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2023 December 13th Kai had posted a reminder for one of their multi-slot YCHs. I liked this one a lot and decided to comment asking for a slot and Kai sent me a note asking for details and gave me a payment link. December 14th I had something happen with power going out at my house so I was unable to answer right away. He sent me another note the next day asking me how I was doing and I replied with my situation from my phone. December 15th When I was able to get to my PC I replied to his first note with the characters, asking if he'd be able to draw them before I sent payment. The character's species has a specific blocky head-shape and aren't supposed to have foreheads/ protruding brow bones so I told him that. He said he'd have no problem drawing their head-shape and to let him know when I sent payment. I went ahead and sent it and mentioned that I forgot to ask him if the cigarette in the piece could be changed into a vape instead and he replied saying he received payment and had no problems with changing it to a vape. I'm going to post the character references I sent him so you can see the head-shape and details on them that become relevant later. 2024 July 19th I hadn't heard anything from Kai but he posted a journal saying he was done with his medical school exams and now had time to work on his queue. He was going to be working in the order of when the YCH's were listed vs bouncing between who ordered what slot first and was doing the YCH's in batches for each month. Mine was set for September. December 3rd I checked in on his journal and saw another person had been asking in November if the deadlines were still accurate as they were waiting for a YCH from October and November. I commented as well, asking if the queue was still accurate as I would have been waiting a year for the piece on the 16th.. 2025 January 5th Kai uploaded his first post since people had been asking for updates and it was a reminder for a YCH and he continued to ignore everyone else. I ended up commenting on the reminder stating: "I don't mean to be rude, but why are you taking on more slots when you haven't finished the ones from over a year ago? Everyone has been patiently waiting and asking you for updates on your "deadline" journal just for you to ignore us for months and come back to take on even more commissions. You need to either finish your queue and/ or begin sending out refunds. Otherwise it looks like you're just trying to run with our money. :/" I also went and copy pasted it onto the YCH he had the reminder for with the same thing. There was someone who commented wanting a slot and I warned them that Kai had a queue of over a year and they removed their comments. A few hours later, Kai ended up responding to me and the other two commenters on the journal with a copy paste message saying: "I'm sorry for the delay. I was not able to use my strength to the full and the three-year burnout has taken its toll. I took a month off in December, which kind of helped, so I will update and make a more accurate list of deadlines soon, but by name. So that each of you can keep track of my work. I'm really sorry for the wait." He hid my comment on the YCH reminder but didn't hide the one on the YCH itself. Eleven hours later got a note from him telling me that he had been burnt out from work and that he actually had finished my YCH with a link to the piece. It mostly looks nice but there are several things off. Kai didn't even try editing the head-shape outside of erasing the nose and adding slit nostrils and missed a few key things that were on the character's references (Horn rings, Nyx's collar and neck fluff), he also didn't change the cigarette.) I feel like given the amount of time it took for him to respond to me that he went and rush did the piece because otherwise I don't know why he wouldn't have just sent it to me beforehand. I messaged him back asking for changes but that note has been left on unread and I sent him another on the 26th which has also been ignored. I'm almost certain that I am not going to get a response anytime soon and he's just running off with several people's money. I really think people should stay clear of him unless he does a major turn around.

On March 21, 2025, I won a collab YCH slot from 0-ruff at the bid of $95. The payment per the auction description was to be done on Boosty or Hipolink, which I have used with other artists in the past and am familiar with the platforms, so I had no issues placing a bid with these conditions. Despite the bid being made in USD and Boosty showing USD amounts, 0-ruff insisted in payment being made in rubles. I informed 0-ruff that I was unable to make the payment in rubles as Boosty would only permit me to do payments in USD and asked if this was acceptable. I have always done business with Russian-based artists on Boosty like this with no issues in the past and saw no reason this time would be any different. To my surprise, 0-ruff tried to make an argument that Boosty has its own currency exchange rate (?) and that I should pay $98 instead of the $95 bid I placed. I was unsure about this since this didn't sound right, but I made the payment for $98 regardless and sent my information. 0-ruff then claimed that they did not receive the full payment amount and insisted I pay them more. I was confused because I had already paid more than my winning bid for the YCH and had the receipt showing it, so I questioned them, repeating that Boosty shows payments in USD and I had made the full payment they asked for. When I went to go check on Boosty again, I noticed 0-ruff had then upped the payment from $98 to $100 after I had paid. I confronted 0-ruff about this and provided screenshots of my completed payment, their updated price, and the Google currency exchange (which they claimed to be using) which showed I had already paid the full amount they asked for. 0-ruff continued to make some claims about currency exchanges not being stable and that each platform has its own currency exchange rate (?) and that they only used Google's exchange, which also showed I had made more than the payment I needed to. At this point, I no longer felt that 0-ruff was following fair exchange rates and business practices and confronted them about it and asked for a refund, as I did not trust them to not continue to ask for more money or hold the artwork hostage in exchange for more money. They had already proven they were just charging whatever they felt they could get, regardless of the initial bid or auction rules and I no longer wished to do business with them. 0-ruff pushed back and refused to refund the paid amount or acknowledge the retraction of my bid. I repeated that I no longer felt this was a trustworthy exchange and did not wish to continue to work with them based on these principles and a lack of trust. I ultimately had to threaten to do a report and chargeback to get a response from them. 0-ruff continued to refuse a refund, called me unstable for calling them out on uncharging my original bid, and then blocked me without further discussion. Following this, 0-ruff then hid my bid on the YCH auction and continued to take bids for the slot despite not refunding me the money I had already paid to them. I am now having to work with my bank and Boosty to get the money charged back as a fraudulent charge. This was my first and last time dealing with 0-ruff. [Item removed by Moderation (Eden) due to unfounded claims that we would have not permitted.]

TLDR OUTLINE Who? STELLARPUNK_ART on twitter (Also known as punker_sp / SPBK_201 on twitter) What? Undelivered commission, ghosting client (me) for nearly 3 years while remaining active on both main and alt account (and I soon to find out on bluesky as well). Cutting off contact (blocking) on alt account and refusing to give refund or artwork. Original Agreement On October 21st 2022 @ 9:53 pm est I contacted Stellarpunk_Art on TWITTER for 3 bust sketch commissions with flat color (see "Original Commission Advert_oct2022_sp"). The total was $75, 25 for each bust. (See "Original Contact_twitter 1" and "Original Commission Advert_oct2022_sp") Proof of Payment Payment was made via cashapp (as you can see in above screenshot they advertised cashapp, venmo, or stripe) I only had cashapp at the moment. In the conversation screenshot you can see me letting them know I'd be paying via cashapp. They gave me their cashapp tag and payment was sent October 22nd 2022 at 12:35 AM est. (See "Original Contact_twitter 1" and "Screenshot_20250411_150152_Cash_App proof") Attempts to Contact & Ghosting The full conversation (or rather my attempts to get in touch with them) was done through twitter DMs. Aside from DMs, I also attempted to contact them multiple times on instagram, via twitter comments, and even through email during the time I couldn't get in touch with them after the first check in. I did also see that they were going through many issues over time which led me to leaving them be for much longer between each nudge. Proofs: Original contact_twitter 1 - 6, Instagram_contact attempt. You can read the conversation below through the timeline. Full Timeline of Experience On October 21 2022 I messaged StellarPunk to commission them 3 digital art pieces: flat color busts. I didn’t know this artist, but their post had been rt’d by another artist who I’ve worked with before. The post was advertising for $25 each. (see "Original Commission Advert_oct2022_sp" and start of convo "Original contact_twitter 1") The only payment methods they listed were CashApp/Venmo/Stripe, I was skeptical but went with CashApp since that was the only one I had. Oct 22nd 2022: I sent payment (see Screenshot_20250411_150152_Cash_App proof) Nov 18 2022: I messaged them to let them know that I could be contacted on other platforms or via email (this was at the time when the life of twitter was uncertain). No reply Jan 2nd 2023 @ 1:45 am - I send a check in message with no results. I did see a post about them going through some issues irl, so I gave them the space. At this time I believe they moved to their alt account (I wouldn't know until later this year) The account https://x.com/SPBK_201 was created by them, but was named "punker_sp" at the time. Feb 19 2023 @ 12:20 pm - Gave a nudge, no reply (they made 2 art posts on their instagram) See attached image "Instagram_contact attempt" See attached images "SPInsta1" and "SPInsta2" Aug 2nd 2023 @ 1:09am - I learned that they moved to a different twitter account (named punker_sp, now SPBK_201) and blocked me there. The original account wasn’t abandoned and I could still message them there. They continued to actively post on their new account while liking/retweeting on original. I found they had also blocked me for some time on cashapp as well so I could not request a refund even if I wanted to/had time to. I attempted to contact cashapp customer support twice but they could not help me. Months passed with no word, they were still active but made no effort to get back in touch with me. They still use their alt account so you can see all of their posts. I hated being a bother, so I left them alone once again. See Attachments "SPBK_Oldest Art post_oct 2023" 1 and 2 Feb 9th 2024 @ 2:16 am - I message them again with no reply. At the time I was, and still am very busy with my own work so I let them be. Feb 11th 2024 - They finally replied, apologizing for not getting back to me, their behavior, and claiming that they were super broke. They said they didn't have the funds but would definitely give me a refund (with no specified time). I replied the same day, telling them that they can sort out w/e was going on and we could discuss my refund. I was naive in thinking they'd follow through with settling this issue because a good part of me still really liked their work. I've gone through many artists ghosting me after payment, some have returned and resolved the issue and others haven't. Part of me was hoping they wouldn’t be the latter. (see Original contact_twitter 4) No reply followed that message and they continued to actively post and RT on twitter, as well as make fanart & OC posts. (I did not bother taking screenshots of these posts and twitter only lets me go back as far as 2024 on their individual page) Aug 2024 - They have opened comms again, still no reply to me. April 13th, Jul 28, and August 11th 2024 - I attempted to message them again whenever I’d catch their newer posts. No success. Jan 4th 2025 - They made a new commission post and also replied later that day. They apologized for not getting back to me and asked if I wanted the commissions or a refund AGAIN. (see "Art Comm post advert_jan 2025" and "Original contact_twitter 5") They continued to create more art and general posts. Jan 5th 2025 - I replied and I reminded them of the amount owed (see Original contact_twitter 5) Feb 12th - I tried reaching out to let them know I would just request the funds on cashapp since I could no longer request a refund. Both times I tried the request expired. (see "Requesting Refund_Expired attempts_proof") Jan 26th 2025 - Claimed they were making their way down their queue. No update on my order through and no visible Queue to track. (see "Jan 26 2024_queue claim") Continued to make other posts including a commission delivery, no messages to me. (see "Art post jan 2025 1 and 2") Feb 1st 2025 - Posted a "bust sketch comm" for another client. No sign of my commission updates to me. Continued to make other posts & deliver other commissions. (see "Feb 1 and 2 2025 art post") Feb 10th 2025 - They reshared their commission post saying they had car troubles and needed money. No message to me still. (see Feb 10 reshare comm) Assuming they were trying to get funds to refund me, I left them alone. Eventually I did try to reach out by commenting on their posts every once in a while when they would post on their main. (see "Attempts to contact_Comments") March 12 2025 @ 9:12 AM - I sent a nudge, no reply (see "Original contact_twitter 6") March 25th 2025 @ 4:14 PM - Messaged them to let them know I'd be willing to just go through with getting the art if they found it hard getting the funds. Once again ignored (see "Original contact_twitter 6") April 10th 2025 @ 6:37AM - Messaged again, no reply but they were active not too long ago before I messaged them. I mentioned trying to split up the refund to make it financially easier on them. No reply was given yet during this entire time they were still actively posting art on their alt account. (see "Original contact_twitter 6")

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.

10/30/23: I initially purchased a custom fursuit collar from RegallyWild, in-person, in the dealer's den of Furpocalypse 2023. I was out of fursuit while looking at the collars in the den. The vendor overheard me say to my partner that, while I really liked one of the collars, I didn't think it would fit on me when I was in suit. They suggested I purchase it, take it back to my room, try it on, and return it if the fit was not correct. I did this and found, as suspected, the collar did not fit, so I returned to the vendor's table. When I arrived for my refund, the vendor suggested that, rather than refund me, they'd prefer to custom make me a new collar - same pattern and materials - and ship it to me after the convention was over, with the shipping being at their expense. I thought this was very generous and agreed. I provided my name, address, and contact details, which they wrote down in front of me, and I handed them back the too-small collar while they kept my money via credit card transaction. 11/11/23: About two weeks later, I had not heard from them, so I decided to reach out via email. They responded almost immediately, verifying my recollection of events, and letting me know they'd been sick and promising the order would "be heading out next week." Since a specific timeline had been provided, I was looking for follow-up in the next week. That didn't happen. 12/02/23: Three weeks later, I reached out again. I was concerned because I knew I'd be out of the country for a few weeks and may have had to arrange for someone to receive my mail if a package was going to be delivered. This email received no response at all. 12/18/23: Two weeks later, despite being out of the country and in a vastly different time zone, I tried reaching out again. This time, they replied the next day, saying that spikes for the collar were out of stock - odd, since they were supposedly ready to send it one month prior. Strangely, they also offered to send "the rest of the order" before the collar. The collar was the only thing I had purchased, so this was confusing. Since there were no other items to be sent, I told them I was fine to wait for the collar to be completed, because I saw no other option. Also confusing was that one of the emails referenced providing a phone number, but there was no phone number in the message at all. This would be the last time the RegallyWild ever spoke to me. 01/26/2024: Around five weeks later, I was back in the states and had not heard anything. I reached out again, and additionally requested the phone number they had previously offered to provide. This email received no response. 02/01/2024: Due to the complete lack of contact, I followed up more quickly, one week later, requesting a status update. This email also received no response. 02/06/2024: Five business days later, I reached out again. As it had now been nearly two months since they had responded to anything, I felt my only course of action was to request a refund or initiate a chargeback. I know chargebacks can be hard on small businesses, so I felt I owed them a chance to correct the issue before contacting my credit card issuer. This email was not responded to. Unfortunately, I was unable to initiate a chargeback because I had provided them with too much leeway. My issuer would not dispute the charge because it was older than 90 days and neither would Square, RegallyWild's payment processor. 02/15/2024: About two weeks later, I noticed they had posted new work on Twitter. In desperation, I looked to try that avenue to contact them, but they had their DMs closed. I tried replying to the post, which went unanswered. At this point, I presumed maybe something had happened to them or they had gone out of business. 05/24/2024: Nearly six months after their last contact, I noticed RegallyWild running banner ads on FurAffinity. I followed the ads to their website and learned they were still taking orders. This prompted me to reach out again one last time. This, of course, also went unanswered. 10/24/2024: It has now been just shy of one year - fifty-one weeks - since RegallyWild took my money and gave me a year-long headache. Recently, I've had another burned customer of theirs reach out to me via Twitter DM asking if I'd had any luck getting in touch with RegallyWild. Their experience was, unfortunately, much the same as mine. I've since learned RegallyWild will be vending at Furpocalypse - my local, home con - again this year. So, I feel it's important to get a warning out about possible issues with this maker in advance, in the hopes that no more customers will have the same issues that I have.

I have commissioned Wulfchow at the Artist Alley @ AnthroCon 2024. The commission is for a digital drawing with a scene commission, which was verbally explained in person at the booth to be a fullbody with a background. Scene commissions are shown to be offered on their social media, but the price is not shown as it was sold out at the time of posting on July 6, 2024. Payment was done through Square, so there is no use of PayPal. Instead, the only proof is my bank statement, showing that I had ordered from Wulfchow on July 5, before the scene commissions were sold out. On July 5th, we had exchanged Telegram messages to establish contact. Afterwards, I attempted to reach out for updates, where the screenshots include specifically my mention of a scene commission. The Trello link is all of their currently owed work from AnthroCon 2024, including the scene commission they agreed to do: https://trello.com/b/6FFKY0ug/post-anthrocon-24-queue There has been no indication of a response since my check in on November 16, 2024. The artist instead updated on their Twitter that they will correspond by email instead, despite claiming to respond to all outstanding DMs. I have reached out to them on the email they publicly supplied and am still waiting for a response.

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.

On March 2, 2023, Solari0m posted an 'emergency YCH' for $50. Immediately, I jumped on it. I had admired their art for a while and was genuinely excited to work with them. I got into contact with them in DMs and we began to discuss details on the same day. I sent payment promptly, and she confirmed she received it. On May 12th, Solari0m posted a tweet with a piece of NSFW art and the caption "I'm almost done with the ych, please send me a DM if yours is still missing!" so I promptly did on May 15th. And then again on May 19th. This is where the communication issues started. While she did confirm she got my message, she never responded beyond that, and from there, seven months passed. On November 9th, I reached out once more, and they provided to me was a sketch over of the YCH. At this point, they decided to redo the piece, because they didn't like how it looked. I was fine with this, because this meant that my art was being worked on. I received another work in progress in April, another sketch, which I loved and vocalized to them. I got a WIP two months later from them, which I confirmed I liked. From there, I didn't receive word for another eight months. I requested contact methods through Bluesky and Whatsapp that ultimately went nowhere as a way of nudging them for the art. I was unable to get WhatsApp to work (this is my own fault), and no messages went through, but I did reach out to them on BlueSky, which led nowhere. On January 17th of 2025, I requested a definitive due date. They didn't give me one, but said that they would finish it by the end of the day. This didn't happen. I told them that I didn't want the piece rushed and that it was okay if it took a few days, and then they provided me with another WIP. On the 23rd, they told me that they weren't feeling well, but that they were feeling better - I assumed this meant that they would once more work on my commission. I waited two weeks before wishing them well, expecting that I would get another WIP or... something. On Monday February 24th, I requested a definitive due date again. They said they would have it done 'tonight (the 24th) or tomorrow (the 25th) at the latest'. This did not happen. On March 2nd, 2025, I finally reached out with my ultimatum. They provided a small sketch as apology. At this point, I just wanted the art to be done and approved whatever they sent. They said that they would send the drive link immediately and then didn't send it. When I asked them for it, they said that their computer had been updating for two hours. Today they sent me a link to the drive... which included all of the commissions they had done over the past two and a half months (some on the days that they had promised me they would get it done 'today, or at latest, tomorrow') at full resolution. This struck me as remarkably unprofessional. I was uncomfortable that they sent other clients files as well. All throughout the past six months, they have regularly been completing commissions on their vgen, while consistently forgetting about mine. This was not a good experience.

My husband and I commissioned ViewtifulBeck back in December of 2023 on twitter for a fully rendered piece with a background and it ran us $100, which is a lot of money for us to be spending on a commission. It was not my first time commissioning him and my prior commissions were met with reasonable communication and delivered within a reasonable time so I vouched for him when my husband was searching for an artist to draw our dnd characters together, except this one we’ve been waiting longer than a year for. It feels like we’ve been chasing him through social media (twitter, bluesky) and his email to get in contact with him. I even had my husband message him to his email. I’ll post the screenshots below of our entire conversation history regarding this commission only. Proof of payment of the Paypal invoice. First hiccup of communication met with a WIP. We both forgot about a paid comm for 5 months and then silence for 5 more months with no reply back. This is when I ask my husband to send an email to see if he might just only be active through his email at the time. No response to this as far as I know. Finally get a response back after chasing him to bluesky in which he promises it by the end of the day. We really wanted to give this artist the benefit of the doubt so we were willing to wait a few more weeks but with no communication or wips since, we figured we were just out $100 and no product to show for it. He did do my last two commissions within a reasonable amount of time and this was the only issue I’ve had with this artist but this was a really expensive commission for us. Recent contact to the artist, no response was given.

So back in February I had seen a Multi-slot YCH posted by Kai (here) and opted to snag a slot, as I had previously gotten work from them before. We had communicated in notes about payment methods: Proof of payment: I am normally a patient person so I had waited months, periodically checking their profile for updates. It hadn't been until I had seen public callout comments on their profile and submissions complaining about not having their commissions completed. This is when I began to worry because by this point, I was beyond the chargeback period which was a mistake on my part. It appeared that Kai had gone full MIA once the comments began to callout inconsistencies and continued posts for other YCH's. I requested a refund via shout on their profile that went ignored: I also tried privately messaging them but my note has gone unread as well, like many others: I had even tried to see if they were active in their own discord server but they're not. Other users who were also victims mentioned trying and not hearing back from Kai on various platforms. So now it just seems they took off and I'm out $60. As of currently, my note has been left unread. :')

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.

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.

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

I reached out to WetVenom in late October 2023 inquiring about his rates and terms. After talking for a bit about his rates and the character being drawn, we settled on $150 for a two panel, comic-style commission. I sent the first payment on November 1st, but we ran into a small problem. Because I paid through PayPal with a checking account, PayPal turned the payment into an eCheck. Since Venom is from outside of the US, it took almost a week for the transaction to even register, and by that time I didn't have the funds in my account. PayPal automatically retries the transaction after a few days though, and ultimately the eCheck cleared on the 16th of November. After receiving email confirmation that it cleared, I followed up with Venom and he confirms that he received the payment and will be starting on the commission. A little over a week later he reaches out again to reconfirm the details, and I verify the details of the commission once more. From this point however, communication starts to taper off. The next communication is two months later on January 17 2024, where I reach out to ask how the commission is coming. He responds a few days later asking to once more confirm the details of my commission, and stating that he's fed up with impatient customers. After confirming who I was and clearing up the misunderstanding, he then says that the commission may already be finished and that he needs to double check. I ask him to let me know if that's the case, and then I wait another ~2 weeks before checking back in. This time he responds the same day, confirming that he is still working on the commission. I wait another month, March 7th, before checking back in on his progress. This email goes unanswered. I wait another month, April 4th, to inquire about his status. He responds the next day citing family issues are what caused him delay. I empathize with his situation, and let him know that if he wants to cancel the commission all he has to do is let me know. This goes without response, and I reach back out a week later. After reconfirming privacy details and format, I wait a bit longer, thinking that his last email was an implication that the commission was nearly done. I reach out again on the 29th of April to confirm, and he responds shortly after saying he's sending the commission later that night: stating that an error within the commission gave him some delay. A few more days pass and I send another email on May 3rd to verify if the error was still giving him problems. After telling him that I didn't need another commission and that I only wanted to confirm where he was on this commission, I receive nothing back but silence. I send another email on the 24th of June to ask what the status of the commission is, to no response. About a week later I send a separate, Ultimatum email. This too went unanswered, and ultimately nothing came of the PayPal dispute since 180 days had already passed since the transaction date. As of 9/27/2024, I've reached out to both of wetvenom's public emails to confirm their intent on completing the commission.

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

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

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.

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.

Originally posted on Apr. 30th, 2013 by draeling Mod note: Image Shack and FurBuy links are defunct. WHO: FA: Shanniecat and OcemezerSuits, Twitter: tempurrtabby and shanniecat, FurBuy: Shanniecat WHERE: http://www.furbuy.com/profile/shanniecat.html & http://www.furaffinity.net/user/OcemezerSuits/ WHAT: A pair of custom furred Digitigrade boots for $200 on Furbuy: http://www.furbuy.com/auctions/1037374.html WHEN: Paid for on the 13th of December 2012. Communication was good during payment and giving initial measurements. - (Jan) A month passed until I asked for an update, no response till I emailed again 4 days later. Shannie stated the pawpads had not arrived but she will be doing the furring that weekend. - (Feb) Another month passed until I emailed a few times until getting a response 4 days later. Shannie mentioned some personal issues got in the way but she was working on them right now. - (Mar) No contact, emailed on 12th of march, eventually Shannie replied on the 27th saying DVC didin't send the pads but that will be sorted soon. Said pictures will be sent to me in the next two days. - (Apr) Emails got difficult, no response to multiple emails, however she was very active on twitter nightly, so I asked there, got a prompt response and reply to email sent two weeks earlier. Apr 18th - Seller mentioned the pawpads came in, and her emails from commissioners were going to spam. Personal issues mentioned regarding young family member and school, she said she "would be done this weekend" again and getting pictures out. - Update: (May) I sent another email as I was advised she had just returned from Morphicon, received reply that she would try and post them the following Monday. Image of boots attached but was blank. Said she would try get another image to me. No further responses to emails during May. - Update: (Jun) No response to multiple emails to ask if the boots were shipped after 11th of may. Her furbuy account has since been placed into suspension by the administrators, due to the number of complaints received from her commissioners. They will lift it when she responds to their request for contact. PROOF: Bought from furbuy auction ID 1037374. Payment: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/32/shanniecatproof.png/ EXPLAIN: I am sad to say I really didin't want to have to post this, but after I placed a comment on her Furaffinity OcemezerSuits user page yesterday to get an update, the next morning the comment had been deleted, including one from another person who was also asking for updates. Since the last time I contacted her on twitter, her twitter became private, and no longer responded to commission tweets (but her active tweet count still increases 30-80 nightly). I am normally very patient and understanding... but I really can't excuse this. During feb and March, even though she was already aware she was behind on commissioners work, she continued to post new auctions on Furbuy for digiboots. A few of those people have since left negative feedback because they cant get any communication from her.

I began the commission process with p0pr0ck on August 23, 2022, for a 3/4 suit including head, paws, tail, feet, legs, and additional armsleeves for $1600. I paid in two consecutive installments of $800 through Paypal on August 24 and August 25 2022. Naively, I did not ask to pay goods and services, and paid through friends and family as requested by the maker (this was my mistake). The maker had a public trello linked in their bio, so I was aware she had a few projects ahead of me, and knew it would be some time before my suit was started so I waited a few months before reaching out. However, per the screenshots provided, I had to borderline beg for communication, deadlines, and updates. I'd send multiple messages over the course of weeks that would go unanswered for long periods of time. I was hopeful when p0pr0ck began to send frequent updates around mid-late April 2023, as she was working on the head of the suit. Once the tail, head, and paws were finished, we mutually agreed p0pr0ck should send the mini partial out, however it took nearly a month after completion for her to send out the suit and for me to recieve it. With the absolute battle that communication was, and some of the messages p0pr0ck had been sending me about her personal life, I opted to settle for the mini partial and get a partial refund for the parts I did not recieve (feet, legs, arms). She had since updated her pricing ladder, however, so I had to manually calculate the cost between a mini partial vs a 3/4 suit in her old prices vs her new ones to find what the refund cost should be. I calculated it should be about $673. This number was agreed on by p0pr0ck. It then took another few months to hear back from her on my question about ETAs on the refund. The first $100 of the refund was recieved on September 6, 2023, with a message from p0pr0ck detailing she had sent it. The second installment came in September 20th, 2023, but this time with NO alert message from p0pr0ck. There was them more periods of radio silence before the 3rd installment was sent on April 3rd, 2024, again with no messages sent from p0pr0ck indicating she had sent it. Finally, around August of this year, p0pr0ck posted to her story for commissioners to message her on telegram, citing DM troubles with Instagram. I recieved one reply from her on August 9th, 2024, and have heard nothing back since. Given that the refund was agreed to on June 17, 2023, I have now been trying to get my partial refund for a total of 15 months, nearly 16 months, at the time of writing this beware.

On January 31st, Baasil made a post for Tarot card slots, two separate decks that would ideally be finished and printed. After kind of waffling about it for a couple days, I reached out on February 2nd. I promptly paid for the slot, very excited to be a part of the project. They confirmed payment and shared their excitement for the project with me. I hadn't heard anything in March, so I sent a note for an update. I was not given a wip, so I figured maybe they had fallen a bit behind, as trying to keep a deck consistent is most definitely a lot of work. So I gave the benefit of the doubt and patiently waited as time ticked on. Then I requested another update in June. Here they acknowledge that there wasn't enough interest for a full deck, but was still happy to do prints for the people who commissioned the art. I was more than happy with just getting the art in general. July rolls around, and I still don't have a single update or wip, and I start getting a bit nervous as it has now been about 5 months since I commissioned them I'll admit I got a little too stern for my liking, but I was getting increasingly nervous as they tended to disappear for a while and randomly come back. They were very polite towards me in their response, because I did genuinely still want the art, I still loved the concept and I was happy to wait. In August, Baasil posted one of the cards, and I got excited again, knowing that they were being worked on, and that the style was looking really good. After this, starting in September, they were focusing on streaming work. I thought, okay sure, we all have bills to pay, so I patiently waited. At this point I was preparing for a massive career change so a lot of time got lost on my end, and I ended up reaching out in March 2020. I wanted to give another chance as I really do love Baasil's style and part of my thought process was that it was only $35, so I'd be happy with any art from them. They still remained very polite towards me throughout this entire exchange, while explaining loosely what was going on. I changed my character choice as well as offered full artistic freedom, as I wanted it to not be stressful on them, as I know sometimes drawing with heavy constraints in an art piece can be a lot, and they have a super flowy style that I thought would work well with this character. Which brings us to our last correspondence with each other, two years later. Again, we both remain civil through this exchange. At this point, all of the journals except a select few have been deleted, and I didn't think to screen cap them because of a huge move and personal issues going on in my life as well. Every so often they come back and post more, but they haven't been active in almost a year, and truthfully, I'm just really disappointed. I tried to give chances, and I'm a very patient person, but if this was really going to be this much of an issue, I would have done that chargeback back in July of 2019. I recently reached out one more time to see if I could get some response, however my note when completely unread. The only positive thing to come out of this was that neither of us were confrontational at any point in time, and it was always a civil and professional discussion between the two of us. I commission a lot of artists and I almost never have these issues, I am going to have to take this to heart and maybe some day I'll see my $35.

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