artists_beware | Coerced by a client

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