Thankfully I don’t have to do these often. When I do them though, I encourage the reader to pay attention.

On April 19, 2020 a friend who wanted to do something nice for me contacted this kink vendor. The vendor makes a variety of things, but the consultation was about a pair of earrings she knew I would love. I was leaving the city we both lived in and she wanted me to know that I would be missed. This friend has been unemployed since early March. Due to COVID-19 and took her time and effort and limited funds to try to make me smile.

On April 22, 2020 a purchase contract was entered, payment was sent to the vendor.

On April 29, 2020 my friend contacted this vendor to explain that due to the delay in notice of creation of the earrings or shipment there would need to be a change of address for the item. It was on that day the vendor was notified who the item was for and where to ship it to, since I was now out of the state.

The month of May arrived and in all 31 of those days, this vendor never initiated contact with my friend. My friend did inquire, hey…about those earring I purchased….anytime soon? The response was either not present, or vague.

My friend is pretty patient and gave space for delivery delays due to COVID-19 and general life issues. After all, we are all experiencing some sort of alteration to our normal due to this virus.

The month of June arrived. My friend reached out again, hey there! Just following up I paid for a product, the person has not received it, and I haven’t heard from you are there updates?

The response was vague, the product remained undelivered.

At this point my friend said if you are not going to be able to produce the product you were contracted to create, please refund my money. With PayPal a refund is a simple thing and the issue could have been resolved. The response from the vendor was that they were not home at the time but that they would ‘get back’ to my friend.

If the vendor wasn’t home that would not prevent a refund, but I mean….I guess 🤷🏽‍♀️

A couple days later, my friend now on outreach number six trying to determine if the vendor would live up to the contract again asked for a refund of her money. Six weeks seemed long enough to her to determine that the product wasn’t worth the effort and the customer service wasn’t quality. Again, this vendor never initiated contact to update on the status of the order, they needed to be contacted.

My friend was informed that the original package was ‘lost’. An I’m sorry was typed and my friend was told her money would be refunded and that the earrings would still be created and delivered. Days went by again, without the money being refunded.

By June 14 my friend finally received the refund to her paypal account. There as no notice from the vendor on how she would live up to the promise SHE – the vendor – made to still make the earrings and ship them.

The vendor is not under any obligation to use her time and resources to make ‘free’ earrings. I don’t expect to ever get those earrings from that person.

What I do expect is that if one is going to be a kink vendor, well shit a vendor at all, that one has a code. No one held a gun to your head and said create items to sell. That was your choice. No one forces you to sell to anyone you don’t want to, as the owner of the business you have the absolute right to refuse service for any reason.

What shouldn’t happen is the acceptance of payment for a product and the non delivery of said product. That is theft. That is dishonorable. That is whack like crack.

If you find yourself in the position where you cannot make the product, or no longer want to make the product you should inform the customer and return their money.

I mean it’s not like they paid hundreds of dollars to attend a conference, that never had the participation numbers to pull off, and you never disclosed that to the public, so days before people flew in from other countries like Canada you had to announce a location change and deliver an ‘abbreviated’ version of the ‘conference’ using the physical and emotional labor of a group of relatively new to the lifestyle people who believed in you, and then refused to refund the money of participants who trusted you but didn’t want to come out to a product thrown together in days.

I mean its not that at all.

It’s not like over a decade ago, you announced a conference in the Tennessee hills, FUBU, that you never had the numbers to pull off, but you kept taking deposits, and then flat out cancelled the event, leaving people hurt and financially impacted.

I mean it’s not like that at all.

It’s not like you saw COVID-19 wasn’t going anywhere, and that. Virtual conferences could be a thing, so you ‘rebranded’ and used the name of a long running well known event… well a similar name…and had to be called out to stop using the reputation of others to attract people to your event, not unlike you tried to use language of other successful events in your announcement for the 2020 version of the conference you were too inept to pull off before, to imply the customer would get a similar experience. I mean that’s what happened when the 2019 conference was announced to be in the location the most successful FUBU event was previously held, thinking that you could throw any old thing into that spot and the people would accept it, but again you could not meet the participation numbers, your contract was cancelled and you had to move it down south. Nope it’s not like that at all.

This is a simple pair of earrings. $15

Taken from an unemployed woman who hoped to make someone she cared about smile. Held hostage for seven weeks for reasons unknown because one can find the time to solicit presenters and begin ‘new’ munches but not the time to say, sorry I no longer want to do the thing you paid me to do.

Let the buyer beware.