Search the Community

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

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

Was in talks with the artist prior to commissioning them about ideas. Officially commissioned them February 12th, 2024 when I was invoiced and paid for a two character NSFW commission of my character Lumi and my spouse's character, Milosh with an alt version. The agreed amount for the commission was $300 total. Experienced some major delays initially on seeing any progress, which lead to a few inquiries. I eventually settled for the idea to be changed to a one character pin-up of Lumi in a cheerleader outfit with an alt, and receiving a half refund on that. I didn't get the half refund until quite a bit later, then received a passable sketch. Asked for some minor changes, then nothing. Weeks turned into months, months approaching a near year, and no correspondence from the artist as seen in the images prior despite numerous attempts. The artist however still active and drawing despite owing me and avoiding me. The images show the main area of communication via Discord, but I have inquired on Twitter and via email. Unfortunately for me PayPal can't do anything as it's taken longer than what protection they offer customers, so here I am. I wanted to settle things civilly but have been outright ghosted by the artist.

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

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

Uses deceptive wording and pressure tactics. Initially I was willing to forgive and assume inexperience, but the ask for double for delivery, then for a different commission, then for a 50% tip flew way past the acceptable line and drained the remainder of my good will. End product (no watermark free copy was received) not received as of today 9/17/2024. Artist reached out first after small talk and was the one who initiated conversation after I followed them on Tumblr.