Mimi's Musings

All right, here’s the deal: when I was in high school, I loved cosplay. I enjoyed creating my own costumes and even styling my own wigs. If you look back on the posts here you can see the stuff archived from my Vox where I documented a lot of it. However, once I got to college, my anime con experiences went from once or twice a year to zero. My free money went to different priorities and my free time went to things that weren’t so labor-intensive. So the $40 wig book I preordered in August 2008…it’s just not right for me anymore. It was supposed to be released that Christmas. Not to mention that I will not be able to even receive the book I ordered because the address is so out of date the forwarding has expired.

It’s been two years. I don’t want this book anymore. In fact, I would rather like that $40 for something else. So, in early October, I emailed Katie Bair using the contact form on her website (which is listed as the only way to get in contact with her — it specifically mentions that her paypal email is completely useless) and got no reply. I checked my spam folders religiously, nada. I sent another email via the form a week or two later. Nothing.

I waited a little longer this time, just to make sure, and I tried a different tactic this time — I replied to the original confirmation receipt email on Nov. 12.  Nothing. I have tried mentioning her on Twitter — no responses. To be fair, she does say that Twitter is not the way to get in touch with her. But considering that her forum is down, I’m not sure what else to do here. Should I continue to email? Should I follow her to other places where she has an online presence and contact her there? I really don’t want to harass her — I feel like that will just make things worse, and make it less likely for me to get my refund or my book.

I could really use some advice right now. How do I follow up on this black hole of book money? It’s far too late, of course, to do anything via PayPal. But at the very least, I want to get this book so I can sell it to someone else who will appreciate it.

I’m really disappointed in Katie Bair and Petting Zoo Wigs. I know she is a one-woman operation and I’ve tried to keep that in mind while I wait for responses. But to hear nothing back, not even “I’m sorry but I can’t refund you”, that just hurts. I thought Katie had better standards than this. I guess things have changed.

EDIT, 12/2/2010: According to Twitter Katie will be sending out refunds and address verification soon. :) Hooray! I still haven’t heard from her yet but I’m crossing my fingers that it’ll be before Christmas. She also announced that it was taking over a month to respond to emails…crazy.