I wasn't really going to go into more detail with this, as I had considered the matter done with at the time, but apparently the owner of lurapets is not only still contacting people, but sending lies about the whole ordeal as well. I don't really know why he expected that not only drawing more attention to his scam would help him, but outright lying about it as well. I guess he either figured it would never get back to me so I would never know and or that I didn't save some of our conversations or have records of anything. A a lot of people have contacted me about this, a staggering amount in fact, so I hope this journal will help those of you with questions or who have had the same experiences I have with this scammer.

Not only is this man a liar, he's really bad at it.

Here is the note he is sending people:

The amount of butt-hurt this man is apparently suffering is much greater than I thought. I originally got sucked into this scam because I DID ask the head artist and she told me I would be paid. Whether or not she knew I would or wouldn't is a matter of its own, and simply for the fact that she is not on trial here, I will give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she didn't know what this man was doing to other artists. This is also apparently not the first time he has done this. A simple google search or look through the comments on my deviation can prove this pretty quickly.

I guess I should go through the lies one by one.

"She worked for lurapets for like a week, and we didn't like her style, so we asked her to stop making those images. She didn't she continued to progress making them, she asked why she wasn't being paid for them, we simply told her they weren't matching our style." - I in fact worked for them for several months starting in september, not only did he love how they where done, he begged me to both make more and re-design characters previously done. When I stopped working on re-designed the egyptian themed ones because he STILL hadn't payed me, he continued to try and push me into finishing them.

"So we paid for the ones we wanted, and she went ballistic, but That wasn't a surprise, according to a lot of people on here she does like drama, please do not fall for her bashing on lurapets." - This one is particularly funny, since he was only willing to pay for anything after I posted my images and started getting bad publicity. In the end he only payed for two of the images (because he had already had graphics and shit made from them) rather than all of the images he had commissioned from me.

after almost half a year of waiting to be payed for the FIRST image I did and after being blown off over and over and being told to e-mail him if I ever wanted to hear from him again, and then blocked me:

_{I am sending you an e-mail as per your request. As you seen adamant to
both ignore me and refuse to pay me for the work that I have done for you
upon our agreement, despite given ample time and months worth of leniency
to do so, I am willing to cut my losses and come to terms with the fact
that you have indeed scammed me. I will continue to hold the rights to my
work and am writing to make it clear that you do NOT have permission to
use any of my works in any way, shape or form on your product (game,
website or otherwise) or the rights to redistribute it in any manner.
Including but not limited to NPC graphics, derivative icon graphics,
banners or promotional material. As I am sending this 2 days before your
opening, this should give you enough time to remove any graphics derived
from my images before publication of your game.}

_{I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I am simply tired of being
jerked around and am not willing to play this game with you. Consider this
your final notice from me. Should I find any of my work or works
derivative of my work on your site or used in promotion of by you or your
representatives, the next time you will be contacted regarding this issue
will be from my attorney.}

_{- Stephan}

And then I posted my images and sent the e-mail, of course as soon as I had done so, he SUDDENLY had time for me again, here is the saved file of our last conversation (yes it does start that abruptly, that's how he started the conversation) incidentally be prepared for a staggering amount of stupid comments on his part trying to distract from the issue.:

CLICK HERE TO READ MSN CONVERSATION

Infact, he himself has proven that he only payed me AFTER I posted the images and sent the e-mail and then only payed me for two: [link] (and no, that is not my name, it is part of his 'rest of staff'.

His deviant art is *Ken09199 and his e-mail and MSN are truc-kerman@hotmail.com .

Here are a few journals from other scammed Lura artists: [link] [link]

If you still want to work for them dispite knowing these facts, that's really not my business and I'm certainly not going to try and stop you. It's just always good to know who you're working for.

If you have been scammed by Lurapets, they do NOT have the rights to use your artwork until they've bought the rights to it. Don't let him bully you into thinking otherwise.