It is of course up to how you want to work, but I would strongly suggest to request payment beforehand or after sketch. It's so easy to get scammed otherwise. Accepting commissions from minors is always very risky as well, you might be better accepting 18+ only for your own safety. So sorry this happened to you, and thank you for the warning about this user!
user sent the money after a few months!
miniminaaa (user id 445220) commissioned me for art which i delivered on october 1st. it's been two weeks and they have either ignored dm's regarding payment or given excuses as to why they haven't paid yet. at this point i'm pretty sure they're just stalling and i'm not going to get paid, so i figured i'd warn others
you can see them ask for a commission on my thread and approve both the sketch and final art, which they uploaded on october 2nd (screenshots in spoiler)
they sent me their email and i sent the invoice, they replied with "got it" which i assumed meant they got the invoice, but then they claimed they couldn't see the invoice
on october 5th they contacted me to ask how much the commission was since they're logging a worth tracker. i told them, and reminded them that they haven't paid me yet. this is where they claimed they couldn't see the invoice. i sent the invoice again, waited 24 hours, and when that wasn't paid told them they could send me payment directly and gave them my email. they neither replied nor sent payment
i sent them them another dm on october 13th asking about payment. they asked for my email, which i gave them, and then neither replied nor paid
i sent them a final dm asking about payment on october 14th and haven't heard back (nor been paid) since
Skykristal yeah i learned my lesson haha next time i'll def ask for payment before finishing the art :/ and i would prefer to not do business with minors either but the person in question didn't state they were a minor on their profile when they contacted me
TreBucet i didn't want to report them off the bat since i don't have any other way to contact them if their account gets frozen and i hoped they would eventually pay me, but i'll probably look into that if they still refuse to pay
Oh I see. I couldn't find any detailed info or TOS from you so it could be worth setting one up (regarding payment and age at least). You of course can't prevent it completely, some people simply lie. </3 But if you set these rules clearly for anyone to see, people are aware, and any decent human respects your rules.
However, I wouldn't say this situation was your fault. This person is clearly a scammer and contacted you, likely with this exact intent. they got art, now they gone. Sometimes information isn't that obvious or available. Just keep your eyes open for potential red flags as best as you can. Best of luck for the future. I hope you don't have to deal with such a case again.
Skykristal thanks man i appreciate it!! yeah i didn't see a point to making a tos or anything because like, so long as the client likes the art and i'm getting paid i don't care about anything else dfghjk but maybe i should write something up
Starloop given they ignore my dm's on payment i don't think they'd take down the art if i asked ;; thanks for the suggestion though!
Just commenting to say that a user with a frozen account can still login and message you they just can't do anything else lol I had to have somebody's account frozen by the admin because they continued to login and ignore my comments/DMs but uploaded art and characters the whole time. It's definitely an option I would suggest taking so that the admin can help keep an eye on them and you can ensure that if they're online they at least can respond
thanks for the replies guys! went ahead and reported them so hopefully that gets looked at soon haha