General Advice Post: Declining a Commission and/or a Trade

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

Be it their reputation, their attitude or just the overall theme of what they want you to draw for them - we as artists and people have the right to say 'no' to offers placed upon our plates.

The question is, how does one say 'no' in such a way that it is purely professional and has that weight of finality to it that doesn't allow for weasel room. Lets figure out the best way to create a standard of etiquette for declining inquiries we don't want to handle!

I'm opening the floor to the community on this. Please feel free to advise or suggest ways to professionally bow out of offers for commissions or trades.

If you recall someone making a post or a comment regarding this in the past, and felt it was a big help to you; please link to it for everyone's reference!

I might have been scammed

[mozz1.livejournal.com]

I have reason to believe I was scammed by an artist on Furaffinity

It happened about year ago, I met with an artist online who was just starting out, but seemed promising. Me and him established a good friendship, and coincidentally we only live maybe 30 minutes away from each other. So we decided to meet up at a restaurant. We had a great time, and left on a really positive note. But before we left, I gave him 20 dollars cash for a color and ink commission.

The artist in question is named Furinkazan, and here is his FA page: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/furinkazan/

Shortly after me and Furinkazan met in person, he began talking to me less and less on MSN, until he decided to eventually block me for reasons unknown. And for months, I could not get in touch with him. I tried sending him only a few PM's through FA just to see if he was still active, which he did not respond to. But I knew he was active, as he was favoriting others works, and occasionally posting his own. At that point I made a very grave mistake which I wholeheartedly regret doing and posted on Furinkazan's shout box something along the lines of: "Thanks for stealing 20 bucks from me"

That shout was immediately deleted by him, and he left a shout on my page, marked a year ago, which you can see here: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/mozz/ It says: "I never said I wouldn't finish your commission, so don't accuse me of stealing in a public arena when I've stolen nothing from you. If you have something to say, note me."

Even though it was a bad idea, I figured now he was finally going to talk to me, I PM'ed him back, and the conversation is as follows:

http://qrf.servequake.com/~orl/misc/pm1.png

So it would appear, it all worked out in the end. Well not quite. Even though we made up, I still never got any commission from him, but I did wish him happy holidays:

http://qrf.servequake.com/~orl/misc/pm2.png

We then clarified what I wanted my commission to be:

http://qrf.servequake.com/~orl/misc/pm3.png

And that was the last time we talked. He still blocked me from MSN, but he promised me that he was going to do the commission. A half a year passes, and still no commission from him. However I'm still being patient, and when his birthday comes around, I leave a shout on his page wishing him a happy birthday. He leaves a shout back on my page, which is still there that says: "Thanks! I'll have your stuff done soon, sorry it's taken so long."

What I did next might have probably put him over the edge, and it was also something stupid I did that I regret doing. Last month on September 5th, I left a shout on his page saying "Happy one year anniversary that I still haven't got my commission! :D" Well that shout was quickly deleted, my name was removed from his owed commissions list, and I was blocked from his page entirely. I was not trying to start drama, I was merely stating that its been a year now, and I still don't have my commission. I completely went about it the wrong way

So now a month later. At this point, I don't care if I don't get my commission, or if I don't get a refund, I just want the community to know that Furinkazan is a scam artist, and to not make the same mistake I did. I tried contacting several different FA administrators, but they all ignored me. Finally as my last step, I made a thread on the FA forums, and a few civil people there redirected me to Arists_beware, since it is quite clear from that thread, that they do not care that there is a scam artist still at large, and that I am the one at fault somehow, that I was harassing him. Here is a link to the thread in question: http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108723-Scam-artist-on-FA

Well apparently from the thread the issue was resolved, at least for the moment. After much consideration, I gave furinkazan my home address so he can send the refund through the mail, as shown in this PM: http://qrf.servequake.com/~orl/misc/pm4.png
 Well it has been three months later, and I still have yet to receive that refund, which I kind of expected I wasn't going to receive.

I admit completely, that there were moments where I should have handled the situation much more appropriately, and not have said some of the things I said. Unfortunately, I cannot take what I said back, but I did apologize for what I said, and understand it was wrong to do so. But I still feel that does not excuse the fact that it has been a year and a half that I paid this artist for a simple piece of artwork that I will never receive, plus the fact he probably has no plans on refunding my commission money.

(no subject)

[kazufox.livejournal.com]

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Changing community appearance

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

Due to issues on some computers with displaying the new S1 comment layout, as well as eyestrain and visibility issues, we have had to switch the community to the S2 style for the comments. This means that the comments page will now look very similar to the community page.

We are in the process of finding a layout that both works with our setup and is easier on the eyes. You may notice A_B changing appearance as we adjust things, so please bear with us.

Feel free to give us feedback on the changes (please keep it to this post or to PMs and email). We will try to take suggestions into consideration, but we are somewhat limited by the layout options we need for the community.

Thank you all for your patience!