Churns out your drawings in mere seconds! All pictures guaranteed to be done immediately! No waiting and no communication required!
Or that's what this customer seems to think.
So this... person (I can think of other words for her, but I'll keep it clean for now) decides she wants a drawing. I agree to a price, and she asks if she can pay part now, and part later. It is a really cheap price, and ordinarily I don't bother, but hey, gotta make the customer happy, right? It'll cost me all of $0.30 in paypal fees, so I can do that for her, sure.
She sends her tiny payment, I tell her I'll start work as soon as I can. She asks if I can send a sketch to her for her approval, because she's picky about her character. I say sure, fine, I can do that.
This was FIVE DAYS ago. I have been very busy, AND it's been the weekend, where I do try to usually take a day off, otherwise I'd go nuts, so I have done nothing at all yet, not even the sketch. And actually there are five drawing commissions ahead of her, some of which I've started on, but all of which still need work, so I haven't even thought about starting her sketch yet. And drawing is just my paying hobby, it's not my job. I fit it in between "real" work, so it goes slowly. (Which is totally normal in the art commission world! Few and far between are the artists who can make a full time living off of this, and they charge at least a whole order of magnitude more than I do for their work!) And as this particular customer made a point of telling me about all the many artists she had commissioned before, I thought she knew how this sort of thing worked.
Anyhow, today I check my inbox, and what do I find, but this:
"I am still waiting for my comission....if you're not doing it I want my money back. I don't like being cheated."
She had also left a public shout on my gallery page, "Are you still doing my comission?......I'm still waiting."
I saw red, let me tell you. The private message was bad enough, but the public shout was REALLY not called for at all.
Here's my reply: "What? It's on my project list! After five other people that are first. I am not an instant art-o-matic, and I will not be treated like one. You can have your refund, I don't care to do business with people who think I'm a machine."
If not for the shout I might have just sent the first bit, and gone on with the commission, but after that, I was DONE with this bitch.
What did she say in return? "I was just saying that I have been trying to get in contact with you about if you have started it or not. 4 of my other comissioner's have left me in the dark without saying if they were about to do it or if I was on their list to-do. that's all I was asking. "
BULL SHIT. She has not tried to get in contact with me! I respond to every e-mail and PM I get, usually within minutes. There is no such thing as "trying to get on contact" with me and failing. Not unless you've been using your e-mail for Nigerian scam spam, anyhow. And it's not like this little note had any trouble getting through, now did it?
Me to her: "You have not been "trying to get in contact with me." I have replied on the same day to every single message you have sent me. You accused me of ripping you off without even ONCE trying to contact me, and without ever having let me know that you expected your art immediately. I'm sorry, I'm not willing to work with you after that. Your refund has been issued, go commission somebody else."
And indeed by the time I'd typed up that reply, I'd sent a refund. But of course paypal sometimes takes an entire MINUTE to process payments. So she responded, accusing me of lying because she hadn't gotten the refund yet. I just blocked her, because I was DONE with her BS.
I am still completely enraged about this. You do NOT accuse me of cheating. You do NOT lie to me, and you do NOT publicly call me out without even trying once to resolve things in private.
Or that's what this customer seems to think.
So this... person (I can think of other words for her, but I'll keep it clean for now) decides she wants a drawing. I agree to a price, and she asks if she can pay part now, and part later. It is a really cheap price, and ordinarily I don't bother, but hey, gotta make the customer happy, right? It'll cost me all of $0.30 in paypal fees, so I can do that for her, sure.
She sends her tiny payment, I tell her I'll start work as soon as I can. She asks if I can send a sketch to her for her approval, because she's picky about her character. I say sure, fine, I can do that.
This was FIVE DAYS ago. I have been very busy, AND it's been the weekend, where I do try to usually take a day off, otherwise I'd go nuts, so I have done nothing at all yet, not even the sketch. And actually there are five drawing commissions ahead of her, some of which I've started on, but all of which still need work, so I haven't even thought about starting her sketch yet. And drawing is just my paying hobby, it's not my job. I fit it in between "real" work, so it goes slowly. (Which is totally normal in the art commission world! Few and far between are the artists who can make a full time living off of this, and they charge at least a whole order of magnitude more than I do for their work!) And as this particular customer made a point of telling me about all the many artists she had commissioned before, I thought she knew how this sort of thing worked.
Anyhow, today I check my inbox, and what do I find, but this:
"I am still waiting for my comission....if you're not doing it I want my money back. I don't like being cheated."
She had also left a public shout on my gallery page, "Are you still doing my comission?......I'm still waiting."
I saw red, let me tell you. The private message was bad enough, but the public shout was REALLY not called for at all.
Here's my reply: "What? It's on my project list! After five other people that are first. I am not an instant art-o-matic, and I will not be treated like one. You can have your refund, I don't care to do business with people who think I'm a machine."
If not for the shout I might have just sent the first bit, and gone on with the commission, but after that, I was DONE with this bitch.
What did she say in return? "I was just saying that I have been trying to get in contact with you about if you have started it or not. 4 of my other comissioner's have left me in the dark without saying if they were about to do it or if I was on their list to-do. that's all I was asking. "
BULL SHIT. She has not tried to get in contact with me! I respond to every e-mail and PM I get, usually within minutes. There is no such thing as "trying to get on contact" with me and failing. Not unless you've been using your e-mail for Nigerian scam spam, anyhow. And it's not like this little note had any trouble getting through, now did it?
Me to her: "You have not been "trying to get in contact with me." I have replied on the same day to every single message you have sent me. You accused me of ripping you off without even ONCE trying to contact me, and without ever having let me know that you expected your art immediately. I'm sorry, I'm not willing to work with you after that. Your refund has been issued, go commission somebody else."
And indeed by the time I'd typed up that reply, I'd sent a refund. But of course paypal sometimes takes an entire MINUTE to process payments. So she responded, accusing me of lying because she hadn't gotten the refund yet. I just blocked her, because I was DONE with her BS.
I am still completely enraged about this. You do NOT accuse me of cheating. You do NOT lie to me, and you do NOT publicly call me out without even trying once to resolve things in private.
Comment