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**The initial date of “when” is a guesstimate as Zephyr had deleted the chat logs to hide all the evidence. I was unable to get a screenshot of the initial agreement.** Zephyr was someone I had been introduced to via a YCH group commission completed by the artist Karukuji a handful of years back. After the completion of this YCH we decided to stay in touch. We remained mostly friends on and off for the past several years where I could go several months without hearing from him only to have him message me if he wanted something from me for his own selfish reasons. An example of this is when I was able to get a commission opportunity with a very skilled animator so I was trying to see if any mutuals wanted to split the art with me. He had ghosted me for several months only to shoot me a message to get in on this commission. To which I had told him “no” because I found it odd he only just then decided to message me when I was fishing for people. I had a discussion with him about how this wasn’t ok to do after ghosting me for so long and he apologized. I declined his involvement with my commission and said if he wanted to get art with me in the future he would need to do better about communicating with me rather than only messaging me to get art. He did end up getting better at messaging me. He even ended up commissioning me for one of my Scales & Tails commissions. Normally I require a $100 deposit to reserve the spot since I had issues in the past of people backing out last second when I was ready to start the commission (I do these commissions on a monthly basis) but since he was a friend I was able to waive the fee. When his month eventually came up he was in a financial situation where he couldn’t afford to pay me the full amount. We had discussed it and agreed that I would work on finishing the art for him with the promise he would pay me back later for the finished art. (advertisement date of the Scales & Tales commission slot availability) I finished his commission in June of 2023 and as of writing this have not received payment for its completion: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/52654113/ During this time I had been friends with Zephyr, I had seen several people posting warnings about him saying that he was very irresponsible about money where he would bid on YCHs despite not having the finances to actually pay for it. Despite these warning signs from others I was still on Zephyr's side being sympathetic to his situation. I even sent Zephyr some of my paystubs so he could use me as a reference to try and get an apartment to rent. I would NEVER do this for someone online but I had considered him a good friend so I was willing to do it to try and help him out of a bad situation. At this time I was also expecting art from the artist Karukuji (that I had been waiting years for) who Zephyr was also expecting art from. Karukuji would message me saying he was going to be canceling all active commissions and would be issuing refunds to all parties in his queue. Karukuji insisted on refunding my money to Zephyr since I didn’t have a Boosty account and then Zephyr would just forward me the refunded money. I rejected this idea because I didn’t trust Zephyr to actually send me the money because Zephyr already owed me $250 and has yet to pay me so why would I trust Karukuji to send him an additional $485 to MAYBE send back to me? Karukuji would end up refunding my commission money to Zephyr anyway despite my concerns that Zephyr would be dishonest about forwarding me the money. I had discussed this situation with Zephyr about how Karukuji wanted to cancel all owed art and issue refunds to which Zephyr. I figured with Karukuji refunding him he might finally be able to pay me back for the money he owes me. Zephyr would end up sending me my money but only the amount that Karukuji owed me and nothing more. If Karukuji was refunding everyone of their commissions then why wasn’t Zephyr able to pay me back the money he owed me? If Zephyr got refunded from Karukuji then surely he should’ve had no problem paying me for the art he owed. I tried to challenge Zephyr on this by asking him about it and he would respond saying it’s “none of my business” but I think it very much is my business. Zephyr said he would pay me when he has the money to do so but didn’t have it at this time. Over the next few months after this I would have futile efforts to try and get the money he owed me as he always had a new excuse for why he couldn’t pay or he would promise payment and then ghost me. Finally we agreed to a payment plan where he would make payments until he paid off his full debt for the art I completed and then we could finally go on our separate ways. Instead of paying off his balance, he would instead just end up blocking me and pretend like the money he owed was nonexistent despite promising me over and over he will pay it. He would also end up deleting the telegram chat history so there was no incriminating evidence and he would also block me on PayPal so I would be unable to send him money requests. Here are a few of the screenshots I was able to salvage from this: (screen cap date January 8, 2024) (screen cap dates January 11, 2024) (screen cap date February 9th, 2024) (mod note: 2 payments of 50$ equaling 100$ has been confirmed, one additional 50$ payment is unaccounted for. For the purposes of resolution, Fr0stbit3 is willing to settle for 100$ to consider the payment owed)

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

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/920515.html WHO: IsabellaPrice/ CavitySam WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/isabellaprice/ ( old account), http://www.furaffinity.net/user/cavitysam WHAT: Commission for a pair of avian fursuit feet. Foamed and fleeced. WHEN: Commissioned mid November 2014, to be completed for May 2015. First photos of WIP feet posted April 2015. Nothing since then. PROOF: Commission Started Paypal Transaction Screencap of WIP Feet Submission FB Chat log, various dates EXPLAIN: Back in November 2014, I commissioned IsabellaPrice for some fursuit feet for Confuzzled the next year ( May '15). I'd gotten a headbase made from her before and was happy with the product. I'd also gotten art work commissions here and there. The feet were to be foam and fleece construction( Here's my concept sketch if needed). Everything was agreed on and I paid a deposit of $100 18th November 2014 through paypal. I didn't really get any real updates between then and April 2015 when she posted a wip of them unfleeced, just foam. I liked the shape, though I wanted the claws a little shorter but that was easily fixed. ( I can share the note with this info but didn't think it was really relevant). I was a little worried how close it was getting to Confuzzled, especially with 2 weeks-ish for shipping to UK. May came and went, I didn't get the feet. I was in the con's Den and so had my own work to worry about, commissions to sort. I didn't have time to prod her for updates. My bad. Annoyingly, I can't find any notes around then. I must have forgetten about the feet as I wasn't getting updates and with the con gone, I didn't have a urgent need for them. FA's note system doesn't help in finding communication either... Recently August 2015, I bought a new partial and needed avian feet for it, but in a different colour. I remembered about the commission, and I asked if the feet had been furred ( they hadn't) and if they could be altered to a dark brown. This was agreed on but she was away from home until December 2015. November 2015 I'd had enough of waiting and just wanted the raw, unfleeced feet sent to me (Looks like her mum was to do this as she was away). She approved cancelling of the commission and said she'd be home on the 27th. I wasn't even really interested in getting a monetary refund, I just wanted the feet with less hassle. No communication until 25th Feb 2016 when I had to ask. Since then, communication has pretty much been me calling " Hello?" with no reply. Between the start of this commission, other headbases, premade partials had been made including FNAF ones which were made and sent out ( I assume) As well as drawn artwork.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/777201.html WHO: PurpleSlushie WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/purpleslushie/ WHAT: Fursuit head WHEN: November 10, 2013 until Now [June 20, 2014] Summary: Months of waiting for a fursuit head, still haven't received it yet.. PROOF: http://i.imgur.com/GBw8ufe.png http://i.imgur.com/IUBN7WI.png http://i.imgur.com/WPtqnqe.png http://i.imgur.com/ah594wY.png http://i.imgur.com/nsh0lhB.png http://i.imgur.com/aVMUvNI.png http://i.imgur.com/Ms7r05N.png http://i.imgur.com/gmgVIte.png http://i.imgur.com/QkQG7kf.png http://i.imgur.com/CNGSB8g.png http://i.imgur.com/TleWOlL.png http://i.imgur.com/KH5wiJM.png http://i.imgur.com/mq5iUqS.png http://i.imgur.com/WierFes.png http://i.imgur.com/Aj1R302.png http://i.imgur.com/PgJcrqr.png EXPLAIN: November 10, 2013: I've asked PurpleSlushie if she was opened for commissions and I wanted her to finish my head base. She asked to see photos of the headbase. [http://i.imgur.com/GBw8ufe.png] She said she can modify the muzzle for $300 [http://i.imgur.com/IUBN7WI.png] and accepted the commission request. I was definitely interested and pursued on doing business with her. She wanted full payment upfront before she does any work [http://i.imgur.com/WPtqnqe.png]. November 17, 2013: A week went by and I had enough money to send her the $300 for the commission. She also wanted another $20 for an extra attachment for my fursuit head, which I was fine with. [http://i.imgur.com/ah594wY.png] PayPal transaction here: http://i.imgur.com/nsh0lhB.png December 17, 2013: I haven't head from PurpleSlushie in a month, so I wanted to know if there was any updates, so I've sent her a note asking when I be able to send me my head so she can modify it. She said I can send it any time before the end of December. [http://i.imgur.com/aVMUvNI.png] January 28, 2014: I've already sent out the head and still haven't heard from her if she's gotten the head or not, so I've sent her another note, asking if she's received it. She said she got it on that day and she asked if it was OK for her to modify the lower jaw. [http://i.imgur.com/Ms7r05N.png] January 30, 2014: I've asked for her PayPal address again so I can send her the extra $20 for the head accessory attachment. She said she is going to try her best to make it because she hasn't done anything like that before. She also said the fursuit head would be done by the end of that month, or by mid-March. [http://i.imgur.com/gmgVIte.png] February 25, 2014: Another month goes by without any updates, so I've noted her again. She said she's done modifying it and it's ready to be furred. She also requested my e-mail so she can send pictures. March 22, 2014: Haven't heard from her in a month again, but I've received a note from her cousin, saying she will be furring the face and ears, and do detail work around the eyes. [http://i.imgur.com/CNGSB8g.png] After receiving that note, I felt so relieved seeing an update on my fursuit head. She said she'd send me more photos later on in the week. [http://i.imgur.com/TleWOlL.png] April 17, 2014: Her cousin sends me a note again, updating me. She asked what kind of nose I wanted. [http://i.imgur.com/KH5wiJM.png] May 26, 2014: I've sent her another note asking for an update, she replies, promising to send me more photos and having it finished by the weekend. [http://i.imgur.com/mq5iUqS.png] Excited with the good news, I asked if she will be able to ship it ASAP and provide a tracking number for it, she says there will be a tracking number but she was unsure if she can ship it ASAP because of unreliable transportation. [http://i.imgur.com/WierFes.png] June 4, 2014: Still not receiving any more pictures, I've left her a shout on her page and she responded, saying that the head is ready to be shipped. She also waiting to get a new camera so she can send me more pictures in a couple days. [http://i.imgur.com/Aj1R302.png] June 9-16, 2014: I've sent her an e-mail, because she asked if it was my e-mail so she can send me the pictures of my fursuit head. After waiting for months and months for pictures, I've already become impatient.. [http://i.imgur.com/PgJcrqr.png] As of now, June 20, I still haven't received any more word from her. It feels like every time I contact her, she promises to send me pictures, which she doesn't. It also feels like she is avoiding me. I feel like I've lost $320 and I cannot dispute with PayPal to get a full refund back.

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

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/851017.html This is something very difficult for me to do, but it needs to be done. This happened over the span of a couple years, so much is undocumented up until issues arose as I did not think it would be a problem. However, I feel there is more than enough after the fact. After much advice, I’ve decided to come forward and make a post here about this, mostly to warn people. I took my time writing this as I know there is no action I can take at this point and am very busy. WHO: Ritz_Bitz / Frostcat-Studio (and FA) / Ritz_Tweeting WHERE: Online, texts, emails, twitter, and at Further Confusion 2015 WHAT: One full fursuit (~$950) WHEN: Discussions starting in 2012, first purchase of materials March 4th, 2013, payment from a sponsor on November 25th, 2014, agreement of $200 of payment finalized with attendance at Further Confusion where the suit was delivered, and serious troubles starting shortly after. PROOF: Many images linked throughout explanation. EXPLAIN: This originally started as one of my best friends offering to build me a fursuit for a “friend” price. I had worn one of her suits once and got hooked on the fun it was. Over the years the details swapped around and much was discussed in person when I had lived nearby. Nothing was really set in stone for a long time and it was purely talk. March 4th, 2013 I purchased an order of fur and fleece for the project at Ritz’s request and had it shipped to her. I can't remember what happened, but she had to backburner the project. The fur sat around for almost 2 years before the project could finally be worked on, so there is a large time gap. (At some point I had also sent her DTDs of my feet for sockpaws, a pair of thick, long socks for the sockpaws, a tracing of my hand for the gloves, and extra fleece I had from a previous project based around my character.) June 2014 After attending Califur 2014 with my good friend (who I will refer to as Bob for this,) he started talking about how much he had wanted a fursuit after trying one of his friends’ suits on at the convention. He was hoping to purchase a fursuit and get it by Further Confusion that next year, and I referred him to Ritz as she was also doing my fursuit. When he found out my suit was on backburner, he offered to sponsor some of the cost for the project so it could be put into her paid queue so we could suit at Further Confusion together. I spoke to Ritz and she agreed to reserve space for Bob’s suit as well as mine and a guarantee for completion by the convention in January. I was happy to be helping her get some bills paid and to be helping Bob get a quality suit. Ritz had always told me steps she took to ensure her suits were durable and of high quality craftsmanship, so I had much trust in her work. June 27th, 2014 Bob contacted Ritz about a quote for his suit, also mentioning to her his intentions to sponsor a portion of my suit’s cost. Everything seemed pretty cut and dry at this point and Ritz waited for the payment so she could start the process of constructing the suit. Ritz confirmed that she can complete the suit by Further Confusion and states she planned to start work on my suit in August. September 20th, 2014 Bob placed a down payment to secure the slots. November 4th, 2014 I text Ritz asking when she will be needing my DTD. She answers asking it be sent the start of December. November 15th, 2014 Ritz has started constructing the head. She sends me a text asking about the eye color and shows me an early WIP of the foam sculpting, followed by more complete WIPs of the sculpt and what she planned for it. I was surprised she got the snout acceptably shaped in her style off the bat as it’s the most often misinterpreted part of my character. I praised her for this and asked one small request to the brow which she said wasn’t difficult to add, and informs me of things most people worry about in case I start to worry about similar things. November 16th, 2014 I receive an image of the progress she made as well as the change to the brow that I had requested. I was very pleased with the shape and happy it worked out so quickly with only that one minor change needed. November 20th, 2014 Ritz texts me asking that I bug Bob about making the second payment. It was weird that it was my job to ask him, but I overlooked this as this was a friendly transaction I had helped to arrange. We discussed the confusion, making jokingly grumbling about it as was custom of us when we spoke. We continued on to negotiate $200 of the suit payment to be taken out of what she would owe me for room and dealer’s table costs at Further Confusion. November 21st, 2014 Ritz texts me asking about the ears for the suit. It’s a little difficult to communicate, but I was happy with the shape and aware she only had two hands so just curious about the final curvature at the top. I jotted on the notepad what I meant and it was understood and she says it’s not hard. (This was laden with a very inappropriate joke and I have censored it out.) She also reminds me to send my DTD within the next two weeks. November 25th, 2014 Ritz contacts me asking about more details for the head. At the end I tell her she has my trust in recreating the mouth due to color limitations of fleece. November 29th, 2014 Ritz contacts me while at the store purchasing fleece for the mouth. We figure it out and even settle on the wings ahead of time to just be white due to the lack of proper shades available. I inform her I’ll be making my DTD the next day and shipping it out soon. November 30th, 2014 I ask her if she needs me to retape the dummy before sending it and inform her the lines were cut a little weird. (They were slightly wobbly in a few areas, but I had no issue matching it all back up for retaping.) December 1st, 2014 After seeing Ritz tweet pictures of the finished head, I contact her to question if it’s too late to add the fur tuft my character always has. I was a little upset that she didn’t offer a solution, but it was just a fur tuft. I wasn’t going to make a big deal about it. It still looked good, which I made sure to communicate to her. I also inform her I’m sending the DTD the next day. December 8th/ 9th, 2014 I ask if she received the DTD in the mail yet. The next day she responds that she has. December 14th, 2014 Ritz texts me during conversation about how big the tail for another suit is, using my head and DTD as comparison. My DTD appears to be partially stuffed and looks fine. December 16th, 2014 Ritz texts me informing my my DTD split at the seams during the stuffing process. She claims every seam that was cut split apart because I didn’t use long enough strips of tape. I felt bad because I knew it would be annoying to retape. She says it can be repaired (it’s just taping seams back together) and she was working on it. This is very important for an issue later, as she tells me she’s going to stuff and pattern one half and mirror the pattern. December 20th, 2014 Ritz texts me asking if I want the feet separate or attached. We’d discussed it previously, but it was so long before I understood many things were forgotten. January 1st, 2015 After seeing tweets of the completed sockpaws, I text her in private to ask her if it’s too late to add larger claws. Again, this is something we’d discussed many times in person down to the shape and how she planned construction, but I understand forgetting. She’s clearly upset at the mere question of the possibility, so I immediately try to reassure her I’m just curious and not trying to upset her. I was very concerned as a friend that my question may have been upsetting to her, but from a client’s standpoint I knew it was very wrong and I began to worry about voicing my opinion on anything being wrong with this very expensive product. January 12th, 2015 After seeing only one WIP of the wings being completed on her twitter since the sockpaws were complete, I am now texted with the completed suit only a few days before the promised deadline. She first informs me that the magnetic wings wouldn’t work and that she had to sew them into the bodysuit. Not a big deal. However, I instantly noticed the padding on the legs looked… odd and lumpy. I also became worried that the bodysuit fit her as I’m a very small person. From the backview you can also tell the ears were not evenly shaven and have bumps in the structure already. It was days before the convention and I knew bringing up the issues would cause a very tense upset, so I kept quiet and informed her I was happy with the suit and we began talking about the fun we’d have at the convention that weekend. January 15th, 2015 The first day of Further Confusion for us, as soon as we set up in the dealer’s den, we went up to the room eager to suit up and go have fun. Ritz begins to help me put the suit on for the first time and issues already arise. The bodysuit is extremely baggy on me, which was odd considering I’d gained a lot of holiday weight since I had made the DTD. When it came time to put the sockpaws on, I noticed there was a hole in the inner sock, but shrugged it off considering it was difficult to get my feet into the paws. I had provided her with DTDs of my feet, so this was also confusing. We discussed it and since she only patterned the right foot and flipped it, it being my smaller foot caused the sizing issue for my left foot. The worst problem came when I tried to put the gloves on. They couldn’t fit past my second knuckles. She immediately became upset and, again, I took the blame upon myself and said it wasn’t her fault and that I probably traced my hand wrong. She gladly accepted this and it became the new “fact” of what went wrong. When putting the head on, I noticed a part of the zipper was separated from the fur of the head. An easy fix. We quickly discussed the issues. She explained she was extremely busy with personal suit projects she wanted to get done for Denver Comic Con and didn’t have the time to do these repairs and make new gloves. I felt bad and said I could probably handle it with the small amount of sewing experience I have. This seemed to clear things up and we went out suiting. I tried not to pay attention to the flaws and just enjoy the con. January 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 2015 We only suited up once more after that, and I wore the suit as a partial a third time out with her because the padding in the thighs of the suit were unsecured and chafed me to no end when I walked. Nothing stayed in place how it was intended because the suit was so baggy. Meanwhile, tensions rose during the con due to Bob’s suit having issues. Ritz was extremely upset by this so I absolutely couldn’t bring myself to say anything negative about my suit. In fact, I rushed to defend her despite having my own issues with my suit. Sunday night when we were going to suit a final time, tensions blew up, drama happened, and we cancelled our plans and stayed in the room. The con ended and I took my entire suit home with me with plans to try to repair it myself and save Ritz the time. January 21st, 2015 After coming home and getting unpacked, I finally had time to look over the suit and prepare myself for the work I had to do. I realized there was far more than I could handle and I was not experienced enough to fix most of it. A list of the issues in full is provided after my next piece of information. February 14th, 2015 The issues in my fursuit worried me. I wasn’t sure what was normal and what wasn’t. I attended the local furmeet this day and brought the head and paws (having issues easier to see in person) and asked some friends with more experience on the issues as well as asking advice on how to handle this delicate situation between my friend and myself. I briefly wore these to demonstrate some of the issues and interact with two young children. I got the advice I needed and confirmation that the flaws in my suit were not acceptable and not my responsibility to fix as she was paid to produce a suit in working condition that I could wear and enjoy. Many told me how clear it was that she rushed it and took shortcuts, which is no surprise given the circumstances. I needed to approach her on the issue and hope for the best. I couldn’t keep pretending it was okay, and I started preparing myself to for this rather difficult step. The Problems - The excess amount of fabric on the bodysuit is around 10-14 inches on the midsection. This can only mean when she patterned the half of the DTD and flipped it, she overshot the middle point. Even overshooting this by a few inches can cause excess (2-4x the length of the overshoot) and wouldn’t have been an issue had she taken the time to fully retape the DTD. The thighs have an excess as well, though not as bad. - I discovered the zipper on the head was glued on instead of sewn. This is why part of it was already separated when I received it. - The shaving on the head was very choppy. I had actually taken time to hand trim the face to smooth it out, but there was little I could do for the ears. - The ears were glued directly to the balaclava with no foam to anchor them or keep them stable. This causes them to flop around pretty badly. - Instead of being sewn to the rest of the fur of the head, the ears were poorly glued on. There are small open gaps at the side of each ear on both sides, as well as at the front of the ears near the fleece. - There are crinkles in the fleece on the ears where it was glued to the inside material. - The ears are anchored off-center. - The balaclava was spottily glued to the inside of the head and was already pulling off bits of foam. It is glued in such a way that it overlaps a portion of the buckram from the inside, unnecessarily limiting the vision further. - The gloves do not fit past the second knuckle of my hand. They’re also not hemmed at the edges so the fleece was left raw cut. - On top of the sizing issues, the sockpaws had a hole in the inner sock when I received them from being cut sloppily. - The sockpaws weren’t hemmed. In fact, the fleece was glued to the sock at the top. It began to fall apart with the small amount of wear they saw at the con. - The magnets she’d promised me and stated she could not get to work were left in the wings and sealed over with giant globs of glue. You can still see them and the gluey mess is left uncovered to get at the wearer’s back. - The wings were glued together and you can see the wire in some spots by peeking into the open spaces in the glue seams. (Originally we were planning on realistic wings with wiring, feathers, and vinyl. I told her “Just do simple plush wings like Telephone’s since it’s easier” later on. While the wings she made are cute and a creative middle-point, they’re going to fall apart because glue doesn’t last very long.) - The elastic loops on the tail were not sewn very securely for such a large, heavy tail and had begun to fall apart at the convention along with a small hole. February 15th, 2015 I have a short, rather comical discussion with another previous client of Ritz’s who also discloses that many parts of their suit are glued together. I feel this is necessary to disclose to help support my discontent with the quality of my suit prior to the next events as I am accused of "retaliation" later on. March 2nd, 2015 Unfortunately, I’d been very busy with life, so I had not yet been able to approach Ritz before this point. I don’t like to bring drama into this discussion of business, but this severely complicated the smooth resolution of things. We had not been speaking much as Ritz had blamed me for the drama at the convention and I was giving her breathing space. On this day, she reacted negatively to a tweet I had made on Twitter (she brings it up later) and the resulting misunderstanding caused her to remove me on social media. I contacted her concerned about her and trying to resolve the issue, only to be ignored. (I can provide screenshots, but would rather not as this is just drama.) In a panic, I discussed parting out the suit as a last resort as I was certain I would now not be given the repairs I deserved. It did not help when I saw photos proving similar quality work on other suits, leaving me more upset at what had been given to me. After speaking to many people and getting advice on this new situation, I removed the comments out of courtesy (despite never once mentioning her specifically) and went forward with their suggestions to attempt getting a rightful refurbish. March 6th, 2015 At the advice of many, I contacted Ritz with my intentions. I tweeted at her asking for an email to discuss repairs with her, being clear it shouldn’t be my responsibility. She replied with the preferred email. At that point I began to write a thorough email to her. This took me about a week to get finished up. March 13th, 2015 I finally sent my email. I noted not only the issues with her craftsmanship, but also with the customer service she gave me that led to increasing problems in the work that had upset me and led me to be quiet for so long. I leave the option open to negotiate a refurbish or simply work out a refund as it seems like it would be easier with her busy schedule that caused the burden of refurbishing to be placed on me in the first place. March 14th, 2015 I woke up to a rather hostile email back from Ritz. She immediately accused me of retaliation, being unreasonable, and picky. Our correspondence is plain to see and everyone I’ve asked said I was very kind. She accuses me of getting a suit “for free” even though she received a $600 payment from Bob, a $200 traded payment from me, as well as my purchasing $160 of materials. She then blames me for all the problems she possibly can, while ignoring half the issues that she can’t try to blame me for. She blamed the bagginess on my DTD, which she now attacks me for. I spoke to numerous suitmakers and they said 10-14 inches is definitely not due to retaping seams. (Also note the 2 day gap between the lightly stuffed DTD image and her telling me it split apart as vs. her story now.) The fact she still continued and even brought up personal drama with other clients as well as further wild accusations that, even if true, have nothing to do with the quality of my suit, is baffling. I’m not sure if she was trying to guilt trip me or try to scare me out of pressing the issue to resolution, but it was absolutely uncalled for. She even accuses me of being the reason someone was bringing up issues on another suit she worked on. The fact she finished it up with blatantly insulting me was the icing on the cake. I was also a little disturbed that, despite our cessation of contact on social media, she had still been checking my accounts. I immediately wrote her a response, on my phone, to address this unbelievable reply she had sent me. Admittedly blunt, but necessary, and deciding at this point I cannot handle a refurbishing process due to her hostility and request a refund. As she showed aggression about Bob having paid in a portion, I made it clear I could contact him to work things out how she’d like. March 17th, 2015 As I’ve yet to receive a response, I sent Ritz an email to remind her and request she handle the situation civilly. I make note that Bob is aware of the situation and we all just want to resolve this. March 29th, 2015 I had to duck out to handle life for a bit and figured giving her time to cool off was good. Sadly, I saw signal boosts that she was selling her leftover furs. I saw some of the very same fur used on my suit and contacted her immediately. It seemed like the 6 yards she told me to purchase was a lot and it was likely some of it was mine. At this point I was notably frazzled by this ordeal. She surprisingly responded, again accusing me of things I am not guilty of and bringing other clients and drama into dealings about a fursuit she did not make properly. She seems to even agree with the fact that the quality is bad and that I should be fine that I only spent $200 on it. Her logic in thinking because I only paid $200 along with $160 in materials means she doesn’t have to give anything back, despite that she took the $600 from Bob, and that is what he would get back, not me, in a refund. She claims it was wrong to take Bob’s money, yet she seems fine keeping it despite not doing her job properly for it. All she has done is avoided owning up and fixing mistakes she made on an expensive product while hiding behind excuses that drama somehow nullifies her responsibility in business. I made a final response to her as well, and that was where it ended between us. Currently: I have been refused repairs or a refund on a suit that was paid for and delivered in poor quality. It’s very clear Ritz has done a good job to avoid everything wrong with the suit she made for me and justify not fixing the issue and attacking me. She blames me for all that she can and resorts to bringing up drama instead of addressing why half my suit is glued together. I feel she has been trying to take advantage of the fact Bob sponsored part of the suit cost and her sudden grudge against me to avoid dealing with resolving the matter. She took a large sum of money for a product of a certain quality and did not deliver, and I’m honestly upset with how she’s treated me in this ordeal. The suit needs entirely new hands and feet, major tailoring of the bodysuit that includes redoing the legs entirely, redoing the tail's backing and elastic loops, completely redoing the ears and refurring the head with a new balaclava. Most suitmakers have told me it's not "refurbishing" so much as making an entirely new suit with some scraps. I basically don't know what to do aside from hope nobody else runs into the same troubles as I have with this suitmaker, but any advice would be welcome if anything can possibly be done at this point. June 16, 2015 Update I just took the head out of the storage box for the first time since photographing everything months ago. I've been getting advice on how to salvage as much as I can from the head to go towards making a new one, so I was needing to take a closer look at some things. A small clatter and objects falling out confused me, until I realized that the teeth have started to fall out with even this small amount of age and absolutely no use. The teeth are sculpey, I believe, and left unfinished. Some bases of the silver molars were unpainted, the rest of the teeth are just straight sculpey or whatever they are made of, no paint, and are all starting to separate from the beds of hot glue. This just adds to the poor quality product I was given and the work I am left to cover out of my pocket to fix. I honestly don't have anymore words to describe how I feel right now. February 2016 Update This disheartens me to have to even add to so long after the fact of this all happening, but I would like to update this to add a further warning to Ritz's poor business behavior if you happen to get on her bad side as I have with this ordeal. I placed an advertisement up on Furaffinity, in which I used a commission she had gotten from me as it was in my top 10 favorited pieces in my gallery and a great example. My Terms of Service states that I am allowed to use the work I create for people for portfolio and other purposes, and thus I had the legal right to use the image in an advertisement as it's a form of portfolio. I assumed this would not be an issue as I have personally gotten over the drama and moved on past this all quite a while ago, and had assumed she had done the same. She, however, saw this as an opportunity to attack me by approaching the advertisement organizer stating that her character was in my advertisement without her permission, essentially wanting it removed. This was orchestrated with a friend of hers whom also had commission work in my advertisement, also demanding the removal of their commission despite them having both agreed to and being bound by my Terms of Service. This alone was a nuisance, but in having to handle the issue, I saw that she had been publicly trash talking me, clearly stating her intention to try to cause a problem for me for the sake of causing a problem. At this point she obviously holds a grudge against me and I am being bullied for having spoken out about her practices, showing also that she has absolutely no respect to my Terms of Service that was agreed to. I am attempting to resolve the issue with the advertising organizer, but will be forced to avoid exercising my legal rights to display the artwork I created involving her characters in the future all because I want to avoid her malicious acts to attempt revenge for speaking up. August 19, 2016 Update After being urged by friends and seeking advice from the community on if I should add further updates, I'm sadly here again. While I'm relatively wary to share due to more fear of retaliation, I don't believe this will ever stop regardless of anything I do. I am urged to warn people the extent of the poor behavior that I have been subjected to for over a year since posting. Occasionally third parties will inform me of things that have been said and I honestly ignore 90% of things, but I had the displeasure seeing one instance myself. I have been ruthlessly slandered since the posting, and at this point been brought aware of possible threats of either legal action against me or potential harm to my person. (If it escalates any further I will contact law enforcement, but at current there is not enough to hold up considering the distance involved.) I have had absolutely ZERO contact with Ritz since the last email shown in the original posting here. Even during her attack on my advertisement, I did not say a word to her, only spoke to the advertising department at FA. I am going to point out ahead of time, it is EXTREMELY easy to figure out who is being spoken about (me) in all of these instances even if names aren't attached cause a simple google search nets you all the info you need. I already know I'm mentioned frequently by name otherwise anyhow. Onto the point, what I saw for myself... Was on Wednesday, June 22 in a Facebook group for Fursuiters and Fursuit Makers. A notification popped up onto my phone for a sale posting that was receiving many comments. I'm going to be 100% honest I was wildly curious as I'd heard she quit suitmaking (I'm only human), and I saw this exchange brewing that had apparently been what sparked it into popularity. I avoided the desire to jump in and say something cause NOPE I have zero desire to speak to her. I just screencapped away cause I couldn't believe what I was reading and figured it'd be taken down, which it was. Color guide for censoring (cause identifying photos/names): Black = Not involved or moderator names Ritz commented to alert Blue = Ritz Red = Some fursuiter who spoke up Yellow = Ritz's IRL friend https://www.dropbox.com/s/7nixak1x72bdqmb/Group1.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/j3j2m8mw22mswoo/2.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/oeibrn7q6amudni/3.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/b189gvqz44ge3r5/4.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/y3527bkjzuev7qx/5.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/voe431whjd9eul3/6.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/feofjf0gk1tkdqy/7.jpg?dl=0 I don't even need to make commentary on how messed up this was. You all can think for yourselves. I avoided updating with it at the time despite people telling me to. I didn't want to deal with it. I didn't think it was that bad. Now here's what broke me on trying to ignore things. I was shown these earlier this week. Despite being from May, it opened my eyes to how serious things really were this whole time as I attempted to ignore it all. This is only HALF of a conversation someone had with Ritz's locked twitter, but it's very clear what's going on. I was shown this for obvious reasons. This was shortly before BLFC, which we both happened to be attending (I avoided her at all costs, and was apparently wise to do so.) Censoring: Blue = Ritz's locked twitter handle, Purple = Ritz's friend (Remember to read bottom to top in each for chronological order cause it's twitter.) https://www.dropbox.com/s/v36ao3uyd8d10r4/21.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/accjt9cl35ieovk/22.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/yf7mwvzbbwgyhc1/23.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/n8hq2cioflujxoz/24.png?dl=0 Let me point this out there. Whatever is being said on the other side of this conversation, her friend thinks I should be scared of her. This is NOT okay, and relatively alarming considering things I know about her that are not for me to share publicly. The suggestion of a restraining order despite that I have not had ANY contact with her whatsoever even despite her attempted harassment, is outlandish. Furthermore, the clear discussion of potential legal action because I caused her loss of income due to this beware posting is even more unsettling. This is bonkers. I don't even care about the disgusting and immature names they casually call me when this other stuff is going on. People are right, they need to know what she's doing because this is, and has been, crazy. Exercise caution when doing business with her, because you never know when you'll end up like me.

I met Finley at AnthroCon while they were running a booth in the Dealer's Den. There were suiters attending the con in suits that Finley had made, and the tails they had on display were of good quality. We talked for a while about pricing a fullsuit, how long delivery dates were, how deep the queue was. At that point, I decided to commission a Full Digitigrade suit from them for $1600. Communication was great until December, at which basically all communication ceased. The only reason that Finley responded here was because I had 2 emails: I am open to marking this Beware as "resolved" if and when the refund has been processed on PayPal. New information as of 7/1/2019. I was promised a refund (partial in June, the rest in July). Finley has not been in contact since those promises were made. I've attached the email conversation below, and you can see comments for more info. At this point I'm forced to raise this to Beware status from it's current Caution status.

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

Explanation: Prepaid for two full-body shaded commissions through Discord, paid through PayPal. And then a second comission of a full-body and 2 stickers, also prepaid. None of these were received. Additionally an art trade and friendship piece was agreed upon. I drew her art, and she never reciprocated. Dates: Jul 18th, 2023 (first commission) and July 26th, 2023 (second commission). Proof of Payments This transation from July 18th is for the first comission for two full-body shaded pieces. Original Terms of Service (They were updated months later after I agreed to this) The TOS stated art would typically be delivered within 3 months. At the time of posting this it has been 8 months. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Correspondences July 18th - Original comission correspondence ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- July 24th - Checking in to see if money was received and comission started ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- July 26 - Second commission money was sent ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- June 26th, 2023 - Art trade and friendship piece agreed I delivered my art trade piece A friendship piece was promised ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sept 9th, 2023 - Friendship piece discussed ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Evidence of many others complaining about Creamii's queue and being confronted by Nev of Danger Den I express my concern for her queue size At this point, I am expressing my desire for a refund. In the end we ended up having the call. It was positive and I was supportive and understanding of personal issues they were going through at the time. They continued to promise to work on and deliver my commissions. Dec 11th, 2023 - She contacted me to work on my commission December 12th, 2024 - I am shown an early in progress sketch. This is the only art I ever saw related to the art I was owed. I am offered a gift which I never received Jan. 15th, 2024 - I check in to inquire about my commission At this point, she added several more people to her queue in her sever. It was quite large and backed up. (Some more evidence of this can be added if required) Unfortunately, this does not have a date but Creamii posted in her server that people are able to request a refund if desired. Several more slots are being opened on her Discord server for art despite art not being delivered Dec 06, 2023 - the Danger Den discord server sent out this concerning her queue. Jan 30th, 2024 - My partner messaged Creamii on PayPal as this was of growing concern. There was never a reply. Feb 5th, 2024 - My friend contacted Creamii on my behalf. LimaBean was still in Creamii's server at this point and had noticed that she changed her commission queue and that it no longer included me on it and so they reached out. A refund was again promised and never received. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 10th, 2024 I attempted to contact them again for a refund but they are not accepting messages from people who are not their friends and are not responding to contact outside of Discord. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 11th, 2024 An official refund was requested via Email with a reasonable week long deadline. At the end of the week there was no contact and no refund.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/829508.html It's really disheartening to have to come forward with this report, but after having patience and trying to negotiate with the artist, I have begun to feel like I had no choice on this matter, especially after many people have instructed me to come forward. I apologize for this post being very long; I wanted to make sure I included all the details I possibly could. Who/Where: Fursuit Maker: Frostcat-Studio / Ritz_Bitz / Ritz_Tweeting When I originally considered looking into getting my first fursuit, I had only heard of this maker through the recommendation of a mutual friend. From looking at their gallery, they seemed to have very nice work and I was given the impression that they could provide me with similar work. What: One Partial Fursuit ($1200) I had originally contacted Ritz for a fursuit in June of 2014 and on June 27th we agreed to a price of $1200 to make my partial, which included a large tail and also a set of wings. Here you can see Ritz had offered to add a magnetic feature to the wings so they could be worn under a shirt with a harness and I was charged and extra $170 for this addition. ->The email can be viewed here <- (Our conversation is very casual as we had been united through a mutual friend) On September 20th 2014, I confirmed my slot and placed my 50% down payment. -> Link for Proof <- (Ritz real name has been blanked) Then, on November 25th 2014 I paid my remaining $600. (The screen shot shows a total of an additional $1200 as I also paid off the remaining $600 on the mutual friend's balance to help them out. That amount is not related to my entry) -> Link for final Payment Proof <- Explain: At first, Ritz kept very good communication when working on my fursuit and seemed interested in making it "just right". She replied to my inquires often and kept reliable contact with me, even sending me work in progress images from time to time. While I would get pictures, I never really was sure what I was looking at in terms of what she had been doing; I was never given any explanation and was issued vague descriptions, which is possibly my fault for not speaking up on but I had never commissioned a suit before and felt I should place my trust in the maker to do their job. The first red flag that came to me was when she would inquire about my second payment and instead of contacting me directly, she would ask the mutual friend to remind me on her behalf. This really struck me as odd given the mutual friend was not working for Ritz and my contact information was established prior. I ended up ignoring my gut on this issue given the mutual friend was close to both of us and since this was a friendly transaction, I considered it to just be another casual aspect of the entire affair. Ritz proposed the completion date (By Further Confusion 2015) and said that having it complete by this time would be no issue, so I planned to attend this convention so I could have a good time fursuiting for the first time. Overall, the anticipation building for this costume was immense as I would be flying in from Florida to attend the convention in California just to have a chance to wear it for the first time. On January 4th (approximately 10 days before the convention), I was shown images of my completed fursuit via Twitter and Skype. The images were not close ups or anything, so from first appearances I was excited. While it wasn't the quality I had expected, I was still excited to have a costume regardless. I should take responsibility for my qualms with the quality as when browsing her gallery I had not noticed the suits that stood out to me were all built on headbases made by other fursuit makers when mine would be built from scratch; That being said my expectations for what I would receive were not completely accurate and it was my fault for not researching further. Regardless, I told her I was happy with it visually and was eager to wear a fursuit for the first time. Overtime, I ended up coming into a disagreement with the mutual friend who had connected Ritz and I for the commission and we began to grow apart. I didn't think it would effect my commission with Ritz in anyway, but later on I would find it was quite the opposite. (This is only important to note as it will become relevant later on.) Originally, the suit was going to be shipped to the mutual friend and delivered to me at the convention however due to (what I can only assume to be) rising tension, the mutual friend opted not to deliver the costume to me. Given I was flying in from across the country, I asked a friend from Southern California to have it shipped to them instead since they would be driving to the convention. The friends who ended up having the fursuit shipped to them did not open the box in any way until they found me at the convention and I opened it myself. January 15th When I made it to the convention, I met up with my friends from Southern California (I was also rooming with them) and they had my fursuit box in the hotel room waiting for me. At first glace, I was already very upset. The box was very poorly packaged and looked very ragged. I would have thought it could have been mangled by the postal service but it seemed the degrading box was actually taped up in areas where it was falling apart and that tape was laid beneath the original packing where the shipping information was. It was very clear that Ritz reused a battered and trashed box to ship my $1200 product and my concern began to grow before I had even seen the costume. Upon opening the box, the first thing that was staring at me was a foot paw that was falling apart. The box had just been opened and the suit was already damaged in quite visible ways. Thankfully, I had a room full of witnesses that helped me gather pictures of the unboxing. Here is a visual collection of the damages that we discovered. -> The footpaws were separating from the shoes (That I had to purchase myself and ship to her) before they were ever worn. -> The bottom Jaw and horns were crooked and the head was barely foamed so it would lose it's shape when not worn. -> The seam in the fur on the direct center of the muzzle was popped despite never having been worn yet. -> The balaclava was not attached with only a few tiny dabs of hot glue and separated from the foam and also has various holes in it. -> In fact, the Balaclava had MANY holes in it. -> The fur on the hand paws was poorly shaved and some of the claws were upside down. -> The shave job was uneven and jagged. -> And in some places, the fur was shaved all the way down to the backing. Now, as you can imagine, I was not very pleased to open the box and discover the suit was in such a mess after never being worn. Some of the mistakes I saw were very common from beginner suit makers however I was given the impression that Ritz was NOT a new maker and had enough experience to warrant the $1200 price tag (which could buy a partial from many makers who would not have made these mistakes). On top of all these issues, I discovered that the set of wings I had ordered for this costume did not feature any magnetic attachments at all. Instead, the wings were sewn directly into a harness made from elastic straps, making it impossible to wear them without having the harness worn on top of my clothes. This was also very upsetting given Ritz had offered to make this feature for me and charged me an additional $170 for it, yet never once mentioned to me during the construction process that they would no longer be doing the magnet idea. I immediately decided to contact Ritz as she was at the convention and perhaps she could do enough quick fixes so I could at least wear my fursuit; I did fly in from across the country just to wear it around afterall. I didn't mind waiting on fixing the other issues, but I at least wanted some help fixing the shoes. I decided to contact our mutual friend to get in touch with Ritz because I had no other way to reach her at the time. We met up and I explained what the problems were and she agreed to get the feet fixed. We went to Ritz's hotel room and she did a quick hot glue job on the paws with me standing there. It was not very thorough but it seemed like it was enough to keep them together for the time being. I also had the chance to ask about the missing magnets and she explained that there were no magnets strong enough to hold the wings in place (which isn't true since you can order some that can hold up to 75lbs!) so she opted to sew them to the harness without informing me to meet the tight deadline. After Ritz "fixed" the feet, I went back to my hotel room and decided to wear my suit as it was to try and enjoy the convention. The next morning, I went to participate in the fursuit parade and that was when the fur on my foot paws began to separate again; this time on both feet. Additionally, the buckram connected to the plastic to make the eyes began to separate and peel from the plastic. This was also when I noticed that the plastic has been hastily cut and there were strands of of debris going into the space where my actual eyes were. After the parade, I found Ritz again to show her what was happening with my brand new suit and she seemed very disinterested in my issues. When I brought attention to the issue with the eye popping out, both Ritz and the mutual friend (whom was with her the entire con) began to give me sass and snark about not being "too rough" with the costume then walked off without making any attempt to help me with the situation. I was pretty appalled at this reaction given I paid so much money for a costume to wear and was basically being told not to wear it if I didn't want it to fall apart. I had been just wearing the suit like any normal person would, I wasn't jabbing the eyes in with my finger or anything for goodness sake. It was at this point the mutual friend decided to get involved and began sending me text messages that said I was being rude and "mean" to Ritz for contacting her about these issues and the issues in question were not her fault. Why was the suit maker's friend getting involved and handling this situation? This had nothing to do with them so why were they acting as a messenger for Ritz? At this point, I was given the very strong impression that Ritz no longer wanted to provide me with any help for the costume, so in order to make it wearable I asked for the help of my friends (I was rooming with) to help me do minor repairs. I was forced to go out and buy a glue gun and ask a friend to cut time from her convention experience to keep the suit intact. During the time we spent fixing it, we also began to see even more issues with the craftsmanship. -> The zipper on the back of the head was glued to the fur instead of sewn and began to separate. -> The horns were discovered to have no foam to anchor them, explaining why they were crooked. I think the majority of my convention time was spent with a friend trying to repair this costume. We were absolutely sure not to modify anything, just attempt to repair the poor craftsmanship. After a certain point, my friend explained to me that we should stop repairing it all together because the state it was in just couldn't be saved at a convention. I attempted to contact Ritz once more via twitter DMs to try and show her the state of the suit before the end of the convention but she unfortunately decided to start ignoring me. I was polite and kind because I wasn't mad as much desperate to fix these issues. It was such a frustrating experience because I just wanted some resolution for this costume that I spent a large sum of money on and the person who sold it to me made me feel like they had zero concern for the situation now that the money was already in their hands. To make things worse, a few hours later Ritz began tweeting about me to try and detract from my issues, implying that I was picking on them because I had a disagreement with the mutual friend. This was just the end to my willingness to work with this fursuit maker anymore and I ended up sitting in tears while friends comforted me. One of my friends began discussing things with Ritz on twitter because it very strongly felt that she would not be dealing with me beyond this point and Ritz began stating that the problems with the costume were not actually there nor her fault and began to explain that the situation had very much been influenced by my falling out with the mutual friend. My friend then decided to take the conversation with her in private and they discussed the situation because Ritz still would not talk directly to me. During the private conversation with my friend, Ritz admitted to rushing my fursuit and stated that she could not afford to refund the costume but would work out a plan after the convention to make things right. She also stated that it was "shitty" or me to not want repairs at this point and called it unreasonable. I may be unreasonable for not wanting repairs, but I don't trust this individual with my money anyone given these problems would not exist if the care needed was put in to begin with not to mention the constant avoidance with my problems. I did not feel this person wanted to fix things correctly. After Ritz had conversation with my friend, it was decided that after the convention she would absolutely talk to me about the problems with the costume and find a resolution. (I can provide screen shots of this entire conversation if necessary, however I opted to leave them out initially as so my friend would not be dragged into the issue. I firmly believe this should have stayed between Ritz and myself and the constant involvement from third parties has really caused more drama than needed.) January 20th (2015) Two days after the convention, Ritz contacts me on Skype and begins trying to work out a situation from the suit. She begins by offering me two options; One is to send the suit back for repairs or I can send the suit to be stripped and turned into a different character that she can sell. She tells me that I can not be refunded 30% of the fursuit cost as the cost of the materials can not be returned. Despite finding that option to be very unfair (given I would be returning the suit to her so she could recoup her losses and the reason for refund was not a cancellation but rather the product was broken and the fault was hers), I agreed and stated that after all that had happened and the personal involvement of her friend causing tension I did not want it refurbished; I just wanted a refund. She also explains to me that she -can not refund me at all- until I return the suit and she resells it, thus leaving my money weighing on the uncertainty of weather or not the suit sells and if it does, would it sell for the $800 she says I am owed? She insists she will not refund money until I send the suit back, however that was understandable and we agreed. She also mentions at the same time that she will send $200 refund in "good faith" (that I have never since seen). I am kind and understanding with her and even apologetic for the situation that unfolded despite being at no fault myself. I wanted to make things right and I felt bad that she had spent the last few days tweeting about never wanting to make suits again. I felt guilty for the distress I put her through so I even said I would think about letting her repair the suit after she pushed that option on me constantly (despite saying I did not want it). She additionally admits to her friend's presence having effected her business with me and even the way she treated me as a customer, which sent even more red flags to me, but she genuinely seemed like she wanted to make things right so I did my best to return it. Her main concern throughout the entire conversation was her name and reputation, which seemed very off-putting given I felt her main concern should have been to fix the situation with my costume. -> Conversation can be found here <- January 30th (2015) About ten days after our conversation, I gave Ritz my final decision. I took note to how stressed she was over the decision and gave her time to come down from the ordeal. I politely explained to her that I did not feel comfortable sending her the suit and waiting for her to resell it before I would receive any money. I stated that I would gladly return the suit after I was refunded and left it at that. -> Link to Conversation <- The Next day, Ritz replies to me stating that she can not refund me for the amount I am owed until I return the suit in parts for her to resell and asks for a week to figure something out. She explains that she will use her tax refund to pay me the money I am owed and I reassure her that I can wait for a refund as long as it needs to be. My main concern is still that I do not want to return the goods until I am compensated for them. This is when her contact slows to a grinding halt. She openly begins to dodge my communication and puts me on the back burner and does not contact me in any way unless I put an effort into contacting her. February 12th I end up contacting her as it has been nearly two weeks since her last contact with me. Again, I am civil and I calmly ask what the game plan is for the situation. On February 14th I get a reply in which she states that her tax refund was small and she would not be able to refund me from that money. She also goes back on her word in stating that she would refund me and takes an aggressive tone, calling our agreed upon solution to be "unfair" and says that my failure to trust her is preventing me from getting my money back. Now, I'm going to throw some personal opinion in here but...how am I being unfair? She agreed to refund me and suddenly is changing her tune and even going as far as to insinuate that this situation is my fault for "not trusting her". The problem is, I already trusted her with $1200 to deliver a product to me in functioning order. She not only failed to do that, but she also insulted me, ignored me and went as far as to try and claim her faulty craftsmanship (which she admitted to) was -my- fault. Yes, I do not trust her with giving me my money back and I will not relinquish the costume until I am given a refund. I am not asking for both the suit and a refund, I am asking to be compensated -before- I give up the costume. The artist's financial issues are not my concern, what is my concern is the money that she had taken from me and will not return. -> This reply can be viewed here <- She has dodged contact with me and has put me in a situation where I am not sure if I am going to have this situation resolved. On February 17th, I contacted her asking for her to talk to me when I was online as I didn't enjoy playing message tag when the subject was so important. I tried once more on the 18th to reach out and beg for conversation on the topic and reaffirmed my stance about her taking back the product to resell. I even went as far as to offer my phone number to try and resolve the issue but she had left me in the dark, all while spending time on twitter and talking to other people on skype. I am fully aware I am being ignored and it's gotten to the point where I am getting ready to file a charge back on paypal if this doesn't get resolved soon. -> Proof of contact attempts <- (screen shots were taken on 2/18/2015) 2/21 - Ritz contacted me in response to my final message in which I explained that I felt that I didn't believe it was fair to charge me for materials when I would be returning the suit for her to recoup that loss and because the issue with the costume was not due to cancellation or error on my end. I admit that I did change my mind in terms of the refund I was willing to accept though the advice of many friends and other artists swayed my mind. I did agree that taking a partial refund for having zero product on an issue that was no fault of my own felt very wrong, but I may be out of line for having brought that up and changing my stance I take responsibility for that. She responded aggressively, again cursing at me and using profanity. I was given a "final option" in which I was told I will wait until she gets her tax refund after I return the broken merchandise she had given me before I will receive any financial compensation. I don't feel that this is ever a way an artist or suit maker should ever talk to or treat a client, but maybe I am bitter and misinterpreted her reply as more rude than it actually was. I politely asked her to calm down because her abrasive reply felt very flustered and asked her to give me a phone call so we can figure things out. She explains that she can't handle phone calls due to anxiety so despite it being a difficult work around for me (my work generally keeps me very busy) I understand her position and tell her I can easily wait for her to finish helping a friend move out. She asks me if I would "actually want to resolve this civilly" which struck me as rude given I don't feel I have been anything but? - > Conversation <- As of now, it is 2/27/15 and we have not resolved the issue at all. I feel like I am constantly being fed excuses, ignored and just treated very poorly in general and as a customer that paid $1200 for a costume that is barely wearable, I feel like this shouldn't be the case? I just feel like I'm stuck in a run around and I can't help but think I'm not doing the wrong thing? This is the first time I've ever commissioned a fursuit so perhaps my inexperience is what keeps this situation from being resolved? I'd be happy to take fault if I knew what I was doing wrong! I'm hoping that in posting this entry, I can warn people about this maker's shady business practices, lack of professionalism and lack of concern for their customers. I'm also hoping this may be the final nudge needed to get Ritz to acknowledge me and resolve the situation before I file for a charge back on Paypal. $1200 is quite a sum of money to be over drafted and I would absolutely prefer not to financially break this artist. I just want resolution, I want her to give me a game plan and show concern for the situation and give me a refund for the broken product she gave me. EDIT: 3/4/2015 On the day this entry had been posted, Ritz returned from attending an Anime convention and contacted me. She has posted the caps herself below, however just to be sure, here is the gist of what was said: -> Conversation <- While yes, she did offer to refund me $800, she also went on to bring up unexpected bills she mentioned on twitter and debts which made me feel extremely guilty in accepting any money from her when her personal life needed the money so much more. As I have said countless times, I am not out to be a bully in any way; I just want a refund for the broken costume I was given. Later in the day while I was at work, Ritz confronts me on skype with this: I wasn't even aware the entry had been posted at that point as I was on patrol at work (I am a police officer) and she begins getting aggressive on me, stating that she thought this was resolved and saying she was insulted. For one thing, this post was made days prior when I had not yet received any contact, secondly I would never consider this issue to be revolved until the money is in my hands and the fursuit was in hers. At this point, she offers me a NDA Contract because she no longer "trusts" me for having made this entry. Ritz is well aware that I have now requested a full $1200 for my refund because as others have mentioned here, I should not take a material cost loss when the issues with the transaction were not my own. The contract is incredibly damaging for me in which is states that I am unable to speak of the event in public or to third parties and states that Ritz may deduct from my refund if she is unable to sell the broken suit she crafted. I have screen capped the contract issued to me (I had to censor our names) and would like AB's input. -> The NDA/Contract I was offered <- (Ritz is the first party where as I am the second) I do not feel comfortable having to sign a contract to have the money I am owed returned to me; I feel like this is a form of blackmail in order to try and silence me if I want the money I am owed back, furthermore the amount offered is not what I am requesting. I want a full refund and that is what I am standing firm on, especially if Ritz is going to refurbish and sell the broken merchandise I was sold. I do not feel fit signing a binding legal agreement that states I am unable to make "any other online postings about the other party" I am additionally saddened by Ritz response here in the community claiming I have falsified any documentation in this entry and went as far as to accuse me of Libel and Slander within the proposed contract. I have not fabricated any of the content within this journal nor would I have had to should I received a functioning product to begin with. I also asked a few friends to review the contract that was presented to me, to which Ritz stated I should never do unless I approach a lawyer. I am in disbelief I was scolded for asking for input before signing a binding legal contract and that made me feel like Ritz knowingly attempted to shaft me. Additionally, while discussing the public image Ritz has gained from this entryI was suddenly confronted with Ritz's fiance (who could not bother to spell my name correctly). I expressed to him that I have no interest in talking to him about the transaction and want Ritz to be present. She returns and demands I resolve this tonight -> Conversation <- At this phase, I am done playing games with Ritz. I am tired of being treated like a bully or a bad guy when I have done all I can to be agreeable and helpful with this situation. My job requires a very taxing amount of my time and I can't be bothered to jump through hoops anymore. I have issues Ritz a final statement and that is where I am leaving it. I will not be accepting any amount under the original $1200 I have paid and if a resolution is not reached within the week, I will be filing a charge back OR if that fails I will be taking legal action. Ritz has proven to me that her reputation takes precedence above her clients and that is why I can not be bothered to be involved in her personal financial matters or give leniency anymore. -> My final statement to her about the matter <- At this point, this issue is not resolved despite Ritz claiming it to be so on social media. Edit 2: Ritz has now hidden her twitter from public view due to her initiating issues with people discussing this entry and claiming she was harassed. I do not support anyone causing her trouble on social media and I have not encouraged any of that behavior. Edit 3: Approximately one hour after I had amended this entry with the NDA they proposed to me, Ritz contacted me again and negotiated a refund. Her reply was as unprofessional as the rest and was of course not without an attempted guilt trip. She assumed my commentary about conventions and ski trips were about money when in reality it was about her lack of contact with me (in the cases where I was told she was too busy to negotiate with me). After accusing me of harassment and reminding me about her tax refund, I was asked to give her my paypal and complied. Despite constantly being told that she could not afford to refund me in full, I was suddenly sent the full amount of $1200. This left me a bit unsettled, however I wasn't going to ask any more when I got what I had requested. I have informed her that I would alter the entry and mark the situation as resolved. I will also be shipping the fursuit back to her this week and will edit the entry one last time to prove I have made good on my end of the bargain. I want to thank the Artist's Beware community for it's insight and help on dealing with this situation. This community is a valuable resource and I am glad to have been able to use it. As far as this entry goes, while it is now resolved I would still consider it a more than valid beware. I think the entry speaks for itself and down to the very end this maker could not handle a professional attitude. I also want to note that this suit will be refurbished and relisted for sale, so buyer beware in the future. I am very disappointed that things between this maker and I had to come to this. I was very polite and willing to work with them to accommodate their own situations if they would help me with mine and that refusal just made it impossible. Ultimately, it was not the desire to right a wrong that got me my refund, it was the desire to salvage their reputation that finally made a nearly two month long ordeal come to a close. If the maker had just shown the same concern for me as a client as they did for their reputation, this post wouldn't have had to be made. EDIT: 3/6/2015: The fursuit has been shipped to Ritz. I can provide a tracking number to the entry if needed and also visual documentation was taken to provide proof the suit was shipped in the most protective way possible, including the individual parts being bagged to prevent weather damage to eliminate any claims proper care was not taken.

All below messages are via twitter DMs. See attached screeshots. On Aug 11th 2022 I reached out to the artist who was then Marbleshark_AD on twitter, and now Pup_Jaxces after they did username change. After some discussion of content (skipped in the screenshots), we agreed to two NSFW sketches with alts totalling $140, paid on Aug 14th 2022 after some difficulty with initially paypal'ing the wrong address. I tip $15 at this step, for a total of $155. The agreement and payment is in the screenshots 4 months pass, w. no contact. December 10th 2022, I reached out again asking for an update since it had been awhile and I saw them posting about life struggles on twitter. No reply. 7 days pass w. no contact. December 16th, 2022, I reach out again asking for an update and giving reassurance in case they feared I was angry or annoyed. They reply saying theyve made progress on the comish, and ask for a better place to make contact citing a lack notifications from twitter DMs. I provide my Discord and telegram. They do not reply further. Jan 4th, 2023. I reach out to make contact, having not received any friend request on discord or message on telegram. Jan 24th, 2023, I reach out to make contact, having not received any friend request on discord or message on telegram. Feb 26th, 2023, I post a reply to an art piece on their telegram art gallery asking about my unfinished commission. They ask me there to message them on twitter, then delete the replies. I DM them on twitter asking them to contact me. I tell them I feel ghosted after 5 months, asking for the current state of the comish, and if none or minimal work has been completed I'd like a refund. They say they will need to look through their sketchbooks saying its 'most likely done'. This will be the last message I ever receive from them. July 31, 2023. I reach out to make contact after 5 months of wait, still having not received any further DM on twitter, nor friend request on discord or message on telegram. October 5, 2023. I reach out to make contact after seeing them post on twitter that theyre closing an account they host art on and that theyre discontinuing NSFW comishes, still having not received any further DM on twitter, nor friend request on discord or message on telegram. I ask again for a refund or for an update on their sketchbook search. After this I stop trying to contact them. However on Oct 25th 2023 I make my own artist beware style post on my twitter and @ their handle, which would generate a notification for them. On Nov 23 2023, I notice they've changed their handle to Pup_Jaxces. Having sought multiple times over a full year to resolve this either with delivery or refund, and sAs they have other posts here on ArtistBeware with the same behavior I can only presume this is not a mistake and they have no intent to deliver the commission.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/943223.html WHO: MintyMudi (twitter), MudiCommissions (twitter), Mixeddisaster (FA, relatively inactive) WHERE: Twitter DMs, @MintyMudi WHAT: An adopt purchase, turned into a traditional badge trade. WHEN: August 9, 2016 – Present Day PROOF: Here's an Imgur album, but I will link appropriate images accordingly: http://imgur.com/a/JN1yv EXPLAIN: On August 9th, 2016, I posted several characters for sale, and MintyMudi expressed interest in one of them. I was asking $20, and they offered $15 and a small doodle, which I accepted. They sent me the $15 promptly. http://i.imgur.com/q7shtqO.png http://i.imgur.com/QAwRZvM.png ETA: Minty has come to me with an apology and acknowledged their behavior following my previous communication with them. This shows a willingness to improve and admit fault, and I'm pleased that they did so. http://imgur.com/nzOJQvu September rolls around, and I remembered that they owed me a doodle, so on the 3rd I inquired about the status of that. They told me they’d been busy working, and they’d get to it that week. They offered to do a traditional badge, and having liked the style of the badges they were doing, that interested me. However I didn’t feel like it would be a fair exchange for just $5 worth so I offered to do a badge for them as well and we could turn it into a full blown badge trade. They agreed, and we chatted briefly about characters (I omitted this from the screenshots, it’s irrelevant info), and I completed my half very shortly afterwards. Usually, I send off my badges right away, but having experienced a trade gone awry earlier that summer, I decided to hold on to it until they had completed their half. http://i.imgur.com/35KjtAF.png September 19th arrives, and they ask me the name of my character. I told them, and they replied that they would do it on their day off the next day (would have been Sept 21). I missed the reply until the next day, the 22nd, and told them that there was no rush. I assumed they had been busy since they didn’t have it done by then. http://i.imgur.com/YK6yGi0.png October 26th rolls around, and they came to me asking if they could make the badge Christmas themed, to provide examples for MFF badges. I’m not really one for holiday themed things, so I declined and said I’d prefer a neutral theme. They then asked if they could put a snowflake background on it, so I told them again that I did not want that kind of theme. This kind of rubbed me the wrong way, so if my replies look a little short then that’s why. They finished the badge that day, and showed me pictures of it. http://i.imgur.com/YK6yGi0.png http://i.imgur.com/NFUgzSL.png It slipped my mind for a little while, but mid-November I realized that they hadn’t asked me for my shipping address. I realized that the timing would be pretty poor due to Thanksgiving, then MFF (which I knew they were attending based on their previous inquiries), and then Christmas, so I waited until after all that passed to ask about it. I asked if they needed my shipping address, on January 13th. They told me that they were in the process of moving, but they would try to send it out beforehand. After giving them my address, I told them I would ship mine out after I received their half of the trade. http://i.imgur.com/ndgzQxP.png So, February 1st rolls around and I ask them again, if they’d had the chance to mail it. At this point I was getting pretty frustrated, because it doesn’t take much to put a stamp on an envelope and put it in the mailbox. http://i.imgur.com/zUnctqw.png A week passes, and on Feb 8th they messaged me to let me know that they would be mailing my badge out the next week. I was pleased that they had taken the initiative to update me, as it usually was me asking for progress. http://i.imgur.com/eiGOmHr.png After the next week passes, I ask on Feb 14th if they had the chance to ship the badge out or not. I let them know at this time that I am frustrated with the transaction, and give them the option of just cancelling the trade since I had refrained from sending out my half until I got theirs. They told me that they had shipped it out that morning, which immediately sent up a red flag. It was awfully convenient that they had put it in the mailbox the day that I asked about it. I decided to give them the benefit of a doubt, though privately I was planning on checking out what the timestamp on the envelope said when it arrived. I didn’t intend on doing anything about it, just mostly to confirm my suspicions. http://i.imgur.com/eiGOmHr.png http://i.imgur.com/2TIbX01.png Today, 2ish days later, Feb 17th in my time zone but not quite 3 whole days later, they DM’d me again letting me know that the mailman apparently hadn’t picked up the mail. For 2 days. Now obviously I don’t have any proof of them being dishonest, but I had a bad feeling about it in the first place, so this was just the final straw. I told them that it felt suspicious, and I was very frustrated. At this point I tell them that I’ll be writing up a beware, and that I don’t wish to speak to them unless it’s confirmation of shipping the badge. http://i.imgur.com/2TIbX01.png http://i.imgur.com/lMk2rCP.png As the screenshots show, they then proceed to tell me that I’ve been rude and hurtful, along with some comments that are very guilt trip-y. Included in my screenshots are some subtweets about the whole situation. http://i.imgur.com/lMk2rCP.png http://i.imgur.com/yv3dZkP.png They don’t admit to anything and either situation is equally as likely imo, but regardless of whether they put the badge in their mailbox or not, it’s still been since August of last year. So I feel like this beware is justified. I get that “real life” happens, but it takes so little time to send an envelope in the mail that it quickly becomes an invalid excuse. I would probably have been more patient if it had been something that required boxing up or packaging, but this is such a simple thing that I just ran out of patience. As soon as I receive my badge, I will be shipping out theirs. But at this point I’m not sure when that will be. So that being said, be careful when dealing with MintyMudi. They are unreliable, unprofessional, and I do not recommend it. As soon as I have received the badge, I will update this post and ship out my half. UPDATE: I have received the badge on the mail. regardless of the reasoning behind it not being shipped when they said they would ship it, I consider the transaction resolved. However, there are issues with cutting of the lamination that is fairly sloppy that I pointed out to them. ( http://imgur.com/lgiVQCT, http://imgur.com/WACmX6f, http://imgur.com/suBW6gz, http://imgur.com/zzHp25K, http://imgur.com/OKXFwlW )If this were a commission, I would request it be redone and fixed, but since it's just a trade I don't want to bother with it. They also have yet to own up to their behavior and outbursts, and I don't think they will. So resolved, yes. But still be wary of working with this individual. I would not recommend it until they improve their attitude and work ethic. Update: Minty has come to me with an apology and acknowledged their behavior following my previous communication with them. This shows a willingness to improve and admit fault, and I'm pleased that they did so. http://imgur.com/nzOJQvu

In April 2022 I met Kittbites at a party at my college. She said she was open to doing my commission after she took care of some things. I commissioned her because she said she would be able to finish my suit in time for Megaplex 2022, in early August. I took a little while to think about it, and then confirmed that I wanted to buy from her on May 15th. Three days later the invoice was paid. The total price was a fursuit head for $800, handpaws for $200 and a tail for $200. (I should first mention that this post is going to be very long. Kitt strung me along for almost an entire year while holding onto over a thousand dollars, and after finding out she has an extensive history of scamming, I just managed to get under half of that back, as well as a barely finished product, under the threat of legal action.) At first things were fine. But within a couple of weeks Kitt's responses began to become more and more sparse. This would set the precedent for the rest of our interactions, and it only got worse from there. It should be noted that Kitt was up front about some personal issues that she was going through at the time, which I have tried as best I can to leave out of this post. The problem is that over time it became clear she was using these problems as an excuse to not work on my commission. I know this because I was later able to find other examples of her work that were completed around this time. I will do my best to leave these issues out of this post regardless. I was a little upset that she left for two whole weeks at this point, but she eventually got back to me with correspondence. The suit was progressing along pretty well at this point, and Kitt was still responding in a semi-timely manner. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before the fur was lost by Fedex. I'm fully aware this isn't Kitt's fault, and I'm including this to give her the benefit of the doubt that she could have gotten my suit finished by August. (Also I hate Fedex) Eventually August rolled around. It became clear Kitt probably wouldn't have the entire suit finished in time. I remained hopeful. On August 1st Kitt gave me this update. "I have most of the fur sewn." This implies that she barely did any work on the suit from this point onwards. Shortly after this Kitt had some stuff happen in her personal life, and wasn't able to finish ANY of the suit on time. A few days later, Kitt completely dissapeared. August 8th was the last I'd heard from her, and I didn't hear from her again until September 12th. Due to the rules of this website I am not allowed to disclose where she went, but suffice it to say that she left the internet for the time. She gave me no warning that this could or might happen, and when she came back she gave a half-hearted apology. At this point I was beginning to get suspicious of her, but I had no recourse in the event that she take my money and run, so I was forced to smile and feign forgiveness. Unfortunately she immediately left again for another two weeks. The upper texts of the first image here are from September 15th. Then another week. Kitt then showed some more progress with the suit, including a fully furred head, but she got sick immediately after. However, she promised she would be able to have the suit delivered by November. I won't provide the screenshot of this mainly because it almost exclusively consists of cities and events Kitt and I are local to. However, I can show that she ghosted me again throughout the month of November: Kitt then promised she would have the suit done by Christmas. After leaving for another 2 weeks, some more "stuff" happened. At this point I was fully convinced that she was making things up, and was about ready to confront her about her making me wait almost seven months at this point. It was 4 days before Christmas and she sent me a picture of the "finished" head. I honestly really didn't like it but at this point I just wanted to get it over with so I said it looked fine. I had a separate friend who edited fursuits and I was planning on just having them finish any changes I didn't like. Kitt then decided to cancel half the order, deciding to refund me less than the original $200 I paid for both the handpaws and tail. Christmas came and went without any kind of correspondence, and I finally put my foot down. On January 7th I brought up the prospect of legal action. Kitt did not address this in any way. Through some investigation I also discovered that she had a commission manager this entire time that she neglected to tell me about. I messaged them and they immediately got her to send the unfinished fursuit head. This was about the best outcome I could have hoped for and at this point I wanted this all to be over with so I didn't contest it. This was also the last straw, and I gave her a final deadline of March 15th, 2023 to BOTH send me the suit and give me a refund of 500 dollars that I could use to pay my other friend, who would finish the suit. Kitt's manager responded much quickly, and was able to almost immediately get Kitt to send me what she had finished. The package arrived a few days later. Here was Kitt's finished product: This all but confirmed my suspicions that Kitt had barely even been working on my fursuit since August-November, and only found time to work on it with repeated pestering. Even at the time that I told her to stop and send me an unfinished version instead, she had over a month to continue from being "almost done." In any case, I now had her legal name and number on the shipping box, and was fully intending to report her in for what technically constituted as a felony. Kitt stopped texting me for almost an entire month before the deadline, but on March 13th, she finally got me my refund. I genuinely wasn't expecting her to. In conclusion, Kitt almost stole $1,200 from me, led me on for almost an entire year by taking advantage of my sympathy, and in the end somehow did the bare minimum in delivering an UNFINISHED product. It took the threat of police action to get her to do anything. Please for the love of god do not commission her. She has a history of this and I only happened to be lucky enough to be local to her and able to contact local authorities. In addition, she has dropped her commission manager and there is now no way of contacting her in a way that will get a reliable response back. Good night.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/994679.html Name: BigBlueDragon Location: This took place during Furrydelphia 2017 Website: http://www.bigblueraptor.com/2017/08/04/furrydelphia/ Commission Type: My commission was a digital headshot led badge of my fursona. Basic Overview: I commissioned BigBlueDragon on August 19th 2017 at Furrydelphia in the Dealers Den. The commission was of an led headshot badge of my fursona and the expected date to be finished was September 4th. My badge was fully completed February 18th 2018, and the last date of contact I had with BigBlueDragon was on March 11th 2018. (Hence this post) The Detailed Answer: August 19th 2017: Commissioned the artist in the dealers den at Furrydelphia and paid $21.20 in cash, upfront. Was informed that the commission wouldn’t take long to finish, and I requested a finish date for September 4th. I was informed that the artist worked from Artnab.net and that all updates and communication could easily be done through that website. Pictures of my fursona were taken from my badge before I left the table. August 21st 2017: Furrydelphia ended and I uploaded a brief description of my fursona as well as corresponding images on Artnab. August 30th 2017: Posted my name and address through Artnab. September 16th 2017: BigBlueDragon responds and has a sketch of my sona after the requested due date of my commission, communication becomes fairly consistent through the month of September and October and then becomes spotty in November. December 2nd, 2017: I reach out to BigBlueDragon using the email provided through Artnab and communication slows down but is still consistent. Progress on the commission continues through email due to difficulties through Artnab. By the middle of January the digital headshot has been finished. February 1st 2018: I reached back out to see the progress on my commission and received an email on the 18th with an image of my completed commission, printed, cut, laminated, and led, all done. I ask when to expect her within the mail, and I receive no response. March 3rd 2018: I email BigBlueDragon about an update about my badge being mailed. I receive a response on March 11th asking for my address again. I respond with my name and address hoping for my badge to arrive in the mail in about a week. March 26th 2018: I reach out again to BigBlueDragon about my badge and express my concern as the badge has been completed, and yet hasn’t been mailed out. At this point in time it has taken over 7 months to complete. April 26th 2018: I sent out another email to BigBlueDragon asking about an update on my badge being sent out. I have yet to receive a response. It has been 8 months and 3 weeks since this badge was commissioned, and it has been 8 weeks since I last had contact with BigBlueDragon. I have even tried to reach out through the website which they and their partner co-run, and haven’t gotten a response to that either. I believe my timeline and images provide a good chunk of information about the main problem, communication issues. In the beginning things were great through Artnab, I was posting stuff, I could see that they were looking at my posts and responding to it. I believe the issue in communication started when my references for my fursona seemed to be overlooked. The process dramatically slowed down as I had to point out issues one at a time and work them out until it met my approval. Once Artnab was giving us trouble, we switched over to email where our communication became slowed down further to hearing from BigBlueDragon after a few weeks at a time. Currently, the main source of frustration is that my badge has been completed, and I have yet to receive it. Artnab Sept 16th update Artnab Sept 21st Artnab Sept 27th Artnab Sept 29th Artnab Oct 4th Artnab Oct 11th Artnab Nov 7th Headshot reference on artnab and Oct 2nd reference reposted Fullbody reference on artnab Reference for the cheek mark on artnab Email 2 Completed Headshot (Scroll down to see it in the email) Email 1 showing what I wanted visually when I couldn't describe it with words alone Email 1 showing what I wanted visually when I couldn't describe it with words alone My finished badge, image received through email Feb 18th

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/1014686.html WHO: FarisBatwan (FBsuits) - http://www.furaffinity.net/user/farisbatwan - https://twitter.com/fbsuits and the facebook which is under "FuzzyBatSuits" https://www.facebook.com/fuzzybatsuits/ WHERE: Conversations were spread out between Facebook and Texts. WHAT: body suit commission, feet, handpaws, head trade, a pre-made black body suit, and Lastly a body suit that she was fixing for me made by headsandtailsstudios named "Zaroo". WHEN: Febuary 22, 2018 [As of October 29, 2018; we're working it out a resolution] November 17, No progress has been seen/started since resolution was discussed. EXPLAIN: The initial transaction was 550$ for a Body suit of one of my characters and a pair of black feetpaws, she said that she would throw in a pair of handpaws in for free with the commission. Transaction 2/22/2018: https://imgur.com/a/oJhGtyB full payment as she requested here; https://imgur.com/a/ANWt6HB While the commission was taking place I was in the process of looking for a black body for my character Kieraa (We did a head trade so she was making my Kieraa head) when she learned I was looking for a black body suit she told me about one she had for 400$ it was a planti-grade black body https://imgur.com/a/mDiAzAs I questioned her about why we couldn't swap my ZER0 commission body out with this one and she told me that since she had already gotten the materials and pattern out that she wasn't going to (also needed the extra money; https://imgur.com/a/uuypkVd) so I went ahead and paid 400$ + 22$ she requested extra for(Payments for it: https://imgur.com/XJFkBBY Apologies they were sent in weird amounts I had to dig through and balance funds at the time) Upon further discussion I wanted fur to be added to the back of the body so it had a moehawk/mane look to it so when I brought that to her attention she wanted an additional 22$ to pay for the fur cost to add that look onto it (essentially making this now a commission even though it was a premade) https://imgur.com/wr60I4s So I paid her the 22$ on May 14 which can be seen in the payment plan started for the body picture. May 31st I get this message https://imgur.com/plykAWG "So I ran into a huge problem" So I was curious what was going on ... But wasn't getting any responses back so I messaged her on my phone asking what the problem was and getting worried because there was no responses. I find out later; https://imgur.com/oDqGNkt / https://imgur.com/VnrQNLb That the body was a 'premade' only because it was someones DTD who messed up and then later was demanding their body back. But I had already paid for extra work to be done on this body that she did say she did and all of that stuff (never got pictures of the extension fur on the back though still) She said it would be handled, but I'm still not sure if it was handled correctly. Fast forward a little bit and my partner ends up getting angry at her for not producing any WIPS and making a lot of excuses - He wanted me to open a paypal case and put his foot down on it because we sent the money "Friends and Family" and if there was a chance we could get it back then we should try https://imgur.com/5FnF1X8 so she responds back to me https://imgur.com/4QdVRCz and https://imgur.com/MWCi0Ne Holding me responsible for the case being opened and I told her it wasn't about the money so much as it was about the WIPS for the two of us because they were flat out promised https://imgur.com/cNCEkgo Case was 'mutually decided' to be closed because of the Terms of Service she has set in place so I couldn't have a case open and she provided me with pictures of an abandoned project along with SOME of my commission (seen here: https://imgur.com/K3fvK1t / https://imgur.com/jTTu6Ay only I couldn't see my commission part very well because everything was so jumbled and bunched together but there is; The black body suit which I couldn't see very well, Zaroo's suit she was fixing up and some side projects which were a black and red body with a bio-hazard symbol in the middle along with a tail she didn't want to throw away because it was a canceled commission she had prior so was giving to me and a pair of handpaws that weren't part of that exact commission) With the case closed it takes me a little bit to get something from her for a while but eventually I got tracking information; https://imgur.com/aw9QzRy by it's history it took a while to update, the number was made on September 1st https://imgur.com/Ds2L3DH but the item was not picked up until September 7th, which is shown there. It looks like an odd route the package was going but I decided not to question it, I live in Florida so the route looked odd to me. When I finally looked at 'estimated' delivery date and lined things up, the package was headed and delivered to North Dakota; https://imgur.com/lqwUcWD I asked her about it; (Here's where shes saying it's the right tracking number and going to me; https://imgur.com/lAQqbQm / https://imgur.com/wjb6Bbk and here https://imgur.com/pSgeo2J) in that package was suppose to be half of my commission + a bodysuit she decided to fix for me almost a year ago (https://imgur.com/f3Tt6SR where she was asking for the measurements to fix him, you can see it in the pictures I received when the case was opened) she said it must of been a post office mix-up and it was out of her hands. She didn't give me a postal case number or anything like that so I had to call in and ask all the questions and when they got back to me they said the package was suppose to go to North Dakota and not Florida, so where my stuff is now? "Edit: I found out what happened with my tracking, In the comments someone claimed the tracking number and gave me proof https://www.dropbox.com/sh/smkpciia50xrorh/AAAaPASAnzU6ylwx_81o9Y5Va?dl=0 that the tracking + package went to them. I honestly don't know where my stuff is, but she had told me so many times she would be 'done' with my stuff but never had any pictures to back up the rest of my commission being done. There's more I'd like to add to this so when I get the rest of the screenshots in order where I've asked countless times for WIPS and haven't gotten responses I'll upload the link to the album to the beware. Update: We are working on payment plans for refunding. Will update when refunds are being sent.

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

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/927372.html WHO: Moneychan/Flamedragonkitten WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/moneychan (Main account- Disabled) EDIT: Re-enabled for now. http://www.furaffinity.net/user/flamedragonkitten/ ('Owed Artwork account' Barely used and contact was mainly through main account) WHAT: 1,000$ 6 page, ych comic. WHEN: Started on 03/11/2015 and is still ongoing. PROOF: Posted down below. EXPLAIN: March 11th-16th, 2015 I saw Moneychan was doing a really nice 'Strip gamer YCH', the quality of the piece was a ladder auction and she has wrote what the tiers were in another journal. (Which has since been deleted) The highest tier was full coloured and set at an auto-buy of 1,000$. She stated in the description if the bidding went over 500 she would take payment plans. I won with a bid of 600$ (I'm not 100% sure but I believe the tier was flat coloured sketch) and she responded telling me to note her with refs and such. I sent her a note with character references and my Paypal and discussed a payment plan with her. She told me she would send me two invoices and I could pay half now and send the other half within the 2 month limit. I sent her my first half (300$) and she confirmed receiving it. Original ych with bids and description: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/15964028/ (nsfw) Following notes: https://gyazo.com/0792305ae5e0028aed2a63eafb7f348f https://gyazo.com/577d39a02c062e7a86f0a1880e495b24 April 2nd, 2015 After discussing it with my partner at the time I decided I really wanted to get the highest tier of quality so I noted her asking if she would be okay with sending me another invoice so I could have the highest quality. After some confusion with the invoices she sent another invoice and I paid it. (400$) Following notes: https://gyazo.com/e4c2358a938de11e2cdf7a9711e7cf95 https://gyazo.com/6778bbcf0ff9515a78955be79dc0657d https://gyazo.com/67500cb11b2d4f4f512b563a45026dec https://gyazo.com/61b3dbb654c5c4a2f596dc8e994c360d April 30th, 2015 I paid the last invoice (300$) and she replied telling me she would start on it soon along with her other comic. Note: https://gyazo.com/22d3426cf14b5dbce30e59d32e402d96 March 28th-30th, 2015 I sent her a note to her 'owed artwork' account because I thought she would want to speak on that one asking when she would be working on my commission. It went unread despite being active and she was also active on her main account so I thought I would note her there as well. She replied telling me that she would start on it when she got a chance and that there we're two comics ahead of me as well. Following notes: https://gyazo.com/a044a80060fdf66dc14276156c2d356f https://gyazo.com/62ed06459bdb46e7c138a4778a2dbf06 I don't have the dates for this as not only is her account disabled but I think the journals were deleted anyways but not too long after our conversations she had posted a journal saying that due to not being able to pay for her internet bill she wouldn't have it for a few months and wouldn't be on until fall. October 5th, 2015 I didn't see her active online again until around October but in September my partner at the time and I had a 'falling out' and we're no longer together and I didn't want to have my character in a comic with his anymore. I noted her asking if she could change the male character to my pet's sona and explained the situation to her. She replied telling me that she was sorry about what had happened and told me she was already into the flat colouring stage (I hadn't received any WIPs or news that she was even working on it) and that to change the character would take longer. I told her that I didn't mind waiting and that I would really like for her to change the character. She replied telling me that she appreciated my patience and would do it. Following notes: https://gyazo.com/86a5f2513886b5957b641539e8b799ff https://gyazo.com/8b57800096120c51c91a825c6ff7bdf5 January 26th, 2016 I didn't hear from her at all but saw that she had been taking commissions, posting owed artwork (a comic included) and doing personal artwork over the last few months so I decided to note her on her 'owed artwork' account as she was most active on that one, asking if she had had any updates and that I was in no rush since she had to redraw the male character but just wanted to check in. She responded saying that 'the comic commissions are the last things on her to-do list' and that she had 5 comics in total to complete. Last time I had spoke to she had told me she had only two ahead of mine and as I said above she had already posted a comic since then so I asked her about that. She responded saying 'it is two, yours and another commissioner' and that the others we're from another strip auction and that she was including her own personal comic as one. Following notes: https://gyazo.com/64a476f33e402e70788d9de528a261c3 https://gyazo.com/1e6119253cd562296907b39bde33f21c March 30th-31st, 2016 She sent me a note saying that she was working on my comic and was asking about if I had any png's for my (now) mates fursona's tattoo's. I replied to her telling her that I didn't and in a second note asked if she had any WIPs (I assumed she would have since I would think tattoo's would be in the colouring phase) and after sending that one my mate had mentioned that it would be okay for her to just trace over his tattoos so I sent her a third one telling her that as well. She told me that she was nervous about sending out WIPs but she would try to clean them up a bit and send them out as 'she's made me wait so long.' I responded to her telling her I was looking forward to seeing them. Following notes: https://gyazo.com/fd42978fac50e923e2a5bb3ed7980aab https://gyazo.com/24b9a91e43d4b8087ae96e0f6cedcb6e https://gyazo.com/d7377360c7c9758f78b7d5159fa9e1d5 https://gyazo.com/3087c8b0622c0676b0118b4e1d08093b https://gyazo.com/72c6a1ea0f8043bd4cb57a4f9560e851 April 17th, 2016 I had disabled my page for a few days due to drama and while it was disabled she had posted a journal saying she would be sending out WIPs to commissioners. When I enabled it I sent her a message checking in to see if she tried noting me. She responded saying that it was fine and that she just wanted to note me to tell me she would be clean sketching and line-arting the comic tomorrow. I told her that if she had any WIPs she wanted to send I would love to see them but if not it would be fine. She replied 'kk' and never sent me anything. Following notes: https://gyazo.com/6693ce191fd42b4e0279b2fc287cd37a https://gyazo.com/6ed6a6dee6a4e070fd355d36ab64fd58 July 17th, 2016 I hadn't heard from her in three months and was starting to get worried. I noted her telling her I needed some sort of physical update as it had been over a year since I commissioned it and three months since I last heard from her. She responded saying that she was sorry and didn't really have any physical proof besides sketches that she had 'barely started on'and that she was finishing all the pinup commissions she had taken and finishing someone else's commission who was ahead of me. Her priority now was mine and Lil-Maj's comic but she was lacking motivation and that they had been just sitting on Sai 'waiting to be done' and asked me if I still wanted to see the sketches. I told her that I would even if they we're just sketches. She replied with a Dropbox link leading to the first two comic pages very roughly sketched and the second one wasn't even done being sketched out. I was honestly shocking as I was expecting her to at least had all of the pages sketched out as she had not only told me that she was all the way up to colour before I changed the second character but told me she was up to lining even after the character change. I bit my tongue and tried to ignore the fact that she had been lying to me and just told her about how I had a new reference sheet that was in the works that was clearer than my previous one and sent it to her in case she needed it to help with sketching. We talked back and forth about my fursona's markings a bit before this conversation had ended. Following notes: https://gyazo.com/11e66ad2ceec40ff12675bdac13a91d8 https://gyazo.com/4fc089157fab581f735066a2cdba839e Sketches she sent me: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fxxlgs4zgltt3ab/AAC1WO-fMkCUVgR_u9KBB5cda?dl=0 (Nsfw? They don't show any genitals but there are breast outlines and such) September 19th, 2016 I was updating my commissions list when I decided to go to her profile to ask for an update and to my horror her page had been disabled. I had to dig through my notes to find her other account's name which is still enabled. She hasn't uploaded anything on it since April and last favourited something a month ago. I sent her a note telling her that I was upset that she had disabled her account and that I had to dig to find her other one as she hadn't left any contact information otherwise and told her about all the red flags she was setting off. I told her that I either wanted my commission done by October 31st (my birthday) or a refund as this is getting ridiculous. Note: https://gyazo.com/41e4e36c0eb71490448b667e7305cdf6 It's now September, 21st and the note has been read but unanswered. I'm honestly very upset about this as this is a large sum of money that I may not get back. I have no idea what to do. Edit: I publicly tweeted them as they do not have dm's enabled. "I am once again trying to get into contact with you over the 1,000$ commission I am owed. Please message me on my fa asap." I also messaged them on DA saying... "I saw that you read my note and haven't responded and have been active on here as well as twitter so I will message you again here. Please respond with how to plan to correct this as I've been more than fair about it." Here's hoping. Edit 2: She responded to me on twitter saying that 'she hadn't been on fa since she disabled it back in June' and that she would Dm me. She dm'd me saying she was sorry about how long she was taking but she was busy with her fulltime job and was trying to finish commissions as quick as possible. I stood my ground and told her that Fa showed she read my message and that I know she is working but I will have to still set a deadline. She understood but asked me to delete my public tweet to avoid drama. I gave her my deadline and deleted the tweet and told her I would be capping it. Tweet: https://gyazo.com/156138889e14a71f73f52b8e4ba052d5 Messages: https://gyazo.com/33c2175eae24792b48d48259712f3094 I now realize I probably shouldn't have told her about the capping but I was quite aggravated that she claimed she hadn't been on fa when my note had been read. I guess I will have another update by the deadline to whether or not this is resolved. Edit 3. I caught her streaming on the 20th and she did personal work for a good while, I came back in a few hours later and saw she was working on the second panel of the comic but she had replaced the hand drawn panel of the video game with a screenshot from a video game. I told her that it rubbed me the wrong way seeing as I paid for every single one of those panels and she replied saying that 'she was only trying to make the comic get done faster but she would redraw it. I later saw her screenshotting a panel from another video game. (Not sure if she was doing it for the comic or something else) She did most of the page but left out my characters wings, horns and piercings so I noted her about it on fa. She told me she was going to do those last. Her using the game shot for the panel: https://gyazo.com/071c1ac06d04897bd94dfa04600b7dbd Her screenshotting a different game: https://gyazo.com/7f940db691e291196d5a0c11bcb1f51e Note: https://gyazo.com/cffbefa443fb8755f42007363fe9d286 It's now the 1st of November and as you can guess, she hasn't done it. I saw that she was streaming last night right before I was going to bed but it was my birthday so I was too tired to drag myself back to my computer to see if she was doing it and just assumed that if she was finishing it I would have woken up to a note from her or something. I'm honestly aggravated to hell and back so I noted her as nicely as I could possibly managed and went to go leave her another tweet to find out -surprise surprise- She blocked me on Twitter and has now set her Tweet to private. My mate -aggravated as well- has since tweeted at her and will not be removing these tweets. Note: https://gyazo.com/6359520d46bf1800b6efb8df6739cc6b Mate's tweets: https://gyazo.com/16954559715fc8c9b84c8b778cfb8529 Final edit: I woke up to a response from her and recieved the finished comic. The lineart looks rushed and the detail isn't the same as the example she gave for the Autobuy option but I'm lucky to have received the piece at all at this point. She also threw in a free coloured sketch Response: https://gyazo.com/572da8cd4d2ac06f991780536b56523e Comic: (Nsfw) http://www.furaffinity.net/view/21601732/ http://www.furaffinity.net/view/21601741/ http://www.furaffinity.net/view/21601753/ http://www.furaffinity.net/view/21601762/ http://www.furaffinity.net/view/21601786/ http://www.furaffinity.net/view/21601808/ Example of what the quality should have been: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/15498244/ (Nsfw) But anyways I'd like to say this is resolved.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/831564.html Who: Rachverity Where: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/rachverity/ https://trello.com/b/kDddOtiK/commissions-list What: Digital Art Commissions. Purchased many commissions (23 in total - $915.30 USD) that nearly all were very behind in set deadlines. When inquiring/complaining about missed deadlines, artist chose to no longer work with me and prompted for a refund and block. When: Problems started August 2014. Escalated from there. End result (refund) has yet to be started or finished. Proof: (Note: All pieces were paid for, but not all were given details for. I purchased the slot/commission to be done at a later date. This was mostly due to wanting to give away a full commission as gifts and to lessen the over head work load of Rachverity. I will do my best to show what was purchased, what had details, what never got done, and what was finished.) 1) One 2-character soft shade with background dance piece: Completed without incident. https://www.dropbox.com/s/b8pc7oeroaswd1e/pp1.jpg?dl=0 2) First art bundle : https://www.dropbox.com/s/2xtkofx6p0jtkc0/First bundle purchase.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/rm7uijheut3b9sz/pp2.jpg?dl=0 2a) Comic - incomplete (details given). Extra pages paid for: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2l5lgu7m1srkxui/pp4.jpg?dl=0 2b) two 2-chracter soft shade with background - never started (no details given) 2c) Character sheet - incomplete (details given) 3d) six icons - 1 completed, 2 incomplete (details given), 3 never started (no details given) 3) 1 3-character cell shade with background. Details sent for a 2 character piece. incomplete. https://www.dropbox.com/s/6u44tf0a82bviga/pp3.jpg?dl=0 4) Second Art Bundle - https://www.dropbox.com/s/uu567x7pseqeaaw/art bundle 2.jpg?dl=0. https://www.dropbox.com/s/e069sow9scmqxtq/pp5.jpg?dl=0 4a) five (up to) 6-character soft shaded with background. Never started (no details given) 5) Third Art Bundle - https://www.dropbox.com/s/ttn935xexz1d730/bundle 3.jpg?dl=0. Sister package to prior art bundle that did not sell. This one offered a guaranteed Halloween themed 2 character soft shade that will be done by Halloween. https://www.dropbox.com/s/t9c410ljxnm11jv/pp6.jpg?dl=0 5a) One 2-character soft shade with background for Halloween. Details Given. Deadline missed by nearly 30 days. Requested for it to be changed to a Christmas piece. Request accepted. Completed. 5b) Five (up to) 6-character soft shaded with background. 5b1) extra characters paid for to be added for guaranteed New years eve party. https://www.dropbox.com/s/9qzbbb2kyexgxog/pp7.jpg?dl=0 5b2) 6 character raffle winner. incomplete (details given) 5b3) 5 character Raffle winner. Incomplete (details given) 5b4) three (up to) 6-character soft shaded with background never started (no details given) 6) Tip/expedite payment. https://www.dropbox.com/s/3shp0ca6hbrje19/ppex.jpg?dl=0 (look at note in payment) 18th October 2014 Rachverity said publicly that she still needed more money shortly after selling the two prior bundles. https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ys81z4bh0unywn/help.jpg?dl=0 24th October 2014 Rachverity said publicly that she was still giving low cost art and (maybe) was going to start raising prices. https://www.dropbox.com/s/nntjqv9fiw8lnq9/help2.jpg?dl=0 I personally felt a bit bad for getting so much art for such a low cost so I talked to her privately and offered to help without buying more art. This had no issues until into 2015 when I brought up that she missed another deadline even after I paid her this extra money. With the wording (seen later in AB post), I considered it a expedite payment as Rachverity considered it a tip. Thus the discrepancy whether it was a tip or expedite payment. Ultimately this discrepancy is now moot due to the forced unpaid refund. Explain: Back in August of 2014, Rachverity put out a journal offering a large art bundle due to need of funds. I had commissioned her once before and had an amazing experience (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12486045/). I decided to talk to Rachverity about it since a large thing I wanted was the comic. But I wanted a longer story comic done. She told me that I could purchase additional pages at the discounted rate. With this, I purchased the initial bundle and paid for it immediately. The said artwork was to be done before December 2014. Although the comic, due to it being longer from extra pages purchased, would be started but may not be finished by the end of 2014. Rachverity, still in need of money for a few of the next months, put out more art bundles and open commissions. Seeing her in need, I helped out more. Purchasing two $200 art bundles and a few other things. I also gave an extra $100 to have my pieces expedited ( https://www.dropbox.com/s/3shp0ca6hbrje19/ppex.jpg?dl=0). Rachverity and I conflicted later after some missed deadlines that this extra money was a tip. I also purchased extra character slots for a New Year's Eve piece to be done by the first of the year. Signs of first problem: I gave a few commission details to Rachverity, but no set dates. In early October, I gave details for a free (for purchasing the bundles) "guaranteed" 2 character Halloween piece. This was accepted by Rachverity to be done by Halloween. She told me after the deadline was missed that she was slightly behind. I understood and gave more time. After Thanksgiving, I decided to cancel the piece and request a Christmas piece in replacement to have a due date of Christmas. The New Years Eve piece was set in stone in November to be done by the first of the year. She accepted and I paid for extra characters to be added to the piece. On the 2nd of January 2015 I requested to have the expedited payment be refunded. I was told no because it was a "tip" and thus hers to keep. I understand the confusion, even though I was quite upset, and I did not fight it much more (https://www.dropbox.com/s/vrl1imvaz3wxf0z/expedite.jpg?dl=0). Later on the 2nd of January 2015, myself and few others had a skype group conversation with Rachverity. This was an intervention of sorts as the last waning minutes of our friendships. I can not provide this private conversation, but after this Rachverity got very angry with us (myself and other friends trying to help). This is where I learned that she had roughly 200 paid for open commissions. By the end, she would not budge on any subjects and, incidentally, some nasty words were exchanged. A few days after this, Rachverity blocked skype contact with me. I understood this and tried to only deal with her over my own art matters from there on out. On Jan 7th 2015 I asked for a WIP of this overdue piece. (https://www.dropbox.com/s/gh41oha3c99s7u0/wipparty1.jpg?dl=0) I received a response shortly after: (https://www.dropbox.com/s/leaglrkhzxx0cld/wipparty2.jpg?dl=0) I found out that she was missing some of the details of the commission and that there was another large(r) commission due for new years as well that was also missed deadline wise. I waited 15 days and on an 22nd 2015, I requested another WIP. Rachverity seemed to be set on an accusation I had made during the group conversation 20 days earlier about how she 'did not care about her commissioners and/or watchers.' The notes were not back and forth, but rather I came back to several notes sent to be without a response. All the links of this conversation are put in time stamp order. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9xc5gi6p1s15t3u/AACg-zMQtlSBe1N1NqKf-hIha?dl=0 Some notes about the conversation above: -A fellow friend and commissioner that has 6 open commissions with Rachverity offered a proposal due to their thinking that Rachverity will ultimately not finish the commissions. This proposal was to have 3 of their commissions done by the end of March 2015 and forfeit the other three, no refunds to be paid out. (Yes, I have permission to reveal this information and themselves, but I am still going to hold and block out their name for integrity purposes) - The 10 pages of comic to be done by the beginning of the year was due to Rachverity wanting to change her comic style to that of "Wolfy-Nail". Where there would be 1-3 panels to a page. Since I bought the comic for 6-9 panels per page, the number of pages increased so that agreed upon story could still be told. I was paid to 14 pages, and more would cost me at the time of discovery that more pages were needed. If less where needed, some alternate images would be done like a cover image or such. The option for the older style comics with more panels per page was still available and preferred. I originally had counted that I paid Rachverity $848.41. This was a mistake as seen above with all of my paypal receipts. I also did not want to include the first commission ($30) since that one was done. I wanted the amount in full returned since the only two pieces done so far was a free incentive piece for one of her bundles that she did not sell (The Halloween piece that was never done and had to be changed to a Christmas piece due to a 30 day missed deadline) and an icon that was done nearly 2.5 months after the raffle was finished (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6175294/ http://www.furaffinity.net/view/15484943/) Rachverity denied this request for a full refund and instead said she was going to refund me $800. I was a little upset, but understood and accepted this amount. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l6jq2cjswjadbrn/AAAW5HAjM-fjwExUuEhN0w9ga?dl=0 I asked about a time for the refund to take place and Rachverity would not talk to me, only her manager would through Rachverity's account. https://www.dropbox.com/s/m0sjhbqt9da057l/refund 2.jpg?dl=0 On March 2nd 2015, before any artist beware post was put up about Rachverity, I offered the artist the ability to take back the commissions in full or partial: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3znizi8vnrmjap7/Offer1.jpg?dl=0 Rachverity responded angrily about asking for the refund and, again, was told that I would be blocked for asking about it on grounds of harassment: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sxblkotz2xh33jn/offer2.jpg?dl=0 I tried to leave out most of the argumentative parts between us on a personal level and tried to keep it to just the business facts. Still to this day, I do not have an approximate time of when refund will be paid. I no longer recommend this artist. Thank you for your time.

Update as of 9/14/2014: I have seen no "real" attempts from Aelli's end on her getting me the name of the person she supposedly bought my base from. Because of this, I cannot come to believe that what she told me was, in fact, the truth. Whatever the real truth is, is a complete mystery to me. Along with this, I can't really come to believe, at least now, after MONTHS of waiting for her to come up with some sort of hint as to who she "bought" my base from, I am pretty much at the point that I am starting to honestly believe that she used my base, thinking that she could get away with not crediting me. To those of you who are currently reading this, checking updates to the A_B forum/group, I will leave this last update for you all to read. PLEASE beware Aeilli/Aelliana and avoid contacting her. If she goes out and takes free linework and tries to profit off of it without crediting the original source, then lies and doesn't even bother trying to sort out the matter truthfully, she has shown she cannot be trusted. UPDATE: She unblocked my fiance to say her apologies. I am currently talking to her now to solve the matter. It seems, from what she is telling me, that someone else had uploaded the linework and was selling the files for monetary gain. Currently we are talking on a calm civil tone and trying to figure things out. At the time being, the issues have been explained and are almost solved entirely. This is fairly long, but details everything that happened. The issue itself lasted over the course of one day, but I continue to worry that other artists will have their work stolen and resold if this isn't brought to light, and we cannot simply "report a user" on Furaffinity without the issue of their Trouble Ticket System being backlogged. Please read to avoid this thief. (Used spoiler since LJ Cut wasn't working in the preview) Also, to the moderators, I apologise for all the issues with this submission, not really sure what is happening to cause it to go wonky. WHO: Aelli / Aelliana WHERE: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/aelli/ and http://aelliana.deviantart.com/ WHAT: Violation of Rules for Free Lineart Use and ART THEFT WHEN: Timeline: This happened on the 12th of July and is a continual worry. PROOF: My dropbox has all screenshots from this incident as the user in question has removed all art, BUT threatened to repost it. The original post of mine (All are downloadable via dropbox) FREE KITSUNE LINEART (FA) (Contains NSFW content) KITSUNE FEMALE (DA) (Contains NSFW content) KITSUNE MALE (DA) (Contains NSFW content) This one could have also been the Cboi lineart since they are "the same" as one another The stolen/traced work: FemaleFox.png Fennec.png MaleFox.png RedPanda.png UPDATED: Managed to save four out of the five she had posted since she deleted them (these are using the tail from my lineart). I am not concerned about these getting pulled from the site since they were free, but they have her watermark on them, so I figured I would add them to the list. Grey Female (Slightly edited by the adopter) Green Female Also seen on her "Fiance's" profile Pinkish-Purple Female Tan Female Overlays of their "art" and my Linework proving that they repurposed my work without permission or credit FemaleFox.png Fennec.png MaleFox.png RedPanda.png EXPLAIN: Alright, so here is how the ENTIRE THING played out. I had logged in to simply check messages before starting on school work when one of my watchers had contacted me via note (to which I am extremely grateful for) that the free to use lineart that I had posted on DeviatART (It is posted to both FA and DA) was being used for adoptables even though I had asked that it NOT be used for monetary gain without permission, or otherwise. I thanked said watcher for telling me this (and left them out of the situation for numerous reasons) and tried to civilly contact Aelli about the situation. I left a comment on her RedPanda post (which has been deleted since), simply saying "Could you please not use my linework for adoptables" and I DID link them to the original post. They then hid the comment (which is why I do not have a screenshot of it but it is seen on some of the screencaps of hidden comments). I then posted a shout on their page, they again, removed the shout and proceeded to block me. I rooted around a bit on their profile and was able to find their DeviantART link, and I did contact them via private note on my account DarkSinnister (the free linework account). The note reads from bottom to top due to how DA handles PM's. They soon after I contacted them on FA, posted this journal trying to play the "victim of fake accusations" because "the art looked similar". My fiance Huntingslea (whom I told specifically not to comment) went ahead and posted a comment on the journal (as seen in prior link) and this is the conversation that played out. Huntingslea_FA-Conversation-with-Aelli.png to which she basically still continued to deny the blatant and hard to counter evidence that was brought up. I had gone as gracefully as I could so I wouldn't end up getting agitated, I went about it calmly and tried to resolve the issue without too much stress, but they continued to defend themselves and proceeded to say that I was harassing them simply because I was trying to SOLVE the situation in a calm manner. Granted, I did do a few stupid things, but once they removed the work, I removed all traces of me asking for help on resolving this (since FA is still BACKLOGGED with TT's). They then said, or basically promised/threatened that they WOULD repost their "art work" on FA and DA and that they had "no control over how I feel about it" and that it wasn't their "concern". I did take notice that they had done this BEFORE and basically gotten away with it because they hid all comments and blocked the users (those are unrelated to this post though, so I will not post those links). I have provided the "adoptables" above as an overlay on my linework, which I did shortly before/after contacting them, and as you will notice, all they did was alter the tails, legs, Breasts (for the female) ears and move the arm up just ever so slightly to try and get past that they were doing this without permission. The user -somehow- legally/honestly obtained new lineart and -seems- to be avoiding claiming anything that they did not do as "theirs". Even with this though, I still fear that they are going to try to repost the "adoptables" that they did with my free linework (which is still, against my Rules of Use if they did NOT ask permission). I do not want anyone within the art community, artist or watcher alike, to possibly get scammed by this user. I really did not want to resort to this measure, but I STILL fear that she will repost those images and try to scam users into thinking that they are entirely her work and sell them. Current Mood: Aggravated EDIT: So apparently the adopts that she used the tail from my original submission were given out for free. I am thankful for that. Still upset she used my work without permission, but glad other users weren't scammed into buying them. EDIT2: Apparently she unblocked me to tell me to leave her alone. I have a feeling that someone saw this post and asked her why, or warned her about it. If she IS reading this post. If she just simply will CREDIT ME FOR MY WORK, as well as NEVER use it again since she is now basically on a "black list of sorts" (meaning I blocked her after she contacted me), I will GLADLY call this resolved. All I ever wanted was credit where it was DUE. EDIT3: So she removed the images without trying to SOLVE the issue in the slightest. As far as I am concerned, this issue has gone unresolved and this post will remain as is. EDIT4: Her note can be seen HERE with my response to her, I think she sent this after deleting the images with my tail linework in them.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/907161.html WHO: Kanel WHERE: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/kanel WHAT: Digital image. 2 character, Fullbody, Painted and simple background. Later 'upgraded' for the wait. $40 initially + $20 simple background added later = $60 WHEN: February 7th, 2012 initial payment and commissioning. Restarted commission around May 2013. Restarted again in December 2015. PROOF: Agreement of commission Payment for initial commission Journal showing all commissions initially Second payment for background added on later First WIP image in July 2012 Restarted WIP in 2013 Asking to restart again in March 2015 Second restart WIP image (December 2015) February request for update March request for update April request for update and notice of intent to go to AB EXPLAIN: Just for my own sanity of how long it’s been, I organized the events of what happened in each year since this whole commission got started. It might be unusual but it also seems unusual for a commission to take this long. Because it’s been so long, some of the pictures, skype logs, and other things have been lost but I’ve done my best to try and get everything relevant. ------------- An explanation before I begin, I’ve had three different computers. One is where all the screenshots I have on here is the oldest and I don’t actually use anymore because of various issues with it after 2012. Second one, where all of my logs were died last summer. Hard drive gave out around June 2015 and no way to recover anything on it. Third is this computer I’m using now which I received in in September 2015 has virtually nothing on here. So I have a dead spot in skype chats between late 2012 till late 2015. Kanel and I used to be good friends at one point. I found him on FA early one before he really got noticed and achieved popufur status. We played video games together several times and talked together quite a bit over the years. I commissioned him 2 separate times before all this with no problems. Over time though we started talking less and less until we drifted apart as we have now. 2012 Kanel opened commissions and I managed to nab a spot. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3163112/ We shortly afterwards we discussed and agreed upon an idea which cost 35 dollars. I’m not sure why at the time but I paid 40 dollars instead and sent it to him. https://www.dropbox.com/s/gct6e4aw31t4ytb/DS 1a.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/qvtcergu1fc0oja/Pay 1.png?dl=0 He then posted a journal with a commission list, later in the day, with my commission and two previous completed ones I had with him along with several others in the batch I’m in. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3163656/ Later Kanel expressed concerns about the subject matter as something he wasn’t very interested in doing (which now that I look back even I now I was wondering what I was thinking) so we changed the commission to a fight scene between our characters that could both enjoy. Suggested I cover the cost for a background to make it look better but Kanel didn’t want me to pay because he felt a bit sorry for such a long wait. I thought it was only right that I pay the cost, at the time being 20 dollars, and sent it out. First half of combined screenshots Second half of combined screenshots For those who can't read those two for any reason, here are the individual screenshots. Quite a lot of them though. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Payment of background: https://www.dropbox.com/s/in1mzrt5y5qz163/Pay 2.png?dl=0 About a month later Kanel would stream work on the picture. He would get his character colored and shaded while my character was mostly done except for some shading. There were some ‘sketchy’ background ideas drawn in but none of them he liked though and were cut out from the progress he stopped at. https://www.dropbox.com/s/kxch66sk24f3t4s/SK 29.png?dl=0 Shortly afterwards he asked for my opinion about opening up some commissions again. My commission and the majority of the others that he had accepted back in February were not done yet. He needed some income at the time to support himself and his family. My opinion then, and still now, is to be open and keep everyone updated one what’s going on with you and why you need to take more commissions. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Later opened commissions journal 2013 I’m not quite sure when exactly Kanel worked on the picture again but he had started over actually and gave me a screenshot of the new picture. I was very surprised at the time but glad that he had worked on it and was farther along than the last picture. Unfortunately the skype logs during this time are lost but I still have the screenshot from then and is dated to have been created on May 17th, 2013. https://www.dropbox.com/s/q76ajxu0is3amks/b59215f815916d704c309f3a465827f7.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/zidj2xmwewblrew/b3942fd923921.png?dl=0 Because of the update and the image looked farther along, I was satisfied with him making progress and left him alone for the rest of the year. Like I said at the beginning, I have a lot of patience and didn’t want to stress him out. 2014 No notes were found for this year and any skype logs I had died with my last computer. No data available for this year. 2015 Every year after this point I would ask for an update on the commission in late February as sort of the anniversary of when I commissioned him. Once again he asked if I would agree to change the subject of the commission again, something league related. I thought this might be just the last motivation he needed to finish the commission so I approved the subject change. If he wasn’t liking the old subject then hopefully this new one would motivate him to finish it. At the time, were we both starting to get into league of legends so it seemed like a good idea. Originally it was something along the lines of us working together to fight Baron Nashor, my character as Rugged Garen (DEMACIA). All screenshots mashed together: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1qjjqu535do32v2/FA screenshot 1.jpg?dl=0 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 It was getting a bit annoying at this point that Kanel didn’t have any significant update for me and wanted to start it over again. He was accepting more commissions and opening his patreon pages with his personal projects and commission rewards (Reward tier where you get the equivalent of a commission). I knew the adopts that he did every few month were to cover his rent and a bit more for food but still hurt that he was doing new stuff rather than old commissions. Eventually in October and November, I finally started pressuring him a bit more about the commission. https://www.dropbox.com/s/vli216e7tsbqy39/DF 1.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/jjcmejo0quww2pl/DF 2.png?dl=0 December, shortly after I asked if he made any progress, he started streaming my commission with the league related subject. He did two separate days of it but I missed most of the second day sadly since I passed out mid-stream. Last I saw was of our characters and him working on a very detailed background with us both having killed Teemo. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/18520987/ 2016 I was still pretty satisfied with him having worked on it back in December but was surprised he handed worked on it again to finish the image. When I asked for an update in late February, he let me know that he still planned to finish it and wanted to give me a refund as well. I replied letting him know it was 60 dollars and that he would send me the cash the following weekend but nothing came. https://www.dropbox.com/s/oyi0z4ol8bl83dr/DF 3a.png?dl=0 End of March, I asked for an update again but he had none. Also he wanted me to refrain from asking for updates on the image part of the commission as well after he had sent me my money back. The image would be considered a giftart apology for waiting or interest for such a long wait. Still didn’t receive a refund. https://www.dropbox.com/s/h7n8t3nf54c08ke/DF 5.png?dl=0 End of April, I asked for an update again but he still had none. At that time I mentioned my intention to eventually go to Artist Beware with the issue which he was understandably irritated about. I would be too if someone was going to make a post on here about me. Still with no progress on my commission and no refund, it does not appear to be coming to an end anytime soon. https://www.dropbox.com/s/fm3m0iiw4n3w9xy/DF 4.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/e9p230lwlr7e7rl/DF 6.png?dl=0 I don’t think there is any true malicious intent on his part at all but more leaning towards negligence. Probably he wanted to get the commissions done that were newer and of people where were bugging him more to get them done. This month so far he has made work on his patreon rewards but seems behind on those as well. I don’t really know what his situation is as far as his commissions and patreon rewards but I do wish he would talk about it and be a bit more open. It really sucks that it’s come to this but I don’t quite feel like my commission is going to get finished without this and it would probably be a few more months before I get my refund too. Posting this here probably burns what bit of friendship we still had but seems like this is my only option. It has been over 4 years since I commissioned him. Each time he gets past half way done before scrapping it and starting over because his style changed, to do more for the picture as an apology for taking so long, or because he lost his motivation to finish the image before this one. His art has improved but his work ethics hasn’t quite kept up with the demand he has gotten for his art. I know I’m not the only person he owes art to. There are others that have commissions from him in the year 2013 (Some done others not). Plus he has been having a bundle of (NSFW) patreon commission rewards pile up every month. Occasionally he will take a simple sketch commission or do in (NSFW)stream commission he announces on twitter. He also has his own patreon for his personal comic art that he used to do but hasn't touched for a while. (I could probably fill out a long list of different times he has taken commissions over the years but that would be very long a bit more work that needed. If requested though, I can add them later.) I’m probably not his first priority to do at the moment and that’s fine. Unfortunately my patience has essentially ran out now and a more aggressive approach is needed. This will be held here as unresolved until his promise is fulfilled back in February. Refund of $60 and the commission image. I think that's fair since that's what was offered. Update: Kanel finally sent the refund. That was fast.

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

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/856045.html WHO: Rubbertex Raccoon, Rubbertex Cooper WHERE: FurAffinity. He has a website as well but it doesn't seem to be operational. WHAT: Partial Fursuit. When I last heard from him back in January neither of us could find the initial Skype conversation hashing out specific details, but we both remember the price was $750 and that sending smaller payments was already, as such I had sent about $100 every couple of weeks when I was paid. There was also a $41 comic but that was resolved in April after waiting several years on that as well. Most of that follows the same story as the fursuit. WHEN: The original conversation I remember was held in October before Midwest Furfest 2012. The first payment/deposit was sent on October 31st, with the rest of the payments following when I could afford to make a payment, which was originally agreed upon that several smaller payments would be alright. I first started to become uneasy when I was told that he would have the fursuit done by Further Confusion '14 (roughly a year and change after he first agreed to take it) and getting a hold of him to ask if the fursuit would be done in time was becoming an issue. Due to flying to California, if I could take the fursuit home as a carry on bag rather than shipping it, I would have preferred that to save us both the shipping costs. PROOF: As mentioned before, neither of us can seem to find the chat log from when we first agreed to it. I've got logs from before October and after October, but none during that month and I'm not entirely sure why. I've got screenshots of afterwards, but this is the closest I've got to an agreement on the suit http://i.gyazo.com/9e0299d70cd46ceb647ac6d2c5230953.png For the comic: https://dl.dropbox.com/s/x69zsz5l26we5tw/9360d0db4dc965cb5386435c8d72d13e.png?dl=0 EXPLAIN: Rubbertex and I were chatting on Skype, and the conversation has drifted towards me being dissatisfied with my current suit. He mentioned that he built suits himself, and showed me some examples. If I recall correctly, he then offered to make me a partial for "the friend discount" of $750 which I agreed and we started talking about payment and specifics. The original date that I was told was that he would have it done by MWFF, which I thought that, while impressive, wouldn't happen, but he assured me he could have it done by then. By November 1st he apparently already had the head and feet foamed, and he already had black and white fur and just needed to order the brown. He said he would have it by the 16th but ended up getting sick for a few weeks and by the time MWFF rolled around I didn't have the suit. I wasn't too bothered since I had only paid him the deposit at that time, and didn't expect it to be done so soon anyways. Fast forward about a year, I hadn't been saying much and sending him payments when my income could afford the breathing room, which was about $100 every month or so. Due to not hearing anything about it being finished or near finished since the note linked above, I admittedly wasn't in too much of a hurry to get it paid off. I had been monitoring his journals and he had a Google Drive spreadsheet with progress on all his commissions set up. It hadn't been updated in a while, but it was listed as being "Currently going through final sewing up. Need approval on toony or follow me eyes for the suit head." for a while, so I got into contact with him, I believe through AIM, and told him about the eyes since I hadn't heard anything from him about it. For a while, I had been contacting him through Twitter DMs whenever I had sent a payment, then as it got closer to being paid off I started sending him emails to give him more details about things like shipping address and dates. The "last" payment was on November 13, 2013, just before Midwest Furfest again, but I had no plans of going so I didn't ask for any other updates. When I had concrete plans made for going to Further Confusion 2014, I started emailing him asking about if it would be completed on time. On December 5th I was told he would have it done in time. About a month of not hearing any sort of updates aside from occasional journals filled with bad news and I was trying to find out if it would be complete or not cause the day that I left for FC was fast approaching. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/k6c0renm70ka7ht/ac729cc3a9da620c09e416d6e9a21621.png?dl=0 https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/66dcxtw4kind73n/9f6fa591d23922573a47d7eb10364c49.png?dl=0 https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/3kwc46xnlm3uhng/e7c6365bf7c5c34b1e14cfdea865c097.png?dl=0 At FC when I ran into him, he had told me that the suit wasn't able to be finished because he ran out of black/white fur. I found that excuse highly unlikely, but I was there to have fun with friends so I just bit my tongue and let it go. Keep in mind that up to this point, I have still not seen a single photo of anything regarding my suit, so I was going off of the faith that the Google Doc that hadn't been updated in months was still current, along with him having several cases of getting sick, a car accident, his bank account being compromised a couple of times, and general stress and anxiety making him unable to work. I had tried to remain patient and understanding about all of this, but my sympathy was running low when it seemed to be one excuse after another about general lack of communication or why work wasn't being done. After the con I had sent several emails, and only got a response to two in the next 4 months. For a period of time, he had his FA page disabled, which had me more than a little worried, so I continued to try and contact him via email. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/5ul8xkiwxsc0fdv/fefcbd7984badc5348ea4abc9a0bc441.png It turned out that he had the FA note system on the wrong tab or something? I find that hard to believe since it would still notify you of new notes until they were read, but again, I bit my tongue and didn't raise a fuss. Another 6 months pass, no response to several emails/notes/FA Shouts/Comments/etc any form of contact I could think of that was more than commenting on a random journal which didn't seem to have much luck most of the time anyway. He posted another life update journal and I thought there was a general tone of him taking on new commissions, so I spoke up and said something, cause at this point I still hadn't received any recent updates and was also still waiting on the comic commission which he had posted several times before that it was completed and just needed to be emailed out. That prompted this conversation. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ub40cqmdhwut6m6/08f62da4d8990a3205ad3403683e9cea.png?dl=0 I had been in contact with him for the last year and a half, and he claimed he was trying to use an entirely different email than the one I had been using the entire time prior to this conversation. Again, I found that extremely hard to believe, but bit my tongue. He also told me again, that he would have them done by FC 2015 which was about 2 months away. A couple weeks later, he started to take stream commissions, while he still had his entire backlog from May of 2012 to work through that from what I had gathered from contacting a couple of other people in that same backlog, they were in the same boat. A couple of people commented on the streaming journals asking about their work that was in the backlog, but he ignored the comments and deleted the journals. A couple weeks after that comment, I decided that I was done waiting and to give him a final chance. https://dl.dropbox.com/s/a2x2j48n3umupjs/13e9f9f9e0d3c9f372e107bea70c5257.png?dl=0 I had sent several emails to him asking for updates in the time between that one and FC asking for some sort of update. Around early December/January he started to use Twitter again after being on hiatus from there for a while. The couple weeks prior to FC he mentioned working on a "puppy" and a "beagle" and one of my friends who was in a stream of his told me that he saw Rubbertex working on my suit. When I tried to reply to his tweets asking if the suit in question was mine, I never got a reply, nor to the email asking if he even saw those tweets. FC comes around, and I still haven't heard anything. I ran into him several times due to us having several of the same social circles, but he was actively avoiding me, and since I didn't want to make a scene I didn't confront him about it. I sent him a few Twitter messages, since I saw him actively posting on there and responding to people, so I figured that would get a response, but they went ignored. After I got home, I waited a few days for a response to any of the messages I had sent him. Afterwards I decided to give him one last final chance, and sent this email. https://dl.dropbox.com/s/rw2l8xf8sx836a7/Email.png?dl=0 Shortly after sending it, I went to Paypal Support to ask how I would go about getting a refund on something I had paid for that was well beyond their usual Buyer Protection date. I was informed that if I wanted a refund for this all, assuming that he wouldn't cooperate, that I would need to go through the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) which is a branch of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). I informed Rubbertex of what I was told to do via Twitter DMs, and that finally prompted the response from the email. I haven't heard a response from in to any emails I've sent since that last one 4 months ago. The only contact I've gotten out of him was when I went into one of his streams and he showed me the comic that he was finally working on, and posted in April '15. Other than that, I haven't heard a word from him about any sort of progress on my suit, but he's still active on FA. I know that stress, anxiety, and depression can all suck big time, but it has been two and a half years since he agreed to do a partial fursuit, and it took me threatening legal action to even get photos from him that he had something started on it. I'm not entirely thrilled that I'll only get a %50 refund considering that his main excuse for it not being done on time has been that he's ran out of materials, so I don't really buy that he's spent all $300 of that on materials for my suit. At the same time, I'm doubting that the suit will be completed in the foreseeable future. UPDATE: Sent an email on July 4th saying I was done waiting. Recieved a response on the following Monday that he would refund, but he's also got other refunds to do first. Also in posting a link to this, word reached other people in his queue, and from the ones who responded, they all said they're in pretty much the same boat. Waiting several years, months of no contact, excuse after excuse, etc. A few are heavily contemplating legal action. UPDATE 2: Still waiting on a refund, I was told on September 3rd that I was next in his refund queue, and upon sending an email a month later about the refund, because I had been going on the assumption that I was only getting half, was told that I would be getting a full refund. There were other things mentioned, but that starts to get off topic of the refund.

I need to say that we worked with Chloe Wintermane before (you can see payment history) so they were a trusted person (as I thought). I have a strict ToS, but even with it there is a human factor. ♦ June 19 2022 - Chloe wrote me about the idea of 5 page comic. It was a huge project including Chloe Wintermane and their friend Jacki Northstar + three YCH slots. There were a lot of art and price discussions, creating sketches and then in August 8 all YCH preparations were finished and in August 10 I uploaded YCH to my gallery on FA: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/48501288/ ♦ August 18 2022 - auction was ended. Everyone paid for their slots, Jacki too but later. Chloe owed me $450. ♦ August 19 2022 - ChloeWintermane said that they "would love to pay a half now and the other part next month", well okay! ♦ September 5 2022 - I wrote them first since I started to worry. Chloe said they lost their job and promised to find a job and pay as soon as possible. This project is a huge one and included too mane people so I decided to start working on it. ♦ September 17 2022 - I sent Chloe final WIPs with flat colors and didn't receive any answer. But I decided to continue and finish the comic no matter what because I felt responsible for 4 other people. ♦ September 30 2022 - 5 page comic is finished. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/49321560/ The same day Chloe wrote me that they have a new job. What a good news! ♦ November 16 2022 - Chloe sent me $150. Another $300 remains to be paid. From that time, silence or ignoring, sometimes accompanied by empty promises, began. I don't think there is any chance that this person will pay for my work. On April 25 2023, I wrote them a message and a final warning. You can guess that I was not paid anything. You may rightly point out that it was my own fault and should have waited for full payment, but on the other hand 4 other people paid for everything and I was trapped. If I hadn't finished the comic by today, it would be a reputational blow to ME. It is very painful and disappointing.

https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/814455.html WHO: Fossil The Undead Artist (aka Fossil) WHERE: Mostly talked in emails. His FA is: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/fossil WHAT: 4 commissions; the exact amount was removed from evidence for privacy WHEN: Started September 26th 2012 and continued on until now MY SIDE OF THE ISSUE: I had been a longtime supporter and friend to Fossil and well over time I finally was able to commission him first a tattoo for my wife at FurFright and then finally some artwork. Things had been going along smoothly until Hurricane Sandy hit. After this point it seemed things hit the fan for him which was understandable at the time. I had paid in full for four commissions and over time talked to him about it, but mostly was worried about him and seeing if he was alright; then he dropped off the grid. Below are two Dropbox Links that show proof of agreement and then payment: https://dl.dropbox.com/s/tjit34og1tuophr/Payment discussion.png?dl=0 https://dl.dropbox.com/s/a4pnnbjwh6aq2ce/Payment Confirmation.png?dl=0 At this point I naturally did what any friend would do and waited patiently and he did come back for a moment or two and told me things were bad, but getting better. He finally finishes one of the four commissions and had even began work on the second one as far as inking goes with the third already being sketched out too. So I was confident at this point things were finally on the right track. The following links show multiple contacts and finally the first image sent and date it was sent: https://dl.dropbox.com/s/4o0w4l7diatazns/Feb 5th 2013 checkin.png?dl=0 https://dl.dropbox.com/s/o6w9v2ro6dqo74x/Feb 18th to March 29th 2014 checkin.png?dl=0 https://dl.dropbox.com/s/vjls76jrrlqvhxn/April 17th 2014 Checkin.png?dl=0 https://dl.dropbox.com/s/h8g03szw81gvvj4/May 14th Checkin and FIRST picture received.png?dl=0 Next, after two months, he contacts me out of the blue with progress showing two more images. One being completed with the third being sketched out: https://dl.dropbox.com/s/jbhrpgfbifw6ofi/July 21st and SECOND image with THIRD sketch.png?dl=0 He falls off the grid again; this time for good. I go to another con and asked my contacts if they had seen him and come to find out that he had moved to another state and then dropped off the grid to get some affairs in order. Now I had been in contact with him via email up to this point as well and would get the occasional "Still Alive" messages until I tried to email him again to check in on how things had progressed after he had moved, not about my art, but his own situations. This is when I found out he had deleted his email account and I received the lovely return email saying the address is no longer valid. Next shows the email confirming that his email is no longer valid: https://dl.dropbox.com/s/hy2rlzdk3u2bjgd/Email Failure.png?dl=0 Moving forward I had heard and saw he was working with Crowchild as an artist for High Tail Hall and figured that he had dropped out of that part as well given how much of a hermit Fossil had become, but after today, I have recently found out he is still indeed working with the HTH project and completely disregarded anyone else even if they paid $XXX for a set of commissions. Finally below is the screenshot on FA of Crowchild confirming that Fossil is still working with them: https://dl.dropbox.com/s/9ddfuob2um2qf4r/Fossil still at HTH.png?dl=0 Two years have come and gone now; now I am not sure what to do or how to go about it because we all know how Paypal has such a small window of reporting and charging back one's account. So I guess this message is to warn others about what happened as well as getting some advice of how to tackle the sum of money, albeit not a full refund as he has finished one image and worked on two others, and how to get anything from him even if it ends up being a message of "Hey I can't do it; sorry". Also for clarification; there will be some areas that have been removed. This was done to insure the anonymous side of a third person that was involved with this in which I was getting two images as a gift for.