Hope Dies Last

In collaboration with a number of other bloggers, we have declared today as Blog Scam Awareness Day.

Last year I wrote a detailed post about my personal experience with a particularly popular blog designer. You can read the full post here.

Since then, that post is consistently the most viewed post on Hope Dies Last. It is also on the first page of Google when you search the name of that Design Studio followed by the word complaint. This clearly suggests to me that there are many other people out there that have gone through a similar experience. In fact, there are people that were scammed after me that shouldn’t have because my post didn’t reach a broad enough audience.There are people that were scammed after me because I gave up.

This is my attempt to correct that.

Blog Scam Awareness Day is a day to reach out to all bloggers in a united and concerted effort to protect each other; to share our stories so that others will not fall into the same trap.

The facts as I know them are these…

Name: Jessica Bailey Sanderson [Also goes by the names of tattooed mama and mamabearjess.]

Previous Owner of: Cuppycake Designs, Delicious Design Studio, Web Design Gal. [Please note: The current owner of Delicious Design Studio is not affiliated with Jessica in any way and is as much, if not more, of a victim as the rest of us]

Number of bloggers she has taken money from but never fulfilled her obligations: Anywhere between 20 and 80.Possibly more.

Average amount she has taken from each blogger: Based on other accounts I have read, this is probably between $100-$150.  [I payed $222.] In addition, according to Flippa [formerly Marketplace] in May 2009, she sold her business in an online auction for $50, 000.

In October of 2009, I was informed that Jessica had set up a new company–Web Design Gal. But after being confronted by another scammed blogger, that site was removed. As it stands now, she very well could be operating under a different name.

Our goals:

1. To increase awareness so that this particular designer does not continue to work in this way [under any name]. But to also discourage others who may want to take advantage of the anonymity that the internet provides.

2. To attempt to collect a detailed and comprehensive list of all bloggers who have been affected by Jessica.

3. To protect each other.

What can you do?

If you have also been scammed or know of someone who has been scammed by Jessica, fill out this form.

Spread the word.  Twitter, link or repost.

And finally, I know that some will disagree with this course of action. I–myself–have been hesitant to name and shame. It feels dirty. It goes against my nature. Please be aware that most of us have exhausted all the ‘right ways’ of complaining. I have filed complaints with Paypal, the Better Business Bureau and the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection. This has achieved nothing. And every time I hear of yet another person who lost money and got no design, I am filled with disbelief and rage. How is it possible that in a tightly knit community of bloggers that inspired the Love Harder movement [Go! Donate! Shop!] we have allowed this to happen? How is it possible that this person has not been held to account?

If blogging camaraderie can inspire us to Love Harder, I also think that blogging should inspire us to protect each other.

Even if, sometimes, it feels uncomfortable.

Thanks to the following bloggers for taking a stand with me.

Tattoos & Cupcakes

The Tambourine Queen

Mom In Real Life

A new year cannot really feel like a new year until the previous year has been dissected, right? So here it is. 2009.  (2008 can be found here)

I’ve got a number of post saved up in my drafts folder to share with all of you. There are posts about a revelation, boys, strength, love and a half kiss!

But I’m far too busy working, eating, streaming missed episodes of The Gilmore Girls and spending time with friends in town for the holidays to actually edit those posts into coherent, inspiring, semi-vague  Hope Dies Last kind of posts.

Instead, I wanted to drop by and let you know that I’ve been nominated for a 20SB Bootlegger Award. Thank you so much for all those who put my name up for Best Across The Pond Blogger. I have a feeling (it could be my unconquerable, delusional hope)  that this could be the year that I actually win one of these babies!

So I IMPLORE you–members of 20SB–vote for me! Choose me! Love me!

As a professional writer, I have quickly had to learn not to take negative feedback personally. I openly ask my clients to tell me whether the tone I have used, whether the words I have chosen are the right ones for their needs. In our correspondence, I usually say: “Tell me what you hate and I’ll change it.” It works well. They’re happy and my ego remains intact.

As a personal blogger, the same learning curve has been steeper. It’s a challenge not to take comments personally. After all, these aren’t about style but rather about content. And when the content is gut wrenching personal, well, it takes a certain type of backbone not to care. But I have learned that when it comes to spilling my truths; sometimes I get it wrong. I don’t express it clearly enough. I am misunderstood. Or rather because I choose to expose a narrow version of my life, I misrepresent myself.

The letter I wrote in the post below was not received in the spirit I had intended. Hope’s comeback post to the blogosphere was an epic failure.

Besides the crickets that reverberated across my blog’s walls I also received two comments that first confused me and then hurt me.

My intentions were to show a fleeting moment of emotion. In my first hand experience (and second hard experience) of relationships, I have observed that there are some past flames that months, even years later still manage to unnerve us. We run into them on an arbitrary day that has been pleasantly wonderful. We run into them and without any warning our minds flood with old emotions; as if not a single day has passed.They are different yet they are the same. That grip they had on you is not there anymore but if you wanted to, you could dream. You could fall in love with them again. For they are still the same and because they are still the same you think, ‘I could be with this person’. It is night and it is cold and you are wearing your favourite jeans and reality and practicality are slaves to the day.

My intentions were to show what that short emotional journey could look and sound like; a completely private inner turmoil between head and heart.  I had hoped that someone out there could relate to that.

In the absence of that, I keep having to remind myself that the fact that I need to explain all of this now only means that I failed as a writer; I did not fail as a human being.