LaurenAshleyArt is a Scam Artist ::UPDATE FEB. 29::
Not drama, but I wanted to get this out there, as this has really been bugging me. I'm not sure where else to post it besides here and FTW, so if anybody has any recommendations about comms where this should go, that'd be really helpful.
So, some folks may remember laurenashleyart/LaurenAshley/SashaDobie/CynthiaSophia/TotallyTrouble from that whole confusing artists_beware incident involving a hummingbird fursuit.
Long story short, a few days ago I saw she'd made a post on fursuitauctions looking for someone to make a purple dog fursuit for her. Someone made a comment linking to a papillon fursuit that had just been up for sale, claiming that Lauren's design was an exact copy of that. She claimed that she had full permission from the papillon fursuit maker to copy the design after she'd been outbidded on that suit, and that it was totally okay because her design was a different breed of dog (Border collie, instead of papillon). I spent a few minutes digging around afterwards for signs of any communication between her and Chival, the papillon maker, and found nothing beyond an unanswered inquiry about payment plans on the FurBuy auction for the suit. I figured maybe after that point she'd noted Chival, so I was going to comment in the FursuitAuctions post asking if she had any proof, just to be on the safe side. Only when I went back to that post, it had been deleted.
Just now, she'd made a post in Bad_Fur asking if she should commission a certain maker for a personal suit of her ram character. She mentioned in the post that she had already put down "almost a grand" on the suit, which... Sort of made the point of the post moot, as a couple of people had pointed out. Within minutes, that post was deleted as well.
::EDIT:: Screencap of the Bad_Fur post, courtesy of breakspire. (herpaderp how i code)
I went back to her SashaDobie FA page and sure enough... There are shouts from people looking for their money back, apparently on fursuit commissions she'd taken-- BombaChow and Mjomag. I went ahead and noted them both asking about if they'd heard anything, and, well... I'll let the notes speak for themselves:
So she apparently owes a few grand in work she hasn't done to people, who she's completely dropped all contact with for three years... And yet she's able to drop $1000 on a personal fursuit commission for herself?
I've talked to Mjomag and Bombafur about posting on Artists_Beware, but I don't know if they'll actually go through with it or not. In the meantime, I'm looking to get the word out about this. LaurenAshley/SashaDobie has always really sketched me out, so the fact that she's apparently taken other peoples' money to buy personal shit for herself is kind of unsurprising to me.
::EDIT, Feb. 24::
Seems she has a lot of sketchy behavior to answer for, too, as well as a lot of account-hopping to avoid issues with customers.
I'm gonna go ahead and move a full list of her known accounts here, and I'll be adding more as they come up.
LaurenAshley
SashaDobie
CynthiaSophia
TotallyTrouble
Shiela
B.J.
Ariesa
SashaFursuit
Synnamon
(What I find interesting is that for someone who seems to owe so much money to so many people for so damn long, she sure can afford an awful lot of pretty fancy fursuit bits from other people in all that time)
I should also point out, TotallyTrouble seems to be where she was taking a lot of her fursuit commissions from... And then conveniently enough, TT went inactive about two years ago, around the same time SashaDobie popped up, pretending that she and TT were two different people. Could this be where she started dodging out on her commissioners?
Thanks to Kiska_Nirpaw for the updated name list, along with this interesting bit of information:
"Sold some fur to a friend. White fur, with a HUGE black grease stain on it. He only found out about it after the fact. She vanished when he tried to contact her about that."
:EDIT, Feb. 26::
Received a reply from Chival regarding SashaDobie's use of her design:
So Sasha/Lauren/etc did in fact contact Chival about re-using the design, but it wasn't for permission-- She noted Chival simply to basically go "Btw I'm reusing your design and I commissioned someone else to do it too."
She already had someone else lined up to commission for the design before she even noted Chival about it. It's nice at least that Chival was okay with it after the fact if Sasha were willing to make some minor changes, but even still. That's not cool at all, Lauren.
I noted Chival back saying to be wary of taking money from Ashley because of the fact that she owes a pretty large amount of money to a number of her commissioners, which she'd been using to instead by fursuit stuff for herself instead of doing the work she owes.
::EDIT, Feb. 29:: Screencap of a note she sent to flarveon stating that she paid Sparky $900.
So, some folks may remember laurenashleyart/LaurenAshley/SashaDobie/CynthiaSophia/TotallyTrouble from that whole confusing artists_beware incident involving a hummingbird fursuit.
Long story short, a few days ago I saw she'd made a post on fursuitauctions looking for someone to make a purple dog fursuit for her. Someone made a comment linking to a papillon fursuit that had just been up for sale, claiming that Lauren's design was an exact copy of that. She claimed that she had full permission from the papillon fursuit maker to copy the design after she'd been outbidded on that suit, and that it was totally okay because her design was a different breed of dog (Border collie, instead of papillon). I spent a few minutes digging around afterwards for signs of any communication between her and Chival, the papillon maker, and found nothing beyond an unanswered inquiry about payment plans on the FurBuy auction for the suit. I figured maybe after that point she'd noted Chival, so I was going to comment in the FursuitAuctions post asking if she had any proof, just to be on the safe side. Only when I went back to that post, it had been deleted.
Just now, she'd made a post in Bad_Fur asking if she should commission a certain maker for a personal suit of her ram character. She mentioned in the post that she had already put down "almost a grand" on the suit, which... Sort of made the point of the post moot, as a couple of people had pointed out. Within minutes, that post was deleted as well.
::EDIT:: Screencap of the Bad_Fur post, courtesy of breakspire. (herpaderp how i code)
I went back to her SashaDobie FA page and sure enough... There are shouts from people looking for their money back, apparently on fursuit commissions she'd taken-- BombaChow and Mjomag. I went ahead and noted them both asking about if they'd heard anything, and, well... I'll let the notes speak for themselves:
So she apparently owes a few grand in work she hasn't done to people, who she's completely dropped all contact with for three years... And yet she's able to drop $1000 on a personal fursuit commission for herself?
I've talked to Mjomag and Bombafur about posting on Artists_Beware, but I don't know if they'll actually go through with it or not. In the meantime, I'm looking to get the word out about this. LaurenAshley/SashaDobie has always really sketched me out, so the fact that she's apparently taken other peoples' money to buy personal shit for herself is kind of unsurprising to me.
::EDIT, Feb. 24::
Seems she has a lot of sketchy behavior to answer for, too, as well as a lot of account-hopping to avoid issues with customers.
I'm gonna go ahead and move a full list of her known accounts here, and I'll be adding more as they come up.
LaurenAshley
SashaDobie
CynthiaSophia
TotallyTrouble
Shiela
B.J.
Ariesa
SashaFursuit
Synnamon
(What I find interesting is that for someone who seems to owe so much money to so many people for so damn long, she sure can afford an awful lot of pretty fancy fursuit bits from other people in all that time)
I should also point out, TotallyTrouble seems to be where she was taking a lot of her fursuit commissions from... And then conveniently enough, TT went inactive about two years ago, around the same time SashaDobie popped up, pretending that she and TT were two different people. Could this be where she started dodging out on her commissioners?
Thanks to Kiska_Nirpaw for the updated name list, along with this interesting bit of information:
"Sold some fur to a friend. White fur, with a HUGE black grease stain on it. He only found out about it after the fact. She vanished when he tried to contact her about that."
:EDIT, Feb. 26::
Received a reply from Chival regarding SashaDobie's use of her design:
So Sasha/Lauren/etc did in fact contact Chival about re-using the design, but it wasn't for permission-- She noted Chival simply to basically go "Btw I'm reusing your design and I commissioned someone else to do it too."
She already had someone else lined up to commission for the design before she even noted Chival about it. It's nice at least that Chival was okay with it after the fact if Sasha were willing to make some minor changes, but even still. That's not cool at all, Lauren.
I noted Chival back saying to be wary of taking money from Ashley because of the fact that she owes a pretty large amount of money to a number of her commissioners, which she'd been using to instead by fursuit stuff for herself instead of doing the work she owes.
::EDIT, Feb. 29:: Screencap of a note she sent to flarveon stating that she paid Sparky $900.
