Kai...

[dasaki.livejournal.com]

WHO: Kai or any of their many different character names.

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

WHAT: A pay to enter art contest, $9

WHEN: Jan. 27th 2011

PROOF: Journal with the entrant names after the closing, they deleted the original contest journal months ago. http://i42.tinypic.com/34zelxu.png
Paypal transaction. http://i42.tinypic.com/2gtdw1j.png
Today's conversation. http://i44.tinypic.com/jr8qyc.png
'Refund' email. http://i41.tinypic.com/es563m.png

EXPLAIN: I entered a contest Kai ran about this time last year, it was $9 a person and anyone that didn't win still got featured in a group picture with one of their larger (macro) characters. I paid the $9, and I even covered the fees (or lack of, at that point gifts didn't take them yet), everything was going fine and I'd seen the winners pictures had been posted so I waited to see the group picture. It was posted about a month ago and I only saw it today, and I wasn't in it. So I posted on there asking why I wasn't there and got this in response; http://i44.tinypic.com/jr8qyc.png

Now I know I come off a bit hostile in this myself, but anyone that has dealt with Kai at all knows what kind of person they are and what kind of reputation they have. My 'public attack' was a single comment in a small IRC channel, which she was then lectured heavily by the owner of the channel after banning me for it.

After a long conversation during which a mutual friend acted as a middleman while she raged over it somewhere, I was finally given a 'refund' which was sent in CAD instead of the original USD that I paid, and I was made to pay the fees, causing it to come up a total of 98 cents short, over 10% of the total.

Overall a very bad experience and one that I do not wish to repeat. In short, if you value decent customers, stay away from Kai.

Edit: found the IRC logs after some time of digging.

http://www.privatepaste.com/02da40f222

Edit 2/update: Got home from work to find http://i43.tinypic.com/egondl.png in my inbox, best part is she's blocked me so I can't even ask what she's talking about.

Comments

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

I'm having trouble understanding the basis of the contest, if you don't mind explaining it to me?

So you pay to enter the contest and if you win, she was to commission someone else of art of your character... and if you didn't, you got put into a group picture as a sort of consolation prize. Am I understanding this correctly? You essentially pay for the chance for a cheap commission from a third party while she foots the rest of the bill?

[purpule.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see why she thinks you were disrespecting her.
Not that it's right to hold money because she believes she's been slighted, but until you saw that you weren't in the contest/commission, why did you apparently attack her?

[cyiakanami.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit confused as well. I've seen these types of contests on FA before, but the lack of the IRC chat on what exactly happened, leaves a bit of a gap of information along with the missing chat logs perhaps from your middleman conversation.

[conigliomannaro.livejournal.com]

Uh, I'm sorry, I really think this is not enough background information. Sure, not following through to her end of the deal automatically puts her in the bad spot, but a less evasive report of what you said in that IRC channel may change the reader's perspective quite a bit. I think you need to come forward in a more honest way, and tell people what exactly you said, or a vague rephrasing of it, because personally, I don't feel like I can judge anything until I hear what happened for real. And your hesitating attitude on the matter, I'm sorry, doesn't help.

A quick question to the mods goes as an afterthought: did you change the layout of the comment pages after the last changes in Lj's layout? Not to complain or anything, but this one kind of hurts my eyes a little.

[ocelotish]

Do you have any record of your other correspondence with the artist, particularly anything that might have gotten her upset? It just seems like we're missing a lot of the story here.

What I'd say is that you should confront her if possible about it being CAD instead of USD, but let the fees go. Did the artist ask you to send it as a gift? That's an issue as it's against Paypal's TOS and leaves you with no recourse should things go wrong. As for the fees, I can understand where you're not happy about them, but I wouldn't say that they're unfair. They would have applied the same both ways.

Edit: The more I think about the fees, the less I'm sure. On the one hand, they're just the cost of business, but on the other hand, the artist essentially charged you a dollar for nothing. I'm interested to see other people's perspectives on this.

[cappucola.livejournal.com]

I know Kai pretty well I'd like to think, and while I won't go to them and get involved with this I can atleast tell you that yeah, they can get like this sometimes. Your best bet is to wait till they calm down, and if possible approach them about this again? I am also echoing everyone else, more details about this would be nice since it is kind of fuzzy still.

[white-wer.livejournal.com]

Any sort of things like these I avoid, I've entered a few things like that in the furry fandom, and ended up getting shafted on the winnings. So In general these tend to be more headaches then they are worth, especially if they involve multiple artists.

[frazzled-niya.livejournal.com]

x_X @ the IRC log. Looks kinda like Kai had a issue with your before this happened?

There really shouldn't have been any arguement from the artist about a refund; they didn't give you a product for which you had paid for. The choosing of the wrong currency could have been an error, but it also could have been on purpose....

[copper-curls.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm still a bit confused. Kai on FA is Katsuke in the IRC chat? And Dasaki is Dasaki in both? Because if that's the case, then the course of events I'm seeing is this:

1. K hosts a pay-for-entry contest; runners-up to be in a group picture.
2. D pays USD 9.00 to be in contest (screencap of Paypal transaction)
3. D is a runner-up (screencap of journal)

Time passes...

4. Confrontation between K and D happens in IRC chatroom:
a. D disagrees about what is canon
b. K rudely tells D off
c. D replies - politely - that they've talked with others about what is and is not canon, naming a couple.
d. K tells D they have no respect for D and this channel is not for them
e. D replies they have more respect for others named than for K
f. K kicks D from channel
g. R restores D and further confrontation follows (IRC chatlog)

More time passes...

5. K posts pic, D is not in it despite what the journal said.
6. D asks why?
7. K says it's because D "doesn't respect me at all"; then later attributes "I have no respect for you whatsoever" to D (FA comments)

Huh? Where did that come from? From my read to this point, K is the one who has no respect for D? At any rate, K then refunds D CAD 9.00, which is about a dollar short.

Really, I don't see where Kai/Katsuke has a leg to stand on. Unless I'm mis-reading the sequence of events and players in it completely...

[genkigami.livejournal.com]

Wow. What a completely asinine thing to throw a shitfit about. Even more petty she decided to pull a" you're not invited to my birthday party SO THERE" move.

[tearor bloodwing (from livejournal.com)]

Sadly this article was posted as an attempt to lash back at Kai after she had pulled Dasaki out of the comission. And although Kai is by no means innocent in this case the IRC logs have been editted to leave out the part where Dasaki purposely aggrovated Kai by telling her to her face that he does not respect her. As well it was only found out when Kai paid him back that Dasaki did not pay the paypal fee himself after all and instead it was taken from the sum she recieved as the payment was not sent as a gift but instead as a Payment Owed.

Although Kai may not be the easiest to get along with and is well known to fly off the handle when aggitated by others the only issue here is between Dasaki and Kai as the artist was properly paid for their services.

Kai may not be the friendliest of people but Dasaki has purposely sought revenge in this posting when he was given what was owed to him minus the fees that paypal took for itself and so this should be a non issue. Instead Dasaki seems to be seeking the last laugh with another passive agressive stab at someone who is very obviously easy to aggitate.

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

She and her friend here keep pushing that you were dishonest with the logs and that you said a lot more than that. The thing is, it doesn't matter. You could have called her any number of actual insults and it wouldn't have changed the fact that she doesn't get to keep your money for nothing.

The end. Fin. Period. The mere fact that she thinks she DID have that right and that you're 'lucky' that you were refunded is why this is such a valid beware and she is a poor businessperson.