Customer Beware

[cambria-jacolf.livejournal.com]

First time posting here but I wanted to give everyone a heads up on this guy who wanted to commission me at AC07

  I'm not really sure who this guy is so there is no name to go by but I have a character description on me that he gave me when asking me about a commission. I was doing AA [Artist Alley] at Anthrocon 2007 and a random guy with a shaved head and a blue tie-dye wolf shirt walked up to my table and "poked" me. I was in the middle of doing work and got shocked by it, thankfully I was only sketching and not inking so he didn't mess the commission I was working on. He just bluntly asked "Hey umm could you draw this guy and color him with colored pencils?" I was very polite and asked him if he had wanted a background etc. and began writing down what he wanted. I then asked him for a refrence sheet or something to go by and he begrudgingly handed me a black and white printed copy of a eagle/gryphon typr character in what looked like a super hero oufit, something like a Thundercat character would wear. He told me the colors of each item and I jotted down little notes beside each thing on what color they were.

 After all of that was done I wrote him a receipt and asked if he would pay the amount of $10.00 for a full color one character no background commission. He took it and left. I didn't see what direction he went to but as the day went on he never came back and said that he had paid for it. So when I went to collect my money that I had made that day Duncan da Husky, the man who operates AA, the AA cash registers and the Con store said he had found the receipt crumpled up on the ground. I honestly didn't care, I threw away the sheet the customer had given me and shrugged it off since if he didn't pay I wasn't going to worry about it since I wasn't going to draw!

 So the next day at AA I was watching and waiting for customers and had seen him. Everytime him and I made eye contact he would walk away and look at me cautiously and everytime I saw him that same day, he had a different shirt on every time! I guess he was just paranoid thinking I was mad. Really I could have given a crap less, if he didn't want to pay, he wasn't going to get art off me.

 So this is just a heads up for all the other artists out there. If you get this guy do not draw unless you get full payment from him.

Comments

[beetlecat.livejournal.com]

.. so.. someone said they would buy art from you. They (like 90% of people who talk to me about art) didn't. You didn't start work beyond a basic consultation... I really fail to see the issue.

Not doing work until you have a payment.. is pretty well a given. Not something that really needs a story attached.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

- The fact that he invaded the artist's personal space alone warrants it if you ask me.
- He wasted the artist's time by detailing what he wanted and making the artist stop working so he could write it all down.

If this guy approached me at a con I'd probably tell him to keep moving (after I break his finger for poking me) and leave my table open for serious customers. Small-talk I don't mind, pretending you're going to commission me and then not pay, is not.

[beetlecat.livejournal.com]

That's not the customer's issue. They always ask odd and inappropriate questions at bad times. You either say "move along" or stop and chat. If you chat you may get a sale from it or you may not. Nothing is guaranteed. That's the way it works.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Your reply, it's like you never even read the comment.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

I'm off to bed so I'll try to keep this simple.

- No touchie.
- Oral agreement. If you don't want a commission, don't say you do, give all the details etc. and then just not pay without even a "On second thought, you suck, I'm going to spend the huge amount of 10 dollars on some gay furry smut, kbai."

If I were at a con and he tried it with me I'd be thankful for the warning here so I could go "Don't waste my time and leave, bai." so I'll have more time for smalltalk with nice non-lying people and customers who actually pay and have more time to work on their commissions without getting poked while I'm doing so.

[beetlecat.livejournal.com]

You reply like you've never lived in the real world.

Oral agreement = nadda

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Quite. If I had just a buck for every person who's said "okay, that's settled, I'll send you the money right away" and then vanished off the face of the planet, I'd have quite a few bucks.

Although I did eventually tell off the guy who'd run me around the process of working out all the details and getting to the payment point about eight times without ever actually buying anything. Apparently he had a "dream" of someday getting a fursuit, and felt that wasting my time was the best way to indulge this dream, sans money. But that's an extreme case, where he wasted hours and hours and hours of my time. "Wasting" a bit of time regularly on people who end up not buying is part of ANY business.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/58882/understanding_oral_contracts.html

"oral contracts are as legally binding as written agreements"

There is an issue about ambiguity, but when artist says "Okay, can you go pay?" and the pretend customer goes "Okay!" and then doesn't he is in breach of an oral agreement and can be considered unreliable.

Welcome to the real world schnookums.

[xianjaguar.livejournal.com]

Artist's Alley at AC operates differently from 'the real world'.
You NEVER get paid 'right up front'.
You enter into an verbal agreement with the customer, and write them a receipt. They take the receipt up to the Con Cash Register, and pay. At the end of the day, the Con totals up your sales and pays you all the wages you made from the receipts that day.

If you waited for every customer to come back and tell you they actually paid, you'd be really behind in your work, since most people pay and wander off somewhere. Once that receipt is given to a Customer, they're expected to go right up to the Con Cash register and Pay.

So yes, given the circumstances, the OP has a very real gripe.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Ah. That is a different situation. Having never been to AC, I wasn't aware of this rather cumbersome way of doing business.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Pfft, you're quick to agree that my opinion is unrealistic when you don't even know how the process works. Hilarious.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

There's no need to make this personal. Misunderstandings quite often happen, and the OP rather failed to explain that things work differently at this convention that at any other convention, sale, fair, or other event that I have ever attended.

[thisbloodybone.livejournal.com]

If I remember right, I thought they tried to remedy that situation by having the customer return with the yellow receipt so you know they paid. That way they can compare the totals they got. If you don't get a receipt back, don't start work. Even if you didn't get the receipt back, you could tell if there was a difference in the total you got at the end of the day.

While I see what everyone else is saying, I think I have to agree with Beetlecat. Yeah he invaded her space, but let's get down to brass tacks: furries aren't know for their manners or social aptitude. As for not paying, it really comes down to it being a minor inconvenience. If I saw a guy with that description (which, I agree, sounds like 1/3 of the fandom, and my boyfriend oddly enough), I wouldn't be all gtfoplz. If he did the same thing to me... oh well. Whatever.

[skanrashke.livejournal.com]

This year they had to return with a "paid slip" in order to claim their commission- although most smart folks told them they needed to come back with it in order for them to start their commission.

But this is a pretty common occurance. People sometimes approach artists and discuss commissions just to have someone to talk to. Its' sad but, whatever. It happens.

[thisbloodybone.livejournal.com]

I was gonna say. AC was my first time in an Artist's Alley and I know the protocol was that they commissioner had to bring back the slips before you started work. I also know that, it is like you said: a lot of people approach you and tell you what they want, regardless if they're actually going to commission you. Almost everyone who commissioned me at AC told me what they wanted, then told me that they'd come back after they looked around. I mean, I guess I could see where it'd be more of an inconvenience because she had to fill out the slip but... it's just that, and inconvenience. They're a part of life, and I don't think they warrant a beware. But that's just my opinion.

[cassu-bean.livejournal.com]

Wow that's really shifty and lame. Also $10 for a coloured commission, I think you're selling yourself way too short.

[avanyu.livejournal.com]

...y'know, though I do know your icon is the Baroness and that rocks, my first thought - due to all the Sarah Palin imagery I've been subjected to - was that Sarah Palin worked for COBRA.

[cassu-bean.livejournal.com]

Ah yes I have seen those. XD

[thisbloodybone.livejournal.com]

I agree with the selling yourself WAAAAAAY too short part. I did the same thing at AC and after that, I bumped my prices up. XD

[warsawkook.livejournal.com]

a random guy with a shaved head and a blue tie-dye wolf shirt

That's only a good 1/3 of the fandom right there. :P
(NOT TRYING TO BE MEAN! It just made me giggle a lil!)

Sillyness aside - wth was THAT dude's problem? If you change your mind then you change your mind, whatever... although NOTIFYING the artist would have been the polite thing to do, but eh. Some people have no courtesy.