been treated. I have attached the entire conversation which took place on Telegram as proof of my statements. Sadly I have friends who had similar experience as me, although they either didn't get their items all together or they arrived damaged. While it's not my place to speak their case, their experiences combined and my own I felt I had to speak up about this issue. The only reason I pushed the Paypal case was because my 180 days buyer protection was running out. It was around 170 days past when I made the dispute and with failing communication or any sign of a refund I decided to go through with it while I still had a chance to get my money back. Furfancy has a super adorable style, I love their suits and I admire the craftsmanship. But as a professional I had expected more and better communication and customer service. I felt I was often left in the dark and felt forced to ask for any updates (both product wise and shipping wise) and that should be communicated better from Furfancy. This is not an attack on their person (I don’t know them) but it's a critique of their lacking professionalism as a business. Pictures of the conversation below. Please note the dates.

Back on 12/07/2019, Victoria had originally made a post about selling a Wildpup head for $550. On a deleted quote-retweet around the first of May, she had reduced it down to about $450. It was about May 6th when I got a response to my question from May 3rd. This is where I began a direct message, asking questions about the head to be refurbished. The original tweet made it sound like the fixing up of the teeth and eyes would be included in the $450/$550 price, but those ended up being about $100 to add those in. It didn't bother me at that time, however. As a note, I had taken these screenshots as a precaution around the time she had temporarily changed her name to nessi_noodles, after a previous beware post. The invoices through Paypal. On June 24th, 2020, I had sent my first inquiry for an update, and how I was not listed on her update Trello. I thought I'd try poking her on her Telegram, as I had received no reply on Twitter, despite her at the time being active. Per the screenshot, I had asked for updates on September 05, 2020, showing read but not responded. During this time she was active on both Twitter and Telegram. I sent one more update on October 27th, 2020 before I decided to file a dispute with Paypal. The screenshot shows that this recent message has not been read since. I waited about a couple of days, and with no response despite being active on Telegram, I decided to file a dispute on Paypal before my 180 days went up to file. Since I didn't think I would get any response to a dispute like I hadn't on Telegram and Twitter, I decided to escalate it to a dispute. The screenshots in this beware were provided to the Resolution Center. Due to RL work, I hadn't gotten any screenshots on the Paypal escalation while waiting for the case to clear. While waiting, it showed "Adjudication reason: The seller has provided a full refund to you," while on the pending transaction, it said, "Credit has been processed and claim is now closed." Up until today, 11/10/2020, the refund was on pending, the resolution center showing it being refunded as an e-check. This morning 11/10/2020, I had received two emails at the same time, saying the refund was being delayed, then canceled. With some Googling, I found that this can sometimes happen if the seller doesn't have enough in their bank or Paypal account. Since I had to go to a morning shift at work, I couldn't contact Paypal directly to see about resolving this refund. I had planned to call Paypal the next day, 11/11/2020, to see about resolving. However, when I came home from work in the evening, 11/10/2020, I had found the case had been resolved in my favor, and a refund provided to me. It's incredibly disappointed it had to come to this, as Victoria is incredibly talented, but I wanted to at least warn others to expect delays or ghosting. I have not personally contacted Furfancy since filing the dispute, as I felt this whole deal had become a lost cause.

I had contacted this seller before and expressed an interest in getting a fursuit from them. I first contacted them on furaffinity. They were very excited to work with me and were looking for furs before I had ever officially decided to buy. On December 31st 2015 I had finally placed the order and sent the down payment. Jump to July 23rd, 2016 My suit is "done" I would like to make it VERY clear that I did not start this note, this was not a reply to a note of mine. They told me the suit is done 100% on their own with no prompting. After this note they went silent. There were many comments on their furaffinty shout section asking where they were. I was also wondering. I went and explored and found their facebook to contact them. I was told that they had lost their passwords for all of their sites. All of them. I hadn't only contacted facebook, I found their Instagram and twitter as well. Facebook was the only place I was answered. November 24th - 26th, 2016 I asked if the suit would be done by June 2017 Still November 2017: suit is done, just needs eyes. January 2017 I ask for signs of life They did send an image in January 2017 After I got the picture I asked about feet being made (I was unaware that I wasn't buying feet, this wasn't made clear at time of purchase.) In January 2017: "full partial, including feet, will be done by BLFC 2017 (June) April 4th, 2017 I received a note on furaffinity saying Moose is "almost finished" and will be shipped in a week. Please see above, in 2016, where they said Moose was done and Nov. 2017 when the suit would be done in a week. June 2017 BLFC promised due date They responded to nothing. I'm just fretting over getting this suit after chasing them across multiple accounts and am afraid they're trying to hide from me again. We eventually decide 2 would be better for both of us, instead of noon. I eventually got the suit.... But without the feet. June 30th, 2017. At this point I'm still missing feet... and they're offering a full body suit. I'm very wary. So I ask how much just the fur would be (I figure I could get literally anyone else to make the body) They promise all the fur + the feet I was then ignored again December 19th, 2017 I filed a paypal dispute, which they ultimately ignored, causing paypal to side with me and refund me for the fur. December 20th 2017 January 29th, 2018 February 6th, 2018 They claim twitter lost a message, maybe it did. Here's what I saw on MY end Whether or not twitter actually lost the messages or they just didn't send them, I don't know for sure. March 12th 2018 The feet arrive! In...the wrong... colors.... The fur for the tail, hands and head are all really desaturated brown. The feet are RED brown The suit The suit is well made and followed the ref pretty closely! The feet were the wrong shades of brown compared to the rest of the suit (was refunded) and her horns were almost nonexistent (I made my own horns and added them myself). original head horns I added They're perfectly nice people and the suit is adorable and well made but they have a big problem with deadlines and lying. Their biggest problem was account dodging and ignoring me entirely. They would just disappear from all accounts. They'd claim they lost passwords on all their accounts but they'd magically find them all later. They'd make promises they never kept and lied about finishing things that wouldn't actually be finished for another year or more after. The lying is the most startling because when they claimed the suit was entirely finished (more than a year before it actually was) it was unprompted. They noted me on their own to lie to me about it being finished.

Originally posted on Jun. 18th, 2013 by draeling Mod note: All images were hosted on the OPs website, but the site seems to have gone down since. Update 2: 30/01/14: It's been 7 months since the refund was agreed. Only $260 so far of the $645 has been refunded, with the last payment being 4 months ago. Iko still does not keep in contact unless a shout and note is left, which receives an apology but no dates of when the next parts will be refunded. Update 1: Since the AB, Iko has agreed to a full refund in weekly increments. Will update when it is complete. WHO: Iko, Sierra Tudor, Kay the Dragon, Pathetic Dragon Studios WHERE: http://furaffinity.net/user/Iko, http://www.furaffinity.net/user/patheticdragon, http://www.furbuy.com/seller/Iko.html?as=a WHAT: A Nightfury Fursuit for $850 on 2010/04/29 WHEN (with proof): $410 Downpayment on 2010/05/05, $86 materials on 2010/12/12. EXPLAIN: In 2010 Iko posted an auction on Furbuy for a Nightfury fursuit, and though she did not have many recent good examples of her work, she was really excited to be spending more time and working on Fursuits, and the concept art posted of what she intended to make was looking really nice. We had a lengthy email discussion to confirm the features, design and looks, and the initial downpayment was sent. I bought two pairs of good shoes & created a DTD, and shipped them all at total extra cost of $145. As much as I really wanted to give her a chance, and I was really patient during those three years, it was a frustrating and prolonged flop of a project, with lost costume parts and need for constant requests for updates. :c Timeline of issues: 2010/05/05: Payment sent. 2010/09/08: Asked for update: Bodysuit sewn, needs zippers/spikes/airbrushing. Said she has been slow because she doesn't know what to do next. We discuss and agree on features and design looks again. Motivation issues mentioned because someone had criticized her work. 2010/10/05: Asked for update: Foam base for indoor paws and tail done. 2010/12/12: Iko emailed over some pics of the head in progress, mentioned another $86 of materials needed to be bought, sent via paypal. LEDs for the head almost done. 2011/04/13: Asked for update: long period of no contact: Iko mentioned work was slow because she was unsure what to do about zippers (Handpaw and head zippers). Iko asked if I was willing to send the second payment, but I declined until the suit was ready to ship, due to some small worries about the lack of updates and progress photos. 2011/08/18: Asked for update: Iko says most of suit done, still waiting to install zippers, make outdoor feet and wings. Sewing machine broken. 2011/11/22: Iko emailed: Says it's nearly finished, but is tweaking it after someone helped model it. Apoligises for how long it has taken due to how complex the suit is. Sewing markings. 2012/04/07: Iko emailed: She had lost the duct tape dummy due to leaving it out when apartment cleaners came. Requested I send a second one, but I declined, though I provided detailed measurements instead. (I was also wary at why it was still needed after the bodysuit was said to have been completed.) Said progress is slow because of complexity and working on four other fursuits at the same time. 2012/07/03: Asked for update: I requested pics to see everything in progress, as I wanted to see exactly how she has been doing. Iko mentions she doesn't have the bodysuit due to a recent move, but will get pics soon. 2012/10/03: Asked for update, multiple emails before getting one: Bodysuit & rest of costume has been in storage in another city due to a recent move. Promises Christmas shipping date. (After how long and dragged out this had become, I started getting more insistent about regular contact, emails, updates and pictures) 2012/10/30: Asked for update: Bodysuit still in storage, until she has free time to go and get it. Zipper problems cited as reason for slowness again. 2012/12/04: Asked for update: Iko said she has lost the bodysuit, cannot be found anywhere. Again requests another DTD so she can begin making a new one. (I really didin't have enough trust in her left after all the previous delays.... to make another DTD and ship it over). I politely declined and she gave a reference sheet explaining all the measurements she would need. Sais she still intended to get it done by Christmas, but that it's probably going to be late. (Emails become unresponsive/sparse, so we start communicating on FA Notes) 2013/02/26: Asked for update: Iko said her water heater exploded, and was afraid of mildew affecting costumes, so didin't want to bring them out for work yet until it was fixed. (I was a little sad and frustrated with the issues so far, so I started requesting fortnightly updates and requested a firm deadline of when the suit will be done) 2013/03/04: Iko came to the conclusion she doesn't have the skill, time or motivation to continue working on the suit, and apoligised profusely about lack of contact and unprofessionalisim. Offers to send me all the materials she has available, including the Head, tail and one set of feetpaws, as well as a $100 refund. She says even though her auction said the downpayment isn't refundable, she'll be nice and offer the token refund anyway. (Due to how few parts there were, and the head not even being complete, it wasn't worth me asking her to ship them over, so I ask her to list the parts on furbuy and refund it all.) 2013/06/13: After direct questions & requests for exact payment dates, Iko mentions she will not be giving a full refund (FA note transcript), as her auction says the downpayment is not refundable, but she is willing to be nice and will cover half. After 2-3 months of notes & eventual direct questions of when and what she intends to refund on FA, it turns out her idea of the refund was $320, given in 5 $64 installments over the next months. I was out $645 at this point, and she is adamant that she is not responsible for the other half of the refund, due to materials and it saying on her auction that downpayment is non refundable. I'm really sad the project ended this way :c I do understand life gets in the way at times, but the final staw in deciding to post this was her refusal to offer a full refund, even in light of how many years it took for Iko to put her hands up and say she doesn't have the skill or motivation to continue the project. I also wouldn't like to see anyone else experience what I did during this project. It is also a painful lesson that researching your seller and seeing how professional they are, in both communication & their existing work is really -really- important. I sadly gave the benefit of the doubt her few fursuit examples were just because she was just starting up... but that is no substitute for seeing real professionalisim & ability in completed & delivered works. I also understand now that $850 is a very low price for full suits like this, including wings, digitigrade, leds and features, which I should have saw as a warning flag too.

Apr. 3rd, 2011 at 9:32 PM synchra WHO: Aliases: SophieCabra, Waji "Company": SurfCatCostumes WHERE: http://surfcatcostumes.com/ WHAT: Costume of my character Tokkebi Kesaki done in the same style as Luskwood (with permission from Luskwood. SophieCabra used to work for Luskwood so she had confirmed she could achieve this quality. It was promised to be the same quality.) Art: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/1745-1/tokkebikesakicharactersheet.jpg Product: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7306-1/IMG_5509.jpg (in depth pictures and descriptions of everything below) Screenshots of initial e-mails confirming these facts: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/10055-1/Screenshot-AB-1.png (Note: She mentions a non-refundable deposit of $495 but never mentions what it is for. In talking with other makers this is always accepted as a cancellation fee, I never canceled the product while it was in process. The promised product with the promised quality and features was just never delivered so I asked for a refund because it was offered to me.) http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/10057-1/Screenshot-AB-2.png http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/10059-1/Screenshot-AB-3.png (I never received guidelines or a real contract or a ToS so all agreements were made through e-mail in this fashion.) WHEN: Initial Costume invoice was sent 6/18/09. First Payment of $520 was sent out via paypal Jun. 7, 2009 Second Payment of $545 was sent out via paypal Sep 1, 2009 Final Payment of $600 was sent out via paypal Sep. 2, 2009 Product promised to be done and received by: Halloween 2009, if artist could not get it done in time then sometime in January 2010. Total of all payments as well as price of costume: $1665 Costume received: Feb 6, 2010 Promised refund: Feb 6, 2010 (Promised refund by: August 1st, 2010) Costume confirmed to have been received: Mar 18, 2010 Partial refund of $1,081, $1050 after fees was sent to me via paypal Apr 18, 2010 Current payment owed: $584 Asked for rest of payment initially: 4/19/10 (never got a response) Gave artist a time line to pay me back again on: Feb 15, 2011 (end of march) Artist failed to pay me back by: 03/31/11 (never got a response) Demand Letter to be sent: 4/4/11 Court date if Demand Letter is not responded to: TBA PROOF: Here is a review of the costume I wrote which includes all proof needed of the quality of the product received including pictures, videos and e-mails sent and received throughout the process. http://community.livejournal.com/fursuitreviews/31415.html (I figure it's better to just post that part here as a link because it's just as good as copy-pasting and putting it behind a cut, please tell me if you'd rather have me go about this another way.) Here are some e-mails in which the refund is mentioned: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/10077-1/Screenshot-AB-refundmention-4.png http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/10075-1/Screenshot-AB-refundmention-5.png (promising refund for suit.) I can provide screenshots of anything asked for if needed. Here are the paypal transactions: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/10061-1/Screenshot-AB-5-1stPayment.png http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/10063-1/Screenshot-AB-5-2ndPayment.png http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/10065-1/Screenshot-AB-5-3rdPayment.png http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/10067-1/Screenshot-AB-5-refund.png Note: She mentions that it's $1050 even after fees and isn't including the initial 30% even though I never canceled on her and she had promised me a full refund. However $1665 - $1050 = $615 which was not even the down payment. The down payment was $495 so even if there is some reason that I am not owed the original 30% (which I still have yet to clear up since she has never responded to me about this) she still owes me $120 by her own standards. With fee money included $1665 - $1081 = $584. Which is what I am currently asking for. However if her statement that I do not owe the 30% is true then: $584 - $495 = $89 So, she would still owe me $89. http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/10055-1/Screenshot-AB-1.png I was told to cover paypal fees (which is apparently against Paypal's TOS https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/terms-outside ) so I sent her $520 with the first payment to make it even/easier to track how much I still owed. I also paid for her to ship it to me. The receipt she scanned for me: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/10072-1/Receipt-AB-6-shipping.png (I blurred out most of my address, the address of another person she mailed something to, and her card info.) And I paid a lot more than that to ship it back to her with tracking and confirmation which was something she failed to do herself. EXPLAIN: Once again, here is a review of the costume I wrote which includes all proof needed of the quality of the product received including pictures, video and e-mails sent and received throughout the process as of March 23rd. http://community.livejournal.com/fursuitreviews/31415.html Also copy pasted here: ----REVIEW START---- I have given this maker an entire year to come clean and fix the problems with this transaction and they haven't, so unfortunately, this is not a positive review. As a DISCLAIMER, this person may have changed their ways since my commission and I have never seen the produce work of this low quality before or after my commission was made. Name of Artist: Surf Cat Costumes/SophieCabra Website: http://surfcatcostumes.com/ Character/species commissioned (link to photo/concept art): Tokkebi Kesaki, a ghost Korean Jindo dog. Here is the concept art: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/1745-1/tokkebikesakicharactersheet.jpg I also included some snapshots of my SL avatar of her (my by my friend, Luper): http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/6484-2/Snapshot_003.png http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/6472-2/Snapshot_001.png http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/6480-2/Snapshot_002.png (I have more, but you get the idea.) Links to picture(s) of your commissioned item: Currently I have absolutely nothing, and I am down -$584, but this is what I got in the mail last year in February: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7306-1/IMG_5509.jpg Because there is a lot to be said about every other picture I have of it, I'll put them in the appropriate places throughout the review after all the other information has been said. Is the item old or new (if old, how long have you had it/when was it made?) This was made sometime at the end of 2009 but I did not receive it until February 2010. (again this will all be explained below.) --Grade each below aspect on a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best)-- Visual Aspect (does it match the concept art? Is it consistent with other items the maker has produced? Is it visually pleasing overall?): 1 Okay first, let me say, this wasn't my first fursuit commission, this was my 5th or 6th fursuit commission so I had had a lot of experience with this at this point. The product did not match the concept art to the degree I had hoped for (to me it doesn't match at all other than colors really), it's not consistent with the other items this person has made, and it came out looking pretty bad overall. Why? I was promised something I did not receive. This commission was originally going to be made by Luskwood and when they stopped taking commissions and I saw Sophie, who used to work for Luskwood had parted off and started her own company I approached her asking if she could do that quality of work for me. I had seen the work she did at Luskwood and it looked good and I had seen the suits she had made on her own at that point and I thought they looked pretty nice! She promised me this quality, she promised me leg padding, eyes that light up, glowing fur, and that she would match my concept art... you know what? here is that part of the original e-mail, no better way of putting it: First E-mail: Ooh. Awesome character. I can totally play around with some glow in the dark effects. I could hopefully even find some transparent glow airbrush paints I could highlight the fur with. The problem would be finding one that went on completely transparent. But I would love to play around with that and experiment beforehand and to see if I could get it to work for your fur. ? Anyhoo, before Luskwood disbanded, I worked with Arito, so I can do the same leg/foot padding system and whatnot. I think for the whole thing (supplies, labor, shipping) I'm going to say $1650." I was excited to hear that she liked the character because usually that means the maker will make a better product when they like the character as well! I was also excited that she promised me all of these things and that she was going to do the glow in the dark stuff as well! Sounded like a dream right? The price was the highest I had ever had at the time but I was willing to pay that much for the promised quality. (All my previous commissions at this time were a lot cheaper, were much higher quality when received and were from big names like B3/Joecifur, JillCostumes, Midori, and Rose Quoll.) Here is my initial response: "Awe, thank you so much. ? I wouldn't really need the fur to glow, but actually it does on the SL avatar my friend made for me: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/2228-1/Snapshot_483.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/2232-1/Snapshot_480.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/2222-1/Snapshot_485.jpg Hahaha, so that would be really freaking awesome if you could figure it out. I know that paint from that kotaku link is really good for stuff like that, but I can't remember what it's called. I know Beetlecat used it once on some claws. I can do the 30% paypal deposit. Man, thanks for responding so fast, I asked for quotes from a couple other people and it's been months and no one has responded! Then you finished that Roo head recently and I was like OH DUH everything you made with Arito and the stuff you've made alone seemed to be the best work that came out of Luskwood/in the style I want! I was all emo there for a week about loosing my quote. I got a good price on it, but I don't mind paying more if I am still going to get the same quality. (It wasn't THAT far off from yours. :P) I wouldn't "need" the suit until FC 2010 so anywhere you want to put me in is fine, I am patient. XD Just tell me where to send the money and I'll snag my space! ? Thank you so much!" Well pretty much none of these promised things came out right. The bodysuit didn't fit at all (we made a duct tape dummy), most of the claws on the feet had fallen off, I couldn't see out of the head and it flopped around, it didn't look right, the "glow in the dark" fur was yellow, uneven, and atrocious. There was absolutely no body padding, the eyes didn't glow (there is more on this though, I'll explain this in the service section), there were no teeth, there was black eyebrows on it (character does not have eyebrows), the mouth and nose were uneven, the ears were uneven. There was pretty much flaws with every part of the suit. More on this in the workmanship section with pictures. Service Aspect (Deadlines. Communication. Little extras.):0 I have actually been afraid to post this part because it DID start off wonderful and she was a pleasure to talk to for months of this transaction! Everything seemed to be going great but then several major flaws we're made towards the end. She is also a well known person in the furry fandom and has a lot of friends so saying anything negative about her seemed "awful".. but these are facts, and this is what happened to me. This is long, so I am going to put it under a cut. Most of this was typed last year in April as well. Communication/Deadlines/Shipping: The suit was originally supposed to be done for Halloween or in October. I asked to have WIP photos because I am very particular with how my characters are represented and I never got any WIP pictures, then suddenly I got finished pictures of the suit the week of Halloween but it just didn't look right in the picture and the eyes looked awful to me. It looked wall-eyed and she had worn the bodysuit. I had sent her a duct tape dummy so that the suit would fit me and I was aware Sophie is bigger than me, so it made me kind of irked to see that she had worn the suit because she said it was hard to get into and I was hoping she hadn't stretched it or something like that. Here are those photos: http://www.surfcatcostumes.com/v/costumes/kesaki/ I didn't really like the head shapes and some other nit picky things from the photos but the eyes were the main turn off so I asked her to change the eyes because I was thinking maybe the other stuff looked better in person. I remembered from experiences in the past that some fursuits look like shit in photos, but in person they look really nice. I'd rather have a nice suit, than have it by Halloween! She took 2 months to change the eyes and they still didn't look right. She sent me this picture on December 3rd: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7856-1/eyes1.jpg I asked to see them with the lights on in them since it was the point of them and she sent me this: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7858-1/eyes2.jpg Which looked just as wall-eyed as the last pictures. Also.. why not ever show me the whole head at once? ? She told me she'd change them again, maybe the light effect was just not working out right and she'd replace them with glow in the dark painted blue eyes. She also promised me the suit had body padding and that the whole thing "lit up like a light bulb" before I got it. She finally replaced the eyes again by December 31st and sent me blurry cell phone pictures of it after I requested to see photos instead of her just sending it to me. http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/6943-1/s1.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7239-1/s2.JPG I was tired of dealing with it and I wanted the suit by FC so I asked her to send me the suit because maybe they looked better in person, who knows. She told me she sent it and I waited. On January 11th I realized the suit really should have been there at that point so I asked her if she had tracking info. She evaded the question and said the post office said it would be there by Wednesday. I waited. I e-mailed her on the 14th saying it still wasn't here. She said she'd call the post office on the 15th if it still wasn't there. I told her on the 15th it still wasn't there. She never responded so I waited some more. On the 20th I e-mailed her asking if she had ever contacted the post office. She said: "I called them, got the run around, was told to email them with the receipt number. There's not record of damage, insufficient postage costs, etc. They gave me some BS about being slow after the holidays and this past federal holiday weekend, blah blah blah. I'm calling them again. They filed it as missing as transit, so from what I hear that puts a fire in their asses if it's just sitting around in some office somewhere. It really should be there today. God, I hope. If it is lost, I'd say we allow until the end of Feb to come back and after that I can either remake the costume or begin issuing you a full refund. I am terribly sorry and infuriated this is happening. Let me know if I can do anything else." I said thanks for calling and everything she had done and continued to wait for it.. Throughout all these e-mails I had asked her multiple times if she gotten insurance and tracking info on it and she kept evading my question. On the 25th I still did not have the suit so I sent her this: "Yeah I think it's gone. ? I hope you got a large amount of money claimed for insurance on that. ? I'd feel bad getting a full refund now if you didn't, but I think now I need the money more than a suit. I lost my job on the 15th. X.x GUhhhhh stupid mail!!!! I swear this character is bad luck. The badge that ****** made of her got lost too! >.<" I censored out that artist's name just in case! Yes, a badge of this character got lost as well. We both had been completely friendly with each other up to this point and there had been no problems with each other. I already didn't completely like the suit she had made just from the pictures in the first place so getting her to remake it again seemed pointless (I would've rather just had the money at this point and commissioned the suit from another maker at a later date, especially because I had also just lost my job, and on top of that someone had stolen my identity so I couldn't get my unemployment money either.) She responded: "Went to the post office today with my delivery confirmation and receipt and in person they told me that as far as their records say, it's been delivered. o.o What the post man says he believes this means is that either one of your housemates (if any) accepted the package and never told you, or got a package notice (due to you not being home or it being too big to deliver) in the mail and forgot to give it to you, or the package notice may have gotten lost. Their advice was to have you check with anyone in your house, as well as head to your local post office ASAP. If it's been been sitting in the local USPS for a while, then that's why it's just been lost in transit without response. After a few weeks they will sent it back to me, which the post man told me can take quite a while. If you can check any roommates as well as your local post office as soon as you can, that would be the next best course of action. Please let me know!" I sent back this: "Hi ----, I don't have any housemates and nothing has ever gotten lost in the mail here at all in the past. ? I have received numerous LARGE boxes in the past, too. I just live with my boyfriend and we would've seen it if it got here. I will check the post office tomorrow I guess... ? We haven't gotten any notices. You sent it to *****ADDRESSS****** Right? I'll let you know ASAP what I hear from my post office." I wanted to double check my address because people spell it wrong all the time. Sophie responded: "Yeah, I didn't know if you had any, so I was just passing along info. Anyhoo, try the post office and see. That is the address I sent it to, so hopefully the post office was just being stupid and it's sitting with them." This is when I went to the post office on the 29th of January and e-mailed her this: "The post office says they didn't receive anything at all for me. I had them look all over in the back. Are you sure it was confirmed received?? Was it at a different post office? If you got insurance on the package, you should have a tracking number (according to the person at my post office.) I have a feeling it's lost or... at a different post office? My post office definitely doesn't have it. x.x I don't know why it would be confirmed received if it wasn't in ******." I spent a lot of time down there and they had nothing... This is also where I found out that she DID NOT get insurance or tracking on the suit. On the 30th I was upset so I sent her an e-mail explaining to her why I'd rather have the money than another suit because it seemed to me that it was definitely lost. I spilled my guts, I was stupid, I TOLD HER EVERYTHING that had happened to me up to that point because I was stressing out and so that she wouldn't think I was BSing about wanting the full refund that she had promised instead of another suit. I also asked her if she had actually sent it because it was just too weird that the post office had absolutely no record of it and that I was upset with her for not getting insurance and tracking. I was nice about everything I said in the e-mail. I asked to see the receipt so that if there was any tracking at all I could find it from the receipt. I got back an angry e-mail from her... in which she refused to refund me, but she scanned the receipt. She accused me of receiving the package and not telling her. We both basically got unreasonably mad at each other about the stupid USPS losing the package of the suit I was promised was of good quality. These e-mails are really long and tl;dr so I will leave them out and just put these summaries here. x.x I told her that I would wait 2 months for it to show up, but if it didn't I would still expect a refund to be an option if I didn't want her to remake the suit. On the 31st she e-mailed me back and said she could do the refund.. I'll just copy paste that e-mail, I can't summarize it well. "I firstly want to apologize for accusing you of lying. I was on the defense for being accused as well of something I would never do to a customer. I believe we are both just running a bit of a temper due to a regretful situation that is out of our hands. We both don't know each other personally, so it's easy to assume. It's stressful, but I think we both got any suspicions under the bridge and we can work to fix it. I do think you misunderstood me about the refund. Perhaps I worded it poorly, but I meant that I could not offer you a full refund right this minute. Firstly I really believe that we should wait the two months, and I am grateful you agree. But also I meant that I could not offer the full refund all at once. It would have to be paid back in installments, much like how I accept payment for costumes. As for it showing up in the hopeful case it will, I said in my previous email that I would be glad to change the design a bit so you could sell it without selling your character. I have no problem with offering you that at all. I encourage you, should it come to that, to allow me to do so, since I know my own work more than anyone else would. If it's truly just the head that's the problem, I can remake the head if the costume resurfaces. I still believe that I followed the concept to the best of my ability. But I also understand that the way we all see and interpret art can vary. I don't know if this would be a solution for you, but one thing I've done with previous customers is to sketch their character in my own style and render it out as such. It has been a very successful exercise in the past and I think it might work for you. Basically I would email you a bunch of sketches and you can pick and choose what you'd like. Anyways, I believe patience is our biggest ally right now and all we can do is hope it shows up. I am still going to be hawking around on the USPS phonelines until I've gotten an answer. Despite not having on-site tracking, USPS does track all packages in their own system, all I have to do is find someone on the phone that is willing to let me know what their systems are saying. I do not know why they would have told me it's delivered if it was not, but I know that I can find out somehow. It's a government agency and it is a bureaucratic mess to navigate. I will get answers, however, and I will pass them along to you as soon as I have some. Hope you are well and at ease at least a little bit," I explained to her all the things I would want changed if she wanted to remake the suit head (this was before I knew of the actual quality I would receive in the mail.) I thought only the head was a problem at this point, so it all seemed reasonable. Lots of time passed. On February 6th the suit miraculously shows up. The suit was the most terribly crafted suit I have ever had in my own possession. NONE of those things I was promised were on it. The whole suit was crammed into a huge box with no packing material at all as well... I told her my honest opinion on everything including pictures like I have posted here. Her response: "All right, send it back to me. Once I get it in hand I'll start issuing a refund in installments to be completed by Aug 1st. I will sell the costume off myself." On top of this I was told she was writing snarky posts about me on her LJ this whole time! I did not see them myself but people told had me about them. ? I never had any "buyer's remorse" for the suit I EXPECTED to get, the product I received was just NOT WHAT I BOUGHT AT ALL. There was no body padding, the eyes didn't glow, it didn't match my art, it was not Luskwood quality..etc.etc.etc. I'd be perfectly happy if I had gotten what I had commissioned. Anyways, you can see why I was not pleased with the amount of money I paid. Manda did not cost anywhere near that much and is MUCH MUCH higher quality..and she fits me, I also never sent Joe a duct tape dummy either, he just did it right with nothing but measurements and she still fit me. Licorice and Cricket were even cheaper and are just as high of a quality as Manda. Pierah was cheap as hell and much better quality, my "secret" suit is obviously higher quality and extremely cheap, same goes for Sync and none of them cost anywhere near this much. I was expecting the quality I had gotten in the past from other makers but with everything promised. I sent it back to her as soon as I could after getting back and asked her to tell me when she got it. I paid an extra $65 total to ship it and to get tracking and insurance on it (I will never get that back, but I knew that!) I just wanted to send it back to her right. It got back in a timely manor. I expected installments of payment like I was promised because she had said she didn't have the money so I agreed to have it by August 1st. I sent this to her on March 2nd because she hadn't told me she got it yet: "Hi, ----! I am just checking in, did you receive the suit yet? I sent it with insurance and tracking on the 18th, but the USPS website is giving me errors when I put the tracking number in. (Can anything with them ever work right?) Anyways, if you didn't get it yet, I am going to go down to the post office and figure out if they messed up their system or something. Thanks!" She never responded to it. So I sent this on March 18th. "Hey, just checking again since I never got a response back before. I just want to make sure everything gets there. Thanks," She responded: "Hey, I got your box. No worries." I never got any payment installments as promised but I randomly got most of it back on April 18th. This suit or.. lack there of.. THIS EXPERIENCE cost me: $584 + the money I spent to send it back to her.. and whatever I paid to send her a duct tape dummy which I doubt she used. I e-mailed her about this remaining money and she never responded. I e-mailed her again last month giving her an ultimatum, she sends the money back but the end of March or I go to court. I am hoping I won't have to go to court, but what's done is done. TL;DR: She didn't meet the deadline, the eyes never looked right, she promised me she could do something she obviously couldn't (make glowing eyes like my art), it got lost in the mail, she didn't put tracking on it, I asked for a refund when I got a bad product, she refused, she finally paid me back most of it, she still owes me money a year later and has about a week to pay me back before I go to small claims court. Workmanship Aspect (Is the sewing neat? Are things that should be sewn glued or vise versa? Does it fit? Has anything fallen off yet that shouldn’t have):1 Now to explain everything individually... First off, not fitting. I sent her a duct tape dummy so you'd think it fit? I don't know how she made it on it but it seemed to fit her pretty well: http://surfcatcostumes.com/v/costumes/kesaki/IMG_0915.JPG.html Here it is on me: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7306-1/IMG_5509.jpg (ignore my hair popping out.) http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7280-1/IMG_5522.jpg (There was no leg padding.) Here it is with a pair of pants on top to show just how baggy it was on me: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7898-2/IMG_5594.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7882-2/IMG_5592.JPG It had some strange crotch bunching thing going on in the front: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7296-1/IMG_5514.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7290-1/IMG_5517.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7890-2/IMG_5596.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7886-2/IMG_5595.JPG The fur was full of weird stuff that had collected in it: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7870-2/IMG_5591.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7926-2/IMG_5576.JPG (oh look foam!) And loose threads all over on the inside, this is the hole the tail was supposed to go through: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7878-2/IMG_5588.JPG With the belt as tight as possible, this is how the tail help up: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7288-1/IMG_5520.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7286-1/IMG_5519.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7282-1/IMG_5521.jpg Oh yeah.. and for some reason you could see my divesuit through the fur? It must've had thin backing or something I remember it being scratchy, I don't know where it was from though. The glow in the dark paint glowed, not blue, nor white, and it was splattered on unevenly and looked gross glowing, I have a video of this but I am unsure of where to upload it.. (I don't want it on youtube.) Okay so second, not looking right. Why didn't I do something about this before? Well It looked "okay" in the pictures on her. I was "eh" about the eyebrows and some facial shape things but it's white and white never photographs well so I figured I wanted to see it with my own eyes before forming a solid opinion on asking for anymore changes (also, I had already had her replace the eyes 2 times when she showed me the pictures of it all together and it took her and extra 2 or 3 months to change the eyes.) So here are those things, first off the feet: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7308-1/IMG_5510.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7304-1/IMG_5512.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7302-1/IMG_5511.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7298-1/IMG_5513.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7270-1/IMG_5531.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7958-2/IMG_5571.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7966-2/IMG_5569.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7994-2/IMG_5568.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/8006-2/IMG_5554.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/8014-2/IMG_5553.JPG (mysterious shoe) http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/8010-2/IMG_5555.JPG (strange holes in the bottom?) http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/8018-2/IMG_5551.JPG (scale, next to a DS Lite, they were huge, I couldn't barely fit through the door wearing them actually.) A lot of the claws had fallen off in the mail, they were painted blue and left unfinished so there was fur, foam and dirt/dust stuck all over them, they were also shaped very elephant like, and not dog like at all. There claws that were left attached were loose and the ones that weren't, I found loose in the box but there was one I never found.. which means it fell off before the suit was sent? I know my concept art has chunky legs but she still has a foot in it and this is definitely not how I imagined, I was thinking more like this suit made by Luskwood (quality I was promised and paid for once again): http://luskwood.org/costume/gallery/canines/nataliecevichelimahusky/1 http://luskwood.org/costume/gallery/canines/keovi/2 http://luskwood.org/gallery/costumes/canines/keovi/keovi3.jpg I already mentioned the claws issues so here are some more pictures of that and the hand paws: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7950-2/IMG_5573.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7962-2/IMG_5572.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7970-2/IMG_5570.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/8038-2/IMG_5556.JPG The Nose: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7284-1/IMG_5523.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7274-1/IMG_5525.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7998-2/IMG_5565.JPG (loose hot glue on the felt) http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7978-2/IMG_5564.JPG It was very flat and had an outline around it which is something I personally just don't really like the look of on most suits. Does not look like the art. The Eyes: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7278-1/IMG_5526.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7990-2/IMG_5567.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/8002-2/IMG_5566.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/8030-2/IMG_5560.JPG Slapped on, falling off at parts, covered in scratches and at this point I had thought they were just glow in the dark (not EL wire anymore like originally promised because the first couple attempts at this had come out looking very wrong), but they weren't even glow in the dark and I could actually look through them because of how the head fit on my head. I had to look through the mouth. The Mouth being un-even and the lack of teeth: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7974-2/IMG_5563.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7986-2/IMG_5562.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7982-2/IMG_5561.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/8026-2/IMG_5559.JPG http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7276-1/IMG_5524.jpg http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/7268-1/IMG_5527.jpg The Tail back: http://www.synchrastudios.com/gallery/d/8042-2/IMG_5557.JPG This was just messy, and strange for what it was supposed to be. I feel like I am leaving things out. I don't know, anyone who was at my house when this thing was received knows this was just NOT a top quality suit, it was somehow worse in person. (A lot of friends were over when this came in the mail, my excitement quickly died when I opened the box.) Describe your Experience. Pros, Cons, Comments: Well I pretty much described it all already. This was an extremely negative experience for me. I have waited almost an entire year for this thing to be resolved and she has made no attempt to refund me the remaining money, next month it'd be a year, and I am tired of waiting in silence. By law, because I have absolutely NO PRODUCT, and I DID NOT cancel on her while she was in process, she owes me ALL of my money. On top of this, I have not seen her resell the suit.. so I assume it's still at her house or.. possibly in the trash? I don't know. I have put off posting anything "publicly" about this because I didn't want to start a bunch of e-drama and because I was hoping keeping it out of the light would help to keep a nice neutral relationship between me and Sophie so that we could solve things in a calm and fair fashion but now that she isn't responding to me at all, it's public. Final Grade (out of 5): 0 EDIT: Figured out how to upload videos to youtube so that they can only be seen when linked or something! So, I hope these work. These were filmed last year in February right after getting the suit. This is the "glow". Impossible to photograph, hard to video tape, but this is as good as it gets to convey the issues with it. Show media This one speaks for itself. ----REVIEW END---- An update on what has happened since then: I have received no response whatsoever from her and am in the process of settling this legally now. She has failed to respond to me in any way through all the conventional methods I have tried. Yesterday I noticed she had been active on Furaffinity so I attempted to contact her through the website (which I had never tried before) and received the response that I had been blocked. The fact that she has blocked me on a website where I have never once been rude to her or attempted to contact her before on leads me to believe that she is refusing to cooperate with me instead of just neglecting to check her e-mail addresses. I had a "demand letter" written up which is being sent on Monday. (I waited until Monday because April 1st is well.. April 1st and I wanted this to be taken seriously.) I have been researching and talking to people for the last month or two about small claims suits and finding out everything I need to do. I have asked her to explain her side of the story with no response. If there is something I missed, or am doing wrong, I want to hear it because I will admit my faults if there is some valid reason or something I missed. With nothing work off of on her end, I can only go with what I know and have on my own end. I saved every e-mail and record of transaction with her and have all the evidence I need for court however. Once again, I was never given ToS so I cannot share that with you either, I can just go on what I know.

Disclaimer: there are errors on both sides and I will openly admit mine first and foremost. I delayed to ship the item out due to mandatory overtime and not having the opportunity to ship. Our area isn't good for having a postal pick up so me dropping off was the option at the time. I made sure to respond to Taks email inquiries about it to keep open communication. The other error was the possibility of the suit having a mildew odor. We had taken care of a mildew issue a few months prior in our basement (costumes are stored upstairs) and no one else spoke up about any smells so I didn't feel the need to state it in my auction as I normally would about any possible odors. I take 100% responsibility on that if it does have any odor. I wanted to provide options first as well as offering to send supplies to help make things work if they wished. Had I known beforehand it held a mildew smell I would have either listed it with a warning or not listed it at all. Included are the emails that were sent between us, the auction listing, and screenshots from Telegram. Most shots from Telegram were of other people demanding Tak keep the costume so I won't be including that as that's not relevant. INFORMATION WALK THROUGH: It started off as an auction sale that went smoothly. Tak asked to make payments and completed them at the end of June. Between going out to Idaho for my father's surgery in July (I let them know I would be gone) and mandatory overtime, I wasn't able to ship until the end of August, keeping tabs with Tak as they emailed me. They received the costume at the start of September and noted the strong smell of mildew a week later in an email and asked what could be done. I walked them through a baking soda and vinegar process I had used in the past with great success. I didn't hear from them till almost a month later on October 15th. They mentioned throwing out several of the pieces and purchasing an expensive cleaner that failed to remove the smell, asking if a refund was possible at that time. I got back with them Oct 20th asking what pieces remained to gauge the proper refund and offered to help them resell it if they wanted to. No response came till November 1st asking for a 2/3 refund plus cash to cover the chemicals they purchased as well as a list of things they had thrown away such as the arm extensions, chest padding, and tail core. The feet were also 'damaged' while washing. During this time I found telegram chats from the buyer in a Furry Business group making it very clear they had no intentions of returning the suit while others encouraged to do a full charge back and throw the costume out entirely. Most of the chat was others demanding they keep the costume/throw it away while pushing for a full refund. I've only included the screenshot where they are openly stating not wanting to send it back. Due to dodging my requests for it, I have no other reason not to believe that is their intention. I emailed her around November 3rd stating I would refund more than their asking price if they returned the item in question, I would provide the funds extra for the shipping. I figured I could use it as a "what if this gets fried in the dryer" tutorial before recording the leg pattern and dismantling the costume myself. I also offered to send one final cleaner I had here if they wished to try it. Their response was opening 6 PayPal claims in attempts to get their full payment back without responding to me or mailing back the costume. PayPal doesn't cover multiple payments on a single item so after providing the initial invoice as proof of it being one item, the cases were closed. I'm still willing to refund her a little over 2/3 of the auction with the return of the costume to me as it is. Since some of the pieces are either damaged or gone, I cannot refund in full. Had they returned the costume in place of the refund, I wouldn't feel the need for this posting. Since they ignored my return request and tried to do a charge back on the entire amount paid, I do feel people should know of this. They claim in a few of their messages that I said no returns were allowed in my auction. I have included the auction description section involving this to show otherwise. I have sent them 3 emails, one before they posted to PayPal and 2 after reminding them that I would give a refund around what remains of the costume and that offer still stands if the costume is returned. I don't believe they are a bad client as they generally did respond quickly and paid on a reasonable payment plan. That said, not returning the item and trying to force a full charge back is not in good taste so this is more of a cautionary rather than a beware.