I have been scammed by someone from this community

[Khaikaa]

Yeah, that's right, as many of you already know, I've been scammed by @JackSoda .

 

This all started because when I created this thread asking for pixel artists I sent him a PM just in case he was interested since I knew his work and believe it is pretty awesome:

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As you can see there, I never got any response, but he readed that pm on March 27. That very same day he contacted me through discord:
 

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We talked about collaborating. At that moment I didn't need anyone in my team, we are 5 people working on the project, but he came with this:

 

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That made me feel like giving a hand to an agd community mate who needed some economic help, and at that moment he was like replying in just a matter of minutes to anything I said and he even was asking me for giving him the work as soon as possible:

 

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So yeah, we started to negotiate about the payment methods and stuff. I like to use paypal since it is easy to use and doesn't give too much trouble when sending money in different currencies to different countries(I'm from Spain so my currency is the € but I accept paying with $). At that moment he told me that he prefer to get that money through the "friends and family" paypal payment method. This payment method is unsecure for payers, but avoids fees to the sellers:

 

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From this moment we started to communicate through the private development server of the project. There is a terms and conditions everyone there has to accept in order to join, which includes to not share the conversations with thirt parties.

 

So I'm not sharing any screenshot from the project's server here, but police will be able to confirm all of this if this issue ends in a legal complaint. I'm not providing any proof of what happened in our server, so it is up to you if you believe it or not.

 

He settled the price of the work. I asked him how he would like to get paid, offering him a 50% before delivery 50% after delivery. He said there was no reason to split it up. So yeah, I sent him the whole money and he actually started to work. He delivered a first sketch of the animations in just a few minutes (we are still in 29/03/2021). After he delivered that I asked him to make a little modification and there was no reply for the next 2 days(which is ok, I don't expect everyone to be 24/7 for me). He came saying that he wasn't around during that time and that he would work on that later that same day(31/03/2021).

 

I asked him for updates the next day(01/04/2021) with no answer and asked him again the next day(02/04/2021). He replied that day that "he was actually working on it at that moment", but didn't showed any progress.

 

No more communication until I ask for updates 3 days after(05/04/2021). There was no reply, and I asked again 2 days later(07/04/2021). He said to me "give me a bit to wake up". After 4 hours he came back(yeah, a very long waking up process) and asked me "what's up". I asked him if he made any progress. No more reply til 08/04/2021, when he goes finally clear and says "I havn't touched it in about a day or so"(making that first sketch took like 30 min, but making the 2nd sketch, which was even less complex is taking, 10 days at this point. I start to feel pissed of the situation and told hime "so its still at the same point as 10 days ago?". He replied that he had to remake half of the frames(which, remember, took 30 minutes) and told me that he took a few days of because "he has been depressed" but that he would deliver the full sketch within 48h. I felt bad for him because I know depression very well , but told him in a very kind way that even when getting better is very important, he also need to understand that I was worried because of the lack of progress. He just replied that it hit him really hard but that he was ok at that moment.

 

After those 48h, with no further updates, I kicked him from the team server and asked him for a refund(so, from this moment, I can share screenshots again):

 

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And after that he fucking blocked me. He is this kind of people that are online 24/7 on discord, and 20 seconds after I sent that he just "went offline". I tried to find another way to communicate, so I asked @Kibbelz and @Aesthetic for help. Aesthetic made it finding him. He said that I blocked him(which is not true) and then came with crap like "you can't talk with someone you didn't add as friends". Well, in that case, how the hell did we talk all the way til that moment? I'm still wondering about that. I added him as a friend and he came with this(as you can see, 11/04/2021):

 

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And this is our whole conversation since that moment:

 

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No more replies from his side, no refund yet.

 

 

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What can we all learn from this?

 

First of all, this is the wild internet. This scammer has been part of this community for years and have collaborated in some projects. His work is good and has good references. That's why I was this stupid accepting doing the things his way, because I believed there wouldn't be any kind of scam from someone like him.

 

Second of all, never, NEVER, use a unsecure payment method. If someone asks you to use them don't hire him/her. But, if knowing this you still use an unsecure payment method, make sure the work gets delivered first. Never trust any sketch nor proof of work, because you could end like me.

 

Third of all (and last): Make sure to gather all the personal data you can from the people you work with. This will be helpful when taking legal actions if needed.

 

 

And... that would be it. To be honest, this makes me feel so sad. I'm not a kid, I know the internet very well, but I felt like this community was different, at least when talking about veterans. Obviously I was wrong and that mistake cost me 50$. Is 50$ that much? Luckily it is not that much for me at this moment, but thats not the point, the point is being scammed by someone who is a veteran member of this community with great references from other veterans(who, obviously, don't have any responsability). I hope my experience helps other members of this community to not fall with the same tricks I did.

 

Fuck you, @JackSoda

[Worldofjimmy]

Sorry to hear this happens to you... Thanks for sharing! 

[Weylon Santana]

I am one of the people who work with @Khaikaa, me and my girlfriend @Daniele Santana. This has always been one of the things that concerned us, like working on the internet and avoiding these kinds of situations, since then we work in a certain way, we deliver the work or part of it, to then get paid, if there is no payment, we stop working and it won't be much time wasted. Besides always trying to show our work before, to talk about prices afterwards. It is our method of analyzing whether we will meet customer expectations.

Part of the situation reported above I was present, when he joined the group it didn't take about 30 minutes to send a complete animation as a draft. But as the days went by he never spoke to the group again.
khaikaa asked me for an opinion on him, I didn't know him, but as everything was going on I encouraged him to ask for the money again, as he had all the clear signs that the work would not be delivered.

 

I am sad that all this happened, I hope that people like that are discouraged to stay here on the forum, and that they are more exposed so that there are no other victims, as khaikaa said, he will not die for 50 $, but that can be a lot of money for many people.

[buu]

That’s why I never pay before half of the work is done. I hope it all goes good for you. 

[Arufonsu]

damn... i feel sorry for you
It would be nice to have some sort of "Escrow System" for developers/coders/freelancers.
Something that would allow it, so the funds are released to the hired person only after the confirmation from both, the Escrow and the person who's buying the digital good / service.  - If no confirmation is reached, which means we are facing an eventual scam where the hired person in question hasn't yet delivered/done the job it was hired for, then the funds are simply refunded back to its legit owner and never released into the scammer's wallet.

In the other hand, only trust external payment methods to people you only trust, and perhaps, people that you personally know and are friends with.

Regards, i hope that these kind of situations can be stopped at once before its too late, since these are the kind of situations that usually bring up toxicity and bad reputation to entire communities.

[Daniele Santana]

I'm sorry that this happened  I just hope that someday these people will evolve, and that they will realize that it does not lead anywhere. :(

 

[Uyarrr]

Literally same thing happened to me in a while ago but from someone else named Trixer... who was really active in community discord. Difference is we talked way more when compared to this. I've paid him, he delayed me so many times with bullshit excuses. Since I've paid him, I tried to be polite many times so maybe I can get my money back or atleast he can work later on but ofc nope. I lost my 50$ aswell. I'm sorry about that.

[Kibbelz]

Hi everyone, usually we do not disclose punishments however @JackSoda has been banned from our forums. We operate a 0 tolerance policy for scamming on our forums. If a situation like this has happened to you please speak to a member of staff on the forums via PM. We will only be able to act if you have proof of your claims.

 

Regards,

 

Kibbelz

[Khaikaa]

Thank you all for the support, I really appreciate it. Of course it is my fault for making payments through unsafe methods, and of course that will never happen again. I hope this experience helps anyone to prevent situations like that.

[Arufonsu]

Old topic, i know, but this may help one to another dev seeking for specific jobs to be done.
Never simply trust the word of someone you don't know behind the screen, there's 3rd parties out there dedicated to help artists and coders with freelancing jobs of every kind, from art, music, coding, etc. I recently walked upon Fiverr (I don't wanna to sound like i'm advertising it uhh ) and its pretty safe to use, considering that the artists will do their job as long as you pay though the platform, which basically works by building levels of trust among the freelancers and the communities. No freelancer will try to scam you there as they are individuals trying to get good reviews and rates on their commisioned works in order to increase their sales, and anything sus will make the fiverr system to jump and check over everything, to the point that if you get some proof like the one you got in this post, regardless the self claimed "artist" not doing his job as promised, you can simply get your money back then. As for other things like .patches that some devs may share or sell in platforms like itch.io , you should be good as well, since they can be pretty strict in such platform if something you purchase doesn't match with the product description.

 

 

[Andical]

Wise words, I should have done that too.
Someone from this community spammed me in discord 1 week to help him for $$, after I spend days fixing his problems in remote desktop he didnt pay anything.

[Kibbelz]

40 minutes ago, Andical said:

Wise words, I should have done that too.
Someone from this community spammed me in discord 1 week to help him for $$, after I spend days fixing his problems in remote desktop he didnt pay anything.

If you can give some evidence to a forum admin and identify his forum account we can take action.

[Khaikaa]

On 7/19/2021 at 1:22 AM, Arufonsu said:

Old topic, i know, but this may help one to another dev seeking for specific jobs to be done.
Never simply trust the word of someone you don't know behind the screen, there's 3rd parties out there dedicated to help artists and coders with freelancing jobs of every kind, from art, music, coding, etc. I recently walked upon Fiverr (I don't wanna to sound like i'm advertising it uhh ) and its pretty safe to use, considering that the artists will do their job as long as you pay though the platform, which basically works by building levels of trust among the freelancers and the communities. No freelancer will try to scam you there as they are individuals trying to get good reviews and rates on their commisioned works in order to increase their sales, and anything sus will make the fiverr system to jump and check over everything, to the point that if you get some proof like the one you got in this post, regardless the self claimed "artist" not doing his job as promised, you can simply get your money back then. As for other things like .patches that some devs may share or sell in platforms like itch.io , you should be good as well, since they can be pretty strict in such platform if something you purchase doesn't match with the product description.

 

 

Sorry for the late reply, I'm not very active here atm due to some personal issues

 

I always use fiverr, I believe it is an awesome platform to ask for comissioned assets, but I also trusted a few agd veterans and it always was an awesome experience. This guy was the first and only bad experience with an agd user I ever had so far, and it was my fault to send the money through unsafe ways. Hopefully my experience help others.

[Scaly]

It's better $40 than $500 like me

[Mcadams]

On 4/16/2021 at 9:52 PM, Khaikaa said:

He said that I blocked him(which is not true) and then came with crap like "you can't talk with someone you didn't add as friends". Well, in that case, how the hell did we talk all the way til that moment? I'm still wondering about that. I added him as a friend and he came with this(as you can see, 11/04/2021):

 

Incase you're still wondering about the answer to this, if you don't have someone added as a friend on Discord OR don't share a server with them, you can't PM them. You said that you invited him to your server, and eventually kicked him, and after you kicked him he "blocked" you. This is because you were only able to message him since you shared a server with him, and after you kicked him you could no longer PM him. Had a similar situation happen to me before. Guy was talking to me, left the server we shared with each other, then claimed I blocked him because he could no longer message me.

[Khaikaa]

7 hours ago, Mcadams said:

 

Incase you're still wondering about the answer to this, if you don't have someone added as a friend on Discord OR don't share a server with them, you can't PM them. You said that you invited him to your server, and eventually kicked him, and after you kicked him he "blocked" you. This is because you were only able to message him since you shared a server with him, and after you kicked him you could no longer PM him. Had a similar situation happen to me before. Guy was talking to me, left the server we shared with each other, then claimed I blocked him because he could no longer message me.

I would accept this except for a little detail: we were able to pm on discord before I added him to the server