Waiting on a custom - what am I supposed to do? (Sorted out!)

[Naraya]

Hey there,
 
I could really use some advice in this situation, so I thought I should start a thread here.
 
In the "old" Arena I was looking for someone who would sew me a G4 costume. So I opened up a thread with what I was looking for and two members replied. One of them was very friendly and did a great job. She shipped fast and I really loved the custom! (Thanks again to Bugle. ) The second one was a bit slower to reply, but because the price she asked was really okay, I also paid for a second costume. That was back in November!
 
Well, time did go by and in December my payment came back from Paypal. I wrote a message to this person and she told me that there must have been someting wrong with her Paypal account or e-mail address and if I could send the money again. I did and she messaged me that the money was there and everything was okay.
 
2 months passed, again, and no message from her. So I messaged again asking about my custom. She told me that she had seen my post where i had shown my other custom from Bugle and that she assumed I didn't want the custom anymore because I already had one now.
I must confess that I was really angry at the time. I didn't feel like I had done anything wrong or did I? It's not a crime to commission more than one person at the same time to do the same custom for you, right? As long as you pay for both of them, which I did of course. So she kept my money? Really? Shouldn't she give it back to me if she wasn't doing the custom? And she could have messaged me to ask whether I still wanted it or not!
 
Well, so I wrote that of course I'm still interested in getting my custom although I already own one. She said she would get it done in the next few days and would message me when it was shipped. That was a month ago in the middle of february! I haven't heard from her since then, she hasn't read my last message to her and apparently she hasn't been her since February 25th.
 
What should I do now? I can't get my money back from Paypal because it has been too long since I paid. Should I leave a neutral? A negative? Should I wait a bit longer? And how much longer should I wait?
 
And another problem is: I'm not sure if something like this has happened before. I think I might have read her name in the Trader Support in the old Arena, but as you can't search there anymore...I'm simply not sure about that and I don't want to say something like that aloud if I can't be sure of it.
 
Any advice? Thanks in advance!

[BerryMouse]

Well it's hard to get in touch with someone who's not responding anymore.

You could try sending her a paypal payment request over the amount you just sent her for the custom. She'll get an e-mail and hopefully will
option a) sends ya the money back
option b) will contact you and ask you why you want the money back
worst option is c) - she'll ignore this request =(

You can write some lines with your payment request and explain why you sent it!? =)

Dunno what elese to do - keep trying contacting her.

No idea what might happened (no internet access, private probs..... so on)

[ponylady]

  What a very frustrating situation.  And you do have every right to be angry.  There was no reason to assume that you did not want it just because you commisioned someone else.
 
Plus the fact that you resent the money.   That would pretty much seem to me that you were still interested.
 
If you would like can you PM her user ID to me and I can look into it for you.

[Naraya]

@BerryMouse: That's a good idea, thanks! It's definitely worth a try!

@ponylady: Thank you for your answer! I sent you a PM.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

Hope this gets sorted out!

[Ringlets]

sorry to hear this Naraya. I would annoyed too if I was in this situation 

I must confess that I was really angry at the time. I didn't feel like I had done anything wrong or did I? It's not a crime to commission more than one person at the same time to do the same custom for you, right? As long as you pay for both of them, which I did of course. So she kept my money? Really? Shouldn't she give it back to me if she wasn't doing the custom? And she could have messaged me to ask whether I still wanted it or not!
 

 Of course you can commission more than one person , there is nothing wrong with that at all, and she shouldnt have assumed that you didnt want her custom just because you bought another- especially since you paid originally, and even when the money was returned to you, you paid her again.  If she was no longer wanting to do the custom she should have returned your money and let you know, or at least messaged you to check to see if you still wanted her to work on it. .. and the fact that she hasnt sent the item and she isnt communicating with you anymore is a worry too  
Apart from sending her a Paypal money request (which you can still do) , you can send her an "Urgent response required" PM - give her say 24 hours/48 hours a few days .. to respond and either send your money back or let you know when she is going to ship your item etc . Let her know that if she doesnt respond within the time frame you have givne her, unfortunately you feel you have no choice but to post her name in the TS thread and to leave her some appropriate feedback.  You can send her the same message via email (to the email addy you sent her the payment to ) . Sometimes this is all it takes to get someone to respond, and sort things out. 

[Naraya]

Hope this gets sorted out!

I hope so, too!

@Ringlets: That's a good idea! I didn't think about her Paypal address, I really should send her an e-mail to that address.

[Naraya]

Update: I sent her an E-Mail to her Paypal address and she replied quickly. She said that things weren't going so well for her the last weeks. So she gave me my money back and said she would get back to me when things are better. I could decide then if I still wanted her to do the custom.

I think that's quite fair and I'm really happy that I don't have to leave a neutral or negative feedback!

Thanks again to all of you for your advice!

[BerryMouse]

That sound's more than fair =) Great you've sorted it out!

[Ringlets]

sounds good to me