Issues with a fursuit trade...

[thera]

Alright, so, last summer somewhere around June/July of 2012, I started a fursuit trade with the user "KazeTorashi", also known as "LigercraftSuits" on FurAffinity. Things had been going well. She was always very polite and wonderful to talk to and quick to reply to any questions I had. The tail had been completed on July 23rd and can be seen here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8483241/

The initial deadline was to be September 19, on which day the suit should have been completed, already shipped, and in my posession as a birthday gift for myself. On September 5th, the paws to my suit and a picture of the foam base were posted.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8799803/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8800015/

This Sept. 19th deadline was missed, but I didn't mind too much seeing as she had other things on her plate that people had paid for that she had to to first and there was enough done on my fursuit for me to rest easy.

There were a few more "deadlines" floating around after that, but they were all missed as well. I sat tight for the next update, and sure enough on January 4th of this year the pictures of my full partial had been posted. Hooray!
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9615896/

I don't remember the exact date but not too long after that was posted up I got into a Skype conversation where we discussed shipping prices. It was decided that I would pay for shipping on the Thera partial and she would pay for shipping on my end of this trade, a black husky partial. She gave me a quote of 13$ and a few days after the Skype chat on January 17th I sent her 16$ to make sure it would cover any and all fees or extra charges. I wanted to be sure she had everything she needed of course!
Screencap of the payment:
http://i.imgur.com/EtZI1Nz.png

On January 22nd I got my stuff together and mailed out my end of the trade.
Receipt:
http://i.imgur.com/aVxBWQR.jpg
According to the tracking number and Canada Post website the suit arrived at the address I was given on January 28th.
http://i.imgur.com/KuFmoZl.png

On February 11th I asked for an update on their end of the trade via note on FA, which can be seen here:
http://i.imgur.com/pnkdLRk.png

That note, along with the one where I told her my end had been shipped, still haven't been read. Now I don't want to seem impatient here, but I'm starting to get a little frustrated. I have had NO contact with KazeTorashi since our Skype chat ~2 months ago and since then I've sent her a note, page shouts, an e-mail, another note to one of her roomates, and got a friend of mine with her cell number to send her a text. Still no replies at all to any of these attempts.
http://imgur.com/a/cKKuK

Now, I'm an EXTREMELY patient person when it comes to things like this, and I don't like pestering people, and I certainly don't want to bother or annoy the suit maker as she's always been the sweetest girl ever to deal with and I wish her the best in life and her fursuit endeavors, but I'm also not very pleased with how she's been handling this situation. The most important thing when you're running a business if to make yourself available to the people you're working with so that at least they know whether or not there's an issue. I've simply been stranded in the dust here with no idea as to what's going on with my suit and now I'm feeling like I have lost 52$ AND my black husky fursuit AND my Thera partial all at once.

I'm really hoping for the best and for her to pull through on this, and it hasn't been TOO long since I last saw her around(she posted a journal on the 29th of January saying things would be shipped on her next day off work), but since she owes me my suit and some shipping money(which I don't mind letting go of if I get my fursuit!) and hasn't been in contact at all, it makes me worry that something might be wrong. At the same time I'm trying to be patient and remain calm about all this, but it's coming up on one whole month since the last time she's been active *anywhere* online and it's very worrisome behaviour.

Hopefully I hear something from her soon, because her work is amazing and so is she, and I'd really hate to see something happen to her as she's a brilliant artist in many ways and deserves the best out of this fandom in my opinion.

Comments

[norsepaw.livejournal.com]

Found it strange she haven't posted for a while and looked on all the places I know she use and have linked through FA, but not very active there either.

either she got internett problems, even if she had I find it strange she haven't gone to a library(or to friends) who might got a computer with internet to use and just update and say what the problem is.

lets hope nothing bad has happened to her.

[thera (from livejournal.com)]

I know for a fact that it isn't internet issues as her ex/roommate is frequently online and on FA posting stuff.

This is an issue of her avoiding and staying offline so she doesn't have to read notes/messages from all the people trying to get in contact with her.

I hope things are fine too but I really think there's an issue here, not just a simple internet connection problem.

[shenzino.livejournal.com]

I was supposed to get a discount fursuit from this maker but cancelled my order. I asked for art in exchange and ended up re-sending my note to them about what I wanted several times. They have yet to respond. This was in early 2012. They told me they couldn't do a refund which is why I opted for art (they had already spent it despite not starting on the suit yet?) and I never heard anything back. I'm chalking up a $250 loss at this point...

[thera (from livejournal.com)]

That is very unfortunate. I knew she'd been messing around with others too but I never thought it'd be to that extent.. I'm sorry this happened to you.

I really wish she'd get her stuff together, all of this is ridiculous! D:

[growly.livejournal.com]

I had talked with her about her issues a few months ago and offered some advice for getting out of this hole, I truly believe she is not trying to scam anyone.
She mentioned on FA getting a new job and moving to a new apartment semi-recently, both of which are major, stressful events (even if its good stress, it's still a big life change). I wouldn't count her out just yet.

She owes me $110 from the $150 partial suit contest thing (http://www.furaffinity.net/journals/ligercraftsuits/#jid:3791055) she ran a while ago, so I really do have to believe she is going to make good on everyone's suits/refunds. :(

It is troubling that she won't ship something that's been finished for months though (especially because you paid for shipping, so having no money is no excuse)... I have to wonder if it got damaged or lost during the move? Or that she spent the shipping money immediately and now has to try to scrounge up enough extra money to send it out?

I feel like it's "shame on me" for thinking anyone would make a quality partial suit for $150... I definitely should have known better. Here's hoping everyone gets what they are owed.

[thera (from livejournal.com)]

I don't think it would have been though and even if something had happened to my partial I'd be cool if she still sent it out anyways. I know how to sew and I even told her when she got swamped that I'd deal with installing the eyes and finishing it up if she just sent the materials along in the box. She got it done though so now here's to hoping she can finish the last leg of the race, so to speak. :P

And I don't know of a single person that would have to "scrounge" for 13$ for shipping though! If she ever needed more money I'd be more than happy to send it, really. Just so long as I get what's rightfully mine. I don't have any fursuits anymore, which sucks because there's some events I miss out on from that.

I really hope this is just a matter of her being stressed from work(I know I have a hard time with jobs because of this) and I really do believe she'll pull through(at least for me) but to me she shouldn't have taken on so many projects at once.. Everyone makes mistakes though, nothing you can do about it but try and fix 'em.

Her stuff really is amazing though, so like I said, I hope she can deal with all this soon enough and not leave myself and others hangin' for too long. :/

I'm also hopeful that wither her new job it'll be easy for her to refund people to get some of that workload off...

[miharuokami.livejournal.com]

Her quality is not in question though. My friend got her suit from that contest for only 65$ and the quality is superb. so if you actually got your suit I think you'd like it. It's her work ethic that's in question her. we can see the pics and from the looks it's very good I'm just wondering why she hasn't sent it.

[growly.livejournal.com]

What I mean is that people that are really good at what they do just don't give deals like that and I should have known burnout or something would have happened, it's just not rewarding for the artist to get so little money for the work. I wasn't meaning to imply the costume would be low quality, just that it was unlikely for me to ever receive it.

[shadowedyoshii.livejournal.com]

I also am owed work from her, but I also don't believe she's intentionally trying to scam anyone, and just got over her head. It happens to newbie makers, and I can only sympathize, and I'm more than willing to be patient and wait and hopefully receive my suit c: It does kind of suck that she falls into the anxiety-guilt-avoidance cycle so easily, it seems like she could mitigate her problems a TON if she just promised herself "I will post a journal a week, proving I'm alive, if only to just say 'i have had a rough week and not much progress has been made, but i'm still here' because simply having a presence will assuage people's anxieties about me".

[thera (from livejournal.com)]

I'm still rooting for her haha. I really think she'll pull through eventually. I hope she's okay too more than anything.

[miharuokami.livejournal.com]

Speaking from my own experience and the experience of others, she fell into the trap of a new maker. She got excited, got all these hopes and dreams and now she realizes how hard it is to get in this business. I've made the same mistake when I started. I know she isn't scamming you. She's probably disappointed she's letting people down. She's probably tired of making excuses and letting people down more so she's avoiding people. I've made that mistake and worse in my time so I know the feelings / mindset.

What I learned and what I hope she can learn is to Give people updates even if you haven't accomplished much because it at least let's people know you didn't run off.

But as I said she didn't run off. I know she hasn't. And I know she's not a scammer.She bit off more than she could chew and is now ashamed. All I can say is give her time.

[thera (from livejournal.com)]

Which is fair enough for work that isn't finished, but I don't quite understand why she can't complete the final step in this, which is just taking to the post office and mailing it.

It's just frustrating for me is all. If she wanted to make it better it would only take about an hour of her time and it's all good. :/

[miharuokami.livejournal.com]

Fair enough that I can not explain cause personally when I finish stuff I owe I just want to get rid of it myself. That part of her behavior is odd.

[thera (from livejournal.com)]

Yeah. :/
Hence the beware haha.

[growly.livejournal.com]

Any news from Liger?

[thera (from livejournal.com)]

Still nothing. Starting to wonder if she's dead or was just an alias of someone else. Or if her life really took a turn for the worse, but honestly I think she's avoiding now.

Pretty upset over this, though I was going to get a beautiful fursuit of my fursona and now I don't think there's any chance of it.. ;__;

[growly.livejournal.com]

That is extremely disappointing to hear. :( I hope she isn't injured or dead, but I also hope she doesn't intend to "get away" with stealing from people, either.

[thera (from livejournal.com)]

Ditto.

I'm also pretty pissed that FA admins seem to be completely ignoring the TT I sent in about it. Like. Eum. This person has mass scammed hundreds of dollars off of like 15+ users??? It just seems REALLY SHADY to me that somehow someone would just drop off the face of the earth, literally, without even updating first wtf?

[growly.livejournal.com]

I don't really see what mod action could even do. Banning an account she doesn't log into or use anymore doesn't really do anything except make it more difficult for us to figure what she's up to.

If she was actively soliciting new commissions through FA while ignoring older ones, then it would make sense to stop her through a ban, but in this case I don't think it's going to do any good. u_u

[thera (from livejournal.com)]

Well who knows, I was thinking maybe see if she has any other accounts on FA from IP stuff or something? Either way it's something I think should be looked into since it happened on their site.

*edit: More importantly than that I'd like to know when she was last online. If she's had internet access the whole time and just hasn't been posting anywhere... Tsktsk.

[growly.livejournal.com]

Got'cha. I've never heard of FA mods disclosing that kind of information though.

[sigilgoat.livejournal.com]

Correct, FA mods wouldn't share any IP info, though they may be able to let you know if someone has been online since their last journal.

I'll ask Bazeel on your behalf and get back to you, OP!

[thera (from livejournal.com)]

I don't care if they tell ME it's information for them to know so they can deal with the situation is what I'm saying. ^.^

[sigilgoat.livejournal.com]

From Bazeel, FA Admin: The Liger account has been logged into approximately 3 weeks ago, however the KazeTorashi account has been inactive for 3 months.

[thera (from livejournal.com)]

Thank you for this tidbit!

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

As you have received your suit, I have marked this and your other post as resolved.