Let us begin from... the beginning...
I met Val (ValeriaAbsinthe on dA) a while back when her cat was sick. I gave her $100 free and clear to help her pay the vet bill. The cat ended up passing, and I helped her deal with that too (well, with what I could do being connected by internet only). I eventually started following her, some of our OCs had interactions, and we became friends.
After a while, in April of this year, I was looking for someone to do two commissions for me. I still hadn’t known Val that long but felt comfortable enough to entrust my money and three characters with her. I paid via PayPal in full $68.00. As of the morning of 5/21, I had heard nothing about those commissions…. HOWEVER… Val had been posting alarming status’ and polls about her art and the status of things not getting done for a month. Not wanting to ‘rock the boat,’ I let it go, hoping for the best.
That is when the proverbial shoe dropped on 5/21. That morning, Val sent a status update tagging everyone she owed art to explaining that she wasn’t going to do said art until she had an art style she liked. As we all know (artists anyways), this can take YEARS to accomplish if ever!
Well, Val kindly put out the offer that anyone not willing to wait could have their money refunded to them – over time – but refunded nonetheless. I commented that I would accept the refund and that is where the trouble began… [see screenshots]
But Wait, There is More...
Val posted a comment tagging everyone again with the shittiest possible response to the situation SHE created… [see top screencap]
Well I wasn’t very happy at this point – none of us had done anything wrong accepting the offer SHE MADE. And as you can read, I requested several times the manner and timeline of the promised refund. I could never get a straight answer for someone who claims to have such a solid grasp on their funds and budget. It felt to me very alarming that someone was offering me my money back but refused to tell me when and how. That told me they Val had no intention of going thru with that offered refund. If you can’t give any sort of timeline or make an offer of any sort on increments, methods, etc, then you don’t plan to give that money back. Period. So I opened a PayPal dispute.
For the PayPal dispute, I opened in the morning. I took the six screencaps you have already seen [screencaps in above section], and I told PayPal what happened and attached the screencaps as proof that she said she would refund my $68.00. It took PayPal an hour to side with me and refund my $68.00. During that hour, I had the pleasure of Val sending me a dA note… [see middle screenshot]
Val knew about the dispute because about 30 minutes in, she magically had a very crappy WIP for me (which based on other things she has said since, I suspect she turned in to PayPal as ‘proof’ that she was doing her part). She laid the guilt trip on too. I wasn’t having an of it the way she had already treated me (as you can see). I did not abuse or harangue her. I was civil and mostly respectful if not blunt and to the point.
Shortly after this exchange, Val went ahead and deleted everything off of her page. All the journals, status’, and quite a few comments. She then posted this gem… [see bottom screencap in the event she deletes it from dA]
NOW she went too far and publicly named me...
So this is where I drew the line and made my facebook post.
She not only calls me out publicly for a reasonable response and action taken by me to ensure the offered refund was delivered timely, BUT she tells people to AVOID ME. THAT folks, is defamation.
So I took to Facebook to tell my side of the story (link above – will remain alive and active). Every situation has two sides, as Val herself tells it, and seriously, if me getting my $68.00 back is going to bankrupt her, cause her to lose her job, and cause her to be homeless, then SHE has serious issues outside of money she needs to get straight. Per her own YT video, she has debtors that may kill her if she is late on payments, so that right there is alarming! But again, nothing $68.00 is going to cure. The PERSON has to make changes, and a big one she can make right now is to take responsibility for HER actions and start coming thru on HER promises and obligations.
The second screencap happens AFTER she takes down her YT video and putting up her $68.00 cyberpunk adopt set. She lays claim that she was bullied off YT basically…
The Mighty Bullying of Val on YT
Brace yourselves, this is extreme bullying at its peak… These are the comments left to her that were not all ‘poor you’ and ‘I hope everything turns out okay.’ These are the bullying comments that sent her flyiing back to dA to update the deviation where she publicly defames me.
Shortly after thse two comments went live, she deleted her YT video.
