Bludomain: Ridiculous. Don't do business with these morons.

Back when I was working as a photographer, I bought a very expensive web site/hosting package from Bludomain.com. Everything went relatively smoothly -- apparently I'm lucky in that respect, since I've found quite a few threads about how this company ran off with money and never delivered a product to several other photographers, pulled weasel tricks to avoid having to make refunds, etc.

Anyway, back in October I received a notice that my domain would be renewing and they wanted to be paid. As I am no longer in business, I tried to contact them to let them know I want to cancel service, but there was no way to do so. There is no phone number listed on their site, no way to email any person directly, and not a peep anywhere of how to cancel service. Red flag!

So I filed a help ticket explaining my situation very politely, and asking to be contacted about how to cancel my service so I wouldn't get charged. It was ignored. Needless to say, this pissed me off, but not nearly as much as when I woke up this morning to find a large overdraft in my account thanks to a charge from Bludomain.

When I sent another help ticket (not expecting it to be replied to, of course), I was instantly met with heavy sarcasm, insults, and generally poor service from Aundrea, who is the Marketing Director of the company but claims to be the owner.

For the edification of all who are considering doing business with Bludomain, here are the emails I exchanged with Aundrea while trying to resolve this situation. I didn't pretty up any of my emails to them -- I was pissed from the beginning -- and I present Aundrea's replies in full. I am sure you will be blown away by her miraculous customer-service skills, as I was.

My initial contact; bear in mind that my previous very polite attempts to get assistance were totally ignored, and I'd awakened to a gigantic overdraft in my bank account after I'd made every reasonable attempt to AVOID this very situation. I decided to take the "squeaky wheel" tack, since apparently nice, calm, professional requests for assistance OR EVEN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MY EXISTENCE were ignored:
::
HOW DO I CANCEL MY SERVICE? I tried to do this two months ago when I got my renewal notice, but all attempts to contact your company about this have been IGNORED. Now your company has charged me for hosting, which has overdrafted my account at a time when I CANNOT AFFORD THIS.

There is NO WAY to cancel one's service; there is NO MENTION ANYWHERE on your help site of how to do so. And apparently filing a help ticket with a polite request to cancel isn't the way to do it. SO WHAT IS?

IF I DO NOT HAVE A REFUND IMMEDIATELY, I AM GOING TO MAKE SURE EVERY PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER ON THE INTERNET KNOWS ABOUT THIS DISGUSTING "CUSTOMER SERVICE."
::

Aundrea sent two replies in rapid succession (at least now I know how to get the attention of the crack team of customer service reps at Bludomain!):

::
Libbie

You have not been charged anything. What is your domain. [Libbie in: I should note that my domain was included on the ticket I filed -- this one, and all the previous ones.]

We do not charge people * we invoice people so you are not telling the truth.

Aundrea

Libbie

You can spend time spreading your own rumors. We have never charged you, we simply invoice you. As you and I well know because nothing has come out of your bank account.

Aundrea
::

Wow, presumptuous, isn't she?! I respond:

::
"Not telling the truth?" Couldn't insulting your customers by calling them liars be bad for your squeaky-clean image, Aundrea?

Fine; I'll take it up with MasterCard to get my money back, and I will most definitely let the industry know what kind of weasely tricks you've played, what it took to get a fucking response to my attempts to cancel service, and how I was treated by customer service when I did.

So tell me: WHEN WILL MY SERVICE BE CANCELLED? I see my site is still up after a perfectly reasonable attempt to get it pulled.
::

::
best wishes Libbie!

You are accusing BLU of charging you, harassing us and threatening to spread lies how we took your money out of your account.

Which is a lie! Merely trying to assure we have not.


Aundrea
::

::
Well, what do you know? I just got off the phone with them, and my bank confirmed that your company made a debit on my account. As for not believing me, I don't really give a tin shit what you think of me, Aundrea. Either you're uninformed about what's going on in your company, or you're covering your tracks. Either way, the condescending attitude doesn't help you and it's made you look like a real peach. Really made the situation better; good job. You are clearly a genius of customer service. [Libbie in: And fortunately for me, MasterCard was very helpful and gave me back my money. I had to show them the original tickets I filed stating I wanted my service canceled, though.]

I'll be getting my money back from MasterCard for the unauthorized charge. I don't wan to spend another second dealing with this slimy company. Thank goodness I had the foresight to get that kind of protection on my account. My only remaining question is WHEN WILL MY SERVICE BE CANCELLED? I'd tell you I want to know why my previous attempt to do so nicely was ignored, but I have a feeling you'll just come up with more creative ways to call me a liar, so you can fly a kite to hell.

Just cancel my service so I don't have to deal with you ever again.
::

::
We have never charged your card. We do not keep credit cards on file due to security.

So I am not sure why your telling me Master Card put an authorized charge on your card. [This is funny, because I've since found other stories online of people going through the same issues with Bludomain, and Aundrea specifically -- so obviously somebody IS doing some lying here, and it isn't me.]


Aundrea
::

::
It's linked to my PayPal account, darling.

I'm not sure why you're NOT telling me when I'm going to have my service canceled so I don't have to put up with this shit anymore.
::

::
Libbie

Stop being angry, stop cussing, stop threatening, and listen!

We DO NOT charge anyone * unless you physically click PAY this invoice on the invoice you receive we never receive payment.

I am trying to tell you this. If you refuse to listen to me again, I am terminating your account + there has been no charge made!

Aundrea
::

::
Good god, PLEASE terminate my account! That's what I've been BEGGING FOR since October, but it's been IGNORED.

Aundrea, why on Earth do you think I'm so upset? Why do you think I'm cussing? Why do you think I'm threatening? Do you think perhaps, just maybe, it's because when I tried to solve this problem with your company, you instantly called me a LIAR? It wasn't even an implication:

You said: "We do not charge people * we invoice people so you are not telling the truth." (by the way, I notice that one has mysteriously disappeared from this chain of correspondence. It's still in my email inbox, though.) Then you said, "As you and I well know because nothing has come out of your bank account." Then you said, "threatening to spread lies how we took your money out of your account. Which is a lie! Merely trying to assure we have not. "

This is what you call good customer service? Really? Calling a customer who's desperately trying to solve a problem name, as if you're a petulant child in a schoolyard?

Is this the way you like to be treated by a company's representative when you have a problem with that company?

To be honest with you, after the way you've name-called and assumed I'm lying (which I'm not! I don't know how it happened if what all you say is true, but money came out of my account earmarked for your company's coffers...I've worked in finance before so I know sometimes bizarre things happen by accident, but to be instantly accused of lying over it is beyond the pale) I'm not inclined to believe you are wholly innocent. Why else would you launch right into a tirade instead of, oh, I don't know, trying to provide some good service to solve the Mystery of the Mysterious Charge.

And you continue to evade my very simple question: When will my service be canceled? The fact that you seem bent on keeping me around when I've expressed several times now my desire to sever ties with your company (even before I ran into you and your stellar customer service skills) implies to me that this trick will likely be pulled again. I might have been willing to chalk this up to one of those random computerized errors if not for the fact that you've been on the extreme defensive from the get-go, Aundrea.

Please, by all means, terminate my account. If it makes you feel better to tell yourself you did it to me as a punishment instead of at my own request, that's fine. The end result will be the same for me: No more dealing with an unethical company. Even if you folks didn't charge me on purpose, the mere fact that BLU would employ somebody like you whose instant reaction to any show of displeasure from customers is to lob insults at them and act all airy and innocent proves BLU is unethical all by itself.

By the way, you might want to consider a "how to cancel your service" link somewhere on your god-forsaken site. It would save you having to call future customers liars.
::

::
I am not going to read this * Please do not email back really. Your the one bringing the attitude to us, we are happy to help you but again yelling, cussing, threatening etc .. is never a way to approach someone.

Really enjoy the holidays!
::

::
Perhaps you should read it, because I have asked again and again for you to CANCEL MY SERVICE.

Aundrea, what is it going to take to cancel my service? How many times, and in what manner, do I have to ask? I want to be assured this kind of mysterious mistake never happens again, and so I want to cancel my service.

Who do I need to speak to in order to ensure that gets done?

And why are you so reluctant to do it?

And is calling somebody a liar an appropriate way to approach someone?

CANCEL MY SERVICE. It's all I'm asking you to do. I've already had the money refunded to me via Mastercard. Now I want my service canceled.

If you can't do that for me, I will escalate this to your supervisor and make sure he or she sees the way I've been treated by you.
::

I then googled the company and discovered it's owned by Harald Hasselbach. I sent one more, so Aundrea could have no doubt of my plan of action:

::
If I do not receive confirmation that my account has been canceled by the end of the day today (10 December), I will contact Harald Hasselbach with this exchange, and will blog it and post it on forums.

Aundrea, how many times do I need to request cancelation? And why are you not following through? If you're "happy to help," then help me by setting me free from doing any business with you.
::

Her final response:

::
Libbie

I have already showed the team * so I really am not worried about your threats

I own this company Libbie.

Again in this ticket * it says your account will be canceled.

So again slow down and listen.

You are incredibly angry. I am not.
::

Aundrea claims to own the company, but it's listed in several places as being owned by Harald Hasselbach.

The only thing that said my account would be canceled was a threat to try to get me to get in line and go along with Bludomain's tricks.

Yes, you bet your ass, Aundrea, I am incredibly angry. Incredibly angry that anybody should ever be treated this poorly by any company. And no, you're not "angry," you're sarcastic, rude, snotty, uncaring, confrontational, neglectful, untruthful, and a bitch.

There is no excuse -- ever -- for this kind of mistreatment of a customer. Aundrea, you'd better cling with all your might to your job, because if the layoffs hit you -- or better yet, if people wake up and realize what kind of disgusting "service" your company provides and you finally lose all business, as you deserve, you're going to have a very difficult time finding work with these kind of "customer service" skills.

I'm just elated that this nightmare is over. Hooray! I'll never be dealing with Bludomain again! And hopefully, nobody else will, either!

A great article on self-publishing.

This article was recently linked from AW. I loved every word of it.

I'm just going to come right out and say how I feel: If you self-publish, you fail. Whatever your reasons for self-publishing, it means you have failed: Failed to accept enough criticism to make your work worthy of the market, or failed to do enough homework to understand how the industry works, or failed to see that your writing needs work -- a lot of work -- before professionals who can pay you money will come near it. You've failed to give your own work credibility. You've failed to understand what sets quality writing apart from your own. You've failed to attract even a single reader to your writing (at least at the time of self-publishing; you may have a few readers after that.) You've failed to make yourself desirable in the eyes of the industry professionals.

You thought you were taking a clever short cut. Instead, you crashed your career into a pole and then danced smugly around it while it burned to a pile of fail-ashes.

I don't really give a pinch about offending people by saying this. You chose self-publishing because you didn't want to do it the hard and sweaty, but legitimate, way. That's the truth.

Lol.

In pondering my many options for the next historical novel, I tried some creative Googling to see whether I could find that special spark that would ignite a lusty writer's flame. I didn't, but I did find a really funny blog post.

I love random Googling. I believe I typed in "what the fuck was wrong with Caligula," but without the quotes, and got this.

Oh, yes, and the agent requested that I send the revised version of River of Light before Thanksgiving so's she could try to read it over the long weekend. It arrived at the agency on Monday, and I'm hoping against hope that I'll have some good news some time early next week. I whacked it down to 82,000 words after all final edits.

Also, for the first time in eight years, my cat has peed somewhere other than in his litter box. He chose our couch. It was a piece of shit couch anyway, all stained and ugly and too small to boot. This may have been his way of telling us it was time to retire the couch. So today we're off to track down some sales on couches. If we can find a suitable object to place our butts on for under $300, that will be fantastic.

Vlad

I've finally tracked down a copy of Bend Sinister and have just started reading it. If I live for a hundred years, I will never write a word as brilliantly as Nabokov could have written it, oh my god.

Rewrites, aaaaand...GO.

So I winnowed AROL down to 84,000 words. Not quite as low as I wanted to go, but I'll see just how much is really needed in the rewrite phase. I've got the new Chapter One all done and sent off to beta readers. If it makes sense, I shall proceed.

I've added about 1000 words back in, which is good, because Chapter One really didn't exist anymore. I chomped the entire thing, and moved a bit of Chapter Four or Five into its place. I guess the new first chapter is around 1500 words. Not bad. A little short for my chapters, but I guess short is what we're going for here.

I'm feeling good about the progress, and good about the manuscript. Onward, onward.

Oh my goodness!

Pauline Gedge's Child of the Morning is being re-released in trade paperback in March 2010! With a new foreword by Michelle Moran.

Why does this excite me?

a) More Egyptian fiction spells good fortune for Libbie, even if it's re-releasing formerly out-of-print novels.
b) Book about Hatshepsut hitting the market = score.
c) Don't tell anybody, but I've read both Moran's and Gedge's books (all of them) and while they are certainly very fine works of fiction, I am firmly of the belief that I write at least as well. Ahem. At least. Working on tooting my Nabokovian horn here, as per a previous entry.

CAUTION: That is not to say that I think Moran and/or Gedge are poor writers. On the contrary, they are both quite good, and I referenced both ladies in my query letters as my "this book will appeal to fans of...." All I'm saying is that I have a much more literary, lyrical, less straightforward, more mesmerizing voice than either Gedge or Moran. While both authors focus admirably on their very admirable plots, I write mainly as a vehicle for my unique narrative voice rather than a vehicle for my cool plot ideas. That sets me apart from them, while still including me in their sphere.

So I guess what I'm saying here is, I feel that there is definitely room for more than two major voices in the world of Egyptian historicals, and my voice is interesting and new enough that I shouldn't have a hard time establishing myself as a proper player in the game. And YAY HATSHEPSUT.

Oh, sure, there will be some who say I only wrote my Hatshepsut novel (the one that will come after A River of Light, that is) because of Gedge's re-release. To them, I say PHOOEY. I've been cooking this one up since 2007, and River only happened first because I got so wrapped up in Ahmose and Thutmose (or Tut, as I call him. Do not be confused by the Amarna lad. It is not he.) I really don't give a pinch whether people will accuse me of riding the coat-tails of Child of the Morning. My Hatshepsut plot, my characters, my voice are all so drastically different from Gedge's that only people who don't read both novels will draw such a goofball conclusion.

I'm just psyched to see such a good book coming back into print. It's about freakin' time. And they pulled out some great cover art this time, too. The old cover was pretty disappointing. I'm digging this new one. (Edit: Apparently the new cover art for the trade PB is the old HB cover art, but juiced up a bit color-wise. The disappointing cover I was referring to is the old trade PB cover, which was just...boring.)

Gedge, Moran, congratulations to you, and let's do lunch some time. I'll be one of you soon enough.

HI-KEEBA

In just under 45 minutes, I DESTROYED 20,000 unworthy words in my manuscript. I AM A MACHIIIINE!

It's sitting at 90K now but needs work, obviously, because when you just chop thousands of words out very little makes sense until you rewrite. I figure I need to get it down to 75,000-ish before I can begin rewriting. That'll give me enough safety room to do whatever I need to do, get the gaps bridged, make it all typically "Oh-I-wish-I-were-Nabokov" in voice, and hey-yo, it's off to the beta readers for approval or rejection.

I'm going to TRY to get this all done by the end of November. We'll see how that goes.

At least I'm way excited about where this is going.