Coerced by a client - Beware of Extraxi

[what-insomnia.livejournal.com]

WHO: User Extraxi on FA, tumblr and Weasyl, and Magnus on Skype; for as far as I know these are his aliases.

WHERE: On Skype.

WHAT: Being threatened, pushed around and coerced over a doodle commission worth 20USD

WHEN: Payment was sent in batch a while ago for another doodle slot and a fully colored commission altogether, which were done and finished. Settling for the idea on the last doodle occured on 19th November , it was finished on 2nd December although with a petition from Extraxi to change a few stuff, and postponed due to the end of semester exams. Said commission has been finished on 27th January after the events described below.

PROOF:

- Agreement and settling for the idea: http://gyazo.com/ad6b4c9a69674deb20530a8f776d0763.png

- Doodle done, request for corrections: http://gyazo.com/8358b8010e73cca343d21a24edceb622.png

- End of commission by agreement from the commissioner on Jan 27th: http://gyazo.com/64235b3f10e62a895d5aa3a54d88c710.png

EXPLAIN The situation is, I offer quick doodles as a Pay What You Want thing, on a stream every Friday. This person in particular commissioned me for two doodles and a fully rendered picture. Which I do, in a reasonable time (less than a month) but he insists on a fix on the doodle, and I agree to it; but given it is December and the semester is ending there I post all over my page that I have finals, and that I’ll be offering a few special slots to amount some money for Christmas. After that and pretty much from Christmas to Jan 20th there’s been zero commissioning activity from me due to the exams.

Do note here that I have always been accessible, both on Skype and FA, to this guy, even chatted about refunding several times.

On the 26th we talk and I finally tell him I’m not comfortable knowing that I still owe him that picture (and avoiding simply telling him that I didn’t feel alright doing the fixes he asked, making me feel uncomfortable) so I tell him I’d better refund the job. Here he overreacts, and accuses me to push his fixing back all the way and that he will report me to AB for that reason, that it is not "proper behaviour".

http://gyazo.com/c2eba8e1803d48754c3821b1f78930e1.png
http://gyazo.com/f0711f7145edfc2c031fd384b43b203a.png
http://gyazo.com/ae1efa421a17b0e040747b321dc702aa.png
http://gyazo.com/8da85bcdb4d6a2869f9b408608db0250.png
http://gyazo.com/52d99aaba870cdb0f40a70a2b6e01251.png

I admit to it as a mistake, apologize profusely and after a whole lot of discussing we settle for a fix: not only we settle on me adjusting his doodle, but I also offer a new one, so as long as word keeps out of AB. In this moment I feel the right to decide who I have business with has completely being taken away from me by the threat. I have no idea how seriously his word could be taken out of context and I prefer to simply fix this.

It is mentioned a previous case in the last screencap. I regrettably decided to get involved in his pressuring FA artist qwertydragon, who had a similar threat for getting posted on AB and her PayPal blocked, and I do regret this move because I see his threats to post people on AB are not something new in my case. Other artists I have talked to and worked with him have had similar problems, and this gives me enough reasons to believe I'm not the first and that I won't be the last artist to be put through this.

Even after all this, it is not enough for him.

On Jan 27th the doodle commission is done. And he does ask for me to upload it to my Weasyl, which I refuse, and things take a turn for the worse, where he clearly shows that more than content with the fix, he only wants to tackle me down.

http://gyazo.com/c6f85bf850e96e954fd4f30835aa3e8a.png
http://gyazo.com/55547dc76fa884f351958f48e336e5ff.png
http://gyazo.com/3685d3d313f20d9d939625b2f756fe2a.png
http://gyazo.com/1285c4f1daf4de64467e0099e1a4348e.png
http://gyazo.com/9941231dbed83d19d093055d532b1a85.png
http://gyazo.com/af5fe2362773673919e024acd7142f2f.png
http://gyazo.com/3ce2807842016811f327a9afb9db248f.png
http://gyazo.com/199af26c6103b31266c23bdcf6e9e1c2.png

His only excuse to this behavior is not feeling alright with being lied to. At no point did he apologize or even acknowledge the situation he put me in.

After this I talked the situation with my fiancee and several friends, decided to discuss it with the owner of Artists Beware, and after being told that this kind of behavior may be enough to grant him a beware I proceed to write this up.

Be careful about him. He acts nice around you, but if you ever decide to refuse to have any business with him he will do all that is in his hand to have things his way. You can judge by the last series of screencaps that he was very willing to lose hours in debating a technicality. I agree with others describing him as extremely nitpicking and abusive.

And again, if I myself have acted wrong I have offered at all times to make up for it to the commissioner and apologized. The waiting time has been a few weeks and I believe it is acceptable. Contact has not been lost at any time.

So please. If you are an artist with any amount of self-respect and want to keep the hold of your business without being threatened against it, refuse all contact from this person. As he himself admits, he "gets pissed from stupid shit".

EDIT: ToS have been written out of this incident to avoid future abuses and have been reviewed by several of my friends, both artists and commissioners. I welcome everyone to read them and help me polish them more, if they find anything worth editing: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PiFIq1n4YpfKImr73f6UYDCZMP_dEXmsyKcQiELB9m4/pub

Comments

MOD NOTE

[arphalia.livejournal.com]

Heyhey! I put this through but could you edit to fix your LJ cut tag? The closing part of the tag appears to be in the wrong place. Thanks! :)

Beware whatInsomnia

[magnus aduro (from livejournal.com)]

Look at this. an absolute farce.

Real story:

We had agreed on the idea on times and dates. His postpone is true, but he fails to add that he had not only worked on stream content, but many, MANY other pieces as well. You need only look at his log between Dec 2nd and today to see there were plenty more than just ‘stream commissions’ in that lot.

What he also fails to straight up say is his excuse for why mine wasn’t done when any of these were: because it was late.

The full conversation (instead of parts):

http://i.imgur.com/8RTzNcN.png

http://i.imgur.com/IJagEwY.png

As you can see, I wanted to go directly to AB and had started compiling information because of just this. He, however, didn’t want to be on AB (for obvious reasons) so figured the best course of action was to ‘help me forget.’

He offered yet another picture, and with reluctance, I accepted it, planning on a gift for FinalRoar, so it would at least be something special.

Though I had written an original AB post, I had trashed it as he tried to sound more and more sincere. My mistake, of course, as at first chance, he decides to post me to AB for his own misconduct. Furry drama at its finest.

As you can see, he also tries to justify this AB post by saying I had threatened someone else with AB as well if I didn’t get a refund, Qwertydragon. (As a note, he had originally sided with me in the ordeal as well, considering what she had done.)

Although only somewhat relevant, Qwerty was commissioned to do a simple piece and made many, MANY errors and whenever approached about a single one, would flip way off the handle and refuse to fix it, even when one problem was one character’s arm taking up half their torso.

Then comes the series where he had made up a lie to avoid posting to Weasyl. When I simply wanted to add the (finally) fixed doodle to my collection, he refuses because he “wont upload doodles.”

Of course, he says this is a “technicality” but the fact is, he said he doesn’t upload doodles, and yet every single page of his has doodles. He tries to make it into a technicality by changing the definition of doodle, saying doodle means commission, but this it outright ridiculous. The fact that he needed to lie, instead of just being straight with me, after already making such an insult the day before, it out of the question.

It doesn’t end there, either. He had convinced a user on FA named HotChoclatey (if not, an alt account) to not only continually spam my page and submissions, but friends’ journals as well, and possibly their notes, too, as seen:

http://imgur.com/AQ1YF3f,M85nuS7,pCz56LW,7wtVAxI

There is no doubt that, upon confronting, he’ll either pretend to have no connection with this person, or he didn’t tell them to continually do this.

All in all, be careful of whatInsomnia on FA, Weasyl, and Tumblr. He will pick and choose who he cares about, and apparently go to AB about people who threaten his misconduct with AB. If you actually want to get a completed image, avoid commissioning whatInsomnia and find someone who will take their job professionally, instead of on a whim.

Re: Beware whatInsomnia

[chronidu.livejournal.com]

I'm confused on something, if I'm correct, after having started on the work he was doing for you, and showing you the work, you decided you wanted revisions. After that WhatInsomina offered to completely refund you OR for you to wait until he felt up to try and re-tackle your work, and you chose the wait option, is this correct?

Did you expect him to postpone all artwork of all types until he had finished your piece when you both refused a refund and agreed to wait on it? I guess I'm just confused because you seem to be aggravated by the fact that he still did his weekly streams (work separate from his commissions) and that he continued work on other waiting and incoming commissions until he was ready to tackle yours again, when you agreed with him that the commission could be postponed for a bit.

It's really not uncommon or even strange for an artist to work on less stressful commissions in between harder ones, so I don't see why you seem to be holding him doing this as something so personal and like it's some sort of an attack against you, to the point of berating him so much about it. Again especially after you specifically agreed that you would be okay with waiting.

Just speaking as an artist here, but making some pieces isn't always as easy as just snapping ones fingers. Some pieces are going to end up being a lot more of a struggle, especially when they have an added amount of stress to them.

And I've got to say, reading the full screencaps you posted, they are definitely not doing you any favors in how you are treating and talking to the artist. At first I was going to be a bit more on the fence about how the artist spoke, but seeing how you talk at them, guilt them, and throw wild accusations at them I'm really not surprised they responded as aggravated as they did. This is not to say WhatInsomnia did not make mistakes, but the way you are shown acting start to finish here is to be honest manipulative and damn near abusive.

That said, when an artist says No to posting it on a site, you are not obligated to a reason why, the answer is simply that, no. Rather than harassing them until you get the answer you want, you should respect the artist and accept their answer. There is no excuse for how you acted towards WhatInsomnia after you got 'No' as an answer.

And finally, according to what and who is this person harassing you on your page connected to WhatInsomnia? I'm assuming that since you are making the claim they were SENT by the artist you have some means of showing this?

Re: Beware whatInsomnia

[celestinaketzia.livejournal.com]

As you can see, I wanted to go directly to AB and had started compiling information because of just this. He, however, didn’t want to be on AB (for obvious reasons) so figured the best course of action was to ‘help me forget.’

That is not what AB is for. It is not an axe to hang over someone's head. An artist has the right to cancel a job and refund the money when they feel like it. An artist has the right to post their work or not to post their work no questions asked. Unless the right is signed over to you, they still own their work and choose what happens to it after the fact.

Re: Beware whatInsomnia

[poizenkat.livejournal.com]

I don't understand. He gave you a choice, wait or take a refund. You chose to wait. What did you expect? The choices he gave you were completely within his rights.

Re: Beware whatInsomnia

[ljmydayaway.livejournal.com]

People who threaten to use AB to get what they want SHOULD be posted to AB. This place isn't meant to be used as blackmail.

Re: Beware whatInsomnia

[doggiy.livejournal.com]

Honestly, even with the screencaps of "full conversations" that you included in this comment, your behavior and manner of speaking still comes across as extremely manipulative and harmful.

You're offended that whatInsomnia took so long to edit and revise a doodle that you purchased, but from what I gather, the artist gave you two options before all of this occurred; you could either accept a refund, or wait patiently as your commission would be postponed. You had every chance to say "yes, I would like a refund", but you didn't, and instead you consented to having your commission pushed back. When this discussion happened you should have expected a delay, and for other artwork to be completed during the wait time. If you didn't want to deal with the heartache, you should have just taken your money back when it was practically shoved into your hands, simple as that.

On another note, the fact that you later had the audacity to threaten the artist with an artist's beware after he had done absolutely nothing that could be considered problematic really puts me off and makes me reluctant to believe a word of your claims. A_B is a community meant to warn artists of troublesome customers, and vice versa. It's not here to be dangled over someone's head as a threat to get them to run their business the way that you want them to, no matter how justifiable that may seem in some situations. Besides, in the screencaps it can be clearly seen that you are disrespecting whatInsomnia, so why would you even want to publicize that and tarnish your own reputation as a buyer? The threat holds no weight and makes no sense.

For example, in the discussion I saw you suddenly bringing up the fact that you picked a scab and were bleeding, for no obvious reason other than to make the artist feel guilty. If you genuinely needed to explain your absence, you could have simple said that you were away from your computer for a moment, rather than taking an extremely unprofessional and somewhat abusive approach and then expecting the artist to still want to work with you, ignoring the fact that an artist is completely entitled to cancel and refund a commission at any given time.

You also tried to pressure them into posting artwork into their gallery, despite the fact that they refused, by outright accusing them of lying, calling them disingenuous, silly, and generally throwing a tantrum. It's their gallery, they have every right to refuse to post it and if you really wanted it to be seen you could easily have asked for permission to upload it into your own, with credit. When you bought the commission, you paid for the artist's services, which you later received. They're not obligated to provide anything else.

Re: Beware whatInsomnia

[starcharmer.livejournal.com]

Way to make yourself look worse.

[ladysnakebite.livejournal.com]

Frankly I think the bullying over WhatInsomnia's decision to upload or not upload the art is completely over the line. It's his gallery, and Magnus has no right to dictate the content of it -- regardless of whether similar other content has been uploaded before. The excuse or reason behind it doesn't matter: It's WhatInsomnia's gallery, so WhatInsomnia decides what he will or will not upload. That's that.

Furthermore, Magnus had the option of uploading the image himself to his own Gallery on Weasyl -- Collections are not mandatory.

Magnus's complete refusal to drop the subject and his continuous browbeating of WhatInsomnia, even when told outright by WhatInsomnia that he just doesn't want to upload the art, is really completely inappropriate.

[amocin.livejournal.com]

Everything ladysnakebite said. You cant make an artist upload your picture to their gallery. If you wanted that done, you should have asked for it ahead of time, and they could have agreed or disagreed and then you could figure out if you still wanted the commission.

Also... who refuses a refund? And why was it not just given to him? If artist felt like the dude was becoming more hassle then he was worth, I would have rather refunded him and risked being posted on AB for refunding a customer for services not rendered. I dont see anything wrong with that. (Or am I missing something?)

[what-insomnia.livejournal.com]

Simply put, I was plain scared. Until he got menacing I believed I could arrange my schedule anytime in the next days to finish the thing and get done with it, but from then on and especially with that threat of getting posted to AB I had zero idea if refunding would work at that point at all.

I've been doing commissions for only the past 4-5 months and only given a refund once before; so it was hard for me to react to this, and I was totally unsure of what he could hold against me due to the lack of any conditions or written contract established beforehand. In case of this being actually brought up as a public issue I was afraid whoever might rule anything in his favor just because I hadn't specified anything at all while agreeing to the job.

Really not knowledgeable and scared really. Thankfully I wrote a ToS covering that now, and I talked to some law friends who assured me even without such a thing, I still can refund and call it over.

Next time I'm sure not letting anybody get this far nor cross so many lines.

[amocin.livejournal.com]

That is understandable, more so if you just got into commissioning. I didnt make a TOS right away, but after these type of issues start up, you learn that you need a solid TOS. There are many resources here on AB where you can find how to make a TOS as well as the TOS of other artists to help make sure you cover everything that may cause a problem.

A few suggestions if you have not already.

-reserving the right to post or not post artwork
- Refusing to commission, without explanation.
- Refunding for whatever you see fit. (amount can be determined on how much work was already done.) You shouldnt always have to refund the entire amount when you have done a ton of work. Just use your best judgement.

Also make sure that they agree to these terms first. If they say they do, but dont read it, thats not your problem. They still agreed to it.

[celestinaketzia.livejournal.com]

Everything here. Its their gallery and they can upload or not upload whatever they want.

[sapphistscot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm absolutely appalled that Magnus would think it was even remotely appropriate to demand that the OP upload his commission on Weasyl. It's the OP's gallery, and if the OP doesn't want this commission on his gallery, for whatever reason he sees fit or no reason at all, then that's up to the OP.

[duster.livejournal.com]

I feel like the commissioner does not know the point of AB. It's not somethig to use a weapon when an artist doesn't bend to your temper tantrum. Even if the OP forced a refund on the commissioner, what would the commissioner put up? The logs are clear as day.

[snippetchick.livejournal.com]

The biggest mistake the artist made in this was not telling Magnus to go his hardest with AB after having offered a refund or to wait, and Magnus made the choice.

This behaviour absolutely crosses the line. It is very unfortunate that Magnus appears to think that his behaviour is perfectly acceptable and appropriate. From the response posted below, I feel even more certain this commissioner should be avoided, or, failing that, only artists ready and able to deal with the behaviour work with him. I have a 0 tolerance policy for abuse. If people act in an abusive or inappropriate manner with me, they do not get rewarded for it. I would have simply issued a refund once the inappropriate comments started, or, if justified (consistent with any written agreements etc), just stopped making edits and told the commissioner to go his hardest with AB or court if that's what floats his boat and then blocked him. This controlling behaviour is simply not on. I would have to work very hard not to tear strips off any commissioner for trying to control my intellectual property by telling me where I should and shouldn't upload it.

Beware very well warranted.

[magicporpoise.livejournal.com]

I would have never been able to word it better myself. very well said. I agree with this completely.

[magicporpoise.livejournal.com]

I say, refund him, no questions asked. You dont need his permission to send him a refund, it is YOUR right to do so, I say, do it.

Also, I think it's absolutely unfair that he thinks you're obligated to upload the image to weasyl, it is YOUR gallery, so you post what you want to. I think it is a little odd that he would push you so much to not refund him, and it really raises some red flags when he starts to push you to post the work on a personal gallery. ~ Hope everything turns out ok.

[wolf-goat.livejournal.com]

Wellp there was an instant block. Really would not ever wish to deal with this guy.

[celestinaketzia.livejournal.com]

Just toss this guy a refund and walk away. I also really do suggest you make a clear and concise ToS if you don't already have one, especially for your doodles. I would even suggest a "no changes/ what you see is what you get" rule unless its to repair any -major- errors.

The fact that a client is treating a "doodle" as if it were a refined imagine is obnoxious enough, but to try and bully you with the threat of AB is just a whole lot of nope. A "doodle" should be a doodle and that's that.

[kestral-kitsune.livejournal.com]

ouch, yeah there's a block and do not work with ever, geez I've had the requests to NOT upload the picture to a gallery since they wanted a private commission.I second Celestina's suggestion on the ToS thing.

yeah, and Magnus is definitely not helping himself with his comment here,bullies should not be tolerated no matter if they're a paying customer or not, I'd say refund his butt and wash your hands of him.

[mazz.livejournal.com]

Man if you still have to do any work for this person hit the refund button and block them as hard as you can everywhere. What a manipulative person, even in his reply here he's just.. no... no dude.

Beware well warranted.

[sapphistscot.livejournal.com]

What the heck was this guy's AB post going to be, "this artist is a meanie because they refuse to upload my commission to their gallery"? I'm pretty sure the mods here would just have knocked that back. Oh well, another name for the 'do not work with' list...

[tyrano-tiggs.livejournal.com]

Don't have much to add that's not already been said except I feel really uncomfortable at his "bend one way or another" line regarding Qwerty.
Pretty sure that's blackmail "do as I say or I freeze your money"

[val !! (from livejournal.com)]

an artist reserves the right to cancel a commission and refund the buyer, if Magnus actually frequented AB (instead of using it as a threat) he would know this.

[norsepaw.livejournal.com]

He's probably heard from some artists who did not like AB and thought he could use AB as threat.

[ljmydayaway.livejournal.com]

Just so you know, the "refund" option in Paypal lets you choose how much to refund (up to the amount of the original payment), and is valid for 60 days after the payment has been sent.

Or was the last time I used it.

[starcharmer.livejournal.com]

Ooh I didn't know this! That is good information to have.

[anuvia.livejournal.com]

I normally don't block people preemptively or prior to having had personal dealings with them, but this person is over the line and I really would never want to do business with them.

[dirtiran.livejournal.com]

This person reminds me a LOT of someone I had to deal with years back, the manner of how they talk to artists and attitude is extremely similar XD

My suggestion is calculate the refunds price, and send it along to their account and cut them loose. You do not need to deal with this sort of behaviour at all, and you are well within your rights to refund.

[patto! (from livejournal.com)]

I've actually done work for this guy, once. I will never work for him again. Even though he is entitled to his fixes he is incredibly disrespectful and rude to the commissioners he works with. Asking for ridiculous amounts of fixes while showing no gratitude to the people he works with.

I slaved over this guys demands going back and fourth about 5 times on his character and in the end he doesn't give the artist a thank-you and rather says something along the lines of the picture being satisfactory and that's about it.

Other artists I have spoken to have received similar if not the same treatment and to top it all off he bad talks the artists that he commissions behind their back.