I am, again, requesting a full refund. The items I ordered were not the items that were delivered. See below. I am ready to write about this as well as contact various raw food groups about your unsatisfactory products, customer service, and communication. I also see your DVD product is available via therawfoodworld.com  – I will also be contacting them to let them know about your business practice.

To recap, this is the package I was ordering, off of this page: http://www.pearmagazine.com/

Our Pear Online Holiday Gift eBasket makes a great Christmas gift that can ship as late as Christmas Eve, as it ships straight to your inbox for you to forward on to the person you are gifting!

The gift basket includes this gorgeous gift basket graphic with links to:

- Pear Magazine Online, Holiday Issue plus a year’s subscription!
- The Raw Vegan Holiday Survival Guide (eBook)
- Raw Vegan 5-course Holiday Feast Video Demonstration
- 365 Ways to Start Taking Care of Yourself Right Now! (eBook)
- Lovely acoustic harp and piano music downloads by Storm and Jinjee
- The 14 Garden Diet raw food eBooks
All for only $59.95 (a $180 value)
To order the Pear Holiday Gift eBasket direct to your inbox, click here

What I received is copied into the email quoted below. It included a request for my address, and a link to a page with links to 12 other web pages (not ebooks as described).

Begin forwarded message:

From: jennifer johnpoll <azxure@azxuredawn.com>
Date: January 7, 2009 8:33:48 AM EST
To: complaint-response@paypal.com
Cc: The Garden Diet <thegardendiet@gmail.com>
Subject: #PP-609-101-306

I last sent this identical email on 1/5 – I received an email this morning asking me to give feedback regarding PayPal’s dispute resolution process. Right now my feedback will be negative, as it has not been resolved. I am out tangible and digital goods. I have a seller who has not contacted me regarding sending said tangible goods or about the gross misrepresentation of the digital goods and I have PayPal, who claims to have a dispute system, but blew me off because of the digital goods, even though I was told “the claims process only applies to the shipment of goods” – so what about my tangible goods that were not shipped at the very least?

I am copying this email to The Garden Diet in the hopes my emails are being read and simply ignored. I am not giving up on a refund on these items from either the source or from PayPal.

My claim was closed [prematurely] and I cannot find any place to leave additional comments. I was told because there were no physical goods involved PayPal will not handle the complaint, however, there were physical, as well as digital, goods involved. Please see email below requesting my mailing address (which should have been provided via PayPal in the first place, now that I think of it) which was never replied to.

This item was also to include DVDs and other physical items. The email I got requesting my mailing address to send them to (see quoted below) was never replied to either. I am not only out digital items, but physical ones as well.

INITIAL AND ONLY EMAIL FROM SELLER:

Thank you for ordering our Pear Magazine Special!

Here is your link to Pear Magazine Online, the 12 raw food ebooks and music downloads:

http://www.thegardendiet.com/XXX (full URL removed as to not distribute their digital goods)

If you have trouble opening the link above try copying and pasting the below into your browser’s address bar:

www.thegardendiet.com/XXX (full URL removed as to not distribute their digital goods)

WE NEED AN ADDRESS TO SEND YOUR ITEMS TO.
PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH ONE.

We hope you enjoy the online magazine and ebooks meanwhile!

All the best of health and happiness,

Jinjee and Storm

http://www.thegardendiet.com

PS: If you have time, we’d love to hear how you found our site!
P.P.S.: Please also help influence children’s snack food choices by joining our “Take A Fruit Break” Campaign at http://www.takeafruitbreak.com

The following happened today when I had to go out and grab some groceries for the kids and I. The past couple of months have been a whirlwind for me as most of you know. I ended up giving Kimi a few things and she was happy that she got one of the Gothic Lolita inspired outfits she helped me make/design. I wanted to share this blog with you because it really fucking hit me today… this is going to have an insane impact on so many things. We ALL as parents are going to be affected. Not just those of us that are running businesses. Take some time to read about what is going on with the CPSIA and decide for yourself if you think this law is beneficial. I personally want my kids to always be able to go into libraries, buy handmade goods that are not mass-marketed and appreciate the extra touch of a handmade blanket.

———————

“Your outfit is absolutely adorable!” I heard a woman say behind me and my daughter replied with, “Thank you! My Mommy has a clothing business!” and I sighed. Sighing is not my usual reaction when I get a compliment for my work. The woman and her sister were very polite and had no idea that they had just brought to surface so many terrible feelings with their compliments, “You made her outfit? It’s amazing! You really have talent and I’ve never seen anything so adorable.” They didn’t have kids but talked about how they almost wished their biological clocks started ticking simply to shop for my line of clothes. I was completely flattered but almost muted because of the recent decision to close up my Immature Couture shop. When they asked where I sold my clothes I didn’t have the energy to explain what was going on so I simply said “Online.” thanked them and went back to grocery shopping with the kids.

I want nothing more than to know that the toys my children play with are safe and will not cause them any harm. I understand the urgency to protect the children of this country from high levels of lead and stop the ridiculous recalls. What I do not understand is why these new regulations were passed with such carelessness that it requires testing for products that have virtually NO risk of lead contamination! Products like clothing, blankets, wooden toys and books! The CPSIA is essentially causing many small businesses that make products for children under the age of twelve to close up shop because of their haste in passing regulations that have an insane amount of loopholes. Congress decided that a problem caused by ridiculous and irresponsible mass-market toymakers should be solved with a solution that sucks in various other industries that are completely unrelated to toys!

Later on when the kids and I were checking out the two women approached me and asked for my business card because they wanted to tell their friends about my clothing line. I smiled and tried to explain to them as plainly as possible that as of February 10th I would be officially closing up shop because of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act . Shockingly they were outraged that they hadn’t heard of it. That they felt their rights as consumers were being taken away. That the deadline is so close and there isn’t a media outrage over it. That more small businesses are being shut down and allowing the big companies to triumph. We exchanged information, I gave them my card and they said they would be writing whoever they needed to and be in contact with me. They weren’t business owners who are effected by this nor were they parents but they were as equally outraged as most of us that have to close our shops.

The apathy that I have seen from the general public and even those that own small businesses and are not effected by the new regulations have saddened me until I spoke with these two women. They were absolutely right! This does not just hurt my business. This hurts everyone no matter if they have children or not. No matter if they have a business selling products to children under twelve or selling something that, thankfully for them, does not have to be burdened with the CPSIA. Why don’t more people care?

I loaded up the kids, put my groceries in the trunk and at that moment it finally hit me. Something I started as a side business for extra cash in hand and as a creative outlet was taken from me. Just when my business started to take off it was ripped from my hands, discarded and no real explanation for it. I sell clothes. Not jewelry. Not toys. Not anything that has been manufactured overseas or injected with lead. I design, cut, iron, serge, stitch and package every item of clothing myself. To comply with these regulations each product I made would have to be tested which means each individual component of the garment would have to be tested for lead. A 15$ onesie now costs 400$ to make simply because of the testing fees! I put sleepless nights into marketing plans, helping Etsy teams and writing blogs to help the handmade market. There is no reason for so many of us to be swept out of the way because some major corporations wanted to cut their overhead costs and put MY children in danger. I stood there and cried in the parking lot. There is no reason why so many handmade artists look away at the pain so many of us are going through simply because they are not in the same boat.

Do something. The children in this country need to be protected but by regulations that target only the products that can cause potential harm. If you don’t do it for yourself and your business, or your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews or friend’s kids then do it for the sake of what’s right and stop being silent and a doormat in our society.

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/save_handmade_toys_from_the_cpsia

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/economicimpactsofCPSIA/index.html

http://nationalbankruptcyday.com/

http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/

Wal-Mart nation: the race to the bottom

By Floyd J. McKay
Special to The Times

Los Angeles is not my kind of town. But the Angelinos are about to take a stand that ought to be applauded across the country.

That stand is to say “no” to a Wal-Mart “supercenter” that the retailing giant hopes to open in the city.

These superstores are not your father’s Wal-Mart; they are monstrous, sprawling over some 25 acres and employing up to 600 workers. Their lure, of course, is lower prices.

Wal-Mart, it seems to me, epitomizes the race to the bottom that has the United States by the throat as the 21st century opens.

Why do people shop at these behemoths, when they know full well that they are driving out of existence small businesses owned and operated by their neighbors, employing other neighbors?

They shop because of price, and they are forced to do so by the declining standard of living we have offered working people for more than a generation. People who work for minimum wage, with little or no benefits, who cannot afford to fix their car or their kids’ teeth have no choice but to search out the lowest price.

Wal-Mart buys offshore, without apology and for the cheapest possible prices, from companies paying the lowest-possible wages.

As jobs in America are lost to foreign sweatshops to feed the Wal-Mart engine, American workers are forced to accept jobs at lower pay, with bad working conditions. They are funneled to Wal-Mart’s promise of cheap goods, in effect patronizing the very companies that caused their economic misery.

This is a cruel travesty on working people in this country.

Wal-Mart is currently being sued in some 40 cases charging various abuses of labor laws, and last fall it was reported the company extensively employs illegal aliens as janitors. Wal-Mart has successfully opposed unionization and frequently pays well below competing stores.

All of these practices ? alleged abuses of labor laws, hiring illegals, and the low rate of pay and benefits at Wal-Mart ? serve to depress the labor market in communities in which the giant is located. That is a major factor in Los Angeles’ opposition to the supercenter.

We live in a nation in which the real-dollar income of an average family has declined for years, while corporate profits and executive pay have skyrocketed.

The gap between rich and poor has widened at an alarming rate in the past 20 years. In 44 states, the gap has increased not only between rich and poor, but between rich and middle-class families. None of the six exceptions is a Northwest state. Oregon has one of the worst gaps, Washington is about average.

In some states, the inequity is staggering. In three of the nation’s largest states ? California, New York and Ohio ? families in the lowest 20 percent bracket actually lost real income from 1978 to 2000. In 1999 dollars, the loss was between 5 and 6 percent. In those same states, the real income gain for the top 20 percent of families ranged from 37 to 54 percent.

Nationwide, from 1978 to 2000, the lowest 20 percent of families gained only $972 annually, or 7.1 percent; the top 5 percent gained $87,779, or 58.4 percent.

These findings, by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (www.cbpp.org), were before the Bush tax cuts and the current recession, both of which will further widen the gap.

You can’t blame Sam Walton for this disparity, but operations like Wal-Mart feed off the impoverishment of America.

Sadly, there are byproducts in quality of life, often unseen until it is too late.

The greatest is the destruction of America’s small and mid-sized towns, increasingly bereft of s
mall businesses and dominated by big-box retailers ? acres of barren asphalt parking lots, corporate managers on their way to the next-larger store, employees scrambling to keep low-wage jobs.

My wife’s recently deceased aunt could no longer shop in the small Iowa town where she and her late husband ran a feed store. The store is closed, as are the other small businesses. The elderly woman had to drive ? or be driven ? past the empty shops several miles to Wal-Mart, the nearest place to get the basics of life.

Wal-Mart is like a neutron bomb, sucking life out of small towns, leaving buildings without the essence of civic life.

Those of us fortunate to earn middle-class incomes can make a choice, and shun Wal-Mart. The tragedy is that for an ever-increasing segment of America, the despicable race to the bottom has left no other choice than to shop for cheap, regardless of the consequences.

Floyd J. McKay, a journalism professor at Western Washington University, is a regular contributor to Times editorial pages. E-mail him at floydmckay@yahoo.com

Use this coupon:

If you see anything else on the site you want, but feel it is priced too high (these are all slightly lower than standard retail price!!) PLEASE make me an offer.

I am also selling ad space on the front page for 10$ per banner forever. I am only offering 10 of these spaces, and once they are filled, I will remove the place holder banners I have there for now. I get a lot of traffic to the site, even if I don’t make a ton of sales b/c of the contest I was running and will eventually be running again.

“Banners on the home page are $10.00, and I will leave your banner up until you ask me to take it down.

* I also exchange services for listing your banner. Make me an offer! Ok, if I wasn’t specifically trying to get money together for something I would do this, but I really want to buy my boys that set. Sorry!

It will be well worth it to spend a few dollars for a permanent listing. The more links search robots find to your site, the higher up your site is listed! Your ad will be seen on http://www.azxuredawn.com and http://www.pjseredipity.com

Please email me your banner at info@pjserendipity.com so I can add it to the rotation as soon as possible.”

Add to cart

---

If you are willing to buy in bulk, here are my prices:

Burt’s Bees Items:
9 mini hand salve – $1.50 each/all for $12.00
21 lip balm tins – $2.00 ea/35$ for all
13 assorted fruit glosses $3.00 each/25$ for all
6 spontaneity lip stick in blister box – $6.00 ea/all for $25.00
5 spot. lip liner in blister box – comes with free sharpener in each box – $6.00 ea/all for $25.00
6 black eye/brow liner – comes with free sharpener in each box – $6.00 ea/all for $25.00
6 milk bath pint jars – $12.00 ea/all for $50.00

Pretty Baby Herbal Soap items:
3 anti bacterial foamer hand wash (like johnson & johnson foam blaster) – $6.00 ea, all three for $15.00
15 Bath teas – $2.00 each/all for 25$

Pulaski Place candles – none of these are wax, all fragrance oils, not essential oils:
1 juniper breeze m
ini apothecary (4 oz.) lid is broken, but some glue will fix it, the plastic lid to the topper is off, the topper itself is in tact, I can photo if desc isn’t making sense. $5.00
1 orange scent, small urn – $10.00
celestial mug w/ cocoa candle inside, marshmallow on top. been moved alot, marshmallow top damaged, not too noticeable (like a crumbly top, so a few crumbles gone) – $8.00
pears n berries sm. square (6 oz I think) – $6.00
wisteria lg square – 26 oz – $18.00
29 vanilla tealights tealights burn about 8 hours total, not all at once though! – $16.00
14 macintosh apple tealights – $8.00
1 autumn afternoon sm apoth (10oz) – $10.00

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Who the fuck spends 122.00 on a bra?? It isn’t like it’s encrusted with diamonds or sapphires. It isn’t like it does any more (or less) than any other bra out there.

here

I love April. It smells so… good outside! Yep, even here in Florida. It smells clean and fresh, as well it should while everything is growing new again,

More new fun stuff on the site! Check out our Blue Dollars, the new incentive for buying from PJS! For every $10 (per order, not including shipping) you purchase in products; you receive a Blue Dollar. Each Blue Dollar is worth $1.00 off any future order. You can choose to spend your Blue Dollar(s) at anytime or save them and put them towards a larger purchase or even get products free! For more information, check out that link.

You can also hold an Online Party to earn free products. This can be a “live” party with an online chat and prizes, or simply a two week period of time for your friends & family to order and earn you free merchandise. Click on the link for more information or contact me at azxure@pjserendipity.com.

Our April Scent of the Month will be Rain (April showers bring May flowers!) I think it is a fairly soft scent, but not too soft. If you aren?t sure if you will like it, give it a test run with some tealights or a small pillar.

Also, the Hostess Thank You gift for April will be a 6″ pillar in the Rain scent. If you are interested in free merchandise, please read this page.

As always, please see the Pulaski Place site and we can also get anything on their site.

I have been re-installing my shopping cart, fixing products, deleting products, trying to gear up for this show in Dec. Any tips, anyone?

Gift Bags that consist of a 4 oz bar of soap w/ matching 2 oz bar (shower & sink) tied together with ribbon (or something like that) and put in a kraft brown bag w/ window (so it’s easy to carry and not damage the soap) The scents I have are: aloe comfrey, english lavender, off the vine, peppermint twist, sudzy navel & tea tree. I am packaging them and selling them for $6.50 each.

Now, the comfrey I can throw a Burt’s Bees comfrey salve in with it, but that bumps the cost of that bag up to $10.00 and whoever might buy it might not want or need teh salve.

The eng lav I have mini tubes of lotion, which would bump the cost up to $9.50, again, they might not want or need the lotion.

The only think I have that could go with the peppermint twist is Burt’s lip balm, which would bump it up to $8.50

So I am thinking I should just leave it at the soaps. If they want extra stuff, they can buy it seperate.

I’ve also got 3 sampler totes left, 2 sunny citrus, 1 mango tango. They shoudl retail at $30.00, I have had them marked at $20.00 which is enough to cover the cost of the bag and then some, so I am ahead. I ddn’t see any reason to mark it up so high. Each sampler come with one 4 oz soap bar, one mini powder, one mini lotion tube, mini scrub oil and a tube of lip balm. So it’s well worth it.

I have 5 sets of Day Dreams/Sweet Dreams lotions, which I can sell seperatl, but decided to put together. They are $15.00 each (would be $8.00 each is sep., so not a huge savings, but if you want both anyway, it’s worth it.)

I ordered 30 tea bags, but 20 or 21 of them are spoken for, so I will either have 9 or 10 for the show. I should charge $3.00 a piece for them, but I sell them 1 for $2.00 or 3 for $5.00, which is how pretty baby has them priced. In fact, I modeled most of my pricing directly after them, with little exception. So I am not making full retail value mark up, but I am keeping them priced low enough I should make some sales.

& I am going to have candles & gift baskets and stuff. So as long as bring in more than about $300, I can say i turned a profit. The table itself is $225 However, I am inside, right as you walk in, so I should be one of the first tables people see. Oh, and I have to buy an opaque, long sleeved shirt with sleeves that don’t ride up. Any suggestions?

I so don’t have anythin gof substance to add today. Not that I ever do I suppose. I am not soul-searching. I am not growing in any way I can detect or physically measure. I am not pushing my boundries in new ways every day. I have not stagnated, but I am not changing either. I wake up, feed the boy, play with the boy, feed the other boy…. same thing day in and day out.

Bye!

I sent out 3 packages this morning, and as soon as I get payment, I have 4 more to send. , yours went out as wel. Don’t be alarmed, it is a larger box, I sent a present for your sister with it. I hope she likes it!

I had eel roll sushi from Whole Foods for lunch today. It was yummy, but it always is.

Oh, , we were going to come up on a sunday/monday, but b/c of some recent drama at whole addiciton, thinks it would be better to do a monday/tuesday. I know you are looking for work, and the kids have school and all…. is that uber-inconvenient? If it is, we can see about a hotel instead, or trying to find alternate days that work. Well, it still ins’t a yes, but I am hoping he can get a day off. We’d be leaving at like, 4 am and staying whatever day that is, sleeping there, and leaving late the following day.

http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/azxure/

Again, these soaps are going well below retail value. They last at least a month (with two grown adults using them!) possibly longer! They are all-natural, vegan-friendly soaps.

In other news, I got in touch with an old friend last night. Funky. Ironically, he is just outside of Jaxx, so now I have even more of a reason to get my as sup there (not that isn’t enough of one in her own right!)

I have to finish setting up my new shopping cart by the end of the month. I *have* to. I have been running batches of about 5 – 10 products at a time. It is so monotonous tho! I imported them from my old cart, but I have to re-add thumbnails, large photos, some product details, delete some products, I have new ones to add, and I have to figure out what to do with the Belfry, although it does still leave an option to add an HTML link to the static pages… so maybe I can do it that way. I just like to try to keep the Belfry its own entity.

I will be in Orlando Friday Oct 3 through Monday Oct 6. Who wants to come play with us?? I will be there with my Mom, Dad & the Twins plus my two Friday night through Sunday night, Sunday night is driving up after work and we are heading straight to Halloween Horror Nights, and Monday we will hit the park again. I know, our travel schedule is inconvenient to visit with people at best.

Dorian’s party was fun. We had the couple I met at the expo over, and they brought their 4 y/o and their almost 1 y/o. It was so nice to see Dorian playing with someone close to his own age! We are going to try to get together with them a bit more often. Shannon & David came with Ashley & Alex, and it was nice to see them as well. Had family & friends over… much fun was had.

I think that’s it. I bought some airbrush paint yesterday, so maybe I can set that up today or tomorrow. And I got a skirt & top from target, so I will have to try those on, hopefully they fit!

Oh, and Erin had some cake *smiles*