Retired Fix Up Thread

G L I T C H
C I T Y

Well, it's been months, actually two months short of a year now, and I hate to do this, but I've been left with no choice. I've given ample time and opportunity to hear some sort of reply, and I've given a good bit of time with ultimatums that I would go on here and do this, but with no word back, it's time. I'm telling my story of how if someone has a bad trader tag, you don't ever take it for granted and you shouldn't do business with them. This is the case with chargrove and myself, and a lesson to all about how no matter how good someone's work is, to make absolutely sure that no one has ever had issue with them before you send them your stuff, as you may never get it back or ever hear from them again. Anyway, here's the full story:

I initially contacted Chris on October 27 of last year for work on two customs: a WM26 GI Joe style camo CM Punk, and to use the spare parts from the source figures I sent him to make a Pipe Bomb attire Punk. I sent him my FIRST elite I had ever purchased, an Elite 11 Punk, and a pretty expensive Punk I purchased on ebay, the All Star yellow attire Punk, with a headswap I had done myself with the head I intended on using for the Joe-styled punk: the long hair and beard scan from the Over the Limit basic Punk. After some discussion, we agreed on 50 bucks shipped for the work including paint and the torso swap required to put the chest hair on the E11 body. I had no paint or torso cracking experience, so for the price we'd agreed upon plus seeing his amazing prior work, this was an ideal setup for me to get the attires I wanted on my figures. He confirmed the figures arrived on Nov. 13, and on the 18th, he sent me this updates on his work:



So far, so good. Around this time, I saw some people talking about unreliability in regards to chargrove, so given the initial positive experience, I stood up for him and gave the quick turnaround I saw progressing before my eyes as a good sign. He was thankful for my support, and kept contact with me. On Dec. 7, he gave me another update:



I didn't quite think that it matched what I was going for, so I gave him more reference pictures. He assured me on Dec. 14th that he would work on my figure a bit more, and even said that due to the time it was taking him that he couldn't accept the initial deal of 50, and even offered to lower the price to 35, plus a free custom Tajiri. I thanked him for his kind offer, and figured it was nice, but offered 42 for everything since he was offering me a free figure as well as the work on my stuff.

And then...silence. Every month around the same time, I'd message him back in our PM thread, asking for updates, and seeing no reply. Every now and then, he'd post other figures he was working on in either the fixup thread, or his own custom thread. He mentioned me once more, although not replying to me since December, in January:

One final time in April, after my monthly requests to hear back in some form about the huge delay in my nearly-complete custom commissions, he posted this picture featuring my Punk's boots:

Through the ENTIRE year of 2015, I've tried liking various posts, quoting him in other threads asking for a reply to my PMs, starting new PMs with the hopes of getting his attention, messaging him on his ebay account, and even adding him on facebook and sending private messages to him on there about how I've grown very frustrated with him ignoring me at what has honestly been a very trying time in my life.

After really taking a good look at his custom thread, I contacted koreygunz since his posts seemed eerily familiar to my own, and asking him about his experience with chargrove. He told me a familiar story to mine, about sending a figure off to him for custom work. Here are korey's exact words on this situation:


And here we are. After sending friendly requests to get an update on some sort of progress for months, then more concerned ones highlighting my personal struggles with health through the year and how a situation like this one has been hard to swallow for another few months, and even messages on facebook saying how I would go on WF and expose the blatant disregard for his customers, nothing. I wonder if me doing this lengthy post about how a very talented custom artist that has done this kind of thing before will finally get me some sort of response like koreygunz got a while back. Seeing how his time on here has become more and more limited and sporadic, I don't know.

I hate having to write this story and expose him like this. I consider myself to be a pretty patient and friendly person. I've had to go through dealing with chronic pain for four years, a spinal fusion in my neck very similar to Steve Austin and Edge at the end of last year, and continuing chronic pain that persists to this very day. I'm a positive person who tries to see the good in people, and I work very hard through the pain on a daily basis. I also have been taken advantage of time and time again both online and in person due to my nature, and frankly I'm fed up and I'm not going to be ignored anymore. I thank you all for reading this, and I hope that my mistake of trusting someone online who had a history of both positive and negative interactions with people can lead those who've read this to have a more cautious approach to how you deal online. Stay safe with your stuff, and your money, because you may not get it back if you send it to the wrong person.

Really feel for you bud! Same thing happened to me a member called 'CMD'. That member is now on the bad trading list too. It's a shame when you have people so talented but lower themselves to committing fraud.

Please be careful when ordering customs on here folks!