Silver EagleNotice to IMVU Senior Leadership re: FurAffinity

Subject: Final Contractor Compensation for FurAffinity Project
Date: Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 11:36 AM
To: Multiple recipients (IMVU leadership)

To whom it may concern,

My name is Buster Neece. Since October 15, 2015, I have been engaged as an independent contractor through site director Sean Piche on the FurAffinity project. My primary project has been to develop and oversee the rewrite of the core FA web application into a significantly more modern, secure and robust web application.

To that end, I completed a total of 450 hours of work related to the project, from development itself to infrastructure setup, database schema management, frontend design and consultation.

As compensation for my work on this project, Mr. Piche explicitly indicated, on a number of instances, that I would be paid a sum of $xxxx upfront, followed by $xxxx for every month of work completed afterward. As a senior web developer, I am well aware that this amount is less than 20% of the typical hourly rate I would assess as a contractor, and that even before self-employment taxes, $10 an hour for work that requires over a decade of training and experience is a paltry sum, to say the least. Nonetheless, out of a desire to see the site succeed and a devotion to the fan base it serves, I accepted this rate and continued on with my work.

Each step of the way, I was presented with some other inexplicable obstacle to the receipt of my payment. First, the requirement was made that the account be a "business account", regardless of what type of business it was. Considering this could even be a DBA account (which offers no difference in personal liability vs. paying an individual directly), this was a strange delay that I have not seen before in my career. Further delays included the previously unmentioned requirement for a formal invoice, and then delays in the process of issuing and signing my independent contractor agreement. The combined effect of these delays meant that despite working since October 15, as of January 25 I had not received any payment for services rendered.

In light of these delays, I recently sent an e-mail to IMVU's Accounts Payable department contact, which was replied with a notice that no contract had ever been submitted to IMVU from Mr. Piche. This, combined with the several months of needless delays in processing my payment, raised significant red flags and led to the immediate separation of my business relationship with FurAffinity.

Despite this separation, there can be no doubt that the work was completed for the organization as requested and supplied to the site for its use. As such, for the duration of the agreement from October 15, 2015 to January 26, 2016, I fully delivered on my obligations as an independent contractor for FurAffinity.

As a result, the final sum of $xxxx ($xxxx upfront, plus one month's payment) is due to me immediately. I have attached the signed copy of my contract for quick reference to these amounts.

The response of the community to these issues has been overwhelmingly negative for FurAffinity, with dozens upon dozens calling for me to pursue legal action against the organization, whose inaction in this instance has only further eroded already shaky confidence in the web site from its user base. I would greatly prefer to pursue this matter in as civil of a fashion as possible, however, and am providing IMVU the opportunity to issue payment promptly and resolve the issue completely.

Thank you for your understanding and prompt response.

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Buster Neece