Artist Vanished - What Do I Do?

[Sprite]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask. But I'm not sure where else to turn to and I'm growing increasingly concerned by the minute.

I commissioned an art here by the name of PrivateCompanyMan.

They sent me an email after I opened a hiring thread. You can view the thread here.

I decided to choose them as my artist, and they added me on Discord. I paid them $105 in total for the project and they said it would take a few days to complete. A couple days later they sent me an initial sketch, which I gave my comments on. It's been about a week since then and I haven't heard from them since.

I wouldn't normally have any major concerns about artists missing their estimated deadlines or taking a little longer than usual. I understand things happen, but the silence has been concerning nonetheless. I sent them a message on Discord to check up on them, but haven't received anything back over the last 24 hours. Out of curiosity I decided to check their FurAffinity page to see what they were up to and noticed it had been disabled. I then checked their DeviantArt and saw it was also disabled. Almost every social media account they had originally no longer existed.

I started to panic thinking they had completely dropped off the map after I paid them. I decided to send them an email to check in on things and I received an auto-reply back stating the email account had also been disabled.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to do at this point. They may get back to me on Discord at some point, but seeing as almost every account they owned has been disabled along with their email, I'm starting to feel there is a genuine possibility they may never respond. My only options now seem to be to wait for an unlikely response or report the issue to Paypal. It was a proper payment; I did not send the money over as "Friends & Family" therefore I should be covered.

Still, I feel bad about submitting a complaint when it's only been a week. A part of me feels I should give them more time to respond, but I'm too paranoid given the circumstances to continue idly waiting.

What should I do here?

 

[Nihles]

How did you pay this artist? Sudden disabling of all accounts is a huge red flag, I would be freaking out too.

 

[Fiorabeast]

Oh my... I'm seconding what @Nihles is saying as if that artist has disabled EVERYTHING that's a huge red flag there... You might have possibly been scammed here...
(I know what artist you are talking about as I've seen them around here and they seemed really convincing in their art and their 'art salesman' approach...)

Honestly, report to Paypal and tell them your situation since if you do it ASAP you can dispute it within the timeframe. If when @PrivateCompanyMan responds (either here or via email if they EVER open it up), DO NOT close that dispute until you either got the product in hand, or you were rightfully refunded the money!

Another option is to see if they respond, is by posting on the Artist Beware Livejournal (and informing them you will do this if you don't hear from them) as usually doing that will cause them to come out of the shadows so to speak, not to mention you can warn other potential commissioners, or others that might have commissioned under him can relate to a similar experience. Though this option, I would do as a last result and if all else fails...

 

[Nihles]

Oh my... I'm seconding what @Nihles is saying as if that artist has disabled EVERYTHING that's a huge red flag there... You might have possibly been scammed here...
(I know what artist you are talking about as I've seen them around here and they seemed really convincing in their art and their 'art salesman' approach...)

Honestly, report to Paypal and tell them your situation since if you do it ASAP you can dispute it within the timeframe. If when @PrivateCompanyMan responds (either here or via email if they EVER open it up), DO NOT close that dispute until you either got the product in hand, or you were rightfully refunded the money!

Another option is to see if they respond, is by posting on the Artist Beware Livejournal (and informing them you will do this if you don't hear from them) as usually doing that will cause them to come out of the shadows so to speak, not to mention you can warn other potential commissioners, or others that might have commissioned under him can relate to a similar experience. Though this option, I would do as a last result and if all else fails...

Basically, this. Reversing the charge on PayPal and reporting against the artist's reputation on artist beware are your best defenses if you think you'v been scammed.