Creative Commons license icon

Anthrocon requests solutions as unscrupulous dealers become an increasing issue in the dens

Edited by dronon as of 13:33
Your rating: None Average: 3.4 (17 votes)

A few weeks ago, con chairman Samuel Conway wrote a Twitter thread about how a customer was stiffed by a seller in the Dealer's Den at Anthrocon.

Bad business practices have been an ongoing issue in furry fandom. Taking the money and running is not only detrimental from a financial angle; it erodes trust in our fellow fans, and embitters the dreams of getting fursuits and art commissions. Since this frustrating problem has now reached a level where it's occurring within our Dealer's Dens, it also threatens to harm the reputations of the entrepreneurs who call those marketplaces home. If the fandom wants to secure the economic integrity of its spaces, new solutions will need to be developed to protect the honest exchange of goods and services.

Today we go over the harm that these situations cause, the extent and mitigation that furry fandom has committed already, and finally present a baseline of discussion for solutions to bring a sense of security back to the furry buyer.

The harms of broken deals

One of the most common crimes in furry fandom is the same as it is in the outside world. Stories of transaction fraud have been around for the entire two decades that I've been in the fandom. Ranging from an artist who takes a client's money and provides nothing in return, to clients who take a finished product and don't pay the creator who worked so hard to make it for them. In the Wild West of the Internet, it feels that these horror stories are but a mouse-click away.

I know of two incidents a decade apart that involved friends of mine. Both were swindled by someone promising to make a fursuit, who ended up not producing a thing, leaving them hundreds of dollars poorer. It is important to note that one of them had commissioned a maker who was in MidWest FurFest's dealer's room in 2018, so this is not just an Anthrocon issue. My friend was not alone in being burned by that particular person that year, as another one of their customers posted a Buyer's Beware with a similar story.

There are emotional side effects to this, and not just financial ones. In both cases afterwards, my friends seemed to look less upon fursuiting as a fun activity. So if you've ever heard someone get angry about the fandom's emphasis on fursuiting, understand it could be possible they were defrauded or had other negative experiences trying to afford or acquire one.

Swindling can also stifle economic activity within the fandom, as it makes it harder to trust independent creators to produce the product that's being paid for. Victims might decide to avoid the furry economy entirely, or focus on a small handful of trusted creators, rather than spending more diversely or giving new artists a try. Some may prefer to do business in person at a convention's Dealer's Den, to ensure that they can see the person and lower the risk of fraud. This assumes that without the anonymity of the Internet, that in-person business behavior is more reliable. However, with this latest news from Anthrocon, and the examples from MidWest FurFest above, it's obvious that even these transactions aren't any safer, so our conventions may also suffer the same risks of buyer hesitancy.

A worst-case scenario would be that if fraud became too prevalent, a Dealer's Den could shut out any products that aren't sold and acquired at the convention itself. This would make it difficult to begin the fursuit process in person at a convention, or to create anything that would require more than a weekend's worth of tools and time. Presumably it would still be possible to commission goods ahead of the convention, and pick them up there. However, they may have to be paid on-site, as the hosting municipality may want their sales taxes generated locally.

Current Community ways to deal with a Pernicious Problem

While Samuel is encouraging a discussion about what we can do as a community to prevent this problem, it's not as if the fandom hasn't been trying. We haven't been taking this situation lying down, it's that the scattered nature of furry makes it difficult to unite collectively. People in our fandom have taken action to try and mitigate these issues. Two major ones have been sharing knowledge of bad actors, and payment processing by a third party as a means of protection.

One of the earliest groups who used social media to cover these kinds of situations is "Artists Beware", who in 2019 moved to its own website after originating on LiveJournal in 2003. The initial premise of the community was for artists to discuss problematic customers who would take their art and run, or exhibit other problematic and abusive behavior towards artists. As time went on, it expanded to bring attention to the reverse situation, customers being taken advantage of by unscrupulous artists. Given that such behavior can harm the reputation the artist community in general, it made sense to draw attention to it. Its new site has an ad for Artconomy, an art commissioning service that states that it has "buyer protection guaranteed".

Fraud protection has become a growing demand on sites that process payments. Some are very buyer-centric, to the point where it can be abused by customers, such as Paypal. (Discussed in a previous article.) However, some art sites have also been trying to work as artist-friendly intermediaries. Artconomy, Furry Network, and Commiss.io have all designed security-deposit style accounts where buyers put their money into the system, which holds the funds in escrow until the scope of the work has been completed by the artist.

A Flayrah article from a few years ago describes how these types of sites try to mitigate financial fraud. In short, they provide a platform for a buyer to interact with an artist, centralizing the business transaction to a site where the money they intend to spend is stored. The artist is protected because the buyer must pay in advance, and the buyer is protected because their money isn't passed on to the artist until the final product has been delivered.

However, even these kind of communities can't prevent all circumstances of abuse. A customer might not think of searching communities like Artists Beware until after becoming a victim, and the vigilant attention and engagement required ahead of time might be too overwhelming. In an online fandom where many of us go by fursona names, it's far too easy for a bad actor to change their alias or represent themselves through a deceitful guise. And the sites that implement secure payments won't make much of a difference until a majority of furry artists and buyers insist on using them - except there's the drawback of maintenance issues and extra third-party fees. And none of these help if someone is offline.

But perhaps there are solutions that would allow for better trust between buyers and sellers in our in-person dens. A type of contract that could provide security for the buyer, that would have consequences at the convention for the seller, should the terms be neglected.

Dealer's Den Defense

While we can try to continue to address this at the community level, as these issues start to seep into our physical markets, conventions are going to have to find ways to deal with the problem. For people shopping in the Dealer's Den, these marketplaces may be their first impression of the fandom and of purchasing items from furries, along with assumptions of a higher level of buyer safety than the Internet. It may become more essential for conventions to vet those who want table space, perhaps scanning artist-beware type communities for any signs of trouble to start.

One of the more obvious solutions is to cut off bad dealers when they show their true colors. The seller that Mr. Conway alluded to on Twitter is probably no longer welcome to sell their wares at Anthrocon. However, fixing things after problems occur doesn't help protect people before it happens. So how do you ensure consumer confidence, that if they pre-order a product while at a convention, that they'll receive what they paid for in a reasonable amount of time? And how do we do so without putting up barriers that keep out new or part-time artists that may be looking for a chance to sell their wares, who haven't built up a network of credibility?

The convention itself could require that pre-orders include a quick form; information that would help identify the buyer, the seller, the convention and year, the amount paid, what was ordered, and an estimated time of completion. An example can be seen here.

This could have protections and enforcement behind it, such as being banned from the following year's Dealer's Den for failing to fulfill order(s). However, it would require some protection for sellers as well, so that they wouldn't be targeted by trolls or by competitors vying for space.

Another possibility could involve the Dealer's Den handling payments for commissions extending past the event, using the same escrow-style transactions that some third-party sites have already implemented.

Three things to keep in mind that are important before something based on this could be implemented:

  1. It would take extra time and volunteer resources for the convention. It should also have some means for the customer to follow-up, to ensure that pre-orders get fulfilled. These may be resources that small or fledgling conventions might not have.
  2. I'm neither a lawyer nor a contract law expert. Some kind of authority would need to be brought in to fully assess what acts a convention could take, with the added difficulty of the multiple possible jurisdictions these events take place in.
  3. Even if you disagree with any of these ideas, it's meant to inspire conversations towards something that could lead to a working foundation. There are certainly more technologically advanced ways that could track sales information than printed-out sheets of paper, turned in and catalogued manually. When it comes to what methods and technology could be used, be sure to remember point (2) of this list.

Conclusion

The possibility of malfeasance by those who take payments for art or fursuits has become an increasing issue in furry fandom. As conventions now seem more eager to discuss these situations within our community, now is a great time to continue to explore these conversations to help protect our fellow fluffs from financial fixes.

One thing is clear however. Until our conventions see these bad actors as harmful to our group's reputation, as much as those who happen to sell "items of a distinctly adult nature whose primary purpose is functional rather than artistic", then there will be little hope of improvement.

So let's do what we can to address this issue. Because we do not want to see our Dealer's Den become a Stealer's Den.

Comments

Your rating: None Average: 4 (5 votes)

Good article. A few points and half-formed thoughts.

Something like Artists Beware is probably the best option for these sorts of things at current and if people do not fulfil their part of the bargain, that should be reported to the convention who would presumably then not have that seller back until the situation is resolved. What I think is not addressed here is while it has benefits, there's also the risk of false reports due to things like unrealistic expectations or drama between people. I'm not sure if that site currently has a way of addressing that and it would probably be difficult as many of these sales are not public knowledge, so it's hard to verify an accusation.

As suggested, perhaps the seller and buyer can file some sort of form with the convention for transactions over a certain amount, which would mean there is a record, but I've seen how busy dealers dens get and I doubt that there are the resources to really manage that, especially for smaller conventions.

Escrows are an attractive option and could maybe also help keep furry transactions more anonymous but in some ways it just shifts the risk to a reliable escrow. I dunno how much it increases the costs either, which will be an important factor for both artists and commissioners.

What would also be good to know is how much of an issue this actually is. Many people know someone who has had problems and probably even know particularly unreliable artists or commissioners but is this widespread or not? And how does the furry fandom compare to sales at comic conventions or on deviantArt? If the risk is very small, then we might be making a mountain out of a molehill.

An alternative approach (particularly if the risk is low) might be some sort of commissioner insurance. If artists and commissioners sign up to some system where a small fee is paid and if there is a problem with a commission, the collected funds can be used for reimbursement.

As a final note, concerning one of your final sentences. I really hope you did not mean to imply that people selling adult items are bad for the fandom's reputation like fraudsters or unreliable buyers and sellers. There is absolutely nothing wrong with selling adult toys and that should be supported just as much as any clean art.

"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~

Your rating: None Average: 4 (1 vote)

The final sentences was a tounge in cheek jab at Anthrocon which banned Bad Dragon (and other such sellers) from their Dealer's Den starting in 2012 with the phrasing quoted.

Clicking the link will lead you to the WikiFur page describing this situation.

Insurance could be a thing, but my God, I would hope things would not get bad enough where a furry creates an insurance company around furry transactions...

Oh no... my brain just went "in network artist" and "out of network artist" and now I want to bleach that from my brain...

Your rating: None Average: 5 (2 votes)

You didn't hit a few points Kage touched, they're worth some thought...

The threshold is high to implement a Safer Selling System. (Like escrow, mediation between buyer and seller, and a performance-based rating built in, rather than a side service that takes proactive searching on an external site like Artist Beware.) Then there's pushing against network effect to get it widely adopted. The minimum threshold is the kind of thing that could take a big investment up front without much in return and who's doing that? Although it could help to have some large names, a widely used platform, or con policies coordinating for it.

By nature the fandom seems too small or marginal for that. Also fandom artists constantly underprice. Chronic failure to deliver isn't just personal failing, it's a marginal market thing where artists go into business without training for how to run a business and cover all the costs, and pro-fans compete with hobbyists who don't have to cover the overhead of workshops. The underpricing goes with fan entitlement; acting like fursuits cost "too much" at $2000 when artists could fairly double the price and not get rich.

It's not a bad idea to simply make people aware of the conditions, encourage artists to raise prices and buyers to tip, and discourage entitlement. Not being able to afford a name maker isn't being deprived and there's makers for all budgets plus lots of DIY resources.

There's some out of the box thinking too. As much as crypto payment is disliked for legitimate reasons, something like it could enable building a system that locks verified payment and ratings and mediation inside. Maybe it's only worth mentioning to highlight the threshold costs of doing it other ways...

But Kage mentioned other ways to collectively influence better market standards, like accreditation, a guild, or a trade compact.
https://twitter.com/DogpatchPress/status/1406306071686258688

How:
https://twitter.com/DogpatchPress/status/1406370983309570048

Something that works like a platform statement among furry makers, that proactively sets standards as an industry, to be adopted and incentivized to start from discovery. It could be as easy as a checkmark mutually linked with a platform that gets points for dealer den approval.

There are other creator guilds so try:
1. Start a work group, gather a few name makers to encourage voluntary joins.
2. Anon survey what to list for mutual performance standards.
3. Anon vote what to include on a scale of essential to dealbreaker.
4. Formal statement goes to a platform, maybe a review site partner.
5. Adoption is at-will and consists of a badge/check with mutual links to and from the platform.
6. Ask a few big cons to count a badge as points for approval to dealer dens, giving a benefit to spread it.
7. Yearly review and adjustment by work group.
8. Grievance initiated by a customer can trigger anon vote on whether to revoke a badge, but it's still at-will to use but a benefit to honor it.

Like an agreement between makers, a review platform and cons, with low dependence on personality if it's mutual and anon voted. It could work both ways and help sort out nightmare customers among people who repeatedly deal with them. Review sites don't do that. So like if a scammer hurts one member maker, they all resolve not to work with the scammer again. Otherwise it's all patchwork and lots of people wont know. There would always be makers who stay independent, while ones who join might be the premium, setting a standard to rise to.

Your rating: None Average: 4 (1 vote)

In speaking of an in-network and out-of-network artist ;P

Sure a guild/union could work. Getting it started may be the biggest challenge though. You'd want to ensure that none of the founding members would use their new found title to take advantage of the trust built in. Then there would be getting enough of a reputation at some point for conventions to start working with your group.

I think that you could merge the ideas of an established guild using one of those said escrow platforms (commis.io, Furry Network, ArtConomy etc) to escrow large payments even for in person activity at the conventions. You could have them all come together on which one they think looks out for artists best and put it up for one of their votes. They could even have a site that would take you right to the platform of choice while providing artist profiles.

While the artists coming together is important, I think it's also important that they keep in mind to keep the businesses fair for the customer as well. We don't need the guild/union becoming some sort of monopolistic agency. But I think furry is eccentric enough where there are always those outside the guild that people would risk a loss on if it become a value than what the guild is willing to provide.

Sometimes safety comes at a premium.

Your rating: None

This was supposed to be a reply to above comment... bleh

Your rating: None Average: 4 (3 votes)

I would definitely like to see some actual data regarding how prevalent and/or common this problem actually is compared to the number of transactions that take place at your "average" (?) furry fandom convention. Trying to set up a would-be "legal procedure" system based on anecdotal evidence is dangerous to say the least. And if it really is a problem, I'd say it makes sense to look at how other fannish events have handled things. Furry conventions are hardly the only fannish conventions or trade shows in existence -- and some have been doing business for a lot longer.

Your rating: None Average: 5 (1 vote)

There's also how hurtful a loss is, and how much is at stake with big commissions. It doesn't take data to know one $2000+ loss is bad if it happens to you, right?

A system for more trust doesn't need to be more of a legal procedure than contracts makers already use. The problem is cheaters and failures don't respect contracts. Reactive solutions (like Artist Beware) may not help until a lot of people lose or the losses are very high, like much more than a few thousand dollars. Going after individuals for broken contracts is often pointless because of the effort to collect.

That's why there could be pro-active organizing with buyers, makers, and cons. Fursuit commissions are a pretty unique business, but the idea of guilds or mutual ratings isn't. It could be the way to get data.

Cons already pick and choose who to accept, there could be more to base it on than just who they like. And a mutual compact may not imply unequal members. Just more at stake for members if they cheat and more friends to get your back if a customer cheats you.

Your rating: None Average: 5 (1 vote)

A good example came up today.
https://twitter.com/Splinter_Fox/status/1415236999733075992?s=19

- Fursuit maker had an auction close at 22k
- The money was planned to pay debts, fix their teeth, pay moms bills
- Buyer failed to pay
- There's apparently some legal terms on the buyer so they can't access their money (bewindvoering) and I'm guessing that means for bad behavior like this
- The Dealers Den banned them for violating terms

Of course nothing else formal is stopping them from repeating it. Artist Beware wouldn't help, just patchwork word of mouth. A standing agreement among member makers to block customers like this could really benefit everyone.

Your rating: None Average: 4.5 (2 votes)

The question I would have is how many are engaging in willful in fraud compared to being finically inexperienced fursuit maker who never took a small business class or don’t even know what small business accounting.

With fursuit making and art has become the gold rush, I do feel not only it will attract a few bad apples but also a lot of inexperienced makers and artist who will quickly find themselves over their head.

Your rating: None Average: 4 (1 vote)

I would like to think inexperience may be a major reason. It's one of the reasons a guild was suggested to perhaps help get some experience with those things.

Post new comment

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <img> <b> <i> <s> <blockquote> <ul> <ol> <li> <table> <tr> <td> <th> <sub> <sup> <object> <embed> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <dl> <dt> <dd> <param> <center> <strong> <q> <cite> <code> <em>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This test is to prevent automated spam submissions.
Leave empty.