KOTSU doesn't hold your money.
KOTSU holds the proof.
A commission is 1,400 to 12,000 € sent to someone you met online, months before anything ships. That deserves real protection, and real protection is evidence, not an escrow wallet.
Why no escrow?
Escrow means a platform holds the money, takes a cut, and decides disputes about handmade work it never saw. It weakens your own card protections, adds fees to the maker's price, and puts a company between two people who chose each other. KOTSU keeps payments direct, and makes the agreement itself solid: written terms, explicit approvals, photographic history. When both sides can see everything, most disputes never happen.
If you're the client
You pay the maker directly, so your bank, card or PayPal buyer protections apply in full, nothing is weakened by a middleman wallet.
Foam gets your sign-off before fur is cut. Fit gets checked before assembly. Photos at every step, you see it advance instead of hoping.
Every request stores the exact version of the maker's terms you accepted, timestamped. No moving goalposts.
If you're the maker
The client accepted your terms, the record shows which version, and when. Your strongest card in any chargeback or dispute.
An approved foam base is on file, with images. Changes requested after approval are visibly out of the original scope.
Milestones, messages, payments, dates, the whole relationship in one place, exactly as it happened.
And the community rules
- Ref sheets are private. They are personal creations, stored privately, visible only to the maker and client, never public.
- Reviews are verified only. A review can only come from a delivered KOTSU commission. No drive-by ratings, no fakes.
- Progress you can see. Makers post photos at every milestone, and key steps wait for your approval. You never spend months wondering.
- Report anything. contact@kotsu.shop reaches a human who can act on listings and accounts.