I would like to share an unpleasant experience I had working with a aeternoria/pepernoria artist.
There were several issues that occurred during the project, including a severely violated deadline.
Refusal to return the money. А bad attitude towards the client, and the leaking of personal information - doxxing and calling for harassment. The victim blaming.
Summary of the text:
The artist received an order in early January with a deadline of 1-2 weeks, but there was no progress on the project by the end of March.
On March 31, I send a message to the artist refusing to work.
The artist replied that he really couldn't finish my order and would refund my money.
But he won't give me the whole amount back, he wants to keep $50 for the sketch (it was rough sketches even without clothes).
The artist asked if I would agree to this option? - I wrote that 1/3 of the amount for such a sketch is too much. I asked for a full refund - $140.
The author stopped responding to me and after 2 hours he returned to me with a "finished work" that he had not been able to complete for three months until that moment.
He wrote that he was giving me this job and could give me $15 compensation.
Long discussions with the artist led to no resolution. He was unconcerned about our agreement to reimburse the amount. Instead, he pursued what was convenient for him and disregarded our agreements. Additionally, he promised a bonus artwork for the delayed deadline, which he failed to deliver.
I will explain in more detail below, with screenshots (they are with automatic translation, I'm sorry), and what it led to:
1. An agreement on the order. The artist writes that he will do the work in one or two weeks.
January 7 - I paid for the job.
February 1 - I am writing asking when my order will be completed. The artist sends me sketches with my characters and says he's warming up. These sketches have nothing to do with what I described in the order.
February 10 - I am writing to the author again with a question about my order. The author ignores me.
February 16 - I am writing to the artist again. They don't answer me again.
February 19 - the artist writes that he has some problems with his technique, but he soon came to work for me.
2.
February 26 - the artist sends sketches of my order. I choose the best option.
March 21 - I remind the author about the order, as he did not send me anything else. My message was ignored.
March 24 - I'm back to the artist. He responds and sends me a screenshot of the art. It shows that he painted the face, but the rest of the body remained unchanged.
The artist writes that he will finish the work in 1-2 days. And after completing the work, he will draw me a bonus art due to a delay of three months.
3.
March 31 - after a week of waiting since the last message and three months of waiting in general. I am writing to the artist with information that I want to cancel the order.
The artist agrees and says that it will be fair. He agrees to return the money to me and would have offered it himself. He writes that he can't finish this job.
After that, he says that he is ready to return not $ 140, but only $ 90.
He keeps $50 for this sketch (it's in the screenshot). The artist asks in the message if I agree to leave him $50?
I refuse and explain why. And I ask the artist to send the entire amount in full.
4.
After my refusal, the artist stops responding for 2 hours.
After 2 hours, the artist returns with the "finished" work. He writes that he has done everything and sends me the work, and can refund me $15.
The artist doesn't care that we had previously agreed on a refund and I refused the order.
He thinks I should be grateful that he finished the work and for the sketches he did for me in January (and which I didn't ask for).
5.
A long message from the author that he considers himself right in this situation. Whether to comply with the deadline or not is his decision.
That he can finish the job and not return the money to me, even if we had previously agreed on something completely different.
I'm trying to explain to the author that the customer is not just the person who gave him the money. That we had mutual obligations that needed to be fulfilled.
6.
Another long message from the author. Here I will outline the main points from his text:
- failure to complete work in three months, when the deadline was 2 weeks - this is normal;
- the author is trying to say that I received bonus art, although this is not true;
- he considers his work to be done qualitatively. (and it doesn't matter that he couldn't do it for 3 months, but when I asked for a refund of the entire amount, he did the art in 2 hours);
- devaluation of the time I spent. the fact that I waited three months instead of two weeks is insignificant.
7.
Since I couldn't solve the problem with the artist, I decided to write several warnings on different sites.
I also wrote in support of paypal, telling about the situation and attaching all screenshots of my correspondence with the artist. Paypal reviewed my message and returned the money to me.
After that, the artist wrote a post on his telegram channel.
He wrote that I was a scammer who cheated him on art and dishonestly returned the money. Of course, he did not talk about the situation in full. Thanks to this, there were many insulting comments, which, of course, the artist did not delete and liked.
He also indicated my personal telegram account, the email from which the payment was made and the real last name and first name from the payment information. Inviting subscribers to write to me - more than 2k+ people have subscribed to the artist.
(upd. this message has now been deleted, after people commented that it was wrong. now the artist claims that the message with the drain of my data is a joke and he understands that publishing personal data is bad)
It's all. I would just like to warn you that you should be careful when working with this artist. Take care of yourself.
Links:
https://twitter.com/aeternoria
https://www.instagram.com/aeternoria/
https://t.me/pepernoria