That reeks of scam to me.

Not a scam after all, just really freaking weird.

Oh?

It's a family-dispute thing, they get weird.

Aaaaah ok.

I'm opting to ignore it because. Well. Uh. Yeah.

This is obviously 100% fake. You should out the fucker that's trying to pull this scam.

It's actually legit, just weird.

Seems a bit odd to me, if you refund the money, since you mostly use paypal, it would just end up back on XXX's card, not going to these people. I may be a little naive, but I'm not sure where they profit from this, unless its XXX on a different account trying to get money back.

Meh, could be like a 16 year old that got his mom to link her card to paypal for like a birthday present & then realized it was still linked and went buck-wild. My mom does customer service for a credit card company & it happens all the time! Just usually it'll come up as like $800 to (insert random porn site here). I'm not jumping on the scam boat just yet. But I would reccomend that someone let this woman know that her credit card company has a fraud department that exists to handle stuff like this & it is not the merchant (or artist in this case)'s responsibility.

It's a family-dispute thing, which tend to get a little out-there.

well did XXX spend $12k with you? If not it's doubtful that it is real. If so DAMN that's a lot of commissions. Look at that person's page, does it look like they've spent excessive amounts on art? Also reply to the user. Usually the more information you request of them the more their story starts to fall apart or becomes outrageous. Most scammers won't invest the extra effort to continue the scheme past a certain point.

I'm thinking it's real. My mom works for citibank and talks to at least one person a week who's kid got their hands on mom's card and spent hundreds (sometimes thousands) on porn sites or Facebook games. The bottom line however, is that these issues are handled by the card companies fraud department, NOT the merchant (or artist in this case). I'm pretty sure it's the result of a frantic mother not knowing how to fix something her kid did.

if you read some of their journals they claim to have a job and regular income. The whole thing sound weird to me. Maybe they're playing both users in an attempt to get back wasted money?

It's really the person's mother, for real. It's a family dispute thing and I think mom's being a little over the top and unrealistic.

Seriously, tell her to contact the fraud department of her bank. If it's a credit card they will comp the loss for her without taking your money.

Meh, sounds like it could be legit, they may not know the totals for each artist & that's why they asked you (or sent the same mail to all the artists). I mean it's shitty because if that is true that kid should be beaten bloody for stealing that much from his family. It could also be someone trying to get refunds to get free art. I dunno what to tell you, but I looked up the contact for a FA admin for you here's a list of all the admins on here: http://www.furaffinity.net/staff/

Thanks very much! As it turns out it's a very weird and complicated situation and actually real, which is why I edited out the Journal. It's just one of those strange situations that could only happen on the internet.

I know what's up with this, I noted you about it. It's not a scam, actually.

Thanks much! It was just one of those things that was so strange, how could it be real?

12k? Yeah even with average or above commission prices that means hundred or over commissions in a very short time period since if it was over a long period they would have noticed it sooner. Even in the event that this is true the artists aren't the ones in the wrong. Every credit card company and even paypal, through which these payments likely went, have their own fraud and insurance departments which is where this should be taken.

Might it have something to do this this?

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4630557/

Has everything to do with that. It was just so out-of-left-field that I couldn't believe that it wasn't a scam.

After reading that, I am further confused... was it her money or is she just doing this because he (sorry if I'm wrong, just judging by all the porn....) messed up his money and she's trying to play super hero and get his money back?

I believe it's actually his own money that he earned, but there's other circumstances that led up to this stuff happening right now. I think he's talked about it in his journal.

Yea, it seems like he got a little happy with his income. Everyone does it. I just don't get how/why she thought getting involved would help. 0.o

I don't either. This is prolly gonna get worse before it gets... well, I don't know if it can actually get better!

I just feel bad. If this is what it's starting to look like, I blame her 100% for all of this. Maybe if you didn't see your son as "sick" because of his interests (in this case being a gay(?) furry) he wouldn't feel the need to drop all this money to be able to see himself as he see's himself?

A prior journal suggested that she was sick of him staying at her house, and from later journals talking about renting apartments it looks like this is her attempt to worm some money out of her son, or some misguided attempt to help stabilize his situation.

Alternatively this may be some kind of scare tactic to force him to learn not to spend so much that he can't cope, as well as a warning to other artists not to involve themselves with him. This is assuming that their situation isn't so dire that she can scheme over how best to deal with him.

This is quite an interesting character though, If she's going this far to get some money then I wonder what else she's willing to try.

no weird notes about commissions... i dont want you to stop taking them forever and if folks get all weird on you...you'll stop! I want more of your smexy arts soon as i get money to buy them...

It's just internet silliness, I'm not sweating it.

ok.. well so long as your not getting all creeped by it then i wont have to cry cause I wont be able to get more arts at some point...

I heard about this.. sounds entirely insane.. one thing I don't get is why mom would sign up with that username O.o just seems bizarre to me.

Exactly, it's just so completely bizarre that I could not honestly believe that it was legitimate.

Lucky you?