2012-03-29

(no subject)

Hey A_B, I need some help with a weird situation. Several years ago (2004 or 2005), I sold some fur to someone on LJ. She paid with $65 and a jar of Marmite mailed from the UK, I believe. I recall packing up the fur in plastic bags and then boxing it up and giving it to my husband to mail. He's good about mailing things when I ask and he's positive that he mailed it. He mails all of my outgoing packages. So I assumed everything was good since I had never heard a complaint.

Just last year (2011), I received an email from the person telling me that they never received the fur.

I have no idea why they waited so many years to tell me there was a problem. If you buy an item and it never arrives, do you wait 5+ years to contact the seller? I can't even wrap my head around that. But I was polite and apologetic and willing to work something out.

Obviously I don't have the shipping receipt or anything as proof since it has been years and years and we have moved twice in that time. I don't have anymore of the fur that she bought either.

I talked to some friends and asked how I should handle this. Most said that she really didn't have a leg to stand on and I didn't owe her anything more especially since it took her years to let me know the box supposedly never arrived. Many suggested I tell her 'tough luck' and move on or if I wanted to make her happy, I could offer a partial refund. I opted for the partial refund.

On April 27th 2011, I emailed her and proposed a partial refund.

"Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:33:53 -0700
Subject: Re: Fur has never arrived
From: lilywhitemm@gmail.com
To: ************@hotmail.com

would you be willing to accept a partial refund?
ive been thinking on this most of the day and i feel its unfair for me to be out the fur and the full $65. i also feel that its unfair for you to have no fur and be out the full amount you sent.
if youd be agreeable to a partial refund, i can send a little money your way tomorrow probably.
please let me know what you think."

I never got a response back from her. Today, she emailed me this:

"I've waited patiently for you to come up with some sort of refund or even some sort of contact regarding this.
Its been along time yes but you still haven't done anything to fix the situation.

If the items had been posted, then you should have informed me and as you didn't i can only assume they were never posted.
Because they never arrived.

I have send a paypal invoice to this address as i have still not heard from you.

If I do not hear from you with the next week i will posting this onto artists_beware on live journal.

I've also sent this to you as an FA note to make sure you have it.

apologies for the curt reply but after this long i just want closure."

If she wanted closure so badly, a response to my offer of a partial refund would have been nice.
Frankly, I'm starting to suspect something else is going on here. I don't know if the box of fur arrived or not (she claims it didn't but my husband definitely mailed it) but the waiting years and years to say, 'Hey, I never got my stuff. I'd like money now.' seems....odd.
She sent me a Paypal invoice for the full amount ($65).

I *was* willing to send a partial refund, she never replied.
This whole situation feels wrong. It just seems fishy.

After being ignored for a year, then given attitude, threatened, and sent an invoice after I was nothing but polite and willing to work with her, I'm not feeling as generous about working this out now.

So what should I do? Thanks for any help you can provide.

(no subject)

I need advice... (solved...sort of)

I want advice on if I should make a full A_B post on it including her name and such. I'm not mad at her, I don't hate her but I'm a little upset about the whole situation.

9 months ago I won a contest for a fursuit partial. We talked for a while about some details and some time later she contacted me saying she got some money back from school (about $3000) and claimed she could add more to the partial like feetpaws, fan inside, moving jaw etc. She said that she might take some time to get started on it because of her landlord but said she could work on it in a school studio and needed a balaclava. I was a bit happy and understood the delay and sent her balaclava, some white fur needed for that character, my hand outline for the paws and foam. (the shipping was about $50 since she lives so far away and I paid for the supplies so I put my own money into this). She said the fur and foam was no good. I even donated her a little bit of some money to help out since she said she was having money problems. (after 3k she was given?)

So some time later she went to a convention in her own suit. Apparently while she was there she was approached by several people to buy a fursuit commission. She accepted them, one was a bull (who was brown, just like my character which was the leftover color from her own suit that she was going to use to make mine). She noted me about this and said she is using some of that brown fur on the bull commission instead of mine because it paid her and it was a bigger priority even though we had been talking about it for some time.This is what she said:

"Hey there Kium, how's it going? I just wanted to give you a little update on my current fursuit situation..

I attended RF and got a couple suit commissions while there. I'm going to be making a bull character, and it happens to have dark brown accents.

This means that I'm going to have to use most of my brown fur for the suit...

Unfortunately this means I may not be able to continue your suit for a while, and if I do I probably will only be able to make the head.

I hope you understand... It's not that I don't want to make it for you, I really do, it's just that I have to give paying customers priority.

I didn't expect to be getting commissions, it came as a huge surprise. "

It's not like I was getting his completely free, I gave her supplies and money so I was a little upset. She said the bull is a bigger priority because he gave her a $600 downpayment even though he came up out of the blue at the convention. I understand why she wanted to do his, but reducing MY fursuit was a little weird. I even asked if he gave you a $600 down payment wouldn't that be enough to pay for the fur and stuff? I asked her and she replied:

"Yes, the $600 down payment will be paying for most of the supplies. You make a good point. But I was wanting to use the fur that I already have because it's convenient. Most of the down payment is going to go towards foam, horns, eyes, pants, shoes etc.

For your head I will have to buy more foam because the foam you sent is much too thin. "

because its more convenient....I thought this was weird...If she needed more money to make his wouldn't it make more sense to give him a higher quote? She mentioned some money problems but she kept accepting more fursuit commissions, there's about five total in her queue and then I noticed I wasn't even ON her list. I asked her why and she said that she thought it would be weird since it technically was a commission list and I wasn't a commission. I just shrugged and said okay.

Some time passed and I haven't heard anything about the suit. in fact, I haven't seen ANYONE's suit progress, only WIP pictures of her own personal suit. (keep in mind, she already had a personal suit and then she just made another personal suit for herself before the commissions after she claimed she had money problems....?)

She's uploaded some journals saying that she has been having troubles with landlords and ex-roomates and having problems finding places to stay. I wish I could ask about what's going on with my suit but I don't want to be rude and ask her right now since she's having such a hard time with her living situation...

I don't know exactly what to do. I'm not angry at her but it doesn't seem like the best ethics with all the things she's done. Should I wait to later when her living problems clear up and THEN ask? help?

EDIT:

I sent her a note asking her about everything. She was a little taken back and even start to yell at me. She said she was "meaning" to email me and said that she thought I understood that she wasn't continuing the partial and would compensate. how would I know if she didn't ACTUALLY email me? I don't have ESP or whatever. So we agreed on a compensation. Since she's having money issues I agreed that art would be fine. So it's pretty much resolved, though she tried to throw it back at me and say that I should be GRATEFUL that she's making me free art (even though she had already promised me this partial) . I kind of wanted to yell at her but I just wanted the argument to end so I said okay.