Artist Beware : Fenrisu

[bunnystrut.livejournal.com]

WHO : Fenrisu

WHERE : http://www.furaffinity.net/user/fenrisu/

WHAT : Backed out of YCH http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14645993/ (NSFW)

WHEN : YCH Started on Sept. 28th, they bid on it then, then backed out October 1st

PROOF : http://i.imgur.com/bowqkJT.png

EXPLAIN : Quite simple situation, Fenrisu backed out of a YCH I posted, they bid twice, first the $25 then a $45, then decided on October 1st, that they didn't want it anymore and to give it to the person behind them. I already have it clearly written in my rules to not do this and they ignored it.

I am posting this A_B so other people can watch out for this person and be wary of them.

Comments

[eikthyrnir.livejournal.com]

Seems they ran into bills etc?
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6159862/

Not excusing their behavior/backing out though

[bunnystrut.livejournal.com]

I would have understood/told them it was okay if they just explained it instead of saying "giving it to Wul", that makes you believe that they were just joke bidding or changing their mind.

[eikthyrnir.livejournal.com]

I agree. They definitely should have told you that instead of just backing out and then complaining later in a journal.

[bunnystrut.livejournal.com]

Plus its only lucky for me that Wul is actually a regular customer, I do have in my rules that I ask the runner ups if they want it but they have no responsibility to keep their bids, the runner ups can say no.

It's just a hassle for both the artists and the serious bidders.

[kayla-na.livejournal.com]

Had a YCH customer do that to me because he wanted to bid on another YCH that I put up, and I was not happy about it at all. The runner-up didn't want it either and I lost about $150 of potential sales because of that Though, he did promptly apologize and gave me the money anyway for free.

Even if bills come up, that's a pretty shitty thing to do to an artist. If you don't have the funds to pay for a YCH, you don't bid at all. =\

[bunnystrut.livejournal.com]

ugh well i'm happy things settled out for you

but it's so true, i wish people would understand this instead of complain

[sableantelope.livejournal.com]

Law shit warning! But I think it's very important to know for people running auctions on FA for fursuits or YHCs.

Auction bidding has 2 legal statuses, binding & non-binding. The USA is especially seller protective so has more of a lean towards auctions defaulting to binding bid status.That means you CAN'T JUST CHANGE YOUR MIND once you bid. You gotta pay up and then try and recoup your loss by reselling the item you bought.
This is the law. False bids are illegal, same as trying to interfere with anyone else bidding.
I'm surprised FA doesn't take auction harassment and false bids more serious, since as long as they allow auctions to run on FA they open up to potential legal issues. It's why auction sites are usually just dedicated auction sites, because you have a lot of legal issues wrapped up in auctions. The site can be fined along with the persons who committed the illegal acts during auctions.
You, as the winner, also cannot try and change payment period. If the payment period is 72 hours after auction ends you pay up within that time frame. You can't try and get a payment plan after the auction ends.
(of course as a seller you can always be more flexible than the law and work with a buyer, no shame in that, it's great for building goodwill)

Binding bid status auctions must have clear contract info available to allow you to enforce the binding status.
[TOS does not replace a contract/buyer's agreement, remember. I suggest a simple BA to be included with every auction, plus a link to your TOS and very clear end and start dates, including hour and minute. You can't extend the auction once you have bids(even if you feel it's too low a bid amount, so a reserve or a min starting bid are a good idea) or you negate your auction and bidders can try and get after you for auction fraud. However: if there's an issue with a bid you can resume the auction at the next highest valid bid, or start the bidding again. If you have to restart the bidding you still can't extend the time. Your only option is to cancel if no bids other than the questionable bid, or restart the bidding from the beginning with whatever time is left
Be sure and have clear payment due dates as well. Also many areas have a min preview time, sometimes 30 minutes, sometimes a day. Part of this is to prevent impulse bids. So check the auction law for your state/province and add a wait time to your posting(ie: no bids until the YHC as been up for 1 hour)].

Non-binding bid auctions allow a bid to = showing interest in buying, with the option to pass once bidding ends.
I'm worried most auctions on FA as of now might get lumped into this category because some vital auction info is missing.
Sellers you'll want to get your ducks in a row to allow you to run binding bid auctions since you know that the amount of the winning bid is the amount you get. You can enforce bids.

So for the folks running auctions on FA:

• Check auction law for the US where FA is based, and your area's laws. (if you need help, google your state plus buyer's agreement and you can get forms already done up, you'll want to change dates and item description for every new auction.) A bid is consent to buyer's agreement in auction sales.

• Have your buyer's agreement/auction contract + TOS info together as the Terms of your Auctions and have it easily accessible to bidders on the auction listing(so the FA page with your YHC). Make sure to state explicitly all bids are binding, just for clarity's sake.
Make sure with every first bid a bidder makes that they also comment that they read the terms of the auction!!!

• Be clear with open and end times, include hour and minute along with the dates, allowing for a short preview time(I think going for an hour from post time to first bid being accepted on FA would cover your butt securely) before bidding.

• Be clear with payment timeframe(generally 72 hours), if you accept payment plans include the detailed specifics of that in your auction terms.
Include what payment types you accept. (this will probably be in your TOS

So do all that and you have yourself a binding bid auction! Now you can go after anyone who tries to back out of bidding!

(and buyers do NOT bid if you are not 100% sure you can pay)

[dragontripmon.livejournal.com]

I think those rules applies to actual legal site auctions FA really is not designed for auctions since it's an art gallery. I really doubt that those rules would be enforced.

[sableantelope.livejournal.com]

In the States it applies soon as you set up what can be considered a properly legal auction, which is why I recommend sellers take the time to add a some more info and set up a basic agreement part of their auction terms to benefit from that binding bid protection.

In other countries who have different laws with auctions, yeah not so much(previewing for example is a big part of auction law here in my country, no so much in the US). FA is in the US, so auctioning through FA puts your auction under US auction laws. US business law in general tends towards making it as easy to business as possible. So you make a little effort on your end and can reap the protection as a seller.

An auction site becomes an auction site by setting up auction terms according to laws in their area, nothing particularly special about it. Usually what they do in particular is set up terms to limit their liability in terms of how responsible they are for auctions gone wrong, it does require some vigilance, though. Less than FA staff tends to want to do so I'm guessing some day on FA a large amount involved auction is going to go wrong and FA is going to face blow back damage from it and that'll be the end of auctions of FA. I hope not, I hope people will protect themselves and buyers will be responsible but eeee..it's a ticking time bomb in a lot of ways.

In fact FA would do really well to partner with an auction site and hand off that legal responsibility to Furbuy or Furbid or whatever but make it as easy for FA users to bid on the partner site as possible.

Selling some kinds of items(real estate for example) and some types of auctions need to be registered in some places, generally simple sale kind of auctions don't need to be.

Basically if buyers would only bid when they can and will pay, and sellers protect themselves with how they set their auctions up then auctions go smoothly on FA and everyone will be happy.

[sableantelope.livejournal.com]

I mean licensed, not registered sorry!! Registration comes with the license, but what I meant was that some states require a license for some kinds of auctions.

Basically check with your state/provincial law.

If you did live in a state which needs a license and didn't have one but still ran YHC/fursuit auctions you'd be running them with no protection if someone rips you off. You could also get yourself into trouble is someone reported you to auction fraud. Again running a simple auction like most are on FA, and with no Auctioneer(which is where the meat of auction law is focused) I doubt any state is going to make you license and reg that auction.

[niimou.livejournal.com]

Super informative as always ( ´ ▽ ` ) If you don't mind me asking, what sort of recourse does an artist have if a bidder flakes in a binding auction?

[sableantelope.livejournal.com]

Assuming US:
You can sue, as always may or may not be worth the legal fees. You can also contact whatever branch of police in your area handles online auction fraud. (FBI also has auction fraud division in the US, but for say a $35 porn commission you might not want to involve that. They'll point you to the Internet Crime Complaint Center or the Federal Trade Commission http://www.ftc.gov/)

Fines would be levied by some states in cases of auction fraud.

It can be tough to sue over borders, you can sue someone in absentia but usually can't collect until they are in or set up assessts in your country. Or you can sue in their country, but you'd have to pay for travelling and being there.

(I accidentally a word, ugh LJ is not working well for me slow loading, sorry if double post)

[niimou.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. That makes sense. Thanks again (^_^)

[intj-reflection.livejournal.com]

Please forgive me if you've mentioned it previously, but what is your law experience? Your posts are always so thorough and informative that I look forward to any time you speak up.

[sableantelope.livejournal.com]

Hey, no worries I understand wanting to know the background where the advice is coming from to see if it's worth taking to heart.

I originally studied international law, and Russian business law.
Then I was an accounting and fraud investigator with a major bank here in Canada, which lead me into forensics. I did mainly cadaver search/post disaster recovery- but not for very long. I don't have interest in the criminal side of things and focused on forensic accounting.
I also studied real estate law during this time thinking I might go into that.

My health took a nose dive, leading to the terminal condition I have now; however I recently was able to get medical permission to go back to university(after trying for a long time but being too unstable health wise), but because I'm now legally blind I can't go back to forensics. So I'm studying consumer law. Thanks to my previous education, if my health holds out I'm hoping to be before the bar by next Summer as solicitor(since I don't have much interest in the barrister side of things).

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

Agree about how informative your comments are! I feel pretty well-versed in copyright law but not so much all this other stuff. It's nice to be able to read it in non-legalese :}.

Also your icon is super cute!

[sableantelope.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that copyright law is something I'm not well versed in, especially not the US's special digital law stuff. I owe a big thanks to the folks here at AB who do know that stuff well, it helped me get a hang on it and lead me to read up more on it as well- especially the differences in custom and non custom items legally.

[kattotang.livejournal.com]

I just had someone back out of my most recent YCH as well, though they didn't even say anything about it until I called them out on deleting their bid comment, and then just said "I checked my account after bidding and didn't have the funds". :\ Luckily for me, the runner-up still wanted the pic.

[spytdragonfyre.livejournal.com]

Same thing happened to me, but unfortunately there was no other bid. I'd really just prefer they say they're backing out rather than just hide their comment. That seems rude.

[kattotang.livejournal.com]

It definitely is rude, and sneaky. Like they think maybe the artist won't notice if they just quietly hide the comment or something. And that was what annoyed me the most. Like, I already have it right in my auction rules that bids are binding and backing out = blacklisting, but I mean, I'm not unreasonable. If someone came to me and was like "Gee, y'know, I thought I had these funds to spare, but an emergency came up, I'm sorry but it turns out I need those funds for this other thing..." I'd be like, okay, sucks for me but things happen sometimes and I won't punish someone facing an emergency. But to just try to sneak a retraction, and also with the excuse of "Oh I just don't have the funds lol" is like...wow, really?