Scam Artist in the OOAK World

There are a lot of people who are up in arms about an Artist who has scammed a lot of people out of their money. Due to Australian laws I will not be stating their name or gender in this post and will instead replace their name and gender with “Doll” and “it”. Here is the situation:

Doll creates one-of-a-kind artist doll sculptures and has done so for many years. It has become pretty good at making them and no one denies that it has talent.

Doll opened an artist forum to which became extremely popular, and developed into a close knit community. More and more artists were joining as members, however Doll started to drift out of online activity with the forum. After a while, Doll announced that it needed more time for itself and the family and was going to sell the forum on ebay, (price specifics will not be posted but it was a relatively large sum of money).

Not long after the forum was sold, Doll opened a new forum, directed to the exact same audience. This came as a shock to many, however it seemed to be overlooked after a period of time, although those involved still have a bad after taste in their mouths.

It decided to make this forum into a “paying members only” guild, so you could not see its content unless you paid a regular member fee. The draw to this guild is that Doll promised to post content such as tutorials and personal coaching that no one outside of the guild would be able to see. A lot of new sculptors wanted to be able to make sculptures like Doll, so in flooded the memberships. However as time would pass, Doll’s “promises” weren’t met. The tutorials it did post were vague, incomplete or already pre-existing in tutorials sales available to the public. Doll promised to keep posting amazing tutorials however it still neglected to show.

Frustrated members started requesting refunds and sending Doll messages about the situation. These requests were ignored and/or deleted. Doll continued to advertise the forum for new members to join without resolving- or even faking interest- in the pre-existing member’s plight.

These members are currently seeking legal action and are searching for ways to get Doll jailed. For the moment Doll seems to be slipping through legal cracks however this cannot last forever.

Here is what you can do for yourself: before handing your money over for ANYTHING online, think about the following:

• Does this person have a CONTRACT? Look for something that states in writing EXACTLY what services you will be getting by paying this money. With most legitimate websites, they will post a Terms and Conditions page that you have to read before handing over the money. The contract should always be long-winded. If it is at all vague in what it promises to provide, you will most likely not get your money back in the event of a problem, nor will the person get into legal trouble. In Doll’s case, it should have had a contract that stated in it “New extensive tutorials will be posted every month on how to re-create my art-form from past or present. All tutorials will be based on working methods of creating the art-form and will be a complete tutoring in each stage of creation.”

• Does this person provide a REFUND POLICY? They need to provide details as to how they deal with the situation in the case of a complaint. Do they offer money back? Do they offer credits to be used for other services? Is there a time after a certain period that the refund policy becomes void? Does this person offer other avenues to chase up a refund such as paypal disputes in the case that they cannot refund the money due to personal circumstances? If they do not have a solid refund policy, DO NOT HAND OVER YOUR MONEY.
  

Unless both of these things are met, you should not be handing over your hard earned cash. It does not matter how nice, famous or accomplished someone seems to be, if you are not covered by a good contract and refund policy, there is very little that the law can do for you in the case of a problem.

Artists are generally very kind-hearted and trusting, however we all need to realize that there are predators online in all shapes and sizes. We need to take our cash in our own hands and be extremely cautious. Ideally, we shouldn’t have to worry, but these people are out there and their will be more.

This achieves two things, you won’t need to stress over losing your money forever…. And….

… The mongrels can go to jail if they go against their contract….

I realize that some people will know who I am talking about and I ask that you do not identify this person or their gender on this site. Australian law is tough on identifying things like this especially since I am a related business. Please understand that attempts to identify them on this site will be removed. All other comments are extremely welcome and encouraged!

I ask that this post can be linked to or quoted in as many places as possible so that Dolls’ potential victims will think twice before paying for its services.

Sincerely,

Amanda

P.S. Please note that the above mentioned are not the only things It has done in bad business.