It looks like they completely wiped everything
Hey there! This isn't so much of a callout as much as it is a buyer beware. I don't want anyone falling victim to this like my husband did, is all.
This morning I was contacted by a close friend asking if a character they had drawn for me had been stolen. The character they had drawn was actually my husband's fursona. This is my husband's fursona in question:
https://orig00.deviantart.net/0c6d/f/2018/034/6/9/929212333_orig_by_psilocybik-dc23axs.png
He purchased this character, renamed Mark instead of Jacques from CabbyCab on DeviantArt for 80$. When I was contacted I was contacted about the following adopt:
https://cabbycab.deviantart.com/art/Poodle-Lion-Adopt-Open-728992055 ( https://sta.sh/01f8yljznfj5 )
I thought hm, it's different enough that it's not an EXACT copy but it's uncomfortably close. The colours are almost exact, same with markings, teeth, and collar. It would be okay if it were just a few things that were the same (sharing the same colours but not the same markings; sharing golden teeth and the same markings but not the colours; same teeth + markings, etc) but this is just... lol. I contacted them by posting on the adopt (it's been hidden now) asking if they personally designed it because it was VERY close to my husband's design. I didn't know at the time that he had purchased it from this person. It was then he let me in on the fact that this wasn't the first time this had happened. This user continually recreates the same character with tiny changes & gets rid of it.
The following is our communication; read from bottom to top.
In response to that, I received this:
I've provided screenshots of the links provided in the first response:
sta.sh/21o381le20g6
(includes the adopt if they take it down/remove it)
You can see in one character they literally reused portions of the reference that my husband was sold. I don't even know what to say.
To be completely transparent: I knew they weren't going to be completely straight about this so I contacted the person who offered money for it and told them about the clone characters. I did this and then shut my laptop and enjoyed dinner with my family, lol. I came back to angry messages telling me to stop what I was doing. I'm not here to start a witch hunt or damn this person into the ground; I just don't think this will even do anything to stop them. They just don't care. Nothing I do will MAKE them care. So all I can do is warn others so they don't buy these carbon copy characters. This isn't acceptable business practice. This isn't okay and I honestly don't think they will stop.
Please exercise caution when dealing with this user.
Thanks for your time!
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Edit: Adding their FA nonsense to this to remain 100% transparent on my end.
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8607804 - Journal here
Screencaps in case of deletion:
Big surprise; that's why I saved images as much as I could. I ended up being blocked, unblocked, and then watched (??) by this person.
Them taking down the copy OC (which they were selling for 45$) is about all I could really ask for at this point, so I'm glad they did. They however left a notice on their account that they were making a new account; so I'm fully sure they'll continue this bull somewhere else, lol. Just a matter of seeking them out, unfortunately. (They made a quick journal asking their followers what they thought of my journal, saying I was accusing them of being a 'thief and liar'; this was what included the notice of account switch. The journal was quickly deleted when I commented.)
I'd just advise everyone to keep a very close eye out for characters that look just like this. It can't be too hard to find them since they stick to the same design across characters. Thank you for the support, Beefy! We're both doing well; this has been a problem ever since he bought 'Jacques' so it's nothing new; this was just the final straw for me and I decided to take action.
I've never seen this kind of thing before; that's why it's so shocking to me. Honestly I think you'd be safe buying one 99% of the time; I wouldn't worry too much. timeandtimor
Going to update the first post in a second; they decided to drag this onto FA. (puts my face in my hands)