At FurFright (last October) I commissioned (and paid for) a pair of badges from an artist -- one for myself, and one for my mate. She unfortunately took on a little more work than she could complete during the con (it happens, and I totally understand), but she did at least have the sketchwork done. The mate and I approved of what had been done so far, so we traded contact info with the artist and traveled back home.
The timeline inbetween then and now, in a nutshell, looks like this:
- December 4th -- Artist finally gives me an update. Says they have been "extremely busy" and apologizes for the delay, adding the badges shoud be "done soon, within the next week or so." I thank them, and confirm the address to ship the badges to.
- January 2nd -- I write to the artist saying my mate would like his money back, but I still hope to get my badge. After a short discussion, my mate agrees that he's willing to wait another two weeks. The artist says "Two weeks will not be a problem" and asks me to send her our character descriptions again, as she cannot find them.
- January 18th -- The artist scans in the completed badges and posts the picture. They look great. I confirm our address again.
- January 30th -- No word from the artist, and no badges yet. I send another email, and get a reply saying "I will likely be sending them out tomorrow via priority mail, so you should have them by the end of the week, if not sooner."
- February 11th -- Still no badges. I send another email asking for an update.
- February 20th -- Still no badges, and no reply to my last email. I send another. If you're wondering, yes, I was polite about it. "I haven't seen them yet, so I wanted to check in with you and make sure everything's OK. I hope they didn't get lost in the mail."
- February 26th -- Still no badges. Still no reply. I send one more email, and CC two other addresses the artist gave me.
What do I do now?
