Had my worst week of commission work in 5 years

I spent last Tuesday through Friday finishing a 3 character fantasy piece for a client on ArtStation. They paid their $400 deposit back in February, then ghosted me for 3 months. Finally sent the final files on Thursday, and they replied saying the colors were 'too dark' and demanded a full refund. I ended up refunding them to avoid a chargeback battle, and now I'm left with 40 hours of work I can't sell since it was custom to their OCs. Has anyone else dealt with clients pulling this right before payment clears?

2 comments

2 Comments

christopher9523d ago

40 hours of work and they pulled that right at the finish line? That's brutal, man. I had a client do something similar where they approved the sketch, the lineart, AND a color mockup, then tried to back out when I sent the final high-res file claiming they "didn't like the shading style." Ended up eating 20 hours on that one after they threatened a PayPal dispute.

jessica_dixon3d ago

Oh man, PayPal disputes are the worst... they always side with the buyer no matter what proof you have. Sounds like that client knew exactly what they were doing, used the "shading style" excuse to try and get free work out of you. I swear some people treat artists like we're just test driving their ideas for free with no intention of paying. Maybe next time watermark the final file so hard it looks like a ransom note until they actually pay up... that's the only way I've found to keep the scammers from pulling that trick. Hope that client at least gets some bad karma coming their way.