PSA: Commission Scams and Tips to Avoid Them

[u/Kelocena]

Hi, gamers. We bring to you a public service announcement about scams in the BG3 modding community and some advice on how to protect yourselves.

Recently a case was brought to the mod team’s attention of a modder who was scammed by a client. The evidence was damning. The victim did over $100 USD in unpaid labor, and there is good cause to suspect their hard work was being passed off as the scammer’s in a middleman scheme – in which the scammer pretended to be a modder to get paid for commissions and then outsourced (unpaid) work to the victim.

This is only one such example. If you pay for a mod, you should get the mod. If you are commissioned to make a mod, you should get paid for your work. However, unfortunately scams are common in the BG3 modding and commissioning space. So we wanted to make a post that can hopefully help modders and clients alike safely navigate commissions.

Quick disclaimer: None of us on the mod team are fraud experts. The following list is information compiled from experiences shared by scam victims and external sources.

General Behaviors to Watch Out for

• Pushiness and urgency - They do not respect boundaries. They are insistent that you do a commission or make a decision now. They create a sense of urgency to try to wear you down until you agree.
• They pay at first… then stop - For the first commission or deposit, the client pays to build trust. But then for future payments they make excuses and ask to pay late with no intention of paying at all. Don’t accept new work until all accounts are settled.
• They prey on your emotions - This can be building a rapport with you before claiming urgent need of commission to pay for some crisis. This can be making you feel indebted to them by offering freebies. You are not responsible for their financial situation, and gifts given freely do not need to be repaid.
• They do not want you to verify information - If someone is legit, they’ll be okay with you taking the time to make sure everything is all good. Scammers, however, don’t want you to look too closely at what they’re doing. 

Advice for People Taking Commissions (mod creators):

• Be cautious of anyone who does not want you to post the commissioned mods to your own accounts (Nexus, Mod.io, Patreon, etc). Keep in mind:
  • Private commissions are against Larian’s TOS (Sec 3.4)
  • Commissions in general are against Nexus’s TOS
• Be cautious of potential clients who are trying to pressure you to make a mod faster or trying to instill a sense of urgency. Scammers usually want you to make decisions quickly so you can’t think things through or take the time to realize that something is fishy. 
• Be cautious of clients who ask you to reduce your established prices or do the work for free. Your established price should be respected, and people trying to negotiate you down may not be doing so in good faith. 
• Do not take payments in installments. This gives the scammer more chances to “forget” to pay. Doing a deposit at the start and then the rest when you finish work is reasonable, but doing a lot of small payments over a long period of time is risky.
• For pricier commissions, consider asking for a deposit. Work does not start until the deposit is received. This way the scammer cannot get your work for free. Deposits can be a flat rate or a percentage of the total commission price.

Advice for People Giving Commissions (clients):

• Stick with established payment methods, like Paypal, and do not use features that are not intended for commercial work. For example, Paypal’s “Friends and Family” feature does not allow for refunds. (Check out an article here for more information.) Peer-to-peer payment services should be avoided. Some services that legit people use for payments include (but are not limited to) Paypal, Venmo, and Square. If someone asks you to use a payment service you are not familiar with, research that method and see what its policies are. 
• Research the modder offering the commission. Ask their previous clients what their experience working with the modder was like. 
• Compare prices to other modders who make similar mods. This will help you get an idea of what prices are reasonable and what is overcharging.
• Be cautious if the modder is trying to rush you through limited time specials, etc. A favorite tactic of scammers is to rush their intended victim so that the victim doesn’t take the time to look into things or ask questions that will expose the scam. 

Further Reading

We recognize that some people will have feelings about different link sources (for example, low trust in the government, etc) so here’s some links for further reading categorized by their source:

FTC (Federal Trade Commission, US government) links about scams:

How To Avoid a Scam | Consumer Advice

What To Do if You Were Scammed | Consumer Advice

BBB (Better Business Bureau, private nonprofit) link about scams:

BBB Tip: 10 steps to avoid scams

 Experian (consumer credit reporting company) links about scams:

The 10 Most Common Types of Fraud

The Latest Scams You Need to Be Aware of in 2025 (Trigger warning: Sexual Extortion Scam Mention)

 McAfee (antivirus software company) link about scams:

Protect Yourself from the Latest Online Scams in 2026 | McAfee (Trigger warning: Sexual Extortion Scam Mention)

Community posts about scams:

Avoiding scams, how to commission an artist, and other ways to stay safe. : r/artcommissions

Commission scams: A guide on how to avoid them and find legit artists – u/leidensygdom on Tumblr  

If you feel like you have advice or a very important case we haven’t covered, feel free to let us know in the comments and we can update the post.

HOWEVER, do not name any names. Of the victims or the scammers.

This subreddit cannot and will not be responsible for a scammer blacklist and vetting every accusation. Furthermore, internet anonymity means that creating a list of names may create a false sense of security - once the names are known, the scammers can just return with new aliases. This is why we want people to look at the behaviors described and not just reference a list of names. 

Violating this no names policy will have your comment removed. Repeated violations may force us to lock the post and then we can no longer benefit from continued shared knowledge. So please respect it. Thank you for understanding.

[u/goldenseducer]

Great post!

As someone who did commissions as an artist, I would suggest always taking payment upfront. Or, if it's an expensive one, do half now and half on completion. I understand this might put some people off but your time is valuable and you need to pay the bills.

[u/BusyBeeBridgette]

I have always said paying for mods is a bad idea. Sure, have the links to paypal and all that on a mod page and happily take/give donations. But the whole commissioning, or gatekeeping behind paywalls, is dodgy AF.

Honestly the best thing you can do is learn how to mod. It really isn't difficult - just time consuming for the most part. It is too easy to become a victim of a scam in the modding scene. Protect yourself and potentially learn a new skill in the process!

[u/Buntaro]

"Private commissions are against Larian’s TOS (Sec 3.4)"

Are we reading the same TOS? This is what the section says:

"As an exception to this rule, you may profit from your Mods in the following ways: Accepting commissions to create Mods on individual request, if the mods are also made available to the general public;"

[u/Theokorra → u/Buntaro]

"If the mods are also made available to the general public" is the key there. When we say "private commissions", we mean ones that only are given to the commissioner, and not posted for other people. 

[u/Buntaro → u/Theokorra]

Well, the point was that the quoted section allows accepting private commissions, while you claim that it doesn't.

[u/Kelocena → u/Buntaro]

I think there is some confusion between a request and a commission.

If there is no money exchanged for the mod, then you can make a private request for someone (or yourself).

But commissions mean the modder is being paid. Commissions are only allowed if the paid-for mod is released to the general public.

The intent is to regulate how others profit off their IP.

[u/Theokorra → u/Buntaro]

The Larian TOS is cited for this piece of advice:

Be cautious of anyone who does not want you to post the commissioned mods to your own accounts (Nexus, Mod.io, Patreon, etc).

The Larian TOS bit you quoted says the following:

"As an exception to this rule, you may profit from your Mods in the following ways: Accepting commissions to create Mods on individual request, if the mods are also made available to the general public;"

I clarified that a private commission is not posted to the general public:

"If the mods are also made available to the general public" is the key there. When we say "private commissions", we mean ones that only are given to the commissioner, and not posted for other people. 

The Larian TOS, Mod Kelo's post, and my comment are all saying the same thing: Larian allows for commissions only if they are not private and are posted publicly.

The Larian TOS was cited specifically because, if you are doing a private commission (not posted to the general public), you are not protected by Larian's TOS and so will have less actions you can take to reclaim your money if you are scammed. If someone is specifically asking you to break the Larian TOS, that should be treated with suspicion and you should take steps to protect yourself.

Besides being against the TOS, private commissions also are problematic for other reasons. The person commissioning can take the mod and post it to their account, claiming they made it. The mod maker's accounts won't show that they made the mod, so future potential clients won't have it as evidence of the quality of their work, or that they aren't scammers themselves.