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Aug. 15th, 2004 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusI posted the bulk of this a while ago only to some friends, because I needed to vent:
Welcome to the shakedown, muse-wanted.com.
A friend advertised this webhosting was being set up for slash writers. I asked if I could host the Percy Ficathon there.
And then the fun began....
Over the last six-eight weeks [now ten since I originally posted this], I kept getting locked out of the site. Every time I tried to reach her, she wasn't online and didn't respond. So then I would put up a post.
She'd respond right away.
She suggested that maybe a hacker got my password and log-in. She got my computer ID# from me, saying that she would be able to "lock it in" so that only I could update my site.
Then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
melpemone responded to one of my posts. and_love was telling her the same thing.
In the meantime,and_love put up a lot of guilt-trippy "people just use me, nobody loves me" posts. But when I've tried to talk to her in IM beyond business (I'm rather chatty in chat), she'd cut me off. There would be this long silence and then, "Okay. So you're in." And she'd be gone. Other people tell me they had the same experience.
and_love/Sabbie told me that my poor security was how a hacker had somehow gotten my password and login. We tried new passwords, she asked me for my computer ID#, saying she could make it so that only my computer could upload to the site. And she started assigning passwords (though hers were much less secure than my obscure Tibetan transliterations). I posted about this each time it occurred because she was hard to reach -- but would respond to my posts within hours.
July 31,melpemone left a message in my LJ that and_love had told her the same thing as me, we concluded the problem had to be on her end.
Then July 31st,and_love told me (the story changed after Mel and I talked publicly) that she had talked to (oh, she was vague about who) and what happened is that someone had uploaded a bunch of MP3s. She was vague about who did it. Over the weekend it sounded like she meant this 'hacker.' Though how that would effect our passwords and logins, I don't know.
She said that the site would probably go down again.
August 3rdand_love put up a post about some extra bandwidth charges from those MP3s. (Which puzzles me. Because when you exceed your bandwidth, doesn't the site give a message saying "this site has exceeded it's bandwidth"? Plus -- bandwidth doesn't affect passwords and log-ins.) She had an unexpected $75 bill to pay. She got donations, said the extra would go to bookaid.org. But then posted there were bounced check fees that soaked up those donations and she now needed $123. But she had to get $35 by Monday.
Then she contacted me August 4th. There was a new story:
She asked me to put up a post to ask people for money. It puzzled me, because I didn't think you'd need to ask 500 people for $35 dollars. She said the hostees had been generous, and she had 16 domains hosted and 28 subdomains. The math didn't add up. At the time I thought the site was somewhat mismanaged.
I agreed to help, but our conversation left a bad taste in my mouth.
I kept a copy of it:
sabbie_cat (7:04:24 AM): Love, I know your FTP went down, like I warned you, but I got everything cleared and everything works now
How prophetic... note - everything didn't work. I was still locked out, and I others stayed locked out until muse-wanted.com was taken down.
icarusancalion (7:04:34 AM): Oh.
icarusancalion (7:04:37 AM): Thank you.
icarusancalion (7:04:51 AM): I've been at work, and so haven't had time to do much anyway.
sabbie_cat (7:23:38 AM): Lemme set up your account for the last time, and we found out what it was -- double trojans
icarusancalion (7:04:58 AM): I'm sorry this is happening to you.
icarusancalion (7:05:09 AM): Double Trojans???
sabbie_cat (7:23:55 AM): It's alright, just the hostees fault.
A little vague here. Did the hostee upload a double Trojan, or the MP3s she mentioned over the weekend or...?
sabbie_cat (7:23:57 AM): Yeah
icarusancalion (7:05:14 AM): Aha!
icarusancalion (7:05:24 AM): So they're paying the $75?
sabbie_cat (7:24:14 AM): No.
icarusancalion (7:05:35 AM): What?
sabbie_cat (7:24:22 AM): And it's more now, overdraft fee's
In her "private" LJ,for_long, she has only stuff pertaining to this situation. Nothing personal at all. There she says she has $60 overdraft fees from the bank. Which is astoundingly high for overdrafts.
icarusancalion (7:05:43 AM): What?
sabbie_cat (7:24:29 AM): $123
Note, her message after I moved my site said that she (suddenly, within 24 hours) had enough money to cover for four months. *frowns* Where did it come from? And isn't webhosting billed annually?
icarusancalion (7:05:47 AM): What?
icarusancalion (7:05:53 AM): Sorry to repeat myself.
sabbie_cat (7:24:44 AM): I'm getting a lot of help though.
Heh. Yeah.
icarusancalion (7:06:00 AM): You need to argue with them.
sabbie_cat (7:25:04 AM): I can't find them; deleted their email, not on AIM, or anything.
icarusancalion (7:06:19 AM): If it's their fault, they need to dismiss these charges.
icarusancalion (7:06:37 AM): So *shrugs* who would you pay?
sabbie_cat (7:25:41 AM): Oh, Im paying back my bank.
sabbie_cat (7:25:47 AM): I've got over 80 bucks in donations.
Something about the tone of this makes me wince.
icarusancalion (7:07:08 AM): Oh.
sabbie_cat (7:25:59 AM): To make sure everything gets paid and helps keep muse-wanted alive.
icarusancalion (7:07:16 AM): *shakes head*
icarusancalion (7:07:24 AM): That's still very, very wrong.
sabbie_cat (7:26:13 AM): I just paid tuiton and it's too much for me.
sabbie_cat (7:26:18 AM): tuition*
icarusancalion (7:07:33 AM): I wish I had $ to send you.
Translation: in addition to being a student, I never, ever do online transactions.
sabbie_cat (7:26:32 AM): Oh, it's alright love.
icarusancalion (7:07:49 AM): I was down to nothing a couple weeks ago.
sabbie_cat (7:26:40 AM): I just gotta lay the less 40 bucks by Monday
The money that she needs is a little vague.
sabbie_cat (7:26:48 AM): pay*
icarusancalion (7:08:09 AM): If I weren't going to school, I'd be able to.
icarusancalion (7:08:44 AM): Who's billing you for the $75?
sabbie_cat (7:27:54 AM): I got billed 75, which I paid, but I didn't have it in my checking account, so I got billed an additional 100
The shell game with the money moves around again. She said the bounced checked fees were $60. How does that add up to $100?
sabbie_cat (7:28:07 AM): So, what I ahd of the 75 was taken and I was left with 123
icarusancalion (7:09:46 AM): So you paid the $75 before you knew it was the hostees fault?
Translation: You're an idiot, Sabbie.
sabbie_cat (7:28:49 AM): When I knew it was -- I didn't want my hosting to be cut off.
icarusancalion (7:10:52 AM): I would have risked having the hosting cut off if the charge was unreasonable. But that's me.
sabbie_cat (7:29:59 AM): I host too many people to do that -- I don't want to let them down.
icarusancalion (7:11:24 AM): You are providing free subdomains. That is the risk of that.
I have since learned there are other risks...*snort*
icarusancalion (7:11:45 AM): You put up a notice in and_love, then email/IM people to explain.
icarusancalion (7:12:01 AM): You'd have us on your side.
icarusancalion (7:12:20 AM): Just for future reference.
sabbie_cat (7:31:08 AM): I have put up a notice on and_love and m-w that if I can't get it all paid off, we're having to close.
Ah, now the threat.
icarusancalion (7:13:30 AM): Now that the hosting company has the money, it's hard to shake it back out of them.
This was the point where I decided she was incompetent. I've since changed my mind. There was a completely different problem.
icarusancalion (7:13:35 AM): Hmm.
icarusancalion (7:13:42 AM): You're getting screwed though.
sabbie_cat (7:32:39 AM): Yes, but Im thankful for all those who have helped.
We have no idea how many either.
sabbie_cat (7:32:54 AM): A lot of hostees helped actually.
icarusancalion (7:15:04 AM): Have you considered creating a muse-wanted "board"? Sort of like what they have at Fiction Alley, so it doesn't all fall on your shoulders?
Translation: You are clearly incompetent, and this is likely to happen again.
sabbie_cat (7:34:25 AM): I have.. sort of. For inquires and all, or a mailing list.
icarusancalion (7:16:32 AM): Here's my recommendations: find out about what your hostees do for a living. For example, one of my betas is a lawyer.
icarusancalion (7:16:54 AM): There's talent you can pull on.
icarusancalion (7:18:11 AM): Then create a plan, a sort of wish list for muse-wanted.
Translation: Have someone else run this thing.
sabbie_cat (7:37:20 AM): Uh.
icarusancalion (7:18:36 AM): Then post a list of tasks you'd support with in that wish list.
sabbie_cat (7:37:36 AM): Im just taking donations, love. I never ask for things.
Rereading this... yow. She's not even remotely upset. Cool, calm and collected. Not what one would expect from someone who was just screwed over.
icarusancalion (7:19:18 AM): I know.
icarusancalion (7:19:37 AM): That's what worries me. You're being stuck.
Translation: I'm certain this will happen again. Any fool who'd write a check for something extraneous when they don't have money in the bank....
icarusancalion (7:19:44 AM): You've taken on a lot.
sabbie_cat (7:39:02 AM): I know you can't donate, but do you know anyway to get people in the HP community to donate?
icarusancalion (7:20:38 AM): Hmm... *thinks*
Translation: Oh hell.
sabbie_cat (7:39:30 AM): I mean, I don't know what to do. I just paid tution and I have like, 3 bcusk to my name.
Yet 24 hours later, she has enough to cover four months of services. She's doing well on this "donation" business.
icarusancalion (7:21:21 AM): It's usually easier to get people to do tasks than to donate money.
Translation: Oh hell.
sabbie_cat (7:40:13 AM): the bank gave me till Monday, so I'm just trying my best
icarusancalion (7:21:38 AM): Then once you have a team, they tend to pull together to cover costs.
sabbie_cat (7:40:47 AM): *nods*
icarusancalion (7:22:31 AM): My background's administration, not fund-raising.
Translation: I've seen donation fraud before. More than once.
sabbie_cat (7:41:29 AM): I'm sorry.
icarusancalion (7:22:52 AM): But if you want to do fundraising, the secret is to always have your hat out.
And I would know that, too.
icarusancalion (7:22:54 AM): :)
icarusancalion (7:23:10 AM): The paypal right on the main page.
Translation: Ask someone else.
sabbie_cat (7:41:57 AM): Just, I hate asking. I never wnat to fend off others.
icarusancalion (7:23:26 AM): Everyone hates asking.
icarusancalion (7:23:42 AM): That's why you need a board, so it's not "you" asking.
icarusancalion (7:24:05 AM): It's muse-wanted.
Now most people would be defensive by now. I'm pretty clearly saying she should give up control of her webhosting. This is where the next red flag went up for me.
sabbie_cat (7:43:07 AM): I was going to ask you if you could post that MW.com is trouble, and link to the site where they can read more, but then I'd feel selfish.
Aha! The suggestion: you are selfish. Clever, isn't she?
icarusancalion (7:24:52 AM): Yes, I could do that.
icarusancalion (7:25:05 AM): I don't usually fundraise.
icarusancalion (7:25:22 AM): But I'll do that.
Translation: I'm backed into a corner here.
sabbie_cat (7:44:20 AM): Only if you want to, I felt really nervous asking.
icarusancalion (7:25:35 AM): But now...
icarusancalion (7:26:01 AM): ... we need to plan as if this sort of thing might be a regular occurance.
Translation: Because if nothing else, I think you are completely incompetent.
sabbie_cat (7:44:56 AM): Uhm.
icarusancalion (7:26:22 AM): It won't be, but there are always surprises.
Translation: I have never given money and had that person go away. They always come back to ask again.
icarusancalion (7:26:27 AM): Always.
icarusancalion (7:26:43 AM): (Backed by 15 years of experience.)
And tax returns so high from my donations, they paid for a trip to India.
sabbie_cat (7:45:35 AM): I've told my hosting company to auto-shut down my site(s) if bandwith goes over 1gb of my normal monthly allowence
icarusancalion (7:27:05 AM): That's good. *nods*
icarusancalion (7:27:33 AM): It helps to tell people that it's not going to be something they'll be asked about over and over again.
sabbie_cat (7:46:20 AM): And when m-w.com is back up, there's gonna be a hostee application with "Terms" box, where you have to check you read it.
sabbie_cat (7:46:55 AM): If you upload anything nnow allowed in the terms list, you'll be responsible for everything & etc
Yeah. That's about as effective as requiring passwords.
icarusancalion (7:28:13 AM): So there was a particular hostee that is responsible for m-w getting a virus?
sabbie_cat (7:47:04 AM): Yes.
sabbie_cat (7:47:17 AM): m-w.com/bitter; I deleted everything, but she vanished
I'm going to guess that bitter called her a fraud, or is a current un-friend.
icarusancalion (7:28:40 AM): Are they still being hosted?
sabbie_cat (7:47:35 AM): No.
icarusancalion (7:28:53 AM): Good.
icarusancalion (7:28:59 AM): That's the most you can do.
icarusancalion (7:29:41 AM): Did she upload MP3s?
sabbie_cat (7:48:38 AM): Yes. 150 of them
icarusancalion (7:29:56 AM): Aha!
sabbie_cat (7:48:50 AM): Killed bandwith.
She was vague about how this bandwidth issue affected the passwords and logins, which to my mind is a permissions issue.
icarusancalion (7:30:05 AM): Now I have a story that will help you.
sabbie_cat (7:48:56 AM): Hm?
icarusancalion (7:30:28 AM): Fund-raising requires sympathy.
icarusancalion (7:31:01 AM): If you go over your bandwidth, people wonder why.
icarusancalion (7:31:07 AM): You have to explain why.
I feel like such a sucker when I read this now. I was really gonna help.
sabbie_cat (7:50:03 AM): I have at muse-wanted.com
icarusancalion (7:31:49 AM): A free service getting screwed over and abandoned...
icarusancalion (7:31:54 AM): ... people will help.
sabbie_cat (7:50:53 AM): I know they will; they've helped so much so far.
sabbie_cat (7:51:07 AM): And a lot of people like your Percyfest site, so I thought they would help, also.
icarusancalion (7:32:41 AM): If I just say "went over the bandwidth" people will want to know why.
icarusancalion (7:32:48 AM): Do they?
Ah, flattery. Yeah it works beautifully on me. Except when I thought about it later, I realised that no one had ever emailed me about how great the Percyfest site was, even though my email's on the main page. So I thought it unlikely. Another red flag.
sabbie_cat (7:51:51 AM): Yeah, I've gotten numerous emails as of thanks to hosting it.
icarusancalion (7:33:17 AM): No kidding!
sabbie_cat (7:52:08 AM): Also other archives wnated to be hosted, but at the time, that trojan wa smessy and I told them to try back in a little.
Hmm. Now, the "Trojan" issue had just been discovered on July 31st. So these sites had to have spoken to her August 1-3. Quite a windfall.
sabbie_cat (7:52:19 AM): I host the hpchan site, also.
icarusancalion (7:33:35 AM): *nods*
icarusancalion (7:33:43 AM): Okay.
icarusancalion (7:34:23 AM): I have a real distaste for fund raising, but this I can understand, and you've done a lot for me.
True. And this is why the con-game of obligating the other person first works so well.
sabbie_cat (7:53:43 AM): Yeah, I really dislike it too -- and with all those donations, what I didn't need (before I got slammed with that extra charge) was going to Bookaid.org
Aha. The "I'll give any extra to charity" scam. I've since heard this one was used at the old Bit of Earth.
icarusancalion (7:34:57 AM): You deserve it.
icarusancalion (7:35:13 AM): What's bookaid.org?
sabbie_cat (7:54:22 AM): It helps give books to people in lesser nations.
sabbie_cat (7:54:29 AM): Like those who can't have them or afford them.
sabbie_cat (7:54:40 AM): Leaky-Cauldron.org sponsers them, and I've donated to them quite a bit.
icarusancalion (7:36:32 AM): I spent half my life building a Buddhist monastery.
icarusancalion (7:36:46 AM): And supporting Tibetan refugees.
icarusancalion (7:37:16 AM): I'm sort of burning out, because a monastery... oh, every week it was a new expense.
Yeah. There is no end once you give money. So long as you know Exactly where it's going....
sabbie_cat (7:56:20 AM): *nods* You do a lot.
sabbie_cat (7:57:41 AM): Hopefully when I get my next paycheck, I can save it all in case of emergencies again
icarusancalion (7:38:55 AM): Anyhow, I'll help out.
icarusancalion (7:39:01 AM): No.
icarusancalion (7:39:19 AM): You need to establish an emergency fund/support group from outside sources.
icarusancalion (7:39:23 AM): Not out of pocket.
icarusancalion (7:39:34 AM): This is self-preservation talking.
sabbie_cat (7:58:21 AM): Yeah, I'll try and make a board.
This is where the red flag kept flying. I expected an argument to the suggestion she was incompetent. But she was willing to say anything to get the money.
icarusancalion (7:39:52 AM): Eventually you'll get sick of the emergencies. :)
icarusancalion (7:40:03 AM): I have to go to my temp job.
sabbie_cat (7:58:51 AM): Yeah, they suck horribly.
icarusancalion (7:40:11 AM): But we'll talk later.
At this point I was thinking of ways to restructure muse-wanted, and thinking of how I could track the amount of money coming in: do drabbles for everyone who donated? The varying amounts she needed started bothering me.
sabbie_cat (7:59:06 AM): *nods*
icarusancalion (7:40:22 AM): Boards have their own problems.
icarusancalion (7:40:56 AM): But forewarned is forearmed.
icarusancalion (7:41:18 AM): I'd like to see you with a muse-wanted supply that can last you four years.
icarusancalion (7:41:34 AM): Steady.
sabbie_cat (8:00:38 AM): It's 25 a month, that's quite a bit for 4 years xP
Oh, I bet she was eager at this point.
icarusancalion (7:42:34 AM): 25 a month isn't much when spread around.
icarusancalion (7:42:47 AM): It's just a lot when you're always on empty.
icarusancalion (7:42:56 AM): Too much.
icarusancalion (7:43:11 AM): Okay. I gotta run.
sabbie_cat (8:02:03 AM): Yeah, going to college makes everything.. crazy
sabbie_cat (8:02:05 AM): Tah <3
sabbie_cat (8:02:08 AM): Thanks for your help.
I kept a copy of the conversation (thank you,sparrohawk, for telling me to turn on auto-archive for our chats). It left a bad taste in my mouth.
I posted it to a friend who was very sympathetic towardsand_love/for_long situation... until she read it. That friend said, "Something's wrong here. She's too calm."
Yeah.
And to my mind, too many of the facts kept changing. Why did this happen? How much money did she need or receive? She said she was going to donate any extra money she got to bookaid.org (that madewildernesguru laugh), but she'd said that in her journal and then posted that the bounced check fees had to be paid out of that. (wildernesguru laughed even harder.)
Note: she was asking me for money while I was still locked out of my site. Another red flag.
Later that night I sent her this message:
icarusancalion (8:23:50 PM): Hey Sabbit.
icarusancalion (8:24:07 PM): I can't do it. I just... I've never asked for money online.
icarusancalion (8:24:31 PM): I can ask people to help you in other ways, but... not money. I don't do that.
icarusancalion (8:24:48 PM): If you want me to remove my sites, I will understand.
I just quietly slipped away in the night, moved my site.
She responded the next morning, August 6th:
sabbie_cat (4:44:02 AM): Poke?
sabbie_cat (4:45:39 AM): Hi, uhm, I saw you moved your site, which is quite upsetting, because it's something I've enjoyed hosting. And I truly was very sacred, weeks back when all this emss happened, people would leave no matter how hard I tried to fix it. And don't worry about not asking. I got the money fixed out, everythings paid for, and I have money for the hosting for the next four months. It's up to you but it just saddens me.
But -- she hadn't put up anything in either of her journals saying she had the money.
In fact, she posted in her new journalfor_long that I had scarpered when she needed me most, using the story for sympathy (and more donations). There was nothing in that journal but the financial situation, including lists of bank bounced-check fees of $60 each. (She needs a new bank. Most banks only charge around $25.)
So I congratulated her, and quoted her that she had enough for four months. And asked her to take down my site.
Shortly after I posted my congratulations (surprise, surprise), an announcement went up at muse-wanted.com that she had enough and all she needed was hostees to email her for their new passwords. I spoke with other hostees, and they emailed her, posted comments in her journals, AIM'd, Y!M -- with no response.
Denouement
So. The Percyfest is now at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~percyfest
My site is back at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~dinkbird
I've been very polite and avoided the wank the last couple weeks, though a few of you have already seen the bulk of this post, deeply friends-locked.
I gave her time from August 6th - 15th to respond to people and let them upload/download their sites.
Checked in with folks: Nope. Email, Y!M, AIM, comments in her journals all didn't get a response. I helped one friend copy her site.
Today, I letand_love/Sabbie/for_long have it. She miraculously reappeared. Told me hurricane Charlie prevented her from responding.
Oh. Really?
Since July 31st?
I'm assuming it stopped at her house early. Stayed a while. Then moved on to ravage the rest of Florida.
I did a little checking on her, and found something that I had read a while ago and had stuck in my mind.
July 23rd she put up this rather revealing post:
"If you did not know, Sabrina is very scared at the moment. I'm usually never scared like this, but if you didn't know, I was involved with a site called Laundromatic about a month ago -- I did good transactions, and got everything out very fast. However, there was a cetain time, in the middle of June, wherein I was in the middle of about 4 transactions and my dad went ballistic on me for sending out things and not getting anything in return as of yet.
He was in post-surgery stress, so he went absolutly crazy. He basically took all my Laundromatic stuff and put it away. It bloody pissed me off, but there was nothing I can do. Plus the death on his side amde him all more pissy.
I had two cellphones to send out, as well as a gameboy, and some dvds. I haven't sent them out, except for two, as of today. And it's been a month. I finally can now that ym dad goes back to work, but I know neither of the others addresses, and I'm worried because now I have threatens of cops getting involved.
I was always a good dealer, and now I am horribly scared. I've always been a good person, and I really don't know what to do. I know mellowdee is a mod there, and maybe I should talk to her. -- I don't know, and I'm scared.
I just.. I hate my dad for getting me in this crap. Damnit."
She got this response:
"rhiannon the girl who doesnt have a livejournal and who is currently in a transaction with you on laundromatic.net insists I post here again. here is what rhiannon02 had to say:
#1. nobody is to blame here but yourself. its not your fathers fault. its yours. common sense here, if someone sends you $10 for an item, you send it out. they were prompt, courtious, and honest with you and they very least you could do was give that same thing back to your customer.
#2. payment for the cell phone was received in an admittance by you, on june 25th. you instant messaged rhiannon and said you had received payment. its now almost july 25th and you havent had 1 minute to travel to your local post office? i find that very hard to believe, considering the fact that you have plenty of time to update designs, update journals, and sit on your aol instant messenger. its all about prioreties here, and you chose the wrong one.
#3. you are a liar. first, it was you had the wrong zip code. the zip code you gave was the town i live 2 minutes away from. i know for a fact if you would have put that zip code down? it would have arrived here. so, you lied. then, on the 4th of july, you were all the sudden going to send this more expensive cell phone instead since the other person didnt follow up. lied again. that girl did send payment to you as well and you were going to give me her product. lied again. last friday, you instant message me and you say you sent it out thursday. then 3 days later, you switch and say you sent it out friday. and to top it all off, you make these fabrications of your family's misfortune. girl, no offense, but we all have problems. i do, you do, we all do. but that does not mean to ignore me. i would have NO PROBLEM waiting a few days because of an emergency, but we are talking OVER A MONTH here. and you have had many opportunities to get to your post office because i always see you online, updating, and designing. so dont give me these lies that you didnt have time. your life is no more important than anyone elses here. we all have problems of our own. so i strongly suggest you stop acting immature and blaming your family. they arent the one on laundromatic.net as ILLYAD, you are hun. you are the one behind the computer screen here taking peoples' hard earned money and not sending their items out. if i didnt see you updating journals, layouts, and chatting online, perhaps i would believe you have problems, BUT i see you doing all those things. take 10 minutes out of your "busy" day and get some respect for people and do your end of the transaction.
common sense here people. you post a sales list, i buy something, i send payment, you get payment, and then finally..YOU SEND MY ITEM. if only it could've been that easy huh. but it wasnt. i have been too nice to you. and im done with being nice because you have been the worst online seller i have ever met.
you say you are scared? YOU SHOULD BE. i hate sounding mean, but put yourself in my shoes. grow up and take responsibility. your father didnt do this. nobody else did this BUT YOU. you are to blame.
this whole time you are supposedly telling me you have "sent it out" and such, I am getting other packages from california in 3-4 days and since you sent it out last thursday, according to you, its had almost 8 days to get from florida to ohio. stop the lies and own up to mistakes.
Mail gaurentees packages in a 2-9 day time frame. if i do not get it tomorrow, you will be hearing from me. but if you were telling the truth about when you sent it out, you have nothing to worry about. it will definitely arrive tomorrow. but if you have been lying, dont be surprised if that lie comes back to bother you."
At the time it didn't bother me. In retrospect it raises my eyebrows. Because I've now had experience with her doing a bit of a shell game with her excuses. Including the vacationing hurricane Charlie.
I have little doubt that Sabbie, akaand_love, aka for_love, is a con artist, with an established pattern of bilking people out of money.
- If anyone who needs hosting now that she's dropped the site, email me or drop a comment.
- Anyone who has webspace they can give, please let us know: I'm okay, butand_love/for_long shut the site down without letting 16 domains and 28 subdomains know first.
I can temporarily host some people at my Earthlink free sites, but there isn't a lot of space there.
ETA: http://www.muse-wanted.com is back up again, or at least there's front page there. With a personalised announcement. *smirks* It's unclear whether she's going to continue the hosting or not. However, she has offered to give all the money back. It's as difficult to track how much is returned as it was to figure how much she had taken in. However, I would hope that she does at least return some of it.
ETA2: Thank you for your generous offers. We have as much (in fact far more) hosting than we need. As it turns out, http://www.muse-wanted.com only changed its front page. All of the sites are still up, and links work. Hostees are simply not able to upload or download files, which is no change from three weeks ago.
Welcome to the shakedown, muse-wanted.com.
A friend advertised this webhosting was being set up for slash writers. I asked if I could host the Percy Ficathon there.
And then the fun began....
Over the last six-eight weeks [now ten since I originally posted this], I kept getting locked out of the site. Every time I tried to reach her, she wasn't online and didn't respond. So then I would put up a post.
She'd respond right away.
She suggested that maybe a hacker got my password and log-in. She got my computer ID# from me, saying that she would be able to "lock it in" so that only I could update my site.
Then
melpemone responded to one of my posts. and_love was telling her the same thing. In the meantime,
and_love put up a lot of guilt-trippy "people just use me, nobody loves me" posts. But when I've tried to talk to her in IM beyond business (I'm rather chatty in chat), she'd cut me off. There would be this long silence and then, "Okay. So you're in." And she'd be gone. Other people tell me they had the same experience. and_love/Sabbie told me that my poor security was how a hacker had somehow gotten my password and login. We tried new passwords, she asked me for my computer ID#, saying she could make it so that only my computer could upload to the site. And she started assigning passwords (though hers were much less secure than my obscure Tibetan transliterations). I posted about this each time it occurred because she was hard to reach -- but would respond to my posts within hours. July 31,
melpemone left a message in my LJ that and_love had told her the same thing as me, we concluded the problem had to be on her end. Then July 31st,
and_love told me (the story changed after Mel and I talked publicly) that she had talked to (oh, she was vague about who) and what happened is that someone had uploaded a bunch of MP3s. She was vague about who did it. Over the weekend it sounded like she meant this 'hacker.' Though how that would effect our passwords and logins, I don't know. She said that the site would probably go down again.
August 3rd
and_love put up a post about some extra bandwidth charges from those MP3s. (Which puzzles me. Because when you exceed your bandwidth, doesn't the site give a message saying "this site has exceeded it's bandwidth"? Plus -- bandwidth doesn't affect passwords and log-ins.) She had an unexpected $75 bill to pay. She got donations, said the extra would go to bookaid.org. But then posted there were bounced check fees that soaked up those donations and she now needed $123. But she had to get $35 by Monday.Then she contacted me August 4th. There was a new story:
She asked me to put up a post to ask people for money. It puzzled me, because I didn't think you'd need to ask 500 people for $35 dollars. She said the hostees had been generous, and she had 16 domains hosted and 28 subdomains. The math didn't add up. At the time I thought the site was somewhat mismanaged.
I agreed to help, but our conversation left a bad taste in my mouth.
I kept a copy of it:
sabbie_cat (7:04:24 AM): Love, I know your FTP went down, like I warned you, but I got everything cleared and everything works now
How prophetic... note - everything didn't work. I was still locked out, and I others stayed locked out until muse-wanted.com was taken down.
icarusancalion (7:04:34 AM): Oh.
icarusancalion (7:04:37 AM): Thank you.
icarusancalion (7:04:51 AM): I've been at work, and so haven't had time to do much anyway.
sabbie_cat (7:23:38 AM): Lemme set up your account for the last time, and we found out what it was -- double trojans
icarusancalion (7:04:58 AM): I'm sorry this is happening to you.
icarusancalion (7:05:09 AM): Double Trojans???
sabbie_cat (7:23:55 AM): It's alright, just the hostees fault.
A little vague here. Did the hostee upload a double Trojan, or the MP3s she mentioned over the weekend or...?
sabbie_cat (7:23:57 AM): Yeah
icarusancalion (7:05:14 AM): Aha!
icarusancalion (7:05:24 AM): So they're paying the $75?
sabbie_cat (7:24:14 AM): No.
icarusancalion (7:05:35 AM): What?
sabbie_cat (7:24:22 AM): And it's more now, overdraft fee's
In her "private" LJ,
for_long, she has only stuff pertaining to this situation. Nothing personal at all. There she says she has $60 overdraft fees from the bank. Which is astoundingly high for overdrafts.icarusancalion (7:05:43 AM): What?
sabbie_cat (7:24:29 AM): $123
Note, her message after I moved my site said that she (suddenly, within 24 hours) had enough money to cover for four months. *frowns* Where did it come from? And isn't webhosting billed annually?
icarusancalion (7:05:47 AM): What?
icarusancalion (7:05:53 AM): Sorry to repeat myself.
sabbie_cat (7:24:44 AM): I'm getting a lot of help though.
Heh. Yeah.
icarusancalion (7:06:00 AM): You need to argue with them.
sabbie_cat (7:25:04 AM): I can't find them; deleted their email, not on AIM, or anything.
icarusancalion (7:06:19 AM): If it's their fault, they need to dismiss these charges.
icarusancalion (7:06:37 AM): So *shrugs* who would you pay?
sabbie_cat (7:25:41 AM): Oh, Im paying back my bank.
sabbie_cat (7:25:47 AM): I've got over 80 bucks in donations.
Something about the tone of this makes me wince.
icarusancalion (7:07:08 AM): Oh.
sabbie_cat (7:25:59 AM): To make sure everything gets paid and helps keep muse-wanted alive.
icarusancalion (7:07:16 AM): *shakes head*
icarusancalion (7:07:24 AM): That's still very, very wrong.
sabbie_cat (7:26:13 AM): I just paid tuiton and it's too much for me.
sabbie_cat (7:26:18 AM): tuition*
icarusancalion (7:07:33 AM): I wish I had $ to send you.
Translation: in addition to being a student, I never, ever do online transactions.
sabbie_cat (7:26:32 AM): Oh, it's alright love.
icarusancalion (7:07:49 AM): I was down to nothing a couple weeks ago.
sabbie_cat (7:26:40 AM): I just gotta lay the less 40 bucks by Monday
The money that she needs is a little vague.
sabbie_cat (7:26:48 AM): pay*
icarusancalion (7:08:09 AM): If I weren't going to school, I'd be able to.
icarusancalion (7:08:44 AM): Who's billing you for the $75?
sabbie_cat (7:27:54 AM): I got billed 75, which I paid, but I didn't have it in my checking account, so I got billed an additional 100
The shell game with the money moves around again. She said the bounced checked fees were $60. How does that add up to $100?
sabbie_cat (7:28:07 AM): So, what I ahd of the 75 was taken and I was left with 123
icarusancalion (7:09:46 AM): So you paid the $75 before you knew it was the hostees fault?
Translation: You're an idiot, Sabbie.
sabbie_cat (7:28:49 AM): When I knew it was -- I didn't want my hosting to be cut off.
icarusancalion (7:10:52 AM): I would have risked having the hosting cut off if the charge was unreasonable. But that's me.
sabbie_cat (7:29:59 AM): I host too many people to do that -- I don't want to let them down.
icarusancalion (7:11:24 AM): You are providing free subdomains. That is the risk of that.
I have since learned there are other risks...*snort*
icarusancalion (7:11:45 AM): You put up a notice in and_love, then email/IM people to explain.
icarusancalion (7:12:01 AM): You'd have us on your side.
icarusancalion (7:12:20 AM): Just for future reference.
sabbie_cat (7:31:08 AM): I have put up a notice on and_love and m-w that if I can't get it all paid off, we're having to close.
Ah, now the threat.
icarusancalion (7:13:30 AM): Now that the hosting company has the money, it's hard to shake it back out of them.
This was the point where I decided she was incompetent. I've since changed my mind. There was a completely different problem.
icarusancalion (7:13:35 AM): Hmm.
icarusancalion (7:13:42 AM): You're getting screwed though.
sabbie_cat (7:32:39 AM): Yes, but Im thankful for all those who have helped.
We have no idea how many either.
sabbie_cat (7:32:54 AM): A lot of hostees helped actually.
icarusancalion (7:15:04 AM): Have you considered creating a muse-wanted "board"? Sort of like what they have at Fiction Alley, so it doesn't all fall on your shoulders?
Translation: You are clearly incompetent, and this is likely to happen again.
sabbie_cat (7:34:25 AM): I have.. sort of. For inquires and all, or a mailing list.
icarusancalion (7:16:32 AM): Here's my recommendations: find out about what your hostees do for a living. For example, one of my betas is a lawyer.
icarusancalion (7:16:54 AM): There's talent you can pull on.
icarusancalion (7:18:11 AM): Then create a plan, a sort of wish list for muse-wanted.
Translation: Have someone else run this thing.
sabbie_cat (7:37:20 AM): Uh.
icarusancalion (7:18:36 AM): Then post a list of tasks you'd support with in that wish list.
sabbie_cat (7:37:36 AM): Im just taking donations, love. I never ask for things.
Rereading this... yow. She's not even remotely upset. Cool, calm and collected. Not what one would expect from someone who was just screwed over.
icarusancalion (7:19:18 AM): I know.
icarusancalion (7:19:37 AM): That's what worries me. You're being stuck.
Translation: I'm certain this will happen again. Any fool who'd write a check for something extraneous when they don't have money in the bank....
icarusancalion (7:19:44 AM): You've taken on a lot.
sabbie_cat (7:39:02 AM): I know you can't donate, but do you know anyway to get people in the HP community to donate?
icarusancalion (7:20:38 AM): Hmm... *thinks*
Translation: Oh hell.
sabbie_cat (7:39:30 AM): I mean, I don't know what to do. I just paid tution and I have like, 3 bcusk to my name.
Yet 24 hours later, she has enough to cover four months of services. She's doing well on this "donation" business.
icarusancalion (7:21:21 AM): It's usually easier to get people to do tasks than to donate money.
Translation: Oh hell.
sabbie_cat (7:40:13 AM): the bank gave me till Monday, so I'm just trying my best
icarusancalion (7:21:38 AM): Then once you have a team, they tend to pull together to cover costs.
sabbie_cat (7:40:47 AM): *nods*
icarusancalion (7:22:31 AM): My background's administration, not fund-raising.
Translation: I've seen donation fraud before. More than once.
sabbie_cat (7:41:29 AM): I'm sorry.
icarusancalion (7:22:52 AM): But if you want to do fundraising, the secret is to always have your hat out.
And I would know that, too.
icarusancalion (7:22:54 AM): :)
icarusancalion (7:23:10 AM): The paypal right on the main page.
Translation: Ask someone else.
sabbie_cat (7:41:57 AM): Just, I hate asking. I never wnat to fend off others.
icarusancalion (7:23:26 AM): Everyone hates asking.
icarusancalion (7:23:42 AM): That's why you need a board, so it's not "you" asking.
icarusancalion (7:24:05 AM): It's muse-wanted.
Now most people would be defensive by now. I'm pretty clearly saying she should give up control of her webhosting. This is where the next red flag went up for me.
sabbie_cat (7:43:07 AM): I was going to ask you if you could post that MW.com is trouble, and link to the site where they can read more, but then I'd feel selfish.
Aha! The suggestion: you are selfish. Clever, isn't she?
icarusancalion (7:24:52 AM): Yes, I could do that.
icarusancalion (7:25:05 AM): I don't usually fundraise.
icarusancalion (7:25:22 AM): But I'll do that.
Translation: I'm backed into a corner here.
sabbie_cat (7:44:20 AM): Only if you want to, I felt really nervous asking.
icarusancalion (7:25:35 AM): But now...
icarusancalion (7:26:01 AM): ... we need to plan as if this sort of thing might be a regular occurance.
Translation: Because if nothing else, I think you are completely incompetent.
sabbie_cat (7:44:56 AM): Uhm.
icarusancalion (7:26:22 AM): It won't be, but there are always surprises.
Translation: I have never given money and had that person go away. They always come back to ask again.
icarusancalion (7:26:27 AM): Always.
icarusancalion (7:26:43 AM): (Backed by 15 years of experience.)
And tax returns so high from my donations, they paid for a trip to India.
sabbie_cat (7:45:35 AM): I've told my hosting company to auto-shut down my site(s) if bandwith goes over 1gb of my normal monthly allowence
icarusancalion (7:27:05 AM): That's good. *nods*
icarusancalion (7:27:33 AM): It helps to tell people that it's not going to be something they'll be asked about over and over again.
sabbie_cat (7:46:20 AM): And when m-w.com is back up, there's gonna be a hostee application with "Terms" box, where you have to check you read it.
sabbie_cat (7:46:55 AM): If you upload anything nnow allowed in the terms list, you'll be responsible for everything & etc
Yeah. That's about as effective as requiring passwords.
icarusancalion (7:28:13 AM): So there was a particular hostee that is responsible for m-w getting a virus?
sabbie_cat (7:47:04 AM): Yes.
sabbie_cat (7:47:17 AM): m-w.com/bitter; I deleted everything, but she vanished
I'm going to guess that bitter called her a fraud, or is a current un-friend.
icarusancalion (7:28:40 AM): Are they still being hosted?
sabbie_cat (7:47:35 AM): No.
icarusancalion (7:28:53 AM): Good.
icarusancalion (7:28:59 AM): That's the most you can do.
icarusancalion (7:29:41 AM): Did she upload MP3s?
sabbie_cat (7:48:38 AM): Yes. 150 of them
icarusancalion (7:29:56 AM): Aha!
sabbie_cat (7:48:50 AM): Killed bandwith.
She was vague about how this bandwidth issue affected the passwords and logins, which to my mind is a permissions issue.
icarusancalion (7:30:05 AM): Now I have a story that will help you.
sabbie_cat (7:48:56 AM): Hm?
icarusancalion (7:30:28 AM): Fund-raising requires sympathy.
icarusancalion (7:31:01 AM): If you go over your bandwidth, people wonder why.
icarusancalion (7:31:07 AM): You have to explain why.
I feel like such a sucker when I read this now. I was really gonna help.
sabbie_cat (7:50:03 AM): I have at muse-wanted.com
icarusancalion (7:31:49 AM): A free service getting screwed over and abandoned...
icarusancalion (7:31:54 AM): ... people will help.
sabbie_cat (7:50:53 AM): I know they will; they've helped so much so far.
sabbie_cat (7:51:07 AM): And a lot of people like your Percyfest site, so I thought they would help, also.
icarusancalion (7:32:41 AM): If I just say "went over the bandwidth" people will want to know why.
icarusancalion (7:32:48 AM): Do they?
Ah, flattery. Yeah it works beautifully on me. Except when I thought about it later, I realised that no one had ever emailed me about how great the Percyfest site was, even though my email's on the main page. So I thought it unlikely. Another red flag.
sabbie_cat (7:51:51 AM): Yeah, I've gotten numerous emails as of thanks to hosting it.
icarusancalion (7:33:17 AM): No kidding!
sabbie_cat (7:52:08 AM): Also other archives wnated to be hosted, but at the time, that trojan wa smessy and I told them to try back in a little.
Hmm. Now, the "Trojan" issue had just been discovered on July 31st. So these sites had to have spoken to her August 1-3. Quite a windfall.
sabbie_cat (7:52:19 AM): I host the hpchan site, also.
icarusancalion (7:33:35 AM): *nods*
icarusancalion (7:33:43 AM): Okay.
icarusancalion (7:34:23 AM): I have a real distaste for fund raising, but this I can understand, and you've done a lot for me.
True. And this is why the con-game of obligating the other person first works so well.
sabbie_cat (7:53:43 AM): Yeah, I really dislike it too -- and with all those donations, what I didn't need (before I got slammed with that extra charge) was going to Bookaid.org
Aha. The "I'll give any extra to charity" scam. I've since heard this one was used at the old Bit of Earth.
icarusancalion (7:34:57 AM): You deserve it.
icarusancalion (7:35:13 AM): What's bookaid.org?
sabbie_cat (7:54:22 AM): It helps give books to people in lesser nations.
sabbie_cat (7:54:29 AM): Like those who can't have them or afford them.
sabbie_cat (7:54:40 AM): Leaky-Cauldron.org sponsers them, and I've donated to them quite a bit.
icarusancalion (7:36:32 AM): I spent half my life building a Buddhist monastery.
icarusancalion (7:36:46 AM): And supporting Tibetan refugees.
icarusancalion (7:37:16 AM): I'm sort of burning out, because a monastery... oh, every week it was a new expense.
Yeah. There is no end once you give money. So long as you know Exactly where it's going....
sabbie_cat (7:56:20 AM): *nods* You do a lot.
sabbie_cat (7:57:41 AM): Hopefully when I get my next paycheck, I can save it all in case of emergencies again
icarusancalion (7:38:55 AM): Anyhow, I'll help out.
icarusancalion (7:39:01 AM): No.
icarusancalion (7:39:19 AM): You need to establish an emergency fund/support group from outside sources.
icarusancalion (7:39:23 AM): Not out of pocket.
icarusancalion (7:39:34 AM): This is self-preservation talking.
sabbie_cat (7:58:21 AM): Yeah, I'll try and make a board.
This is where the red flag kept flying. I expected an argument to the suggestion she was incompetent. But she was willing to say anything to get the money.
icarusancalion (7:39:52 AM): Eventually you'll get sick of the emergencies. :)
icarusancalion (7:40:03 AM): I have to go to my temp job.
sabbie_cat (7:58:51 AM): Yeah, they suck horribly.
icarusancalion (7:40:11 AM): But we'll talk later.
At this point I was thinking of ways to restructure muse-wanted, and thinking of how I could track the amount of money coming in: do drabbles for everyone who donated? The varying amounts she needed started bothering me.
sabbie_cat (7:59:06 AM): *nods*
icarusancalion (7:40:22 AM): Boards have their own problems.
icarusancalion (7:40:56 AM): But forewarned is forearmed.
icarusancalion (7:41:18 AM): I'd like to see you with a muse-wanted supply that can last you four years.
icarusancalion (7:41:34 AM): Steady.
sabbie_cat (8:00:38 AM): It's 25 a month, that's quite a bit for 4 years xP
Oh, I bet she was eager at this point.
icarusancalion (7:42:34 AM): 25 a month isn't much when spread around.
icarusancalion (7:42:47 AM): It's just a lot when you're always on empty.
icarusancalion (7:42:56 AM): Too much.
icarusancalion (7:43:11 AM): Okay. I gotta run.
sabbie_cat (8:02:03 AM): Yeah, going to college makes everything.. crazy
sabbie_cat (8:02:05 AM): Tah <3
sabbie_cat (8:02:08 AM): Thanks for your help.
I kept a copy of the conversation (thank you,
sparrohawk, for telling me to turn on auto-archive for our chats). It left a bad taste in my mouth. I posted it to a friend who was very sympathetic towards
and_love/for_long situation... until she read it. That friend said, "Something's wrong here. She's too calm."Yeah.
And to my mind, too many of the facts kept changing. Why did this happen? How much money did she need or receive? She said she was going to donate any extra money she got to bookaid.org (that made
wildernesguru laugh), but she'd said that in her journal and then posted that the bounced check fees had to be paid out of that. (wildernesguru laughed even harder.)Note: she was asking me for money while I was still locked out of my site. Another red flag.
Later that night I sent her this message:
icarusancalion (8:23:50 PM): Hey Sabbit.
icarusancalion (8:24:07 PM): I can't do it. I just... I've never asked for money online.
icarusancalion (8:24:31 PM): I can ask people to help you in other ways, but... not money. I don't do that.
icarusancalion (8:24:48 PM): If you want me to remove my sites, I will understand.
I just quietly slipped away in the night, moved my site.
She responded the next morning, August 6th:
sabbie_cat (4:44:02 AM): Poke?
sabbie_cat (4:45:39 AM): Hi, uhm, I saw you moved your site, which is quite upsetting, because it's something I've enjoyed hosting. And I truly was very sacred, weeks back when all this emss happened, people would leave no matter how hard I tried to fix it. And don't worry about not asking. I got the money fixed out, everythings paid for, and I have money for the hosting for the next four months. It's up to you but it just saddens me.
But -- she hadn't put up anything in either of her journals saying she had the money.
In fact, she posted in her new journal
for_long that I had scarpered when she needed me most, using the story for sympathy (and more donations). There was nothing in that journal but the financial situation, including lists of bank bounced-check fees of $60 each. (She needs a new bank. Most banks only charge around $25.) So I congratulated her, and quoted her that she had enough for four months. And asked her to take down my site.
Shortly after I posted my congratulations (surprise, surprise), an announcement went up at muse-wanted.com that she had enough and all she needed was hostees to email her for their new passwords. I spoke with other hostees, and they emailed her, posted comments in her journals, AIM'd, Y!M -- with no response.
Denouement
So. The Percyfest is now at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~percyfest
My site is back at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~dinkbird
I've been very polite and avoided the wank the last couple weeks, though a few of you have already seen the bulk of this post, deeply friends-locked.
I gave her time from August 6th - 15th to respond to people and let them upload/download their sites.
Checked in with folks: Nope. Email, Y!M, AIM, comments in her journals all didn't get a response. I helped one friend copy her site.
Today, I let
and_love/Sabbie/for_long have it. She miraculously reappeared. Told me hurricane Charlie prevented her from responding. Oh. Really?
Since July 31st?
I'm assuming it stopped at her house early. Stayed a while. Then moved on to ravage the rest of Florida.
I did a little checking on her, and found something that I had read a while ago and had stuck in my mind.
July 23rd she put up this rather revealing post:
"If you did not know, Sabrina is very scared at the moment. I'm usually never scared like this, but if you didn't know, I was involved with a site called Laundromatic about a month ago -- I did good transactions, and got everything out very fast. However, there was a cetain time, in the middle of June, wherein I was in the middle of about 4 transactions and my dad went ballistic on me for sending out things and not getting anything in return as of yet.
He was in post-surgery stress, so he went absolutly crazy. He basically took all my Laundromatic stuff and put it away. It bloody pissed me off, but there was nothing I can do. Plus the death on his side amde him all more pissy.
I had two cellphones to send out, as well as a gameboy, and some dvds. I haven't sent them out, except for two, as of today. And it's been a month. I finally can now that ym dad goes back to work, but I know neither of the others addresses, and I'm worried because now I have threatens of cops getting involved.
I was always a good dealer, and now I am horribly scared. I've always been a good person, and I really don't know what to do. I know mellowdee is a mod there, and maybe I should talk to her. -- I don't know, and I'm scared.
I just.. I hate my dad for getting me in this crap. Damnit."
She got this response:
"rhiannon the girl who doesnt have a livejournal and who is currently in a transaction with you on laundromatic.net insists I post here again. here is what rhiannon02 had to say:
#1. nobody is to blame here but yourself. its not your fathers fault. its yours. common sense here, if someone sends you $10 for an item, you send it out. they were prompt, courtious, and honest with you and they very least you could do was give that same thing back to your customer.
#2. payment for the cell phone was received in an admittance by you, on june 25th. you instant messaged rhiannon and said you had received payment. its now almost july 25th and you havent had 1 minute to travel to your local post office? i find that very hard to believe, considering the fact that you have plenty of time to update designs, update journals, and sit on your aol instant messenger. its all about prioreties here, and you chose the wrong one.
#3. you are a liar. first, it was you had the wrong zip code. the zip code you gave was the town i live 2 minutes away from. i know for a fact if you would have put that zip code down? it would have arrived here. so, you lied. then, on the 4th of july, you were all the sudden going to send this more expensive cell phone instead since the other person didnt follow up. lied again. that girl did send payment to you as well and you were going to give me her product. lied again. last friday, you instant message me and you say you sent it out thursday. then 3 days later, you switch and say you sent it out friday. and to top it all off, you make these fabrications of your family's misfortune. girl, no offense, but we all have problems. i do, you do, we all do. but that does not mean to ignore me. i would have NO PROBLEM waiting a few days because of an emergency, but we are talking OVER A MONTH here. and you have had many opportunities to get to your post office because i always see you online, updating, and designing. so dont give me these lies that you didnt have time. your life is no more important than anyone elses here. we all have problems of our own. so i strongly suggest you stop acting immature and blaming your family. they arent the one on laundromatic.net as ILLYAD, you are hun. you are the one behind the computer screen here taking peoples' hard earned money and not sending their items out. if i didnt see you updating journals, layouts, and chatting online, perhaps i would believe you have problems, BUT i see you doing all those things. take 10 minutes out of your "busy" day and get some respect for people and do your end of the transaction.
common sense here people. you post a sales list, i buy something, i send payment, you get payment, and then finally..YOU SEND MY ITEM. if only it could've been that easy huh. but it wasnt. i have been too nice to you. and im done with being nice because you have been the worst online seller i have ever met.
you say you are scared? YOU SHOULD BE. i hate sounding mean, but put yourself in my shoes. grow up and take responsibility. your father didnt do this. nobody else did this BUT YOU. you are to blame.
this whole time you are supposedly telling me you have "sent it out" and such, I am getting other packages from california in 3-4 days and since you sent it out last thursday, according to you, its had almost 8 days to get from florida to ohio. stop the lies and own up to mistakes.
Mail gaurentees packages in a 2-9 day time frame. if i do not get it tomorrow, you will be hearing from me. but if you were telling the truth about when you sent it out, you have nothing to worry about. it will definitely arrive tomorrow. but if you have been lying, dont be surprised if that lie comes back to bother you."
At the time it didn't bother me. In retrospect it raises my eyebrows. Because I've now had experience with her doing a bit of a shell game with her excuses. Including the vacationing hurricane Charlie.
I have little doubt that Sabbie, aka
and_love, aka for_love, is a con artist, with an established pattern of bilking people out of money. - If anyone who needs hosting now that she's dropped the site, email me or drop a comment.
- Anyone who has webspace they can give, please let us know: I'm okay, but
and_love/for_long shut the site down without letting 16 domains and 28 subdomains know first.I can temporarily host some people at my Earthlink free sites, but there isn't a lot of space there.
ETA: http://www.muse-wanted.com is back up again, or at least there's front page there. With a personalised announcement. *smirks* It's unclear whether she's going to continue the hosting or not. However, she has offered to give all the money back. It's as difficult to track how much is returned as it was to figure how much she had taken in. However, I would hope that she does at least return some of it.
ETA2: Thank you for your generous offers. We have as much (in fact far more) hosting than we need. As it turns out, http://www.muse-wanted.com only changed its front page. All of the sites are still up, and links work. Hostees are simply not able to upload or download files, which is no change from three weeks ago.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-15 10:58 pm (UTC)Is slashcity the same place that hosts Inkstained Fingers?
Icarus
no subject
Date: 2004-08-15 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-16 12:14 pm (UTC)By the way, this has made fandom_wank...
http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/489219.html
no subject
Date: 2004-08-16 03:50 am (UTC)