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.

[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.

[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 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.

[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.

[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.