Advise please?

[poprock-grey.livejournal.com]

What do you do when you have been blocked by someone you need to refund? What if they didn't pay with paypal and it has been a very long time? How can you just make the whole damn thing work?

I'm in that bind and I've been trying to get in contact with them for over 2 months, but like I said, they blocked me everywhere I know of them from. I recently posted a place that they *might* be able to see, saying I will give them one more month before it is forfeited... was that the correct/right thing to do?
If so, what else should I do?
If not, how can I make it right?

Edited for more info: The only people I know that know the person are people who are not to.. erm.. fond of me for reasons other then commission stuff. (Bunch of haters that hate for the sake of hating as far as I know) That being said, I do not really feel comfortable with a go between person. Simple, 100% innocent words/actions have been twisted in the past to make something sound horrible.

EDIT EDIT: May be resolved.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: I asked him if he would mark it resolved only once refunding has been completed.
We agreed on 45$ a month. Here is the exact quote from the email:

Me: "Ok, so I would like to pay you 45$ a month through paypal if possible. To this paypal addy and refunds will be completed no later then January as long as the world doesn't end or as long as my job keeps me.
If you would like, I would like for you to post a resolved status anywhere you may have posted about the issues we may have had once refunding has been completed. Thank you."

Aves response: "I believe this is a reasonable agreement. Since resolution has been met, and we are working things out, I'll let others be aware of this. ..."


Refund process: 0/135
First refund expected 11/4/11

Refund proof 1

Comments

[ryunwoofie.livejournal.com]

I find it a bit unsmart on their part to block you and refuse to contact you if you have money owed to them. Personally I don't know what I'd do. LOL Arn't I help?

I hope you get it resolved. :C

[starcharmer.livejournal.com]

I'd probably ask someone to relay the message [that you were giving them a month to contact you] to them privately and leave the ball in their court.

I wouldn't involve a third party for any other reason but it seems ok in the case of owing them money. If unblocking you and communicating isn't worth however much you owe to them, at least you let them know there was a time limit.

[mrst4nkr.livejournal.com]

If they blocked you, how else would they expect their refund? Personally, I'd consider the ties cut and the money yours.

It might be a nice gesture to post it publicly that they have 'x' days to claim the money/contact you or it's yours-- but they blocked you.

[ryunwoofie.livejournal.com]

I kinda agree w/ this.. Either get someone to tell them or make a public announcement to them. I mean what ELSE can you do?? If they refuse to talk to ya, they get no money.

[mrst4nkr.livejournal.com]

I might add: If you don't feel right about keeping money you didn't work for, toss it at a local animal shelter or something. You don't benefit from it, and it still goes on to do something good.

[claytronic.livejournal.com]

Yep. I would get someone to relay the message onto em and if after that they say NO WAY I DONT WANNA TALK TO CLAY
wellp, there's a couple extra bucks in my pocket I guess :T

[gel-wolf.livejournal.com]

I usually wouldn't suggest this, as getting a third party involved can be a real problem, but maybe see if someone would be willing to talk to them for you, just to let them know you are offering a refund? Pretty much just to say "Please email Poprock, she would like to offer you a refund but has no way of contacting you", and maybe give some sort of deadline for contact, say 1-2 months, and nothing else. That way you KNOW they saw it.

Other than that, I have no idea. :/

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

They really must not want their money if they've cut all contact with you. Which makes all of zero sense.

Yes, that 30 day warning was perfectly reasonable. They want to cut off their nose to spite their face? Its no longer your issue once that month is over.

You could, like Fancy said, donate the refund money to a charity in the client's name. That way it went to something.

[everainsley]

starcharmer and gel_wolf suggested what I was going to suggest. I'd find it one of the times where a 3rd party would be acceptable since you can't contact this person. Give them a hard date (30-ish days out) to unblock you so you can get the information to refund them.

If they don't, then it's their loss at this point. And, like mrst4nkr mentioned, donate the money to a local non-profit if you're not comfortable keeping it.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

You sat on their project for, what, like 8 months? And have been trying to contact them for 3 months now? I'd say give them 8 months before you call it forfit :P

Anyway, where are you blocked/trying to contact them? I could try and sent them a note.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

According to their FA userpage (http://www.furaffinity.net/user/avianmaverick), they are asking for "emergency money" and have a paypal of avianmaverick[at]yahoo.com as of 2 days ago.

Hope that helps!

[mgsfriedchicken.livejournal.com]

D: Why did they block you? That makes no sense especially since you intend to refund them. I'd give them a month and if they still don't respond, the money is yours.

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

Is this what this is about? http://artists-beware.livejournal.com/501381.html

I agree with Spiffystuff. Given what happened as outlined in that post, I think you can afford to give them a bit longer before deciding to keep their money. As others have said, a public post or a third party is your best bet, I think.

[breakspire.livejournal.com]

this. it was pretty vague how things ended there... did he ever get back to you after the post? at all?

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

Given that the person went so far to POST to this comm, a comm for both warnings and attempts to get resolution - that OP is not looking for resolution apparently. They decided to be spiteful and block all of Poprock's attempts of communication.

Was it wrong of Poprock to keep them on hold? Yes. This has already been admitted.

But she should not have to HUNT A PERSON DOWN to give them their refund. Nor should she really have to resort to a third party or anything else if this guy wants to play the immature card.

[syrusb.livejournal.com]

If you have their mailing address, send them a certified letter with your intentions and give them a deadline to claim their refund.

If you don't, a third party is probably the next step. You might try two different third parties; make sure you get their correspondence and/or proof of attempt at communication. Keep all this (and any other communication attempts you have) in a safe folder in case the client comes back later with a sob story about how you ran away with their money and never tried to contact them for a refund.

If that deadline passes with no further correspondence, the money is yours. This client can't refuse contact and expect a refund, but you can't also just keep the money without doing everything you can to contact them about it.

[mahajarabali.livejournal.com]

I'm with the majority here: you shouldn't have to hunt someone down. Especially after they went through so much effort to make that long post linked here. This is what I would do.

I'd post again to that post, saying, "I've been trying to contact you for 3 months now and can't give you your refund." - if that's okay here. That puts a current effort on that complaint, to once again let them know in a place they might get word from (although I doubt it) that you have been trying to make an effort to make it good.

I would send another email to that account with a CC to another account of yours (cover your fuzzy rear, always: this I learned when I worked in civil government although I'm not always good at following my own advice) stating that you have been trying very hard to make it good, that they have x amount of days, and after that amount of days you are going to have to assume they're not interested anymore.

I would also explain that there is this Paypal account, but is the email still valid and to please let you know. I'd try sending that to all avenues, blocked or not, and keep my proof of returned communication. I wouldn't just send money arbitrarily to an email like that, public post or not. I've had people send me payments to old emails thinking it still went to my Paypal, and that money was lost forever. And besides, confirmation to make sure all is good is a must here. It wouldn't be a must if the former c weren't being so difficult.

I would also not go crazy with trying to make contact beyond that. A lot of people don't know the difference between spam and trying very hard to make contact. And besides, an honest attempt one would expect in this case. Being forced to run madly in circles? No. That's just plain drama. Don't go for it. Be as professional as you can.

Waiting 8 months? It's not plausible simply because your former client has given every physical action of not being interested. It would be different if they weren't blocked, imho, but that's then and this is now. Maybe they're just being a drama queen and can't see how silly they're being. Maybe they just washed their hands of the situation. Either way, your share of the burden should only be your share and nothing more.

I also second (or fourth) the notion that donating the money if you're not comfortable with it is one way to make amends with the cosmos.

I wish you luck. Lots of it.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

I also second (or fourth) the notion that donating the money if you're not comfortable with it is one way to make amends with the cosmos.

I don't understand, why is this better than sitting on the money for an extra 4 months (8 months total)? Stuff it under the mattress if it's hard to keep track in accounts. The $ doesn't go to the OP either way, but if donated it doesn't go to the person who gave it either. Or heck, don't keep the money on hand, just be willing to refund with a payment plan or something whenever the person comes back. Reasonable the guy can wait a bit if he wouldn't/couldn't respond in a timely fashion.
IDK, I don't mean to fight about this, donating the money instead of setting it aside just doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, may be a moot point for this case but may apply to others. *shrug*

[niedhoggr.livejournal.com]

Is it wrong of me to still be a bit peeved that avianmaverick is now responding but still hasn't fixed his original post?

Mods, I apologize if by commenting this I am overstepping.

[glacidea.livejournal.com]

Herp, ignore that. Your best bet is to get into contact ith their friends, then. With how much bad feedback you have, I think they got frustrated, counted their losses, and moved on.

[poprock-grey.livejournal.com]

1 resolved and 1 open being the one this is related to. Not sure how that is a lot...

(frozen)

[breakspire.livejournal.com]

I sent avianmaverick a quick note on FA so he could see this, he came, and it looks like it's resolved. That might be against the rules but I just wanted to comment and say that 3rd party contact isn't always a bad thing if it can resolve something like this quickly.... He did mention that the only place he blocked the OP was on FA. I know it's not my place at all to speak for him but I also know he's going through some emotional stuff right now so he might not want to deal with this right this minute.

(frozen)

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

I had sent a PM on FA too :X I hope they can both get this worked out.

[cappucola.livejournal.com]

looks like this was worked out as far as we can all see from the comments, so I hope it has for the both of you! :>

[shukivengeance.livejournal.com]

If the OP and/or avianmaverick can confirm the issue is resolved it would be my pleasure to tag the earlier beware entry on this situation as such.

[poprock-grey.livejournal.com]

I asked him if he would mark it resolved only once refunding has been completed.
We agreed on 45$ a month. Here is the exact quote from the email:

Me: "Ok, so I would like to pay you 45$ a month through paypal if possible. To this paypal addy and refunds will be completed no later then January as long as the world doesn't end or as long as my job keeps me.
If you would like, I would like for you to post a resolved status anywhere you may have posted about the issues we may have had once refunding has been completed. Thank you."

Aves response: "I believe this is a reasonable agreement. Since resolution has been met, and we are working things out, I'll let others be aware of this. ..."

[avianmaverick.livejournal.com]

I would just like to clarify some things. The only site that I blocked Poprock on was Fur Affinity. I never blocked her on any other site what so ever. My email hadn't changed, I even had her as an option on Yahoo Chat. A while ago, I did give her my cell phone number back before Anthrocon. I didn't block her on Facebook, but I did defriend her due to the amount of stress and frustration this argument had caused. With that said, I also did not receive any contact from Poprock since August 19, (this was prior to the recent contact on November 1st) in which her last words to me were, "Aves, I'm done with you. Next contact will be your refund when the wings sell. Goodbye."

Look, I know we have come to a point of resolution, but let's be truthful here.


This is a Screen Shot of the last form of Contact I ever received from Poprock, before this whole thing was being resolved.

http://i1115.photobucket.com/albums/k541/AvianMaverick/Screenshot2011-11-06at83301PM.png

Things that are 100% True are that she did finally reach me via my email, on November 1st. The above quote from me is 100% true and not fabricated, and I did get the first portion of my refund.

[poprock-grey.livejournal.com]

I tried to inbox you on Fb, note you on FA, didn't have your email anymore nor your cell because my phone was replaced a few weeks after AC.
You were never on YIM, SL or Steam. I made sure to look out for you, but nothing.

There is a point that I felt would be harassment if I was to take it. I didn't want more drama or crap stirred so I didn't take that route. Instead, I came here and asked for help about it to come to a resolution to this "situation".


All in all, you shouldn't block someone if you want to continue communication from them. By being blocked and unreachable, I felt you didn't want to be refunded. However I took it upon myself to try to get a resolution to it.