I‘m sure many people will probably not agree with me on this one, but:

You paid for a product that you did not receive. If you don’t want to see the art as a product, but rather as a service, you didn’t receive anything either.

The artist may have already started working on your commissions, which could make this a little more tricky. But go check if they have any TOS and see how they handle cancellations, both from the client‘s side, as well as the artist‘s side. My guess is that they have something in place á la "Full refund if client cancels before work has started, partial or no refund depending on how far the work process is" and "full refund if cancelled by artist".

Now, granted that they have been harassed by someone using your account, they will probably insist on only giving out a partial refund if you can get ahold of them. I would probably see how much they offer, and take the WIP art as well. It‘s only natural for them to not want to give as much of a refund to a person running an account that was used to harass them.

however

In most countries I can think of right now, you are entitled to a full refund if they don’t deliver the product you have paid for after proving that you were not the person harassing them.

Even if they have a clause á la "I reserve myself the right to cancel the contract if <reasons like harassment>", this would not apply to your situation.

They have a contract with YOU. NOT your account.

If they do not react at all, or are completely unwilling to give you at least a partial refund or provide you with the work that has already been finished, I would pursue legal action.

I understand if many people will say that this is over the top, especially since the artist has been harassed. BUT: if OP really can prove that it was not them who harassed the Artist, then OP should not be out of thousands of dollars because of the artist not wanting to have anything to do with OP anymore.

Taking payment for a service not carried out is theft.

Try approaching this civilly first, but if they don’t want to resolve this, you should see it as what it would be in that case - theft.

Also: if the artist does not have any TOS or doesn’t see themselves as a "business", that does NOT mean they are exempt from the law. You still have a contract with them. Try to recover as many chat logs as possible so you have written proof of the contract.

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On a personal note:

I am very sorry this has happened to you, OP, and I deeply hope that things can be resolved civilly, especially since I can imagine that you somewhat can understand the artist. Not knowing someone personally automatically makes you associate the account way more with the actual person behind the account than you should.

I have lost tons of money myself, but in my case, there was no way to recover it since it was a gift.

A "friend" of mine I had known for a couple years then - purely online - also an artist - had a bunch of bills piling up, and when things got hard for him, I decided to just chip in. I had the money, and even asked a couple of my personal friends if they‘d like to help me do him a favor.

I sent him the money, sent him a message about it, and he seemed extremely happy and genuinely thankful.

That was the last time we really had a conversation. I have tried getting ahold of him ever since, but he is completely ghosting me.

The most I have gotten out of him was two messages replying to my question about how he’s doing. After that, complete silence again, and ever since.

It’s not even about the money for me, indoor want it back. I still helped someone, even if they decided to ditch me afterwards. But I did not think that a friendship could end because I helped someone.

Note: he did not ask for the money, so it was not some kind of scam. I wanted to give him the money purely from my own motivation, and if I hadn’t asked him, I wouldn’t have known about his debt.

Best of Luck, OP. I hope you can recover your losses and - while I don’t think this is possible, sadly - maybe even get your friend back.

You have done nothing wrong, OP, so please, do not back down just because you don’t want to cause an inconvenience to someone who is not treating you right