we’ve now reached the time of year when all we wanna eat is watermelon // Gwen’s office // lil fern, struggling to be free // indestructible Claire, it’s so weird that Ophie, who was in great health until recently passed away first, while this diabetic old dingbat keeps on keepin’ on // what are they looking at? // I maxed out my unicorns in Disco Zoo // green // fashion // I had to put the tray back on her highchair because she started pushing away from the table during meals
I hate confrontation. Haaaaaaate it. When I get into facebook or twitter arguments (actually have I ever been in a twitter fight? I don’t think so. My twitter is public; my facebook is locked, maybe that’s why, haha) I get super stressed out and dread logging back in. Usually I end up just blocking people who anger me, block everyone, that’s my motto. If I disagree with a blog post I usually just quit reading rather than comment with a dissenting opinion because my actual opinion is “What is the point? They aren’t going to change their mind, and they’ll probably edit the post so I look like a lunatic” (re: the pregnancy arms debacle).
I think part of the reason I hate confrontation is that I’m not great at express thoughts with word forms (ha ha). In person during a confrontation I get so frustrated and angry that I start crying, which doesn’t help my cause. On the internet I find myself coming across as inarticulate and foolish and I usually just end up capslock yelling a sarcastic joke about the topic, like the time I posted the George W. Bush “Mission Accomplished!” picture with a link to an article about how the anti-vax movement was found to be the cause of the infant whooping cough deaths in California last year. I was like “GOOD JOB, ANTI-VAXXERS, YOU DID IT, YOU KILLED THOSE BABIES.” Truly, one of my finer moments.
I even get anxious about confrontational things when I don’t really think anyone who is invested in it will even see it. Yesterday I pent my entire break (ie naptime) drafting a blog post about my thoughts on the blatant & disgusting commercialization attempts by some online retailers in the #redballoonsforryan hashtag (for the record, I’m against using the tragic death of a child to drive traffic and sales BUT HEY THAT’S JUST ME) and literally one second after I hit publish I panicked and deleted it, just in case someone who I was calling out somehow managed to find this nobody blog and yell at me.
I have some theories why & because of who (whom?) I’m like this but I don’t want to get into it in case those people yell at me too, haha. But IRONICALLY I wrote this while simultaneously arguing on facebook about something idiotic and I haven’t blocked anyone yet so maybe the tide is turning?
In related-to-online-fights news, yesterday I FINALLY received the balance of my refund from notorious etsy grifters Indie Nook. If you recall they refunded me for the one item they never sent and promised to refund the rest once I sent back the incorrect items I had received. I did, and it had been a couple of weeks so two days ago I sent them an email saying “You can go ahead and refund me the $51 for the rest of my cancelled order now, as you’ve received the items I returned. Order #128418099, good grief.” In a shocking twist that will surprise no one, they were completely disorganized and stupid about it! First they said they DID refund me. I pointed out that they had refunded me only $23 and still owned me $51. In response I got this weird mess:
“We refunded you for $73.10 and $23.00 was that not for your total. I cannot see your order anymore because it was cancelled.”
WHAT. WHAT. WHAT DOES ANY OF THAT EVEN MEAN???????? We refunded you for $73.10 and $23.00 was that not for your total????? THIS MAKES NO SENSE, except their product listings also have garbled language, misused words and other errors so I guess it does. And for the record you CAN see your cancelled transactions on etsy- if you are the seller they are on your sold orders page, under the (plot twist!) “Cancelled” tab. Cancelled orders aren’t searchable though, and they probably have a ton since they seem to cancel orders at the drop of a hat (if you look at their reviews, any that aren’t accompanied by a product photo have been cancelled). Anyway, I responded to this nonsense message with my secret weapon: SCREENCAPS. Screencaps of their refund offer, screencaps of the partial refund I received on the 16th of April, screencaps of my original order and screencaps of my original payment. Unsurprisingly I received no response until last night when the $51 appeared in my paypal with no message.
I’m still blocked from their instagram (I wonder how many dissatisfied customers are) but it seems they’ve moved off of etsy to their own site, which means no more bad etsy reviews & even less accountability. Hopefully they’ve taken my SUPER AMAZING advice to heart and will no longer be wasting people’s time with shirts that never ship, but most of their items still say they take up to 4 weeks (or 4-6 weeks) to ship so probably not. I just hope that maybe by sharing the story of how I dealt with them I might be able to help other people who’ve been scammed by these ripoff artists who care more about being popular with cool bloggers than with providing adequate customer service.