NSFW commission - Final versions never recieved.

[stalgondo.livejournal.com]

Please be forewarned, this was a commission for adult material. Some links on this post refer to NSFW material.

Who: TwistedCreations on Hentai-foundry.

Where:
NSFW link - his hentai-foundry account:
http://www.hentai-foundry.com/profile-TwistedCreations.php
Communication was mainly over MSN messenger, but I sent several emails attempting to contact him.

What:
Digital Artwork of a Female Orc with two versions of the same image, paid in two transactions of $100 each ($200 total).

When:
January 14th 2011 - I first contacted him to commission the artwork. The price and details were agreed upon.
January 28th 2011 - First rough sketch was received and I paid the first installment.
February 7th 2011 - Second rough sketch was received and I paid the second installment.

The last contact I received was on Febuary 7th 2011. I never received the final versions of the artwork.

Proof:
NSFW text - Chat log of all conversations:
http://doujinhunter.totalh.com/twistedchat.txt
NSFW - Last image received:
http://i.imgur.com/fvJFo.jpg
Email 1:
http://i.imgur.com/VrZVA.png
Email 2:
http://i.imgur.com/KU7KW.png
Email 3:
http://i.imgur.com/V0rjn.png
Email 4:
http://i.imgur.com/NlnjF.png
Paypal Transfer 1:
http://i.imgur.com/YDcWn.png
Paypal Transfer 2:
http://i.imgur.com/EiKkS.png
Evading me on MSN:
http://i.imgur.com/uBtAk.png

Explain:

Things went well initially, and the final draft was sent to me on Feb. 7th. I confirmed the final changes and sent the final payment. I have received no contact since, and I have made several attempts to contact him. I have sent him numerous emails asking for any reply or notice that I am not being ignored. He did not appear to be on MSN, but using an alternate MSN account, I determined that he has blocked my main MSN account. Contacting him via the alternate MSN account caused him to block that one as well.

I attempted to retract payment via paypal, but they would not allow me to dispute a payment that was categorized as "other". I have submitted a transaction dispute to econsumer.gov in hopes of getting those payments retracted. I would prefer to have the final work, but that seems unlikely at this point.

I was referred here by the hentai-foundry forums, and I will also be posting this to hentai-foundry to warn others.
Thanks for reading,
Stalgondo

Comments

[fenrirs-child.livejournal.com]

i'm sorry to hear that, i just went through a similar experience, and luckily for me a threat to force a refund through paypal was enough to get them to fork over the fullsizes... i just don't understand why it's so hard to send a freaking email for some people :/

[stalgondo.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I really just looked for any contact, any sign at all that I wasn't being completely ignored. He wouldn't even give me the time of day to make an excuse.

Thanks for the Sympathy, I appreciate it :)

[teahound.livejournal.com]

Oh, she sent yours? Cool! =D
(Sorry for being off-topic; I hadn't kept up with your original post.)

[fenrirs-child.livejournal.com]

yeah, i think i updated it, but i can't recall off the top of my head X3 i believe shadowsani got theirs as well after that ^^

[sbneko.livejournal.com]

A bit off topic here, but did you lock this so people under 18 can't read it?

It's really good to warn about NSFW things, but if you do that some people may not be able to read the post C:

[stalgondo.livejournal.com]

I marked it as "explicit adult content". I'm not sure if that is how you correctly lock this sort of thing.

I'm new to this site, so if there is something else I need to do please let me know how to do it.

[sbneko.livejournal.com]

I think maybe this would be up to the moderators to decide rather then myself. I don't use livejournal too often either, but I had to make a new account to see this this lol

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

The post itself isn't locked. It just has the age warning, which would be appropriate for this situation as it contains adult content.

[sbneko.livejournal.com]

I understand it's appropriate, but for those under 18, they can't see the post at all. So that's a bit of shame if the artist takes on clean work as well and those people wouldn't know about them.

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

All right, after discussing it with another mod, since there is no unsafe material in the post itself I'm going to instruct the OP to change the settings to 'No Adult Concepts'.

Mod post.

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

Since you already warned the links are NSFW, go ahead and change the setting to 'No Adult Concepts'.

Re: Mod post.

[stalgondo.livejournal.com]

There were two options available "No Adult Content" and "Adult Concepts".
I set it to "No Adult Content". I set it to Explicit content originally to avoid violating any sort of standards. Let me know if anything else needs changing.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's what I meant. Oops. Should be fine now.

[girlomega.livejournal.com]

The links are going to a search engine site for me.

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

That's odd... they were working for me a minute ago but now I see the same thing.

When I click on them from the e-mail sent to me for comment notification for this post, they work. But if I click on them in the community they don't.

[stalgondo.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing that out. The same thing is happening to me, so I changed the links to a more reliable host.

[mrst4nkr.livejournal.com]

Will your account get into trouble for purchasing "adult" artwork through paypal? (Pinups and porn alike, even if one is considered tasteful) I thought a lot of people switched to alertpay for that reason.

(If anyone can clarify this for me, that would be awesome. I'm googling for INFO on their policies ATM. )


:C I hope they get back to you.

[stalgondo.livejournal.com]

That would depend on if they have the motivation and the ability to trace this transaction back to my account. When I talked to PayPal about retracting payment, I told them the payment was for commissioned artwork (nothing specific though). They told me I couldn't retract payment because of how it was categorized (not as a good or a service, but as "other").

I'm not sure exactly what their policy is regarding the purchase of adult material, but I will look into AlertPay for anything I commission in the future. I am not happy with PayPal's service anyway.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

You can't buy porn and adult novelties with Paypal I think, unless it's from.. eBay? I think? Whichever site owns Paypal these days.

But I file commissions under "services rendered", the nature of the commission itself need never come up I believe, and both parties will get screwed over if they tattle on Paypal, so *shrug*

It's in everybody's best interest to be discrete.

[mrst4nkr.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay. Thank you!!

When I googled, all I was able to find was: "Prohibited use. The Child may not use the Student Account to engage in activities that may be illegal for minors under federal and/or state laws, including, but not limited to, the purchase or sale of alcohol, tobacco or adult oriented content. PayPal reserves the right to limit or close the Parent Account and/or Student Account if PayPal believes that the Student Account is associated with any prohibited use. PayPal may also block Student Account payments to any PayPal account selling products or services that PayPal believes to be inappropriate for minors."

But that just referred to the student accounts.

Thanks again!!

[holydust.livejournal.com]

is he making journal posts? anything? anything to show that he's, y'know, alive?

seems a little early to be making a "this guy screwed me" post since he's not clearly "evading" you from what i can tell.

forgive me if he has been obviously making posts elsewhere. but i saw another post on the hentai foundry site from another user asking him to check his email. is it obvious he's just avoiding you, or has he dropped off the face of the earth? it's been what -- 2 and a half months since you first contacted him to even start the commission?

just playing devil's advocate, here; as an artist, that'd be a somewhat reasonable timeline for an artist who was active on the scene. for one who isn't making any posts, well, i'd be worried something bad happened to him.

but that's just me.

[stalgondo.livejournal.com]

He has been visiting his hentai-foundry page almost daily, and updated his non-hentai deviantart account earlier this week.

When I made this post it was approaching a 2 month wait for the final drawings, which he said would be delivered the day following the final payment day (February 8th). He still has not contacted me.

He flat out put my MSN account on ignore. I verified this by friending him on another MSN account. When I asked about it on the new account, he put that one on ignore as well. He also continues to ignore my emails asking for the final version.

I don't think 2 months without contact is a reasonable timeline for anyone who does commissioned artwork, especially anyone who has a 95% finished product that they were paid $200 US for.

oi...

[holydust.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry if I didn't see that in the post. I couldn't tell if there was any confirmation that dude was still alive.

Sounds like avoidance, if he's clearly online but not responding. It's one thing to have a 2 month wait and keep people posted, but it's another to go incommunicado.

And wow. Ignore? You didn't even get angry with him, at least not to his face. Sounds like a crook to me, after all.

[peas-n-rice.livejournal.com]

This the same person? http://www.furaffinity.net/user/nsfw/