I've been working through VGen as usual, but for the first time, after almost a year of using this platform, I noticed a problem when receiving payments for my work. For the past 3 weeks, all payments from my clients have never reached my PayPal account.

VGen has a system where, when you use PayPal as a payment method, they have no contact with the money; they simply act as spectators. When someone pays you a commission, VGen detects it and immediately sends you a notification informing you that the payment has been confirmed.

I first contacted VGen via Discord support before they told me the above information. They told me it could be a PayPal error, so they were kind enough to provide the transaction IDs my clients made so I could contact PayPal to check their status.

PayPal didn't find the IDs associated with my account. They asked me to verify my information, such as my password and email address. I always had them correct, as I've always been afraid of getting into trouble with PayPal. I always had security measures in place when using it.

They told me it could have been an error with the platform I use. At first, I thought PayPal was ignoring my problem, that they didn't want to help me or give me my money, but surprise, at least this time, in this story, PayPal wasn't the bad guy.

Back with VGen, which you should take into account, they gave me one or two responses per day, very slow... They asked me certain questions. "Is your PayPal linked? Is your email linked to your VGen account? Make sure you have your personal email on PayPal."

All my information was correct, of course I followed my account security methods, and suddenly one day they tell me... "Does your PayPal email start with m... and end with 2?" NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT.

That's where the thorn came in... Alarmed, I went to one of my clients and asked what email address they'd received after completing the transaction, and to my horror, it was someone completely unknown.

VGen asks me again if I'm sure it's not my email, and that's when I get annoyed... They start asking me if I didn't lend my VGen account to someone... Excuse me? Of course not, it's absurd.

"Did you open any suspicious links on the platform?" Under no circumstances do clients send me reference images and Toyhouse links just to help me draw their characters. Beyond that, nothing.

Here I get angry and desperate at the same time, and I record a video of my computer showing that... When I go to the VGen payments section, where a PayPal account is linked to my VGen account, when I click "manage" it redirects me only to my PayPal account.

But for VGen, it appeared as if another email was linked to my VGen account, not mine. I quickly unlinked the account and relinked it, and apparently I was able to receive payments again (new ones, not the previous ones, which the fraudulent person took).

I asked them how that error could have happened. How could their platform redirect me to my PayPal account if it wasn't linked? How could someone even link their email to my account if I don't engage in dangerous online activities?

And most importantly... What would happen to my money?

I went to all my clients (who stopped back then, VGen told me I could continue with my commissions without worrying, I asked them at the beginning of this problem if it was better to wait until everything was resolved, and they confidently told me it wasn't necessary).

I told them to refund everything directly to that fraudulent email via PayPal. I no longer demanded to be paid again, since with the VGen system, when the commissions ended I was afraid they would give me bad reviews and recommend my work less.

Besides, some were too lazy to refund, and they were satisfied just by having their drawing, which is ugly in my opinion... Although I can't force them to do it either.

Only one very kind person refunded me and told me they would pay me again, while another, feeling sorry for me and sending them variants of their illustration, left me a tip, which I sincerely appreciated.

I asked VGen how this could have happened. I made it clear that something like this was dangerous, and that they could easily change payment accounts without notifications or confirmations.

Also, if it weren't for that error where VGen kept telling me that my account was still linked, and it turned out that it wasn't... I could have realized it sooner and avoided losing so much money.

My only mistake was not realizing sooner that PayPal wasn't sending me the immediate payment confirmation notifications that are sent simultaneously with VGen notifications.

To this day, I'm disappointed because they haven't answered my messages since last Friday. They stopped responding because, prior to this, in their last reply, they had written to me that they were considering my case as a "priority."

I still haven't received an answer, and I've resigned myself to losing all that money. Thanks to the clients I mentioned, I managed to reduce my loss from $95 to $55.

What did I learn? To confirm both notifications when receiving a commission, and above all, to unlink and relink my PayPal account to VGen periodically. I can't afford to leave VGen, as most, if not all, of my commissions come from there.

I'd had positive experiences so far, and this case made me feel less confident using the platform. I know it offers many opportunities, but this bad luck has greatly affected the way I feel about it.

I'm writing this so you can be careful with VGen, check your payment notifications, and preferably confirm your PayPal emails to your customers. I feel disappointed; I thought this platform was secure.

I shared this experience on Facebook, in Spanish. Some people who mentioned they knew about the software said various things, ranging from that it sounded more like the platform was hacked...

That the database failed and it saved two pieces of information, the one from the registered email and the one I saw, or that someone within the platform could have even done something wrong and entered their own email...

I don't know about that, so I can't confirm it. I'm just recounting the comments that point out where the problem could have come from based on my anecdote.

I read some people commenting that it could be a virus on my computer or PayPal... if so, why only VGen and not my Kofi and other sites I use PayPal on?

@MasterBluuu I’m SO very sorry this has happened to you. It’s scary to imagine how a compromised email made its way into your Vgen despite it saying YOURS was linked. I really hope Vgen addresses this and how they can optimize security in the future because this is mind boggling

@SarakuraMisaki Thank you so much!🫂 I honestly didn't think I'd see so many reactions. I hope people are careful from now on. I felt like I'd be ignored for being a small artist... From now on, I'll add a note to my clients asking them to check my email before making the payment.