Hey,
I've just had a private job for an album cover, I asked for 50% upfront money
to make sure I don't waste my time and loose some time for nothing. So he accepts and paid me that upfront money. So I did all the work on the album covers, spent an overall of 16hours on it and now he wants to pull out and get his upfont money back. But he can't do that upfront money is to make sure that I don't waste my time doing all that work and in the end he pulls out or somthing like that which he did. So no way should I give him back his money for a product I've already given him and worked for! Upfont money is NON-Refundable. What do you think?
Thanks
Neon

From what you are saying, I dont think he should get his money back. I guess really though it depends on the situation. There has to be more to the story. Did he not like the design? You could always offer to change the design to fit him a little better. Or did he just decide he didnt want to spend money? If you go to a print shop and have business cards printed, you cant just say, "oh never mind, I want my money back" unless there was something wrong with the cards. That is just one example I thought of. But, there has to be more to the story.

yea true.. and you never know if he left to go to a cheaper designer!!?? haha but wasnt like you scammed him, so i feel you should keep it.

Originally Posted by angele803

From what you are saying, I dont think he should get his money back. I guess really though it depends on the situation. There has to be more to the story. Did he not like the design? You could always offer to change the design to fit him a little better. Or did he just decide he didnt want to spend money? If you go to a print shop and have business cards printed, you cant just say, "oh never mind, I want my money back" unless there was something wrong with the cards. That is just one example I thought of. But, there has to be more to the story.

Nope infact he liked all 3 designs i gave him each which took at least 5 hours each.
Im pretty sure his band broke up and now he wants his money back. Lol he's now gone and told paypal saying that the work I did was Illigal (for a reason he did not say) and that he asked for his money back and there was no response. But i did reply and told him upfront money was upfront money and non-refundable. The funny thing is as well he's making so much fuss over just $55 upfont money.

I don't think he left to go to a cheaper designer becuse he really liked my work that i was showing him and doing for him, then suddenly Oh I want my money back, complately out of the blue =/ Ofcorse I didn't scam him, I told him that I would need upfront money and he agreed and paid so why should I give him his money back?!
Thanks for the reply guys
Neon

Actually, there is quite a bit more to the story that Neon isn't telling you, but I'll be glad to elaborate, because I don't want this to happen to someone else. As of right now, Neon is currently holding $105 USD and apparently in a refusal to contact me regarding the matter. I've asked a few times to try to handle this in a civil manner, but he now won't even respond.

The project he is referring to is the Almost Human band logo posted here before, and the logo is his initial design that was chosen. We selected Neon as the winner of the contest and told him we would discuss which one we wanted to use. We chose his "bat" design, and in keeping our word as we posted, also gave him the option to have a paying gig to create both our album cover and website.

In reference to the logo, we paid him as promised and he sent the files. He's blatantly lying above about not knowing and me never saying why it was "illegal." We had a discussion about it via e-mail where he even said he understood our concern! Here's the scoop...the first thing we did was take our new lyrics for copyrighting and the new logo by our legal consult, which is based right outside DC (USA). As soon as he saw the design, he immediately told us "You cannot use this logo." He went on to state that copyright infringement cases are filed too often here in the US and that this design is too close and identified alongside both DC Comics "Batman" logo and the Bacardi bat. He stated it would foolish to use it, because no court would take a relatively smaller scale rock band over a major corp if a suit was filed.

As I mentioned earlier, we told the winner he would have the option to do a cover and website too. In regards to the album cover, we agreed on a price of $110 USD. In a measure of good faith, we agreed to pay Neon $55 in 2 installments, with the first being sent immediately. This was never a deposit of any sorts, and was certainly never stated as being non-refundable. We would have never agreed to that because we had never seen any of Neon's work prior to the logo contest. We were trying to be good businessmen and show a measure of good faith to Neon that we were serious and he would get paid. No one would blindly pay someone a non-refundable deposit with seeing any prior work or having a contract.

Neon submitted 3 album covers to us. We told him that the official title of the album will be "Rise From the Ashes", and he was well aware that we were a hard rock band and looking for something darker in nature (this was also stated in our contest). The first cover sent to us was a very bright cover of a boy running past a few trees. It wasn't dark in nature as requested, and despite our best efforts, we couldn't draw any conclusions as to how this cover was relevant to the band or album title.

Right afterwards, I had an in-depth conversation via e-mail with Neon about what we expected differently, what he could do differently, and I even provided him multiple .jpg's of album covers of the type of work we liked and were looking for, as well as a link to the portfolio of an artist whose work we really enjoyed the vibe of. I took a lot of time going into great detail about what we wanted, what we expected, and what he could do differently. He appeared to be very confident he could provide us with a cover like we wanted and of a quality we expected.

He submitted a second album cover which we were not impressed with. To be honest, there really wasn't much to it. He simply made a cover of all flames and put the logo he created on it. It's obviously not what we had in mind or were looking for, nor did it represent what we had discussed. I would always tell Neon a very generic, "Looks good," or something to that effect, but always provided follow-up from the rest of the band. We never liked the album covers, but at the same time, we didn't want to simply be negative and criticize what was sent. Instead, we opted to be both nice and politically correct by not being too negative regarding the covers and offering friendly advice as to what we truly wanted instead of saying "That looks bad."

Once the third album cover was submitted, it was the least favored of the three. Despite all of our talking and attempts to get Neon on the right track to both give us something along the lines of what we wanted and of a quality we expected, it became clear that we were not going to get anywhere. the finaly album cover was a sort of "flaming hand" that was not very impressive looking, and the font used was even worse. Everyone collectively agreed that this was the worst of the three and that dispite our efforts of being nice and trying to point Neon in the right direction, he simply wasn't creating anything along the lines of what we requested, and the quality was not as promised or anticipated. Only the first of the three covers was of a releasable quality, and it was completely irrelevant to the band nothing like what was requested.

Because of the fact that we are currently recording our album and trying to work within a few tight deadlines for release (we are not broken up as Neon would have you believe), I contacted Neon and told him about our legal consults advice that the logo was unusable. I also told him that despite this fact and that we are trying to get things sorted out, we would like him to return the $55 submitted for album art and stop any further work on it.

We even tried to be overly nice to Neon, telling him that even though the logo was unusable, we had agreed to pay the winner $50 and that money was his to keep. We just him to return the $55 for the album art that was never completed and we would sever ties there. Never once did he offer an alternative logo, offer to tweak the current one to make it usable, etc. He seemed to completely not care at all that the logo he created wasn't a legal otion for us, and never offered to help make amends.

So, we simply asked for the $55 back regarding the album cover. Neon refused, called it a deposit for his work (which was never discussed between us), and basically told us he was keeping the money unless we had him do a cover for us.

So what does that mean? That means that right now, Neon has $105 of our money, refuses to give anything back, and we're now running an even tighter deadline with no album cover or logo. We tried to be nice to him and very professional. We could have easily said "You know, your artwork isn't as high quality as you portrayed it to be, and we think some of it is really bad." But we didn't...we were professional and offered suggestions instead of criticism. We simply don't have time to let Neon keep creating cover after cover of either sub-par quality or irrelevant artwork. We have deadlines to meet that we have set, and Neon is apparently not capable of providing what he promised.

I hope the others on this board are not like this. Neon now will not return any e-mails and is pretty much keeping our money with virtually nothing provided to us. We were simply asking for the $55 back because these covers aren't up to par and need to get things done.

As you can see, there's a lot more to the story than what Neon likes to tell. If you want to see the difference in quality, I'll gladly send anyone a copy of the cover art we sent him we liked and the ones he sent that were supposed to be comparable. You'll quickly see why we were not pleased with his work.

We did everything we said we would...paid for a logo, offered the album art and website gigs to the winner, etc. Unfortunately, Neon has turned what could have been a great experience here at this forum and a great opportunity for someone into a horrible situation. We weren't asking for much.

I'll gladly discuss this matter with anyone here that has questions. I would hate to see someone lose out on money or get ripped off in the manner we did, especially when we were trying to be as polite and professional along the way as we could.

Originally Posted by Almost Human

Actually, there is quite a bit more to the story that Neon isn't telling you, but I'll be glad to elaborate, because I don't want this to happen to someone else. As of right now, Neon is currently holding $105 USD and apparently in a refusal to contact me regarding the matter. I've asked a few times to try to handle this in a civil manner, but he now won't even respond.

The project he is referring to is the Almost Human band logo posted here before, and the logo is his initial design that was chosen. We selected Neon as the winner of the contest and told him we would discuss which one we wanted to use. We chose his "bat" design, and in keeping our word as we posted, also gave him the option to have a paying gig to create both our album cover and website.

In reference to the logo, we paid him as promised and he sent the files. He's blatantly lying above about not knowing and me never saying why it was "illegal." We had a discussion about it via e-mail where he even said he understood our concern! Here's the scoop...the first thing we did was take our new lyrics for copyrighting and the new logo by our legal consult, which is based right outside DC (USA). As soon as he saw the design, he immediately told us "You cannot use this logo." He went on to state that copyright infringement cases are filed too often here in the US and that this design is too close and identified alongside both DC Comics "Batman" logo and the Bacardi bat. He stated it would foolish to use it, because no court would take a relatively smaller scale rock band over a major corp if a suit was filed.

As I mentioned earlier, we told the winner he would have the option to do a cover and website too. In regards to the album cover, we agreed on a price of $110 USD. In a measure of good faith, we agreed to pay Neon $55 in 2 installments, with the first being sent immediately. This was never a deposit of any sorts, and was certainly never stated as being non-refundable. We would have never agreed to that because we had never seen any of Neon's work prior to the logo contest. We were trying to be good businessmen and show a measure of good faith to Neon that we were serious and he would get paid. No one would blindly pay someone a non-refundable deposit with seeing any prior work or having a contract.

Neon submitted 3 album covers to us. We told him that the official title of the album will be "Rise From the Ashes", and he was well aware that we were a hard rock band and looking for something darker in nature (this was also stated in our contest). The first cover sent to us was a very bright cover of a boy running past a few trees. It wasn't dark in nature as requested, and despite our best efforts, we couldn't draw any conclusions as to how this cover was relevant to the band or album title.

Right afterwards, I had an in-depth conversation via e-mail with Neon about what we expected differently, what he could do differently, and I even provided him multiple .jpg's of album covers of the type of work we liked and were looking for, as well as a link to the portfolio of an artist whose work we really enjoyed the vibe of. I took a lot of time going into great detail about what we wanted, what we expected, and what he could do differently. He appeared to be very confident he could provide us with a cover like we wanted and of a quality we expected.

He submitted a second album cover which we were not impressed with. To be honest, there really wasn't much to it. He simply made a cover of all flames and put the logo he created on it. It's obviously not what we had in mind or were looking for, nor did it represent what we had discussed. I would always tell Neon a very generic, "Looks good," or something to that effect, but always provided follow-up from the rest of the band. We never liked the album covers, but at the same time, we didn't want to simply be negative and criticize what was sent. Instead, we opted to be both nice and politically correct by not being too negative regarding the covers and offering friendly advice as to what we truly wanted instead of saying "That looks bad."

Once the third album cover was submitted, it was the least favored of the three. Despite all of our talking and attempts to get Neon on the right track to both give us something along the lines of what we wanted and of a quality we expected, it became clear that we were not going to get anywhere. the finaly album cover was a sort of "flaming hand" that was not very impressive looking, and the font used was even worse. Everyone collectively agreed that this was the worst of the three and that dispite our efforts of being nice and trying to point Neon in the right direction, he simply wasn't creating anything along the lines of what we requested, and the quality was not as promised or anticipated. Only the first of the three covers was of a releasable quality, and it was completely irrelevant to the band nothing like what was requested.

Because of the fact that we are currently recording our album and trying to work within a few tight deadlines for release (we are not broken up as Neon would have you believe), I contacted Neon and told him about our legal consults advice that the logo was unusable. I also told him that despite this fact and that we are trying to get things sorted out, we would like him to return the $55 submitted for album art and stop any further work on it.

We even tried to be overly nice to Neon, telling him that even though the logo was unusable, we had agreed to pay the winner $50 and that money was his to keep. We just him to return the $55 for the album art that was never completed and we would sever ties there. Never once did he offer an alternative logo, offer to tweak the current one to make it usable, etc. He seemed to completely not care at all that the logo he created wasn't a legal otion for us, and never offered to help make amends.

So, we simply asked for the $55 back regarding the album cover. Neon refused, called it a deposit for his work (which was never discussed between us), and basically told us he was keeping the money unless we had him do a cover for us.

So what does that mean? That means that right now, Neon has $105 of our money, refuses to give anything back, and we're now running an even tighter deadline with no album cover or logo. We tried to be nice to him and very professional. We could have easily said "You know, your artwork isn't as high quality as you portrayed it to be, and we think some of it is really bad." But we didn't...we were professional and offered suggestions instead of criticism. We simply don't have time to let Neon keep creating cover after cover of either sub-par quality or irrelevant artwork. We have deadlines to meet that we have set, and Neon is apparently not capable of providing what he promised.

I hope the others on this board are not like this. Neon now will not return any e-mails and is pretty much keeping our money with virtually nothing provided to us. We were simply asking for the $55 back because these covers aren't up to par and need to get things done.

As you can see, there's a lot more to the story than what Neon likes to tell. If you want to see the difference in quality, I'll gladly send anyone a copy of the cover art we sent him we liked and the ones he sent that were supposed to be comparable. You'll quickly see why we were not pleased with his work.

We did everything we said we would...paid for a logo, offered the album art and website gigs to the winner, etc. Unfortunately, Neon has turned what could have been a great experience here at this forum and a great opportunity for someone into a horrible situation. We weren't asking for much.

I'll gladly discuss this matter with anyone here that has questions. I would hate to see someone lose out on money or get ripped off in the manner we did, especially when we were trying to be as polite and professional along the way as we could.

almost human, seems reasonable, neon you should of sent them your progress of making the images, to see if that like what you have in mind, so you wouldnt waste so much of your time.

This is just saying that I am going to reply and I would like eveyone not to post until i have finished my reply. Seeming as almost human is not telling the truth.

If Neon would have sent images and ideas along the way, or even outlined ideas before he started work, that would have been much appreciated.

We obviously loved the logo, as we chose Neon as a winner. It's a shame that we can't use it. The album covers were liked by individual band members at various times, but no one has ever really thought of anything being of a releasable quality. After the second design, we basically told Neon to go ahead and submit his final decision and we'd make a decision on the drafts that he had so he didn't have to continue making more, and in hopes the last one would be better. The third cover was submitted and I waited on feedback from our guys out of town, and that's when we got word regarding the logo.

The more the guys looked at the covers, the more that they disliked them. We kept stressing the dark theme, and I completely refrained from saying anything negative about them. Call me soft I suppose.

Like I said, we had guys at various times like certain covers, but overall, we never had a consensus and nothing was ever provided that was in line with what we wanted. I always assumed it would pay to make the customer happy, especially one that's probably a little nicer than some bands would have been.

We're all reasonable guys who simply want a resolution, not money given away for free. I suppose I should have said "A couple of the guys really like it, but don't think it's releasable and the others simply think it's bad." But, I prefer to stay positive and encouraging.

I don't think Neon is a bad guy, despite all that's happened. I am sure he has a different perspective on things than me or the band, and rightfully so and he is entitled to his opinion. I just wish he would act civil now and return some e-mails instead of just keeping the money and acting in a childish fashion. Is it too much to ask to handle this situation like adults? I will take partial blame for not being more forward about how much some of the guys really disliked the designs. But, that's just me for not liking to be harsh or hurt peoples feelings.

almost human: a long an lengthy and well written disposition. It doesn't matter. Infact, you may not like the artwork at all, but the fact is, you still owe him 55 more dollars b/c he has completed his job. It's your fault for not criticizing him and for "being nice." We are designers, we are under criticizim at all times. You should know what it's like as musicians, b/c you can't please everone right? So if i go to your show, and i pay 20$ and your music sucks ***, will you give me my $20 back? I dont' think so.

Ultimately it is both parties faults. Neon, you are young and have learned a lesson in contract agreements. Next time you have a client pay you upfront, make sure that in your quote you submit them, it says clearly "upon reciept of non-refundable down-payment, you are excpected to pay the rest of the job in full within 30days of completion"

Actually, no...the job was never completed. Our agreement was $110 for a front and back album cover. The payment arrangement was that he would receive 2 equal payments of $55 for the complete project, one payment now and one when the project was completed and agreed upon. this goes back to us now having a formal contract and just going on the arrangements that we made.

1. We have never agreed upon a design.
2. A back album cover was never created.

We at no point in time decided on a cover. The reality here is that we were misled in quality. We showed him very specific album covers and artists that we enjoyed. We emphasized what we liked, and we never received anything to our specifications, nor we were ever asked for feedback into the matter. We were led to believe we'd get a product of a certain quality, and he hasn't produced it. Plus, even with the non-agreed front covers, a back was never created.

An artist should not mislead people that he can produce something beyond his abilities. If you paid someone to cut your grass and do some landscaping, then you came home and your grass was half cut and none of the trees he trimmed looked like what you asked, I bet you'd have an issue with it.

As another example, what if you paid a mechanic to fix your car because it was making a noise and he led you believe he could fix it. You paid him, picked up your car, and it was still making the noise. You bring up the issue with him and he tells you "Hey, it's not as loud as it was, so it's fixed." He led you to believe that he was capable of doing something he wasn't and took your money for it. Although it wasn't what you paid him to do, do you think that mechanic should keep your money because he did work on it?

It's very unprofesisonal and unethical to portay yourself as being capable of doing a certain task in order to get the job or make money. He also wanted to charge us to do the website and gave us the Evanescence website as a reference for what he could do. I could only imagine what a horrible experience that could have turned out to be.

and i would bite my little fist and scream to the heavens that the landscaper better fix the lawn until i get what i want. this ball is still in your court-you should have asked to see more pieces of his finished work, you should have asked for a contract, you shouldn't have relied on forgotten words for this.

you're out of 55$ i suggest you move on and find another designer. No i agree, a person shouldn't say they can do soemthing they can't or they should have the professionalism to outsource the job to someone more suitable for the work. neon

so again, you're out 55$ and he won't get any more money.

The fact that Neon would keep the money and not return future e-mails, as well as present himself capable of performing artistically at a level that he can't speaks volumes about his character. It's blatantly unethical and unprofessional, and I'm not sure how anyone could sleep at night behaving that way. I'll never understand the mind set of a scam artist who rips people off, and to me, that's nealry the equivalent of what has happened here.

If you did all the work as it was initially discussed, I wouldn't refund all of the upfront money. Keep some of it for the hassle and the work that you have already done.

In regards to the "work" he performed, how many people here would start working on a project and submit artwork without ever even asking the client what they wanted? That's what he did. He knew the album title and ran with it. Never once asked what we wanted. We shouldn't be at fault for his behavior. After the first cover was deemed unacceptable, he still never asked what we wanted, although at that point we finally started offering in-depth advice.

Almost Human has pasted a complaint here that he previously made in Paypal without showing the replies I made in Paypal or mentioning that Paypal rejected his complaint.
Here is what really happened:
Almost Human chose me as the winner in this Forum for the logo that he wanted. But he wanted a few changes. These were to remove the thing at the bottom. So I did so, he paid me and that was that! To quote “We really dig it. Thanks again for everything!” Story over with that one.
Then he also wanted an album cover. I quoted a price of $110 with half upfront. As you can see from the replies to my first post, everybody agrees that upfront money IS NON-REFUNDABLE. Almost Human paid me the upfront money and I spent hours and hours working on 4 designs for the album cover. He thought they looked good but were not suitable for the music they played. I had just finished another design when I got an email saying this:


QUOTE: Hey Ben,
Got some feedback...here's the scoop on everything. Apparently, we have
potential legal issues with the logo. After looking at various pics and
talking with a few different lawyer buddies, they both felt that although
there is a difference, both DC Comics and Bacardi would have enough ground
to file a copyright infringement suit based on both the "Batman" and
"Bacardi" logos if they so chose to do so. Would they? Likely not. Would
they win? Probably not. But, we were advised it's in our best interest to
not even go down that road.
So, based on the new advice, the guys no longer want to use the logo because
of the potential. We've paid you for the work, and we did decide on that as
a logo, so no need to worry there. The money is yours and the logo is ours.
We're just apparently not going to use it...haha
With that said, they've opted to forgo an album cover at this time and wait
for legal to get back with us as we service mark our name and such. So, with
that in mind, they would collectively like to stop album covers at this time
until further notice to get things sorted out. Best case, you keep the $50
for the logo. Even though it isn't usable by us anymore, we decided on it
and agreed to pay for it. So, no big deal there. For the album cover, if you
would, could you please just return the $55 deposit to Paypal account
*******@yahoo.com - and we'll just put anything on hold there.
It's too bad we won't be able to use the logo. We really dig it. Thanks
again for everything!
Regards,
Jack UNQUOTE

Almost Human is expecting me to refund money even though I did the work he asked for. Upfront money is not refundable. That’s why it’s up front. It protects the designer from exploitation. (Right, Guys?)

When I refused to refund the upfront money to Almost Human, he starts posting complaints on Paypal dissing my work, even though he had told me “We really dig it. Thanks again for everything!”.

That’s also when he starts saying my album covers are Illegal as well as my logo. He also says that they where clearly rushed because I replied and made revisions quickly. Most people would call this good service, not use it as an excuse not to pay the designer!

I’m going to post the work in a following message. I know other designers will be able to see how much work I put in.

There is a lesson here for all designers, isn’t there?

Neonimage.

First off, I would ask that Neon please remove my personal Paypal ID off of this board. I'm not sure of the regulations, but I would hope it's against board policies to post another persons e-mail address, Paypal ID, or other personal effects.

As I previously stated, we loved the logo, just can't use it. I've said that countless times. It just comes down to a matter of something (cover) not being as presented. I'm glad that Neon will post the artwork. Considering it's not technically mine, I wouldn't have felt rigth postinf it myself.

Art work is subjective it doesn't matter that you think it sucks or not [and don't even think that we as artists are trying to scam you]. So if the artist does his job, he should get paid. If you saw something you didn't like initially you should have called it out.

Here are the album covers made for him you will see how much time I put into it:

And here is a sample gallery that we suggested for a reference:

http://seempieces.com/gallery.php

Neon is still ignoring the fact that he started making covers without ever asking what we wanted, and even after we provided him with direction, still failed to hit the mark or even ask about potential direction before continuing work.

I can also suggest many covers we sent as a reference.

Originally Posted by Almost Human

And here is a sample gallery that we suggested for a reference:

http://seempieces.com/gallery.php

Neon is still ignoring the fact that he started making covers without ever asking what we wanted, and even after we provided him with direction, still failed to hit the mark or even ask about potential direction before continuing work.

I can also suggest many covers we sent as a reference.

so why didn't you comission this artist instead?