We were deceived.

I wish to communicate to friends of the forum about a problem.
We hired a User's forum named Steven Davis, who promised to deliver in two weeks in a 3D model with some animations, the person charged in an amount advanced half of the total value of the service. Cover and wait. Already be 30 days since we last spoke, he did not return it, do not respond by email or even by msn. We have payd him U$ 80,00 and he did nothing to us, not a sigle mesh.

He sent me this PM:

Posted: 11:53 AM 4 Weeks Ago

Greetings,

I Have about 5 years industry experience as an artist and animator. I model, sculpt, texture, rig and animate. I can model anything from characters to environmental work. You can see my work here..... http://stevendavis3d.carbonmade.com

Animation work here.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOMZX4KhGbk

and here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fGHCWeNGnE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGWCUbiyzuQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaQVhmFCaLM

I can provide a resume of professional work and references.
Feel free to contact me via Skype, nickname is darquelord or email me at vectorman4u@yahoo.com. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks!

Steven Davis
Artist/Animator

If anyone knows the forum please help us as we place our trust in him and he left us in his hand.

His contacts are:

http://stevendavis3d.carbonmade.com/
vectorman4u@yahoo.com
Skype: darquelord
MSN: gamesaint77@lycos.com


His profile: forum.unity3d.com/members/5827-Apprenticeneauxs

Thank you

 

How did you pay him? (cash, paypal, etc)

 

Pay pal

 

There is not a single thing you can do, Im assuming you entered no binding contract. Its a risk you take, and you got ripped off.

Honestly, I thought Steven Davis was a legit guy, apparently not. Unless he dropped dead (lets hope not).

Anyway, Sorry to hear about your loss. For issues like this contact the administrators and they will keep an eye on him, If they see anything fishy they will most likely ban the user. But there is nothing you can do to get your money back.

 

I would open a dispute on paypal for the transaction you made with this scammer. Hopefully you can get your money back.

Not if he used paypal. I'm not saying he will get his money back, but he has a chance of getting it back.

 

Steven Davis, vectorman4u, darquelord

He sounds familiar... wasn't he banned before? For scamming other users? I am pretty sure I have heard of that Darquelord nickname before.

 

This isn't the first time his name has come up in this way.

That'll teach you to do some background checks first

 

Thanks CharlieSamways... please help me to propague this information, so if he is not dead maybe other's can be saved from paying for nothing..

Thanks anyway

 

Ouch! Bit by the "Darquelord". Yeah, these sort of threads seem to come up about him every so often. But then numerous new accounts always sign in and say he's great.


Note that since you paid him with PayPal, you can file a dispute. You will likely get your money back.

 

Just checked his profile and his last activity was 20 minutes ago checking his private messages, so I think it's safe to say he's just hiding from you.

Sorry to hear you got duped.

 

Me too. You don't need a "binding contract" in place to demonstrate that you purchased goods and/or services which have not been provided. I assume you have *some* kind of record of what he agreed to do for you?

 

Yeah, i fill bad about hear that he is all of that... a sheap person... I think would be grat to alert other users about him...

 

I was right. I just did a forum search.... and look what I found :


http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/11...-a-client-expect-from-an-Art-service-provider

Steven Davis = darquelord = vectorman4u

He has scammed many people it seems, here in Unity forum also at Torque 3D forum. You people need to OPEN YOUR EYES and do background check before you give people money!

 

I have the MSN conversation history from him talking about the deal.
That would be great....

 

That will teach me... you are right...I just want to spread out this information to others....so maybe othres don't fall at the same hole

 

Maybe the Unity web team should ban his IP...

 

The likelyhood of him getting his money back over paypal is unlikely, Its not a buyers protection/sellers protection situation if its personal like that.

But yeah as Da Bawss said, just check the person out

 

BTW, I don't understand why you guys always CHOOSE SCAMMERS over legit and good quality reasonable price artists.

Good quality artists with very reasonable price:

Arteria3D
http://www.arteria3d.com

3DRT
http://3drt.com

These guys have been operating for years (and even decades) and being very reliable and very good reputations. You should always choose reliability over price. If you choose to save a few bucks and get scammed, I am sorry to say....You deserve it.

Oh and I forgot to add: Both of them have representatives on this forum

http://forum.unity3d.com/members/1723-arteria
http://forum.unity3d.com/members/9473-3DRT.com

So you can message them directly.

 

This

 

When I was scammed by Whyroph. I had to file a dispute, and it took about 30 days, but I managed to get my money back. Important thing is to do it as soon as possible, so they can freeze his account.

 

+1, Its worth a try. In my experience its always ended badly, Paypal dont really like me

 

Absolutely. The more people who complain, the more likely it is that something will get done about it.

 

Hi,
I'd like to share how I do business over the Internet.
- No upfront payment.
- I request a very small "milestone", in 3d it could be a screenshot showing the untextured model. In case of a script, a webplayer showing its unpolished working, or part of it working. In case of 2d artwork, small resolution rough art. I pay very little for the first very small milestone, but in that shape obviously I cant use it.
- When I get the model (script, artwork, etc.), I pay its price.

In my experience this small first milestone helps estabilishing trust between partners, and it is something scammers won't do. Once we trust each other, we can skip this "milestone" thing.

 

Such scam behaviour is stupid, because everybody knows that your real ID can be traced in no time nowadays. With forums, articles, word of mouth, such people get blackmailed from the industry in a matter of days.
p.s : always create a signed contract, with name, adress, and all the classical yadda yadda aknowledgments.
Hiring someone is not like recruiting a new guildie ;-)

 

Time to fetch the torches ehhh?

 

I don't understand why anyone would look at his portfolio and go "yeah, we'll hire him".

His artwork is awful. It's very clear he'd be unable to deliver on the work he promised you even if he wasn't a scammer.

 

He is fine and active, I know this guy, He is online right now on my Skype. I nearly hired this guy before, But I found out he was accused of being a scammer before so I did not hire him, This is not the first time he has scammed someone. And I'm sure he would have scammed me to.

After I found out about his scamming I approached him, He defended himself of course, So I said if I was going to hire you I would not pay you upfront, only upon completion, So we agreed, he would do some work and I would pay him on completion.

He did not deliver a single thing..

A tip for the future, Search the forums for someone's username to see if they are a light guy, get references. Make sure you trust him first.

If you did a search on: darquelord you would have seen a few posts on the forums complaining about his scamming.

I am sorry this happened to you.

Best of luck!

 

I had a similar issue with someone not delivering models I purchased at his discounted price. I asked a lawyer who referred me to file a complaint with

http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx
They take your complaint, review it and refer it to the right channels.

I found other people who had the same situation and wrote the guy stating he'd done this to several people over a couple years so I knew it wasn't a mistake, and pasted this definition of fraud from a link on that site:

And I let him know I would be filing a complaint at the ic3 with all the other "victims" I'd rounded up across several forums who'd been offered 1 thing and only partially delivered..... He ended up surfacing and stating he had me confused with someone else and asked me to change my forum posts exposing him.

I would dispute it on paypal first and file a complaint with the ic3 if you have the emails/correspondence outlining the offer, they'll at least take a look at it. Finding other people with a similar experience can show a pattern of the behavior.

 

This is why I like sites like Elance or Odesk - this way I can pay a 25% upfront payment , and I have a site that actually handles the money .


IMO its always bad to do large transactions over the internet . I'm in America so if I work with other Americans in person I can just call the cops if they try to rob me

 

Sorry for asking, but:

1) Do you really send 80$ to someone who tells you he have 5 years industry experience and shows you an untitled youtube video without a description?

2) Do you really send 80$ to someone who tells you he have 5 years industry experience and shows you a subpage on carbonmade host?

3) Do you really send 80$ to someone who tells you he have 5 years industry experience and shows you a subpage on carbonmade host with only a name and a different emailadress in about page?

Please people, investigate a bit before throwing around with money!

 

Surely if PayPal gets notified that this guy is a scammer they will do something about it?
I thought they eventually required documentation or other confirmation of your ID etc.

I mean surely when he draws the money there is a card/bank account linked to his PayPal?

 

All that I can say is that this guy worth less than a horse S***...anyway can't do much about it...

How can I ask for money replacement from paypal? never did that

 

Paypal will not 'replace' your money.

Thats like me going up to a stranger and saying, 'Hey heres 100$ can you clean my windows?' then they dont do it, and I goto the bank saying I want another 100$ to get someone else to clean my windows.

Its not paypals fault, they will not give you money. They might return your money from the other guy but as ive said, its a long shot.

I think you should just move on and learn from it (y).. Its the risk you take

Its not robbery, you are putting your money, in their hands yourself, its your own fault.

 

No Charlie, it's not his fault. It's the fault of the person who defrauded him and fraud is robbery. People go to jail for this type of thing all the time. By your logic Bernie Madoff should be walking around a free man with the millions he got people to give him under false pretenses. The only difference here is the magnitude.

The only thing the OP is guilty of is not doing a reasonable search for someone he was going into business with. But that isn't a crime and the law protects him just the same.

 

Yes that is same guy check link of this site it will say you the same thing

http://darquelord.wix.com/stevendavis3d#!__page-1

darquelor . stevendavis . same images as on carbon site.

btw he is online right now : http://forum.unity3d.com/members/5827-Apprenticeneauxs

 

For justice there are places on the internet you could go, but some of those places are places that you are never same after you go there. They can bring you great justice they know what they doing, but at what cost? Maybe your soul. I'm speaking of 4chan.

 

I'd rather get scammed.

 

If you think that's bad, you should never go to the deep web. It's filled with thieves, hitmen, drug dealers, pedophiles, hackers, and other criminals.

 

What Kind of Character and Animations??
I will replace what you lost..for free...but has to be one of these.
Characters | Animations I The Core BVH

PM me..Illl hook you up in 2 days..I do need a description...
I am working on 30+ Characters and 1000+ fbx Animations, etc...

One more shouldn't take to long...

p-

Yesterday.....
One UnDead Character | 10 Variations

 

I'd just like to say that I've been scammed by Steven as well.

He worked on a contract where he'd finish models by being paid $100 per week, and he was productive for the first month... and that was it. After that, he just kept asking for payments and never sent anything but re-assurances that his assignments would be completed.

I subsequently fired him, and told him I couldn't afford to continue making payments if I wouldn't receive things from him.

I later tried to give him a second chance by asking him to model a basic train-car prop for me, on a 5000 polygon budget. Upon inspection of the model, it was something I could've probably done myself in about four hours in Blender, aside from texturing--and he charged me $600, because I was paying him hourly. The quality of work to payment ratio is an absolute myriad of lies.

It smelled like bullshit, so I fired him immediately and will never employ him again. I suggest everyone else do the same.

Also, he's a total pest on Skype/MSN, and if you try to do the same to him, he doesn't acknowledge your messages.

 

You file a dispute - should be easy to find on paypals site. Paypal will refund your money and charge him. If he doesn't have a balance, they will draft his checking account for it.

Now, obviously the "Darquelord" is reading these messages. So who knows - will he drain his accounts, close them? Seems kind of drastic for $80.

Anyway - log into paypal, click on "Resolution center", then "Report a problem".

Here is a tutorial (have to login first): https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/w...ent/customerservice/EducationBuyerFileDispute

I have done this - it's actually easy. They almost always favor the buyer (that's you!). He will have to prove that he sent the models. He will have (i think) 30 days to respond.

 

I can't believe you all got scammed by this guy, I've worked on teams for free that made me show my work everyday.

 

Steven Davis/AKA Darqlord is actually online right now.

He just posted this a day ago:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/14...ce-Required...?p=978210&viewfull=1#post978210

Is UT doing anything about this? NOPE.

 

This is a standup guy right here. Not many people would be willing to do such a thing, kudos to you.

To the OP, it sucks that the internet is like this. People should just be honest. PayPal, in my experience, is pretty good with refunds. Just provide them with official logs and I don't see why they'll have an issue with it. And hopefully his account gets locked. Good luck with everything...

 

I wish there were more modelers like you who were actually willing to work for free or by royalty (I freakin' love royalty contracts).

I digress, though; everyone has to put bread on the table, even if that means making the little guys pay even littler guys.

EDIT: My apologies, I was not trying to sound condescending in this post

 

Yeah but with royalty contracts the modeler may have to wait up to years to get paid when the game is released or never get paid since the game may be unsuccessful.

 

Very true, very true, and I apologize if that came off as condescending. It's just really hard for indies who have big ideas to get a big start when people like this guy (Steven) keep popping up and ruining things through scams.

 

We're leaving it to people who have had bad experiences with DarqueLord to provide their views.

 

Last time I checked, the best place to deal with contract disputes is a courtroom, not an internet forum for a bloody 3D game engine.

Seriously mate, you're barking up the wrong tree here. If someone fleeces you because you failed to do any Due Diligence on the contractor at all, that's YOUR fault. "Fool me once... etc."

With a forum community as big as Unity's trying to kill the few bad apples becomes a never-ending game of Whack-a-Mole; it's effectively impossible to keep them all out and, frankly, nobody with any business sense whatsoever should be falling for such scams in the first place.

Internet forums are no substitute for an evening class in basic business management and administration. Many adult education centres and colleges even offer such courses for free—or effectively so if government "business startup" grants are available in your territory. Running a business is no harder / easier than making a game.

 

Yes that is very cool. And it's cool that the scam artists were called out when noticed. Keep it very tight and professional. Still be careful for your protection legally as much as anything else even if it's only avoiding harassment.