Pre-ordered CD, never received it

[shadowclaw.livejournal.com]

At Anthrocon '10 Cownugget(aka Gunmouth) was advertising a vore CD for purchase. When I got to his booth, I decided to purchase it. He informed me that he didn't actually get the CD ready in time for the convention, but was still taking purchases for them in a "pre-order" type fashion, and the CD would be completed shortly after the convention.

6 Months later, on December 30th, I sent Cownugget a note informing him that I would like an ETA on the CD. I've waited nearly a month since then and still have gotten no reply. I would like to get a copy of that CD still.



He definitely read (or at least opened) my note, as it was marked as read when I checked it. I'm concerned about how many people must be waiting on this CD, and how much "pre-order" money he's collected at this point without anything to show for it. I'm wondering how I should proceed in this situation, if he won't reply to my notes?

Thank you for reading!

Comments

[shukivengeance.livejournal.com]

This isnt the first time gunmouth has been featured here, he seems pretty flaky. I hope you get what you're owed or a refund at the very least.

[insane-kangaroo.livejournal.com]

Make sure you make a post to the Anthrocon forums as well, CC this post to con ops.

[shadowclaw.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip! What would they do though?

[sigilgoat.livejournal.com]

They can bar him from selling there in the future

[gizagiza.livejournal.com]

No they can't. First thing I did when I started to have problems was e-mail the head of the artist's alley. They hold no responsibility about artists holding up their end of the bargain, sadly. Makes sense though - they just don't have the resources to do something like that, and it's really not their job to police the artists.

[mrst4nkr.livejournal.com]

I have seen them ban an artist before until they produced the artwork they sold at the con.

It can be done!

[gizagiza.livejournal.com]

Interesting. This is a truncated version of e-mail I received from them regarding the matter: (A good FYI, but quite long in its entirety, just say so if you want me to post the whole thing)

Hello, my name is Dave, aka "Rooth", and I am the Manager for Artists' Alley.

The short answer is: once payment is complete, we cannot govern the transaction further. And we have no feedback system currently by which we can track infractions when they occur, nor do we have a policy declaring what actions we could take under these circumstances.

1. If it's a matter of contacting the artist, I can help with that to some extent -- I cannot provide you their contact information, but I can broker communication until the artist releases their contact information to you.
2. If the artist is claiming that they did not get paid for the commission, I can help with that as well by searching for the # on your paid receipt in our records, and sending the artist some manner of validation.
3. If the artist is simply refusing to complete the commission, that I cannot help with, except to make a note of it for future reference. We have had one or two instances like this in past years, but they are fairly rare.
4. If the artist intends on finishing the commission, but simply hasn't yet, this is something you must resolve with the artist yourself. As someone who has commissioned hundreds of artists in the past, I can tell you that some artists are substantially slower than others. In some cases, I've waited years for art, and in very rare cases I never received it. My sole advice in this situation: patience is a virtue, and your odds of getting what you want (and possibly more as recompense) are improved if you are patient and congenial with the artist.

That said, you'll find the following reference useful. This is the current text of our Alley policy.
http://www.anthrocon.org/alley

Hope this helps,
--Rooth

[mrst4nkr.livejournal.com]

http://community.livejournal.com/artists_beware/333549.html?thread=10296813#t10296813

http://community.livejournal.com/artists_beware/333549.html?thread=10297069#t10297069

Now if Artist's Alley is now under new management, then I have no idea if this is still the case!

[gizagiza.livejournal.com]

The first link reinforces the answer I got. The second link is about an entirely different matter.

With the Artists Alley at AnthroCon, the way it works is you do NOT give cash directly to the artist - they give you a little carbon slip and mark down what you've bought for them and how much. You bring that to a register and AC staff ring it up and charge you, and pay the artist later - this is because they need to charge tax. If someone is taking cash directly from a customer in the Artists Alley, then they are not charging tax, and that's illegal. For that, they can be banned. Not because they didn't complete it.

[mrst4nkr.livejournal.com]

I withdraw the second reference then. Thanks for clearing that up. :)

[gizagiza.livejournal.com]

No problem! :)

[sigilgoat.livejournal.com]

Ah, I was thinking he was a dealer.

[featheredragon.livejournal.com]

If I may make a suggestion:

Why doesn't Anthrocon and other cons just advertise the existence of the artists-beware form in it's Conbook and other infostuffs?

Doesn't have to be anymore than something simple and short like: Having furry artist problems? Go here for help:____.

Something to that effect. Doesn't take any resources on your end since all you're doing is adding some text to the conbook. ;3

[protocollie.livejournal.com]

That really only happens in extreme circumstances, because of the nature of how furries are it's really hard to get a straight story about promises made and so there is a definite 'buyers beware' aspect to the artists' alley.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

Definitely true, though I figure reporting bad artists can't hurt, because if they do it a lot and enough people report them then the con just might do something. And gunmouth sounds like someone who does this a lot.

[coffeewolf.livejournal.com]

Sadly this is a common theme with him, so good luck with receiving what you paid for :/

[gizagiza.livejournal.com]

I've dealt with him before. He's really terrible at communicating with his customers. It took him 6 months for him to complete a 1-character sketch for me after AC, when he predicted it wouldn't take more than two months.

I had to harass him a fair bit and almost posted about it here when he did it in the nick of time a month ago.

Send him messages constantly about it. Every day. I wouldn't recommend commissioning him again, unless you like running after the person.

[mr-cullen.livejournal.com]

Seriously, no one should have to constantly pester someone to get results. Whats the point of giving a general time estimate/deadline if you're not going to even try to stick to it? Constantly taking on more commissions when you can't even finish the load you have doesn't help either.

[gizagiza.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. It's unprofessional and extremely frustrating for the client. This is why I would never recommend anyone to commission this guy. I don't understand why so many people still do.

[mr-cullen.livejournal.com]

Despite how bitter it may sound, you'd be surprised how well people can keep things hushed or how much a reputation/popularity will do for them.

I admit I have something of a bias against the guy given his treatment of few of my friends regarding his other "problem".

But I've lost count of the number of times that's come up in any discussion about him so I'm not going into major detail about it. I would just warn anyone considering doing commissions or trades with him.

[marus-puppy.livejournal.com]

I would maybe suggest calling him out in his shouts. Since you're probably not the only one in this boat, a public poke might spur some other people into doing the same thing...

[shadowclaw.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I'm not sure if this would constitute harassment or not. Harassment is something that I really don't want to do.

[neolucky.livejournal.com]

It's not harassment if you simply ask him where your disc is. Just keep hammering him with notes and comments, he'll come around if you're loud enough.

[foxhack.livejournal.com]

It might be considered harassment by FA admins.

Or worse, it might lead to a comment hiding or a block altogether.

[neolucky.livejournal.com]

Then perhaps the OP should contact FA staff about it, since it sounds like he owes plenty of people and they usually suspend/ban people who neglect their paid work.

[shadowclaw.livejournal.com]

If he read my note and didn't care, I don't know how posting a shout on his page is going to get any better results :/

[gizagiza.livejournal.com]

Send him more notes. At least twice a week. Seriously. If you haven't tried contacting him on his Gunmouth account, do that as well. He WILL get back to you eventually, even if it's just because he's getting sick of hearing from you so much. It sucks, but this is what you have to do with this guy or nothing will get done. If he's not cooperating, I encourage persistence.

I had the same problem, except sometimes he wouldn't even read them, which royally pissed me off because I interpreted that he didn't even want to hear what I had to say - and I had always been polite, damn it. I actually contacted a close friend of his asking if there was another way of contacting him other than FA, because he wasn't reading my notes, despite being active on FA. She said that notes are the only way she contact him other than phone, so I just sent him more until he finally did it.

He was supposed to send me the original too, but I'm not even going to bother with that hassle.

[featheredragon.livejournal.com]

I've paid Gunmouth for 2 commissions. I've received the first one and I've only just recently send him details for the second.

With my 1st commission from him, I ran into the same problem with lack of communication that you're describing and I felt just as frustrated. I didn't know or understand why he wouldn't respond, and I became angry because I had paid him a good some of money and because of the pains I had to go through to get a reply from him and the waiting and waiting and waiting to hear back. After much effort I thankfully manged to eventually reach an understanding with Gunmouth and patch things up--although I did have to resort to making my own LJ post to get force a response out of him and get to that point.

One thing I will say is that I've learnt Gunmouth prefers commission descriptions and communications to be short.

Now knowing this, I've tried to do better with my 2nd commission details and keep it much shorter and better organized. I asked him to review it this time and tell me if he finds it ok, and that I will shorten it even more if he finds my it too long and detailed. I haven't heard back yet--but it's only been 3 days since I emailed him. Hopefully he'll e-mail back within the week. Last year, the last time I heard from Gunmouth it was on a positive note so I'm hopeful--but time will tell whether history will repeat itself or not. I really hope that this time things will be better.

But yes, he's not the best communicator just like in the save vein I struggle to be short sometimes. I'd like to think we all have it in us to improve.

Good luck with getting your commission! I hope you resolve things to your mutual satisfaction. :3

[marus-puppy.livejournal.com]

Exactly what neolucky said. If you're not demanding about it and you wait a couple days between notes/shouts, then I'm sure something'll come of it.

[lurkerwisp.livejournal.com]

Maybe post about it over on Eka's portal? If he's being dodgy about the disk people over there might also be waiting and maybe have more information.

[maddogairpirate.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what AC's selling policies are, if someone has to report all sales income or whatnot, but if so that would be a good way to get an idea of how many 'pre-orders' he did. Sounds like AC channels might be the way to go. Conspace and rep of artists is valuable to a convention. I'd expect them to look into it.

[purpule.livejournal.com]

I actually believe he may watch A_B because he's been mentioned before and commented on the posts calling him out, so this might be th'kick up the arse to get some communication going. It shouldn't have to come to this though.

[mr-cullen.livejournal.com]

I somehow doubt it. He's famously unreliable.

[gizagiza.livejournal.com]

If it didn't work last time, why would it work now?

[thaily.livejournal.com]

I hope you can have the matter resolved to your satisfaction, but this isn't the first time I've heard about his bad work ethic so I'm not terribly optimistic :/

[genkigami.livejournal.com]

Good luck. Gunmouth isn't the most professional or reliable individual in the art world. Your story is really not uncommon with him.