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

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

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

I don't like the fact that I'm having to do this, but as I couldn't resolve this in a pacific way with this client, I've decided to make a beware so that other artist don't end up on the same situation as I am right now. Costumer: @lopinhojaneiro ~ https://t.me/lopinhojaneiro (Telegram) Telegram ID: 6328315414 On December's end (most specifically Christmas) he came on Telegram to me asking for a animated icon of my Star Fox YCH. I accepted and started working on it the day after, soon I sent him the sketch for approval. Everything before asking for the payment. (Something that I always do, and that is stated in my ToS that can be found on my art channel @JellyBeansArt). Besides that, the user ignored me without reason for more than a week regarding the payment of 50$ BRL (around 10USD) for the commission, and was incredibly rude when I questioned him about it, who answered me saying that I "Haven't finished it yet so I won't be paying". On my advertisement of that specific YCH I explicitly say that I finish it up to 24h after the payment (I said the same on the conversation with him, but he just ignored saying again that he won't be paying). So if you doesn't wish to fall on this pit, I suggest avoiding this person's fursona. I'll be leaving here links that lead to his fursona's reference sheet and some extra artwork of him. Along with it I'll also leave a video that shows all the conversation (portuguese only) and prints of it on both Brazilian Portuguese (original) and English. Sorry for the poor quality of the english translated images, I took photos of them from my computer screen using my phone to use the Google Translator. The video have good quality.

They commissioned me a piece with 2 characters, NSFW edit plus quite a complex BG. I’ve lost original description at this point, but they were completely fine with my initial sketch as you can see here. Price wasn’t an issue either. Instead all I got is 3 payments, ~50 usd each. Then they proceeded to tell me that they had “issues with payment”, which I suspect to be completely made up as no other customer since then had them. Also they were able to pay it partially, so they obviously had no problems. My bad for being naive and working without properly committing to the part where I have to get full prepayment after the sketch, but that’s just how I used to roll with it. And then I decided to reach out to Boosty staff. They said I had absolutely no issues on my side and… When I said I’m putting it on a hold till they fix it, they just blocked me. Everywhere. Without ANY explanation. They also don’t answer my Emails So far I’m simply blocked by them on all platforms. And I’ve seen their character being drawn by other artists so… They just took advantage of me and left. Small notes: I slightly cropped out DMs due to them being just filled with Troubleshooting Boosty, I can send full convo, but it’s just bloated with useless for the case information. Also, I got to the colouring stage when they blocked me, I sincerely want to attach the file, but site freaks out. It’s kinda irrelevant anyways. Also, I accept payments via Boosty and have a no-refund policy not because I want to, but due to me being simply having literally no other choice. I always make sure Customers are getting what they deserve, don’t wait for years and are fully informed about all these factors.

I've met through this client through discord server as I've noticed that he was looking for animators and decided to work with him. Everything was going great as the client was providing me with references and etc. The commission was a walking bouncy boob cycle and the second option was my choice which was the shaking butt animation... What I didn't know and it was something that he told me last minute after putting all of details and working on the second animation was that he wanted it as a sequence all together which I've declined because that was over the budget limit that we agreed on. Until the client kept demanding for me to work on their project which I've declined till they paid me amount I've asked (which is half upfront and the other for when the project was completed) for which eventually the client did cover the first half of the payment. During the process the client demanding as they kept asking for constant changes to the project which wasn't the part that made this person a bad client in my view. But the client requesting changes to where there's no end result. Also, I've placed an hold on the client's project in order to work on a different project for a bit before going back to this one since I've had another commission to work on at the time before resuming the animation project. During the process he kept asking for animators including from me which I've gave him the name of another artist who was my business and romantic partner so that the client could chat with him. Everything was fine until I've noticed that the client was using my partner to replace me for a project the person already paid for and I was already in the process of working on (without consulting with me first). Then things went downhill when the project was completed and all of a sudden the client couldn't afford it, so I had to cancel the project. Before the fall out, this person was using their personal issues to gain sympathy from others. This client is still seeking artists to commission while advertising their condition and not having the funding to pay artists! Beginning of commission: Changes: Asking to work on comm 3 days later: Looking for other animators: Request for donations in DMs: Unable to send final payment. Proof of first payment:

Greetings! I'm here to inform you about this client and the ordeal that I had to endure since the last week. Honestly, it all started pretty good actually. The 4th of April I got contacted by this person saying that he had the idea of commissioning me a couple of OC's of its own (since he kept saying that he was a writer and that he wrote stories, fan fictions and so on) and I was like "Sure, tell me the details!". And everything went pretty smooth, he always payed me what I asked for and never complained. However, the big problems started to happened the 8th of July, Friday of last week. After waking up, I find three emails from PayPal, in which all of them says that the buyer has opened a claim against me because of unauthorized transactions made. Honestly speaking, I was baffled. Like, why in the first place? Also who was the one responsible for all of this? After tracking down who could've possibly be, I ended up finding the curlprit. Then I decided to confront him, ask him why he did such a thing, but to no avail. What he kept saying over and over like a broken record, was like "I didn't do it. My bank did it" or instead "PayPal did it, it wasn't my fault". Now, I might not be an expert on how PayPal works and neither how the Banks do, but I'm pretty sure that neither of the two without an explicit request from the one who sent the money, does everything automatically. PayPal definitely doesn't do it, and the Bank the least they can do is calling you if they see high transactions, but in here we were talking about 50/100€ at best. Every month. Then, afterwards, he contacted me saying the following After this, he blocked me. If the truth is on his side, then he wouldn't have blocked me, right? So honestly, I really don't get it. Afterwards I tried to reach him even on DeviantArt, since there I was still not blocked from him because I actually talked with the PayPal customer service myself. In the end they told me what I already knew: and that it was him who did everything on his end. And so far, he kept lying to my face. The sad part is that I'm not the only one who got this "little problem" with him. Many other artists had the same ordeal with him. I'll share afterwards the claims that he did (choosing even the wrong dates because he surely did everything so fast, in a blink of an eye, that he didn't even sat through everything and thought if the amount and date were exactly those - apologies in advance if you see another language) (For context, "Denaro ricevuto" translated is "Money Received") And the fact that the dates doesn't even match to begin with (aside from the first one, which the only wrong thing is the amount that he declared. He gave me 50€, but instead he wanted 56€ back, for some reason) (again, all three of them shows the "Money Received" word, translated from Italian) I'll also share some snippets of our conversation where, after I completed the render, I uploaded it and sent it to him. And he of course, received it. See it for yourself, all three of the claims. First one Second: (this one here was mostly a variation of the third one that I'll share in a bit) Third one: Proof of being blocked To this day, so far the problem hasn't been solved (and also currently, the claims got processed and now I'm wait for PayPal to actually talk with the bank of the client. Sadly, it will take approximatively 75 days to get an answer) and when it will, I'm afraid that this person will try again in getting his money back. I made assumptions as to why he did this, but really, I can't even believe it. Like I said, also another artist right now is undergoing the same treatment as I'm experiencing. Thank you for your attention.

BEWARE OF T_CYBERWOLF / CYBERWOLF0220 I was scammed a total of 221,09EUR - please, be careful and avoid this user at all cost On October 30th 2021, FA user T_Cyberwolf sent me a note, wanting to purchase 2 adoptables from me. Within the purchase, this individual asked me for serval modifications and additions (such as NSFW version, hyper version, etc.), raising the price to 144EUR for both characters. We agreed on the payment, payment was sent from his part, and a few weeks later, I delivered all the requested modifications, etc. T_Cyberwolf was pleased, and he very much told me so. On November 3rd, he did one more and the last purchase from me, which was another adoptable. He asked, once again, for a couple of additions and modifications, for a total price of 74EUR. Once again, we agreed on payment, he sent the payment, and on November 16th, I gave him the files like we agreed to. This person was pleased, and liked everything they got from me. SCREENSHOTS Here you can see we agreed on payment, that everything was delivered correctly, and the customer was indeed, pleased and happy with what they got. Fast forward to December 7th 2021. I got a Paypal email that indicated I got a chargeback from T_Cyberwolf, the reason being "unauthorized payment". I noticed he didn't contact me nor inform me in any way of this issue, so I immediately contacted him, asking for an explanation. Because of this, my Paypal balance was negative, and I was in debt with Paypal. He explained that he noticed he got his information stolen back on Thursday, that many purchases were made and that he started to chargeback because he wasn't able to determine which ones he made, and which ones he didn't, and he was pretty panicked. This, on itself, doesn't make sense. The purchases he asked a refund for over a month old (last purchase being November 3rd, first one being on October 30th), so if he's opening a case in Paypal, that means that those "suspicious purchases" he's been getting must have been happening for over a month - it is legit impossible that someone has been getting money stolen for over a month, without previous notice. Not to mention, my name was in there, it was obviously a purchase made from him, and he knew that. Furthermore, if T_Cyberwolf noticed this on Thursday, why did I get a chargeback 5 days later. Surely, if he claims he did it in a panicked state, I'd have recived the chargeback the very same day he noticed. (Apologies, this following screenshot is in Spanish due to Paypal sending information to my email in my native language; it's basically information about T_Cyberwolf opening a case for "unauthorized transactions", and about how much he's asking for the refund, how many days I have to respond, etc.) I explained that this was very suspicious and made little to no sense. I asked him a bunch of question, and T_Cyberwolf just answered one of them. I asked why he didn't close the Paypal refund case, and he asked me to explain it to him, which I refused because that was his responsability, and not mine, and after I texted him asking about more of my suspicions, he stopped replying and ghosted me. Atfer that, I decided to refund him, because I contacted Paypal trough a call, and the company explained that, since they opened the case under the subject "unauthorized transaction", and I can't physically prove they weren't hacked, I was going to lose the case anyway. So I issued a full refund. I lost 77,09EUR on December 7th (3EUR more than what he payed me for), as Paypal charged me 3,09EUR of fees for the refund, not sure why. The next day, December 8th, T_Cyberwolf decided to contact me, and now he changed his story. Now he claimed that the chargebacks weren't made from him, but it was his bank's doing - because he alerted the bank that his information got stolen, the bank was doing the chargebacks. Obviously, this makes a bigger hole in his first excuse; he mentioned he accidentally opened a Paypal case because he was "panicking" and didn't know which purchases he made and which ones he didn't, but now he claimed that it was his bank's doing, not his. This is when I knew 100% it was a lie, and he scammed me, successfully. He then proceeded to "warn" me that I was going to get more chargebacks for the remaining 2 adoptables he payed me back in October 30th, and that I should "rehome" them. I knew this wasn't a warning, but more of a threat, because this wasn't his bank's doing, but his. So, to avoid more issues with Paypal (as having opened cases can result in your account getting suspended), I proceeded to refund him fully the 144EUR he payed for in October for the remaining 2 adoptables, because I knew I was going to lose the case no matter what since he'd be using the "unauthorized transaction" excuse. This put me in debt, once again. He said "And before I forget", like this was a casual conversation - cleary showing his disinterest and lack of care or responsibility. After all of this, I asked him not to contact me or any of my friends ever again - but sadly, I couldn't get my money back through Paypal, and I'm left in debt. He scammed me and got all of the money back, and sadly, even though I revoked the owning rights of the adoptables from him, he still has the files and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm posting this because I don't want any more people being scammed by this user. Don't contact him or harass him, just block him and move on. If he tries to contact you, just ignore him. People like them can be dangerous to artists who are struggling, so please, be aware and be careful - thanks for reading.

First interaction was when Lundukeo claimed an YCH slot on Furaffinity. DMs proceeded as follows: (The message order in each screenshot goes from bottom and up) YCH premade sketch after edited to fit their character: New sketch after making the edits they wanted: After Lundukeo approved of the second sketch, they stopped answering. I got worried as others were waiting for me to work on this YCH. Invoice had been sent but was left unpaid. I realized I wasn't going to get paid in a reasonable time so I re-opened their slot: About a month later I got a reply from Lundukeo: I made it clear that they were banned from working with me in the future, but decided not to block them. Afterwards I forgot about this situation and moved on, not planning on making a beware over this. Fast forward to June 23rd 2022, I opened for a batch of commissions: This is one of the forms that got sent in: I accepted the commission as I loved their character. This is the reference they sent: I was unable to contact them through their Twitter, as DMs was off, so I was suspicious if the Twitter user was the rightful owner, and contacted the character owner on Furaffinity: Looking back I realize how much of a red flag this message is. The twitter profile was at the time and still is completely empty, with DMs off. Yet they proclaim to use it for "artists artwork, announcements, game stuff and a way to DM". I ignored the red flag and decided to work with them as the Furaffinity profile seemed legit and they had worked with other artists in the past. I told them I would get back to them when their slot came up, and in the meantime they wrote me this: The "mate of theirs" was the person with the blue deer who ghosted me in 2021. I accepted the commission anyway as I was under the understanding that ToughKumquats, a different person, would pay. On August 17th I sent them a wip of their commission. ToughKumquats was happy with the sketch but said they were unable to pay right away. On September 8th, almost 3 weeks after the last message, invoice was still not paid. I asked them if there were issues with paying, a message which was left unread. At this point I put two and two together and believed Lundukeo and ToughKumquats was the same person. First of all because ToughKumquats wanted me to draw a character from a person who had been banned. Secondly because their profile had been made around the exact time they ghosted me in October of last year. Third because this pattern of being ghosted after getting a free sketch was similar to Lundukeo. And lastly because someone else on Furaffinity referred to both character owners as their boyfriend. (I will not name them as they have nothing to do with the situation.) Being 99% sure I had been lied to, I sent this message to both ToughKumquats and Lundukeo: 30 minutes later, Lundukeo replied and my suspicion was proven correct Admitting to lying and refusing to to pay for the work done for a second time. At this point I believe a beware is warranted. Lundukeo admitted to ban evading by pretending to be someone else, and falling into the same pattern like last time. Honestly whether or not they planned to scam me doesn't matter, they purposefully lied to me to get around a ban and get me to work for them again.

Before the incident, I often repost my commission advertisement on various of art servers. Roughly a simple ad with low-ish prices ($15-20) compared to others advertising up to $30-40+, along with this fact, I was a first time commissioner with 0 experience apart from art trades and collaborations. On August 12, I received a friend request from Alastra (Client) at around midnight and they messaged me that they’d like to commission me. I was ecstatic seeing this during then, but I didn’t accept their friend request and reply until the next morning. August 13, From here the process was going well, we were communicating, their reply’s were fast, they did as I asked (filling out my google form for character info, “reading” my carrd) until I got to confirming the payment process, they asked if they could “pay with a $40 Amazon gift card” none of my terms of service said I excepted any gift card except for Apple, I didn’t have any red flags yet and so I thought perhaps they couldn’t pay through these other payment options I replied saying “I’m not sure, Codashop doesn’t allow any payments except through paypal, venmo, etc” They didn’t reply to me until I added “but I do accept Apple gift cards as payment instead” They replied fast ((At this point my mistake started here bc based on other accounts of them they blocked/ ghosted the artist after telling them they need to pay through these options. Gift cards were their way of swindling through)) I got to work quickly and sent them the first two halfbody sketches of their commission, They asked for a few changes, I complied i asked if things were alright with the sketches, they complied the first red flag I blindly encountered was asking for my 50% payment after the sketch (total for the commission was 30 so they had to pay $15) they avoided this by convincing me that they’d pay at the end when there’s a watermark on the drawing, this is so to make sure that they do like the commission and they would pay extra for the work. They were successful in convincing me, I saw on a few other commissioners for reference that they do a similar format to this as well and so I thought it’d be ok to try it out. August 16 - 17 a line-art and flat color was sent August 20 the coloring process started nothing fishy happened here, only reassurance that my work was going well. The process continued from me sending my w.i.p. for review and revision. By August 21, I was officially done with the commission I sent them a drawing with my watermark (top to bottom of the image for extra measures) and sent it to them. Strangely they didn’t reply, as fast as they normally would, despite their profile (little dot on the corner) saying that they were actively on. I didn’t think much of it but consider the fact that they’re a person with a life so I shouldn’t bother them. August 22, by now I got worried they weren’t replying and by now it was around 5. I remembered that we were mutuals on a few servers so I searched through those only to realize that they left them. I checked their bio to see if they really did and I saw the words “no servers in common” and on discord if you don’t share a similar server with the other (unless you friend them) you can’t message the person anymore. It took me a while to realize that they scammed me after they ghosted me and blocked me when receiving the watermarked drawing of mine. As of August 28, the time I made this beware, they are still using my drawing as their pfp. I do advice to keep an eye out on this person as their main focus of commissions are hazbin hotel. Their discord name are names of characters from the show so its difficult to find any true social medias from them unless they share any of my drawings around. If you do ever see a repost of the following commission images please report them. ((Extra: this story probably infuriated a lot of you bc I was so blinded to so many red flags that the client replied with. If anything it was also my fault too for falling for a scam and as of writing this, it urks me to read over how naive I was through the process. No I’m not asking for pity, I’m asking for people doing first time commissions to stand your ground and go with the process that you want to do as it may save you from being scammed like me))

In April I was asked to create artwork of two marvel characters dancing at prom, for $40, originally it was going to be $45 dollars but because I had known them from a previous server for months I trusted him enough to give him a discount. I hadn't done many commissions so because I wasn't very busy I finished it in about 4 days. This guy had pinged the second server we were on together every day asking how their day was and what they were doing, because it had few people in it, it was okay. Knowing he answered and dmed me frequently made me trust him to answer back in our dms. He was on Discord almost everyday so it was unlikely for him to not answer. When I told him I finished the commission he said that he was used to artists taking months to finish so he didn't have the money ready. I understood, and waited 4 more days while continuing to edit and revise the commission. Two more weeks pass, and he still cannot pay for the commission. I still understood that bills needed to be paid and continued to wait. After nearly a month and a half after I finished the commission, I still hadn't been paid. I asked him for a security deposit and he said he's been broke for the past two weeks. I was starting to get really frustrated. If he couldn't pay for the commission, I told him he could always back out and I'd delete the artwork. You need to understand that we had been talking for a while and even though I did not know him in real life, I trusted him to eventually pay it. He kept making excuses and saying he's broke until the next paycheck. It had been many, many weeks at that point where he must've been paid from a paycheck. Still, I kept trying to take the professional route and waited more. It's July 19th, almost 3 months since we last had contact. He has ghosted me entirely, I've pinged him in other servers, asked his friends if there was a family emergency and still no reply. I needed the money because of my chronic illness, I'm in pain every single day and he knew that, yet consisted to ghost me. This is my last resort. I hope nobody ever has to go through this with this guy ever again. I can't even say this is the worst experience I've had this month, because of how many times I've been in the hospital. Beware jdmarsh. P.S. Going through these messages to get screenshots make this even worse because I'm now seeing that he did say he was going to pay half at the start and pay the rest upon completion and then PLAYED DUMB AFTER I ASKED HIM TO FOLLOW THROUGH. Also the flag behind my avatar used to be the lesbian flag then currently is the queer flag.

Original commission was supposed to be a $150 character creation and ref sheet. Because I’m nice (read; a sucker) I agreed to drop the price to $100 for them. They agreed to this and paid. They told me to take my time and not rush I followed up with a fullbody sketch 8 days later, and received no response. I then received a PayPal chargeback for the full amount on May 15th. this is their Duff the Bunny ref sheet to connect their account since they changed their Twitter handle and locked their account entirely after they pushed the chargeback. super annoying cause if they had just asked I would have refunded them like $85 of the $100 (because I had provided a sketch already) but they went ahead and did a chargeback and because I tried to dispute it (again, like an idiot) I was then out $115 instead of the $100. Because apparently PayPal doesn’t care to vet any of their chargebacks at all. I provided full proof to them too. anyway, just don’t do business with that guy or his rabbit character. Full reference to avoid him in the future.

Hello everyone, I would like to comment on the incident that I had a few days ago with a client. not more than 4 weeks ago a user in discord (and inkbunny, himself) asked me for a commission for a cartoon fight (characters hitting each other in a cloud of smoke) with some tv characters and 2 of my ocs, one sfw and nsfw. he sent me a reference from another artist (censored too however my commission list was full at the time, I did tell him it was full but I could put him on a pending waiting list. so the user accepted. then the days passed into weeks, honestly I am very sorry to make my clients wait, and it is my fault that things can be forgotten on me, so I quickly asked for my sincere apologies, the user was somewhat angry and I understand it perfectly even that I feel sad, my art is slow... The user was very kind so it motivated me to draw on a better way. IMPORTANT NOTE: I do not usually ask the money first because I like that the clients are satisfied with the sketch and then I receive the payment. so there is no image of the payment. I sent the first sketch, the user did not like it but I did not hate it either. naturally the user tells me what changes he wants, but not minor changes if not a total change. I personally understand that there are clients who ask for perfection, so in that aspect it does not make me unhappy. but a total change I really did not feel that I could do it, I felt a little nervous since I promised to send several sketches in a single day, and it usually takes 3 hours per sketch and more than this size. how I still thought that he felt angry, I preferred to give up and say that I could not do it and I would not complain at all because he is in all his right, but while the conversation was flowing the client told me things like "I thought you knew what that I wanted "(I want to clarify that English is not my main language so I usually have to make mistakes and misunderstand things) I understand this. another thing he told me "You're hurting your chances" then I felt that the sutuiacion was feeling "heavy" bad so I decided to explain to him why I feel that I cannot make a big change and why it takes me a long time, with the hope NOT that he would accept the sketch, if not that he understood and did not get angry with me. I don't think the user understood at all, maybe it's because of my English or I don't know. until he told me that he could pay me 200 USD which was not very sensible because I felt like a very poor girl. it was like an insult to my person. after that he decided to cancel everything and not talk to me again. What I would have liked is maybe to receive an apology or at least a small payment for the sketch, even though I understand that he is not obliged, i dont will lair i trying ask him a payment, he told me no, then i decided stoped. What can I say is that I be careful with some clients

original: https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/646473.html Who: VengeanceZ His Website Pages: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/vengeancez/ https://www.weasyl.com/profile/grandvision https://inkbunny.net/Grandvision Where: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9594264/ - NSFW What: Prepose Commission with Applejack from MLP:FIM Bid was £3000 When: 1/3/2013 Proof: Screenshots will be Provided below Details: Along with regular commissions, I've been doing Prepose/YCH auctions on furaffinity to help pay for some of my wedding expenses, as I'm getting married this year to Ebonyleopard this Summer. In the link provided above (Next to Where), I was holding a Prepose auction for Applejack from My Little Pony: Friendship is magic. It runs off smoothly, until I noticed Vendeancez posts a bid of £600, which roughly translates to almost 1000 USD. So I ask him if this was a real bid, as that seemed a bit of a large bid in itself; I also told him what £600 translates to in American money. He says he was legitimately bidding, so I allow it, and I place him as bidder in the lead with £600 / $975. He asks if he won, so he could pay and I'd start on the picture asap, but I told him that there's no auto-buyout, and that he'd have to wait until the auction ends (which would be tomorrow on Saturday). So in response to that, he drops down a bid of £3000, which rather shocked me, which made me curious as to why he was in such a hurry to make this auction end with him as the winner, so I PM him about it; he says that information is classified, which made me kind of suspicious, but I don't like prying in other people's business. I basically told him that 3000 pounds equates to nearly $5000 and asking if he's aware of that. Conversation linked below: http://imageshack.us/a/img832/1616/usercontrolpanelfuraffi.png http://imageshack.us/a/img543/1616/usercontrolpanelfuraffi.png http://imageshack.us/a/img715/1616/usercontrolpanelfuraffi.png http://imageshack.us/a/img39/1616/usercontrolpanelfuraffi.png As you can see, the end result of that transaction.. So I report him to the FA admins, and post a warning about him on my journal on FA. He gets suspended for three days, and fearing that someone else might try and pull that stunt on that auction, I closed it early, giving it to the previous person that was in the lead, Avalon487 with a $450 bid. This whole thing was just confusion, with a troll/scamming bidder to try and cause confusion and disrupt the whole auction process. Other Screenshots: http://imageshack.us/a/img255/889/ychpreposeapplejackbyka.png - NSFW http://imageshack.us/a/img692/2876/ychtrollscammeralertkay.png

Original: https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/646177.html WHO: Otterman89, Bradley WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/otterman89/ WHAT: Digital art, comic. WHEN: November 2nd 2012 - ongoing PROOF & EXPLAIN: In the LJ cut! I had hoped not to have to post here... but here we go! Otterman89 posted a thread on FAF looking for an artist to do a comic series for him. It appears that out of the people that posted their prices, mine were cheapest so I got a note from him on the mainsite even though I asked him to email. (I prefer email because Gmail keeps it threaded and I can open the entire convo at once.) His note, asking a few questions about what I will do, confirming price and asking if he can do it in spurts of a few pages at a time (while still getting the lower rate) since he doesn't like to spend a lot of money at once. ... At 20 pages, the project would be $200. My return note, answering said questions and showing him my comic process. He then sent me his already scripted out (very clearly and easy to follow) comic. It was indeed 20 pages and didn't have any content that was too weird for me. I give him a little more information and confirm that he wants me to do it. He chooses for a Saturday release when he gets pages. This wouldn't be EVERY Saturday I understood, but only when he gave me the go-ahead for more pages. I asked how many pages to do and he said a cover page and the first two pages. I asked again for his email address and said I would send the sketches of all three pages by Friday (Nov 9th) for his approval. He never did send me his email address, so on Nov 8th I send him a note containing a link to the sketches and ask a couple of questions as to the title of the comic and if he wants handwritten text or computer text. He appears happy so far, so I go ahead. We have a little back and forth about when he should post the comics on his gallery. I like to space it a little so that it can possibly increase the amount of people viewing it. Here I should have waited until he actually paid me before finishing the pages, but since I wanted to make good on my promised release date, I went ahead with them. I email him on the agreed date to let him know that the pages are ready and I will send them once I am paid. I still haven't heard from him by the next day so I send him a note with links to the finished pages. Shortly after I get a note saying that he can't pay me for a week because suddenly this other artist he wanted a commission from had an auction going and he decided to bid on it. Nevermind that the work he wanted from me was ready to go. In the interest of keeping peace, I just thanked him for letting me know and said I will be looking forward to next weekend. I did not post the finished pages or give him the pages. He only got to see low res, watermarked copies. Two hours later he mentions a change that he hadn't during the sketch stage. That the characters are actually supposed to be the same height. It hadn't occured to me to ask this, but I had gone through his gallery looking at other drawings of these two and they seemed to be of different heights so that is what I did. It was my mistake though. We agreed to change it for later pages, as in these ones it was only thee panels that showed the difference and not such a big deal. Two days later he changes his mind and asks me to fix it. I get it done. (not pictured in the screen shot is the note from me on Nov14 saying okay and his on the same day saying thanks.) I sent him a money request on the 17th. I didn't hear from him so on the 18th I sent a reminder note and on the 19th I resent a money request using the 'invoice' tab. On the 20th he responds and says he hasn't seen it. reminder, invoice screenie He pays the invoice on the 20th and apologises for the wait. Also says that he will be looking forward to this weekends pages. Emailed the sketches two days later as he indicated on the 20th he wanted more pages for the 24th. I don't seem to have his approval of the sketches saved, but I know he did. I didn't hear from him that weekend, so on the 26th I sent him a note with links to the low res watermarked files to prove they were ready. And an invoice which I dated for the 14th just in case. My mistake was probably saying "They are ready for you whenever you are ready to pay," as this is when the real trouble for me starts. As I was completely ignored until 4 days later when he sent me this note about how the game expansion he wants is on sale so he wants to buy it while he still can. I am miffed at this point, but send back an understanding note saying that my sister is into that game so I understand that he wants it and to keep me in the loop about what he is up to. He sends a note saying "Kk :)" then the next day tries to placate me (I guess) with this note. So the weekend of the 8th goes by and I get nothing from him. No update notes or payment or anything. In the time from when I sent him the invoice on the 26th up until the due date on the 14th, I sent him two reminders.. I am not sure of the days since I don't know if PayPal keeps a record of that. I was very annoyed at this point, so I sent him a note about it. He tries to tell me that he wasn't ignoring me (though he was) and gives me a tale about how he is addicted to art and everyone offers such great deals at this time of the year that he can't help himself. Also about how he should be getting more hours at work but isn't. Excuses... but then says twice that his goal is to pay everyone by Jan 1st 2013. ... Okay I will not get mad at him, because I would like to see this money. I reply and leave it at that. [Archiving Mod Note: Please note that we would not permit information such as this currently.] While all this time of him not paying me is going on, I see him on the FA forums making threads about getting more commissions so it is ticking me off that he has me and apparently a bunch of other artists to pay still and is STILL commissioning more art. Wanting a ref pic... Wanting some kind of fanart... Wanting a WoW pic... Wanting a Lion King pic... Wanting a 2ft plushie made... I restrained myself from posting in any of those threads. Keeping myself professional and not calling him out. On the 17th I got another note with another excuse as to why he couldn't pay me. This time I ignored him because I couldn't trust myself to stay polite. I decided to just wait and see if he would pay me by Jan 1st as his goal stated. Meanwhile, I check his FA page a little and see he is uploading an awful lot of art, although if any are gifts/freebies, I don't know. Forty-eight pictures between the day he commissioned me and today (Jan 2nd). None of them being the pages from me that he did pay for. However, one is a LK picture (he posted looking for one on Dec15th and this was uploaded Dec22nd) which makes me wonder why he could pay that artist who was commissioned after me but not me. Some of the other pictures may have been those other artists from December that he owed, but I have no way of knowing. So on Jan 2nd I sent him another note asking how the payment was coming along and he now promises by this weekend. I really shouldn't have let it drag out this long (although it is not nearly as long as most of the stories here), but I was afraid that if I rocked the boat, I wouldn't see anything at all... but that is what I am seeing now. I sure hope I see that money on the weekend. In either case, I decided several weeks ago that I will not be working with him further on this project but wanted to wait until he paid for the current batch of pages before telling him. I also wanted to hold off on the A_B post until he at least paid me, but I am afraid I won't so I chose to go forward with this post. Beware of Otterman89. Do not do anything (he typically only asks for two types of drawings... tongues tied together or private parts locked together) until he pays you... which I mean, that should go without saying already. Live and learn I suppose. ______ Update- While waiting for this entry to get approved the following has happened... I waited over the weekend and heard nothing from him. In the afternoon on Monday the 7th I sent him a note telling him that I can not work on his project any longer. This is what I already intended to tell him, even if he had paid me. He sends a note back one minute later saying that he was just about to send the money. Personally, I don't believe him, but I am firm about not working with him any longer... though I would still like to get the money. caps of that exchange After that, he asked for my PP address again and FINALLY paid me. So, I guess this is resolved. Now I just have to convince him that I won't do any more pages... at least that I won't do anything until the batch is paid for in advance. No sketches or anything.

Original: https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/645523.html EDIT: The payment as of so far has not been revoked, however, the user in question has never explained himself why he yanked my funds, or even considered the fact that he was in the wrong. However, I'm rather disgusted right at this moment with Artist's beware, whom seemed to have focused on attacking me rather than answering my question. 1. Guys, paypal wasn't my issue. I got a guyfriend to call in and it was all good. 2. My legitimate question was whether or not I should expect him to make up for this mess. 3. Should I even touch the money he tries to send? WHO: Saphiros off of furaffinity- http://www.furaffinity.net/user/saphiros from his pony account http://www.furaffinity.net/user/twentypercentcooler. WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/twentypercentcooler WHAT: Digital art of a fat twilight sparkle- http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9200009/ WHEN: November 6th during an art show, this was commissioned. Shortly after, I noticed the payment was not in my paypal. I stuck an UNPAID squiggle over the image and notified the user via shout that the payment didn't go through. On the 7th of november he responded with an apology and assured me he resent the money. On the 22nd of december I received a note with an apology and another payment for the payment he never sent. This time instead of ten, he sent twenty, which I didn't touch because I was wary of the reversed payments. Shortly after christmas I transferred the money to my bank account, at which point he reversed payment. The money was drawn from my bank account, since the money was in transit, and overdrafted me, PROOF: http://i49.tinypic.com/1o4vp2.jpg my shout http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9200009/ the art http://i50.tinypic.com/64dx03.jpg his reply http://i46.tinypic.com/33lhyer.jpg reversed payment details http://i48.tinypic.com/290y1pk.jpg the note saying he sent the twenty for my trouble EXPLAIN:On November 6th I did a stream for 10$ full colors. This individual twentypercentcooler asked for a fat pony for his account, main account saphiros. The user's payment, supposedly, was sent to the wrong paypal, and I just marked the submission as being unpaid and was going to let it go, since there are a LOT of scammers nowadays. He messaged me in response to my comment that the payment was wrong, and apologized and sent me twenty to unmark the payment as unpaid for. He seemed embarrassed. On the 22nd of December I unmarked the image, and on the 26th I transferred the money to my bank, at which point he issued a contest with paypal. The money to refund was withdrawn from my bank account with a $18.22 balance, and left me a 35$ overdraft fee for the 1.78 I didn't have. The money, as of 12/28, after another user prodded him, was resent once again and as of yet has not been revoked. Paypal will not accept a phone call from me, the owner of the account, due to the fact that I have a man's name and am vocally quite obviously not a male. Their phone center is based in India or somewhere, I believe and the two people I've talked to insisted on speaking with a man. However, the reason for the contest was simply put that the user did not receive said 'physical goods' and I'm not covered for intangible goods. Sad day, indeed. When I originally tried to post the ad, the user had not responded. A response has been made, as well as payment, but I am afraid to touch the money, since he has revoked it twice already. Even still if I do get to keep the money, my bank account is in the red, and the user has not been truthful or forthcoming with information. I feel as if he's only made this latest payment to cover his own tail in the face of embarrassment. I believe he has done this to people before, as there are several cached hidden comments on DA of people commenting on his art info about being a scammer. http://i45.tinypic.com/bgd3z5.jpg What should I do? Should I expect him to compensate me for my loss? In addition, should I expect a full explanation as to why he contested my service? He blemished my record at my paypal and my bank. re readable.

I was contacted by the client on 20th March 2022 with regards to a YCH advertised on Instagram: Here’s proof of the client paying for the commission (potential legal name redacted): I sent them a link to their spot on my public queue, which has access to my terms of service on it as well, and explained my work patterns. Here’s proof of this being added to my queue, as Trello tracks all progress and changes to anything on it: For transparency, here’s my public queue link. The client asked for an update on 1st April 2022, which is no issue at all, but I noted I had not started on the piece yet. While no turnaround time had been communicated by myself nor the client, my average turnaround is around three weeks, depending on the piece and length of my queue: I was finishing up a couple of really large pieces before moving onto the next batch, as communicated above. I got a WIP of the line edits requested to the client the next day as promised, and added minor bits of colour as I was making sure the line changes looked correct: The client confirmed that they were happy with the changes, but wanted a more obvious flick on the hair, and the bandana removing. The bandana is noted as not being optional on the ref, so I confirmed that they definitely wanted it removing. My terms of service state that it is the commissioner’s responsibility to ensure their ref sheet is up to date and changes are communicated in advance, but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt that it was an honest mistake, and made the change with no quarrel: For reference, here’s that part mentioned in my terms of service. Note that this refers to pieces developed outside of YCHs, so I show line art instead before continuing, as there is no sketch to show, only line edits where needed. As mentioned, my terms of service is available via my public queue: As these were minor changes and the client otherwise stated that the piece was ‘perfect’, and not wanting to make the client wait even longer for the piece, I moved onto colouring the piece. At this stage, I noticed that the client’s ref sheet was very difficult to work from, as it was low quality and the markings did not line up across the different views. I actually had my husband and an artist friend view it as well in order to help me figure out if I was getting it right, as I have ADHD and can sometimes miss markings (which is also outlined in my terms of service): To illustrate the issues I was having, here’s part of the conversation I had with my artist friend (identity not included as it’s irrelevant). This artist knows my struggles with some markings, and this is an informal peer-to-peer exchange in helping each other do the best for our clients. This tends to speed up commission work for clients, and means clients don’t get pestered as much over every single marking. I’m also including this to prove that I was not being complacent in trying to get this piece right for the client: I worked on the markings and got back to the client on 7th April with how I had interpreted them based on the ref sheet. The client, rather than asking for alterations that they were very welcome to ask for, instead asked for a full refund: I was quite taken aback by this, as this seemed like a drastic change from the line art being described as ‘perfect’ save for a few alterations. I offered a few options on how to move forward, which I felt were fair to both parties: I linked to my terms of service, which were on my public queue but I was unsure whether they had missed them, and highlighted my refund policy. For reference, here’s my public Terms of Service. I felt that I was being more than fair in offering to make changes based on presumably different markings that may exist on a new reference. The client appeared to retroactively take issue with the fact I had done the markings, as this meant they would receive less of a refund. However, I explained that because they had otherwise said the piece was ‘perfect’ and the changes were so minor, I had continued with it. If they had needed more edits to the identified issues with the line art, I would have been happy to oblige: I calculated roughly how much the client would receive in a refund. The client then listed what changes needed to be made, so I assumed they therefore wanted to continue with the piece. While there are a few changes needed, they were all minor things that would take me very little time to change. This exchange took a few days, as noted in the screenshots, due to the client taking upwards of 24 hours to respond to each message. While I didn’t note it at the time, the first image that the client uses as proof of changes required is from an image I had not received at this point, and is pointing out markings absent or at least different from the ref sheet: I asked for clarification on some markings and noted where I genuinely missed things, such as the nosering, which was my mistake to own. Some of the markings, such as the brown on the leg, I still do not think are consistent with the ref sheet, as they were asking me to put markings on the front on the leg onto the back. However, I was happy to oblige, and this is where the conversation ended, with my understanding being that they would like the changes made and then would review them. As stated previously, I do not work on art every day, and happened to be away from home for a few days, but remained in contact with commissioners and worked on my queue a bit. I received notice from PayPal that a dispute had been opened against me by the client with no notice, and saw that they had blocked me on Instagram: I tried to respond via PayPal to explain my side, but the respond button didn’t work: I attempted to reach out on Instagram before realising they’d blocked me: I had to reach out to PayPal but was unsatisfied with them essentially saying I had to now just wait until May for PayPal to step in to decide on the case, due to the website not working correctly. Here is me contacting them on the site before I eventually called them: I realised that I had the client’s email address, since they’d emailed over a higher quality ref sheet image (same image as previously posted), and reached out there to try to come to an agreement. I reference what the client said in their PayPal dispute text, but due to the site not working correctly, I can’t retrieve a screenshot of this: The client responded reiterating that they wanted a full refund, which seemed unreasonable for the reasons already explained to them: It seemed that we were making progress, and they unblocked me on Instagram, but did not take down their dispute from PayPal, which meant I was still unsure if they were going to attempt to challenge the case either way. I explained how they could do it, but this never happened: I made the edits asked for originally on Instagram, which took very little time as expected: The client asked for more edits, which I did without issue: The client then asked for more edits, and again used a reference image that they had not shown me. I could see that the piece had different markings to the ones visible on the original ref sheet, and they additionally asked for more line art changes: At this stage, working with the client was severely impacting my mental health, and with the PayPal dispute still open, I was scared I would have to keep making endless edits based on images I hadn’t seen in order to please them: The client went silent again after this message, which gave me time to reflect. I decided that the principle of keeping a mere £15 was not worth the stress that all of this was causing me, so when the client still hadn’t replied in the morning, I decided to just refund them in full in order to end the whole thing: I could not refund the piece due to PayPal’s broken website, so I contacted PayPal in order to ask them to close the dispute in favour of the client: I do not believe that I was treated at all fairly by this client and refunded them entirely just to end contact with them. This was already impacting my ability to work on my queue, and I did not want it to impact anyone else.

Hi my name is LadyOlg. I come to you with the help and advice of Salisha following a dispute with the artist Kellion. It's already been several months since I started to collaborate with him following a Devianart contest he created and I won. Only in the last two months the situation has changed quickly, Kellion tried to hijack my drawings and resell them at auction. The last order I made for him was paid 170€, a YCH with 8 characters at 20€ each plus 10€ for the landscape. It was obviously agreed that the figures would be resold so that he could pay back the commission but he never told me that he would make money on them. Two artists including Salisha came to warn me of this, the resale is done on Furafinity, not being known yet on it I think Kellion imagined that I had no account and could make the sale behind my back. So I posted a public comment under the sale to point out an error on his part, without insults or even getting angry because I still believed I could trust him and that there must be a mistake. Obviously he masked the comment but he was also quite angry because some artists had noticed it and wanted to be reimbursed or even threw it out of their community. I often asked Kellion to be clear with me, as his requests were sometimes changing and confusing but I put this down to the fact that neither he nor I speak English. As he was offering me his help since I was a beginner as an artist, I often asked him if my prices were correct, being really cheap at the beginning he advised me once to increase them, which I did but being a beginner I didn't dare to increase them much and asked him however if it was correct, on those he didn't warn me about my prices put only gave an example of a price sheet I could make, not in relation to the budget but in relation to my own rates depending on the type of art. Kellion turned my naivety against me, using this very argument to tell me that these were the prices I had chosen and that it was normal for him to sell them at a higher price because he said that he didn't think he would be able to sell everything concerning the YCH... Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) It wasn't the first time Kellion tries to foul me, you will see it on the captures, but it was more subtle ( for me ) and he managed to manipulate me well enought to be me doing the apologizes and feeling like I've made a mistake or don't understand... I'm sorry for my bad English on the captures, I hope you will understand me well. I've to capture all our conversation sins the beguening so I'll probably send you another email with the rest of the capture ! In the last capture, you can find the first argument on the 33 and the last start to the 87. Here you got the link of the sell he had post on FA : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/45866391/ Thank you a lot for your attention

So this was my first step into doing commission stories. After I put out a notice on both Deviantart and Furaffinity announcing that I am doing story commissions, with the prices being .003 cents per word, or $30 per every 1,000 word. This gent messaged me on Deviantart, commisisoned me to do a fatfur story involving Sonic and Tails (as adults of course, after making him clarify). Of course, as you can surmise from the exchanges provided below, this was my first time, and doing it in the middle of a university semester, so it too much longer than I would have liked. I have a 30 day deadline, but I had to delay the delivery by about three weeks due to me not managing my classes and commission duties well. Needless to say, I delivered the product to him after some back and forth on what he wanted in the story, and he was happy with the product, but he told me he couldn't pay me until the 8th of April. Not seeing the red flags, I accepted that. When the day came, I asked him if he had the money ready. No response. I sent him another message the next day, telling him I need the money and that he promised to pay me $90 on the day in question. Again, no response. Today, I tried to message him again, but I found out he blocked me on Deviantart, so I can't even message him anymore. So now I am posting this beware bulletin to warn other folks about this guy.

The client I would like to report is known as Piscurio/Pisquared. They are a former client and patron who saw fit to terminate their commission halfway through, as well as all communications while I was away for college, etc. The reason I am posting this beware is because now, after over a year, they have returned and are trying to use threats and blackmail to receive a refund when it is explicitly stated in my Terms of Service that I do not give refunds once the work has begun. Unless no work had been done yet/the commission is still waiting in 'queue', or I am unable to continue due to being hospitalized for longer than a period of 1 week, the refunds will not be given. Two separate clients have received refunds from me in the past following this policy. Once who was still in queue and needed to back out, as well as one in 2019 where I could not work as I had been fully hospitalized. Prior to this issue, the user received artwork from me in the form of patreon rewards. They claimed their tier’s ability to have a custom sketch done of their character, which was completed 09/17/20. They were very happy with the result and voiced no issues and we had a fairly strong relationship at the time. Prior to commissioning me fully, the user attempted to ‘haggle’ with my prices. I did not see this as a red flag initially and ignored it at the time in favor of giving them the benefit of the doubt and explaining to them why my prices were the way they were, etc. They then disappeared for some months, only to come back and go through with commissioning me at a lower price. The Issue The commission inquiry was made on the 09/04/20 with payment given on the 10/30/20. No set deadline was discussed with the client and they were aware that I am a college student with health issues and therefore take time working, shown by their references and thus awareness of this later on. Regardless of however long the commission would take to complete, it was clear I would honor it. Please review Image 0. As time went on, they began to grow impatient despite knowing that they were listed under ‘queued’ and would be until the commissions I was currently working on at the time were finished. Complaints were made and I moved them to ‘In Progress’ on November 8th, 2020 to put them at ease. An unwatermarked WIP image with the linework nearly completed was then sent to the client around November 27th, wherein small errors in the design were pointed out. These errors were made due to the client’s reference being largely unclear, but it was promised that the mistakes would be fixed and were fixed at a later date. The WIP was posted again on my discord server, where they were a member. The unwatermarked sketch, however, was deleted from direct messages when I realized the client was posting it online into their own gallery without permission. The issue was later resolved over a stream on Picarto, where I whispered them privately. The user was an active viewer of my streams at the time and would often visit to watch for several hours on end, the content of which included their own commission on many occasions. On December 11th, I marked on Trello that the sketching phase had been completed, as I had fully moved on to lineart by then. I was struggling a lot medically around this time, hence the delay in Trello being updated compared to discord. Despite having expedited their commission (moving it ahead of two others), starting and completing roughly half the work, the client asked for a full refund on January 31st of 2021. In response, I explained to them their options, reminded them of my terms, and once again informed them that refunds were not guaranteed at this stage. The commission was already past the sketch phase at this point, despite the client’s words, as can be seen in the earlier image of their character. While it was not complete at the time, it was well underway and at roughly 98%. I attempted to put their concerns at ease by informing them of other customers who had and were waiting just as long for their commissions, all of which were roughly the same level of complexity and cost as this client’s. It was also explained that I would, regardless of how long it took, complete the commission. Given that this was at the height of the pandemic, and evacuation orders were being given to neighboring colleges in response, I was often unable to respond to long periods of time. However, clients remained informed of this and whenever an update was available on my condition, their commissions, and the like. In the case of this client, I offered to DM them directly when my next stream would start so that they would be informed and could watch their commissions being worked on. The client refused and stated that they had alerts on. The third WIP image was sent to them shortly after. Some weeks later, they left my server, blocked me via discord, and discontinued communication with me. I attempted to reach them and sent a friend request via discord to try and reestablish communication, but they never accepted it. Confused, I continued to work on the commission to near completion. With the sketching phase marked as complete, I did not mark off the next stage (lining) until much later. The reason for this being I was still trying to reestablish contact with my client and had questions that prevented me from finishing this step fully. Despite this, I continued on with the background while I waited. *The dates in this image as of Dec 11th will be further explained below. However, my time working was not without issues. I was forced to not work due to my laptop dying in March. Following this, my college issued an evacuation order in response to a breakout of COVID-19 on campus. Regardless, I continued to inform my clients and sever members of these problems via discord announcements and so on. Unfortunately, the border of my country closed for several months mere hours before I could return home and I was forced to return to the US. They did not open until May 27th, which was around the same time I was allowed to arrive home being on the first flight back. From there, I updated my website, my Trello, and continued working. On June 1st, I resolved that I had waited long enough for my client to reappear and went ahead with marking off both Lining and Color as I had now completed those two steps. This was done tentatively with steps taken to allow corrections should they return. On August 28th, 2021, Pisqcurio sent me a message and demanded I terminate their commission for lack of communication – despite them having blocked me – and alluded that I should give them a refund while fully aware that I would not be due to the commission having been almost completed at the time of termination. Due to rising medical issues and having just returned to college, I was not active on FA and for that I take full responsibility. On January 11th, 2022, the client reapproached me with threats of defamation and claimed I manipulated and gaslighted them when I did not. Their message was accompanied by another over discord that also included more threats, insults, and the promise to continue to harass me. Again, they asked for a refund despite knowing my terms of service and all the work that had been done. They also claimed to have sent an email to me regarding the issue, but I, to this day, have never received an email from them. As can be seen by the above image, I am still, to this day, blocked by them and unable to communicate via discord. We share a server, as can be seen by the image following it, which shows that it is a block and not just us not being in the same community. Upon checking FA, I saw that I was no longer blocked and responded with a message to explain my side of the story while also trying to reason with them. The response I received showed their refusal to cooperate or come to an understanding. I responded with a reminder of what happened, once again, and finally blocked them. I am not proud of this message, but I am including it as well. Edit 01.19.22 Another important thing to note is that the client claims to have emailed me on January 11th, 2022. I checked both my emails and found this; Absolutely nothing. Hence, either they sent their email to the wrong person or fabricated it. I do not have any emails dated on the 11th of January, 2022 from this client and have never received one since from 09/04/2020 to 01/19/2022. What I do have are a total of four twitter notifications and a Buzzly activation email. I checked my gmail as a courtesy, but only the one on outlook is provided or associated with the public and used as my work email.

I had a customer order 4 YCHs off of me on the same base and used discord to discuss it with me and the options. They sent me through the forms and I did a little clarification and then went ahead and sent WIPS of the product before colouring, got the all clear and completed them. I then sent through one which didn't look right and asked if they found a flat version of the pattern on google as this one was textured. I agreed to fix anything they would want as their form was very descriptive. They then proceeded to say this art wasn't as good as the other I have done even though its to the same par. They then decided to just cancel the whole commission even though it was completed and just wanted colour changes. I informed them that I don't do refunds to people who already have their YCHs done, especially when I have sent them the files, to which they explained the YCH doesn't even have shading which I never offered on that base as not all my bases have shading included. Then after all this they decided to threaten me if I didn't refund them and called it trash and junk.

She tried to hire artists on FA under guest name, alex-rose-nitya on mar18, 2020. She PMed me, but said no Paypal, only Cashapp. I declined. Then again on April18, 2020 as foxyfluffstudio. I lost my regular income and was desperately seeking work. So I agreed to accept Bandcamp giftcards. (I had planned to spend the full amount on about 10~20 musicians / bands, some charity to help them through this rough time...) I noticed that she was having thoughts of selling adoptables created from the bases she commissioned, and Her FB profile was non-exsisted, but whatever who still uses FB. Total summary of her crime - She commissioned 4 base packs ( 32 full-body lined characters in total ) and paid $60 out of $480. I finally recieved half of the total payment, after weeks of stalling. Finally, I let her download the 2 completed base sets. At this time I realized my balance went down, but don't know any better, and bandcamp 's staff was overwhelmed with emails, and their waiting line took a lot longer than usual. She denies that she bounced my payment. And once I received bandcamp's feedback and did some digging. (thinking she might be a kid) Found out she is not a kid and asked again if she can switch to PayPal. She kept on lying. The last confrontation of this sad story - After showing her the copied response from Bandcamp, her FA status went immediately from New member > Pending deletion.

Foreword The Beware is labelled NSFW since some attached external links contain NSFW material, but no NSFW pictures will be directly embedded in the post itself. This Beware will be very long, so I decided to organize it into paragraphs to make it easier to understand what happened and how I uncovered the culprit since it's a crucial part of the required proof. Summary One of my Patrons has been re-uploading exclusive content from my Patreon page to the pirate site https://kemono.party/. He didn't have my consent, ne never asked for it nor did he ever tell me. When confronted he declared his act was deliberate. I am writing down this Beware to show, with all evidence I have, what happened to protect other artists like me from this user. Background I've been working with Castore93 for almost three years between Patreon rewards and commissions; I can say we've always been in good terms. He began supporting me through Patreon in November 2019 and as far as I know we never had any issue. (Proof screenshot below.) Kemono.party On January 13th, 2022 I came to know through a friend of mine the existance of kemono.party, an infamous pirate site collecting exclusive material from Patreon and other pay-to-view platforms like SubscribeStar. I sadly discovered my Patreon material was uploaded there too. I was determined to uncover who re-uploaded the material, but to do so I first needed to understand how kemono.party works and how they were able to get it in the first place. Kemono.party works by using a scraper, a piece of software which automatically parses webpages to collect data from them. In order to access protected content, the scraper needs some kind of access key. In the case of kemono.party, the scraper uses the session key from a Patreon account. This means that the user either volountarely gives the scraper access to their account's session key or the account is compromised. The upload happens automatically. Thus, the person responsible must have a Patreon account with access to my exclusive posts; either my account has been hacked or one of my Patrons has, volountarily or not, shared their session key. Finding the culprit My account couldn't have been hacked since I was able to see posts which weren't uploaded to kemono.party. I was fortunate enough to have exaclty three Patrons, all belonging to different tiers. The only way to identify the culprit would be posting a series of artworks limiting access to some specific tiers and seeing which of them would get reposted on kemono.party. I have three different tiers called "A precious gift", "Treasure" and "Jewel's waterfall". When posting a content on Patreon you can choose between some visibility options: You can make your post public so everyone can see it. You can make your post visible to "All patrons" regardless of their tier. You can make a post visible to one or more specific tiers. Selecting a lower tier only does not make the post visible to higher tiers. My three Patrons are Patron 1, Castore93 (Castore Devon on Patreon) and Patron 2. Patron 1 didn't join any tier, so they can only see "Public" and "All patrons" posts. Castore93 (Castore Devon) would be able to see "Public", "All patrons" and "Treasure" tier's posts. Patron 2 can see "Public", "All Patrons" and "Jewel's Waterfall" posts. After uploading each bait post I waited until I saw some of them appear on kemono.party. I made four bait posts: All Patron: it was a check to see if my content was stil being stolen. Selecting "A precious gift", "Treasure" and "Jewel's waterfall" tiers altogether. "Treasure" tier. "Jewel's waterfall" tier. Since nobody was part of the "A precious gift" tier it was no use testing it separately. Test no.1: all Patrons. It has been re-posted. My content was indeed still being stolen. Kemono.party post: https://kemono.party/patreon/user/14947257/post/60897241 Test no.2: All tiers altogether. It has been re-posted. This excludes Patron 1 since they weren't part of any tier, thus unable to see the post. Kemono.party post: https://kemono.party/patreon/user/14947257/post/61104826 Doublecheck. Kemono.party post: https://kemono.party/patreon/user/14947257/post/61286834 3. Selected tiers only: "Treasure" tier. It has been reposted. Kemono.party post: https://kemono.party/patreon/user/14947257/post/61287322 Doublecheck. Kemono.party post: https://kemono.party/patreon/user/14947257/post/61287443 4. Selected tiers only: "Jewel's waterfall". It hasn't been reposted. Check & doublecheck. This excludes Patron 2. Notice how the posts from the "Jewel's waterfall" tier were shared in between "Treasure" posts in order to exclude any time factor. The confrontation It was clear from all the data collected the culprit was the Patron from the "Treasure" tier, Catore93 aka Castore Devon. It was still possible his account had been hacked and he wasn't aware of the situation. So I opted for a neutral approach and he himself confirmed this wasn't the case... On January 20th, 2022 I confronted him. Translation from Italian: Me: Do you know this site? https://kemono.party/ Castore93: I go there sometimes. Me: You do realize this material comes from your account, right? Castore93: But theoretically I think the site uploads content only when you add it, not by itself. I did add some stuff in the past. Me: Do you knwo this is copyright infringment and illegal, right? Castore93: I am curious to understand how it shows it has taken the material without me uploading it. About uploading stuff from Patreon (when I did it some time ago) about that I would have a certain personal point of view, you're not wrong obviously. (SIC) Me: The site connects to your account's session cookie, uploading does not depend from you. In any case you can keep whatever point of view you want as long as my pay-to-view material remains visible only to those who paid for it. Castore93: Ok so one time is all it takes. Later that day I posted a public Patreon journal explaining the situation and how I will be sharing my contents from now on to avoid similar theft. This post too appeared on kemono.party (as you can see from the previous screenshots), meaning Castore93's session cookie was still active on kemono.party. Taking down the material I wish to add this part to show what kind of assholes arise from such events. After contacting Patreon to ask for advice, they suggested me to send a DMCA takedown request to the site which is the typical course of action. However, the criminals running the site ever so smugly responded with... excuses... even if the site has a "DMCA" page with instructios on how to send a DMCA takedown notice. I don't feel like letting them win. I am now in the process of researching my options to deal with the situation. I will try to give updates in the comments about this if I find anything which might be useful to everyone. Conclusion I lost a considerable amout of time dealing with the whole situation, which is amounted to a lot of frustration not to mention the damage of having copyrighted material posted around without authorization. Please be aware of this user.

Please note that this person has multiple names, the only name he was going by was legal names so the usernames mentioned are from Telegram and email, I do not know if he has a Twitter, FA, whatever. I know AB has a rule about legal names, hence the hyphening of the last names, however I only know the names through what I've seen and searching came up with nothing. He has multiple PayPal emails with the name mentioned but in parenthesis "unidentified," they come back to 3 completely different names. It should also be noted that in the Telegram chats (mentioned below, which are deleted so I have no proof) there are two other people mentioned "involved" in this transaction so I feel it is worthwhile to have multiple names for the beware. Some time in late April "Hyperion" contacted me through Telegram about purchasing a fursuit I had for sale, a white tiger partial for $2,000 plus shipping. He later asked me to add in a fan and the total came out to $2,082. All of these receipts were deleted by him and he has blocked me on Telegram after the emails below were sent, possibly in an attempt to not have me write this beware on him or use it against him with the PayPal claim, however I still have all of the payments sent for the suit. These were sent every month for varying amounts until the final payment was sent in August. It is unclear if the fursuit was purchased for "Hyperion" or a friend he never mentioned by name. First payment (email is to Alex) Second payment (to Max) Third payment (to Alex) Final payment (to Alex, name is father's and has been censored) On August 9th Max sends me an email detailing that he would like a refund because the moving jaw does not work on the costume, despite me providing sizing on the posts about the fursuit being for sale. I offer to show him how to fix it or a refund for the moving jaw, but not for the suit as a whole. He declines and wishes to send it back. I have been in quarantine for several months and forgot, hey, we're in the middle of a pandemic and he has mentioned that multiple people have tested the suit. I decline to take it back, all sales are final, and he chooses to ignore this, pressuring me to take the suit back and claiming the state/county he lives in has no cases (this is one of the states on my state's restriction list). I cite this again and he does not respond after that. Mentioning of sizing for the head On August 30th around noon I receive an email from PayPal without a word from him that a claim has been filed for $445.99, citing multiple issues with the transaction. More chargebacks while the client still has the suit: Plus each chargeback has a $20 charge, totaling $80.

Commissioned me to make a simple logo withholding that it was going to be used for a clothing brand when my art is not for commercial use. Art has not been completed and refund has been issued. [Mod Note: OP Found out via group message that the client intended to use the work for commercial use. Unrelated parties are censored.] [Client was refunded and blocked.]