I am not the OP. This is a repost sub.

Original poster is u/KindredCocaCola. Originally posted about 4 years ago in r/relationships, then finished on r/ProRevenge.

Me [19f] with my aunt [40f]. I agreed to do some artwork for her business. I thought we agreed she would pay me, she said she is giving me experience. What should I do? I'm worried how this will impact my family.

https://www.reveddit.com/v/relationships/comments/87jll8/me_19f_with_my_aunt_40f_i_agreed_to_do_some/

Where to begin on this.

I am currently in a very expensive art school, it's always been my dream to be a paid artist and I think I'm very good at taking peoples ideas and turning them into reality. My parent's have been awesome and they saved up so much money for me to go to school that I only have a small amount of student loans but any paid work I get is a huge, huge help.

My dad has two brothers, both are married. So lets say their wives are Aunt Kay and Aunt Jay. Last year Aunt Kay asked me to paint a picture of the view of the mountains from her dads gravesite. I did a very stylized acrylic that I thought turned out excellent, in fact it's one of my favorite things I've ever done. Aunt Kay actually broke into tears and I was so moved that I tried to refuse payment from her because her appreciation meant so much to me and she isn't wealthy by any means. But in the end she insisted on paying me and paid me far more than any of my artwork is worth, the money was so helpful this past year.

So Aunt Jay contacted me at the beginning of the year talking about how impressed she was with Aunt Kay's painting and asking me if I would be willing to work on some designs for her new real estate business. I 100% remember telling her that I was really busy this semester and that as much as I hated to, I would have to charge her for my time because it would cut into my free time. I also swear on everything I am positive that she said "don't worry about anything, I'll pay you" but it came out very nice.

Well she wanted a lot of stuff done, logos, office painting, a design for a mural in her office, a design for those magnets that go on cars and some other small things.

Things got weird from the start, I did some initial sketches for her to see if we were going down the right path and she actually got sort of mad at me because I was wasting her time with non finished products. I told her that's kind of how I work because I don't want to waste expensive materials on ideas that she may not like. I actually have this in text and she said "my time is just as valuable as your materials, so please don't waste it." I was like ok, so I spent the next week doing a very elaborate oil painting from which her business logo would be taken. I even UPS shipped it to her. She hated it and got mad at me again for wasting her time. I tried to explain to her this is why I like to do sketches so there's no misunderstanding. She agreed this time and I finally came up with things she liked. I'd spent a lot of time on this project already, not so much that my grades were slipping but it was costing me time with my friends. So I did final versions of the oil painting for the office, did what I think is a really cool logo and a really nice mock up of the office mural. I was out quite a bit of money for the materials and shipping and it was very stupid of me to not follow up about the payment then.

Things got really weird when she accused me of dragging my feet on the car magnet design. I said that what she should do is take the logo to a local graphic design place and they could easily do it. I also told her I thought we had the materials to make them at my school but I personally didn't. She accused me of not working hard enough for her. I was really taken aback and just decided enough was enough and I would just stop doing things for her.

This is where things get really ugly. She contacted me out of the blue and thanked me for the advice on the magnets. She said that now she was ready for me to fly out and paint her office mural. I said that was pretty much impossible as I had classes and any decent mural painter could take my mock up and make it happen. She said she wanted me to do it. So I talked with my teachers to see if I could take a week off, all were supportive, so I looked up tickets and told Aunt Jay what it would cost to fly me out. She said that she assumed I would pay for it since I'd get to see my family anyways. I said I was really sorry but I just can't afford it but maybe if she paid me for the work I'd already done for her, maybe I could see if my parents would split the cost of the ticket with me.

She literally exploded on me. I mean exploded. She accused me of showing favoritism to Aunt Kay because I'd tried to refuse payment for the gravesite painting, she accused me of dragging my feet and as quote as I can "I wanted this shit in January and it's almost fucking April." I tried to break in and say that we agreed I'd be paid and she called me short sighted and said something like (not a quote) "do you realize how much doing work for someone like me can mean for someone like you? I'm giving you free advertising because hundreds of people will come in and out of my office every week!" She then said she had given me valuable experience that is worth more than any amount of money. I was shocked and I said, actually her work was pretty easy and I'd done tons of pieces like that when I was in high school. She then said I was insulting her intelligence and hung up on me.

That was yesterday afternoon and I'm still in shock. I haven't told my parents, I haven't told my uncle and I definitely haven't tried to call my aunt back. I'm worried that this is going to cause a big rift in my family and since she gets to see everyone on at least a weekly basis she'll get to tell her side of the story and I'll look like a greedy jerk that expects money from family. The art is a moot point because I can just stop and I can't afford a ticket with my own money so that will have to go to the wayside but I'm worried about the effect on my family.

What should I do here?

tl;dr: I agreed to do some art work for my aunt's business, I swear we agreed she'd pay me but she is so mad at me for asking for money and said I'm lucky she was giving me experience. What should I do?

edit: This totally blew up! I've been working all day and got to check in once in a while. Sorry I didn't get a chance to reply. I tried to call my parents and tell them but didn't get an answer but I'll keep trying. I did get to talk to one of my favorite teachers and she was pissed. She is best friends with our schools licensing/legal affairs advisor and set me up with an appointment in the morning to find out what recourse I have. Thank you so much for everyone and the advice. I would love to update but I have a feeling this might get removed or cross posted, but if it doesn't I will absolutely put an update when I'm able.

My Aunt tried to use the "you don't need money, I'm giving you experience and exposure" for some art I did for "business." She got called out, now her entire scam (and life) is unravelling and while I don't like to gloat, I can't help but snicker.

I originally posted my question on r/relationships on Monday so for the whole backstory please click on my profile but;

tl;dr: Aunt Jay (by marriage) asked me to do several pieces of art for her real estate business. I'm in school and am positive I told her that I would need to be paid. I'm also positive she agreed to pay me. My major mistake for not agreeing to terms up front but she still tried to take advantage of me. She was difficult, refused to accept drafts then hated the finished products. I was out tons of time and money and tried to wash my hands of her. Out of the blue she wanted me to fly out (on my own dime) to paint her office mural. I said I would have to get paid for previous work and she exploded on me and told me that "exposure from people like me is great for people like you" and "I'm giving you experience."

That was Monday, first thing Tuesday morning I had a meeting with my schools licensing/legal advisor and she helped me draft a letter stating since no legal transfer of ownership had taken place, Aunt Jay was to cease using any of my work immediately. We also wrote up and invoice for my time, materials and shipping up to that point (with a very friendly 15% family discount) and that if Aunt Jay were to work out a payment plan she could continue using the finished pieces. I emailed them to her.

I was very sincerely trying to handle this like an adult and not involve my parents or my uncle (dad's brother and Aunt Jays husband) but maybe 1.5 hours after I pressed send on the email my mom called me.

It basically went like this:

Mom: "Aunt Jay just called and completely chewed me out over what an ungrateful brat you are. What's going on?"

I explained the situation to her and apologized because I really was trying to handle it myself. She was apoplectic mad and revealed to me that Aunt Jay had been pulling this kind of bullshit ever since she married my uncle. Mom really wished I would have called when this first started and she would have advised to me avoid ever doing anything with her. I said I was sorry that I was in so deep but I felt like I was handling it ok. My Mom asked if it was ok if she got involved, I said that was ok.

Aunt Jay got her real estate license last fall and had been telling my uncle that she was a "lock" to be a franchisee (or whatever you call it in real estate) for a nation wide real estate company. I'll just say ProMax. My mom called a local ProMax office and asked who she should talk to because one of their agents had commissioned several thousands of dollars worth of professional promotional materials and was refusing to pay. She was put on the phone with whoever was the highest "ranking" agent in my home town who was incredibly confused because all the local offices were under his guidance and they had a promotional materials contract with a local graphic design company. My mom gave him Aunt Jay's name and holy shit...

Aunt Jay was using this multi million dollar real estate companies name and materials when she wasn't even part of the company! I mean this is a huge deal and she could literally be facing years of legal trouble and since real estate licensing is a fairly small world in our state, she is almost certainly going to lose her license if ProMax pursues her. I honestly don't know enough about real estate to know how or even if she was making this work or if she was just biding her time until the franchise did come trough... I have no idea...maybe her scam wouldn't have been figured out if she'd just paid me.

But it gets even deeper than this. Aunt Jay had just bought a huge new Cadillac Escalade over Christmas and since she said it was for work, she told my uncle that ProMax was helping her finance it. My dad called my uncle (his brother) to let him know what my mom had found out as a heads up. My uncle freaked out because obviously if she wasn't part of ProMax then she wasn't getting generous financing terms from ProMax on her new $80000 dollar car. My uncle ran his credit and it looks like Aunt Jay had taken out two credit cards in his name and maxed them out--he thinks for the down payment on this car.

So not only was Aunt Jay screwing me over, she was in a round about way stealing using the established name of a multimillion dollar company....but she committed identity theft against her own husband too! And now she's been exposed because she refused to pay me.

My uncle told my dad that he's known that last straw has been coming for a long time and this was a last log. He's contacting divorce attorneys immediately in hopes he doesn't get taken down in case ProMax decides to pursue real legal action against her. He's going to have the lawyer advise him on what to do about the identity theft.

Basically, Aunt Jay is screwed in every way imaginable. I've never been one to gloat and I always take pity on people who are having a hard time...I'm not this time.

Relevant Comment:

• When asked if she's going to get paid for her work: Sadly I think the me getting paid ship has sailed and I think my poor uncle would be paying for it anyways. I'll be happy if he just gets away from her without getting screwed over by all her crap.

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Hello again, I'm the girl/artist who's aunt tried the old "I'm giving you experience and exposure" instead of paying me for some art I did for her real estate business. Just a quick update and then I'll try to let this fade away...

Hello everyone again. I feel bad about posting again because I'm totally not a karma whore but people seemed to be really invested in it and there were actually some people from the company in question who contacted me via this throwaway account so I figure I needed to give some closure (though the story is going to play out for a long time because it's my uncle/aunt's divorce is going to be ugly).

At this point I have no idea what's removed and why, what's still out there, what's been crossposted, etc... so for those who are just checking in I'll try to reset as succinctly as possible:

At the beginning of the year my Aunt Jay (by marriage) asked me to do some artwork for her new real estate business. We had a verbal agreement that she would pay me. She was demanding, insulting and shitty from the get go and I was out a ton of time, quite a bit of material costs very quickly. She wanted me to fly out on my own dime to finish up and paint a mural I designed. I asked for payment on everything I'd already done and she freaked out and screamed at me.

Tuesday, I went to my schools licensing/legal aid office, they helped me draft a letter to cease using my work and an invoice. Aunt Jay called my mom calling me an "ungrateful brat." Mom called Aunt Jay's supposed real estate company to say that one of their agents was not paying for services rendered. Company had no idea who Aunt Jay was. This caused my Uncle to look into things and it turned out Aunt Jay had taken out a few credit cards in his name only and maxed them out. Probably for her Escalade, new "real estate agent" wardrobe and office.

My update was Wednesday so in the following 2/3 days quite a bit more information has come to light about what Aunt Jay was actually up to. She's actually not in as big of trouble as I and everyone on the last post assumed but she's still pretty much screwed in several ways.

So first of all we learned that she probably never told anyone other than my uncle that she was working for the nation wide real estate company in question going to call it ProRealty (my last fake name may have been a little to obvious). It doesn't look like she had any clients, never brokered a single deal, she may have taken a few people around to look at houses but we aren't even sure about that. It looks like the "soon to be ProRealty franchisee" thing was just a lie to get my uncle off her tracks about where this huge influx of cheaply financed money was coming from. She had told him that ProRealty had financed her new Escalade and that they had helped her rent her office.

Since she never actually claimed to be a certified ProRealty agent in order to defraud people, it doesn't look like the company itself has any legal recourse against her. However my mom (extreme extrovert, opposite of me) who has become fast friends with the most senior agent in my hometown and he is (or has, not sure) going to report my aunt to the state board of real estate to have her new (as of last fall) license reviewed and probably suspended. Even if this doesn't happen, she is essentially blackballed from ever doing a deal with ProRealty and according this senior agent, something like 45% of home sales in my town happen with a ProRealty agent on either side of the sale. So even if Aunt Jay doesn't lose her license, she's effectively chopped half of her business potential right from the get go.

One thing that absolutely came out of my last r/prorevenge post was that two actual "ProRealty" agents commented and it was because of them that I was able to figure out a huge chunk of the puzzle. So the real life version of this company uses a very identifiable form of transportation on their logo but to keep this anonymous let's say that ProRealty uses a boat. When Aunt Jay was first talking to me about doing work for her she was oddly adamant that I don't use any "boats" in any of the work I was going to do for her. I mean actually forcefully direct instruction was "no boats!" In my head at the time I was like, I'm not one to paint boats anyways but point taken. Well as me and my family now surmise, while she knew she was already fraudulent, she was still trying to walk a line of not getting on ProRealty's radar in any way shape or form because she knew they could really screw up her plans if she were to be seen driving an $80000 Escalade around town with anything resembling ProRealty's "boat" plastered all over it. But to me it shows she absolutely knew she was up to no good and I hope this can be used in the divorce.

So onto my uncle, I don't know all the ins and outs of how separations and divorces work but as I understand he contacted a lawyer Wednesday afternoon and they were working to file some sort of emergency separation motion with the courts as soon as they possibly could in order to make sure she couldn't do any more financial damages to him. One thing that I thought was really cool of my uncle to do was that his lawyer did (or is in the process) of filing paperwork so she has to turn over all financial records and declare all assets related to her "business" and my uncle specifically asked the lawyer to include the oil painting and logos I'd already shipped to her. So while I'll never get paid, at least I may get my work back. The lawyer is also figuring out what to do about the identity theft.

One thing that is totally screwed up and I totally don't understand is that my uncle has pretty much paid for everything since they've been married (about 5 years) and Aunt Jay literally committed identity theft against him, he is still the one who has to leave the house so at least until he can get a place on his own, he's staying with my parents. My dad says my uncle is basically broken over this, that he didn't see it coming and actually bought into the bullcrap about ProRealty financing a car for someone who didn't even work for them. This makes me feel bad because I brought it all to light but my dad says my uncle appreciates it because Aunt Jay could have gotten in much deeper and she didn't really have a chance to try to and cover up fraud with more fraud.

So still a lot I don't know but this is where we are today. My uncles lawyer doesn't have a timeline for the divorce, I guess it will just depend if stupid Aunt Jay actually finds a lawyer who will put up a fight or if she just tries to fade away.

We'll see, thank you for reading, thank you for all the comments the other day and thank you to the posters who provided a lot of clarity with their knowledge of relationships and the real estate business.

edit: eeeekkkk...pms are getting a little dodgy.

1. I'm not hot at all.
2. Aunt Jay looks like she is trying very hard to be in "step-mom" porn and coming up just short (my ex was really into it, that's how I know about it).

Edit 2: just talked with my mom again, my uncle wasn't forced to leave the house, I guess his lawyer advised him that if he felt he was any danger, or if he felt that there was even a slight chance that Aunt Jay would accuse him of harming her, it's best he just leave and they'd work out possession of the house later. It's very hard to reconcile that he was either scared of her or scared of her accusing him with the huge 6'3" dads little brother who used to throw me around in our pool. Growing up sucks.

Relevant Comments:

• When asked if the uncle will have to pay for the car: I really hope not but I honestly don't know. Aunt Jay hasn't had any income for as long as I've known her so I don't know how she'll pay for it. What it looks like she did is she took out the two credit cards and the dealership either allowed her to use them as a down payment. or worse, she used them to get a cash advance for the down payment. It does look like the actual car loan is in her name.
• She has kids from her previous marriage so he's very lucky that they have none together! I've only met my step cousins a handful of times because they live out of state with their dad so that should be total non issue. I would be so heartbroken if he had to pay her alimony. It would almost make me question whether there's any fairness in the world at all.

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Reminder - I am not the OP. This is a repost sub.

Original poster is u/KindredCocaCola. Originally posted about 4 years ago in r/relationships**, then finished on r/ProRevenge.