Beware: Ashbury44

Hi, I’m new to doing this sort of thing, however I feel it is important to make this known. I don’t want others to end up in the same situation as I have. The provided screenshots have not been edited outside of blacking out any personal information (real names/emails/ect) on me and the person involved for privacy reasons. I’m not here to dox people.

The user in question is Ashbury44. They go by the same username here and on twitter. As per usual please do not go harass this person. According to their Carrd they claim to be 17. This is a fact that I, at the time of initially purchasing, was unaware of as I didn’t actively go check for age. It wasn’t easily accessible either way, I only found out months after I had already paid. I believe at the time it was on their twitter bio. I am now much better at checking and if I cannot find an age, then I assume the person is a minor.

On Apr 12 2020 I stumbled across their commissions thread. They were doing headshots at the time, but were closed to finish up their current orders, so I asked to be put on the waitlist. As far as I can tell, they did in fact finish those I believe. On Apr 17th 2020, they pinged me on the thread informing that they were no longer doing headshots, but offering fullbodies instead as they were tired of doing them. Understandable. I still took this offer as I liked their art and thought my character would look good in their style.

I sent them a DM with my character’s ref. The initial price was $25 for the fullbody, but they asked if I would like a background so I in turn asked how much extra for what I was thinking (a rock and some heather). It was only an extra $5 and so I took it for a total of $30. This was all good, I paid and then they asked that I confirm the order. I was at first confused as I’ve never had to confirm the order. They explained to me it was so the payment would be released to them and while I thought it was a little odd, I still did it. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt after all.

After that they added me to their trello queue and that was that. I do not have screenshots of when it was originally there as I didn’t believe this would turn into a problem. I do however have screenshots of where they archived mine, along with the other commissions they’d received at the same time.

On May 9th 2020, I had decided to check in and see how progress was. A day later they got back to me with the claims that they had AP tests and would get it done by the end of next week.

On July 4th 2020, I checked in again as I still had not heard anything. They got back to me on the 6th, claiming that they had fallen into depression since school ended and had no motivation. However their friend had introduced them into some sort of art circle that was helping them. They then said they’d have something to me by the end of the month and would throw in a bust to make up for it.

Contact was lost again and while I tried to contact them on Sep 15th 2020, I never got a reply back.

Another message was sent on Mar 5th 2021, I sent another DM, again wanting progress. On April 10th 2021, I finally got a response back. They claimed to have not been active on TH/the art community much. They also claimed to have had a sketch, but didn’t show it to me. I replied and asked to either see said sketch or to have a refund as it had been around a year since I initially ordered. While I’m a patient person, that patience had finally ran out by this point.

I never got a response after this. I have tried to contact them again, this time via the email they had asked me to send the payment to. This was done on Sep 1st 2021 and as of this time I have not received a reply.

Upon further investigation on this with the help of a friend, I found out that I was not the only one who had similar things happen with Ashbury44 as there have been a couple other people on twitter who had this happen.

I do not have the full twitter thread unfortunately, but this is talking about the same person. There were also a couple other people who’d commissioned around the same time as I had, though I’m unsure if they had ever received their art. As of now it doesn’t really seem that they are active on TH however they are somewhat active on twitter.

If anyone has any questions or if I've done anything wrong please let me know. I will do my best to answer or to fix it. 

Edit 9/23/2021: As I've had yet to receive contact from the email I had sent, I've instead decided to try to contact them through toyhouse again. I suppose we'll see how this goes.

Edit 10/15/2021: Still have yet to receive any sort of reply.

Edit 10/30/2021: A last ditch attempt at getting any sort of reply. @ing them on twitter seemed like the only choice at this point.

Edit 10/30/2021: While it seems they are active on twitter, they have yet to respond in any sort of way. At this point I'm just feeling so done with it all. I have no way to contact them and they are ignoring me from the looks of it. I'm giving up on that $30 bucks I lost. I've tried everything I feel that I can at this point. They've stopped linking their carrd on twitter from the looks of it as well, so maybe they've stopped taking commissions? At this point I don't know, just be wary of them.

Edit 12/29/2021: Randomly decided to check in on them and I see that their twitter DMs are open and they've at some point added their carrd back. I've decided to try and contact them through twitter DM. Here's to hoping that I get some sort of response.

Edit 1/30/2022: I have not received any sort of response and it doesn't seem that I will at this point. Please be extremely careful should you commission this artist. Their communication is terrible and it seems they do not care to stay in contact with those who they owe art too.