I wanted to encourage people who are still shocked and still interested in the Anthroholic Scam Scandal to read intelligent contributions by bloggers who are offering analysis, reflection, confession, and suggestion.
Carly of Strawberry Heels Forever is from Canada (so she was more tempted to use Kim's services due to shipping costs when ordering directly from US retailers) and she knew first hand the maneuvers and runaround that Kim gave to bide herself time (and let the timeline for filing paypal dispute/claims processes expire). So did Anthropologiesque, unfortunately. And I'm sure by now everyone is familiar with the frustrations In Pursuit of Hippyness shared that helped crystallize how lengthy these transactions could take.
Being a recently degreed lawyer, Jewish Girl weighs in with some a fantastic analytical perspective while providing a comprehensive synopsis of everything that unfolded over the last few days. Her suggestions for moving forward are spot on, particularly the one about reconsidering the function (and import) of constructive critique.
Dea of Dea Diaries raises the really important point that part of why this happened is through the perpetuation of an internal hierarchy based on blogger popularity. I agree and also add (to reiterate Jewish Girl) that the intense moderation of legitimately constructive, critical, red-flag raising comments was fierce on Anthroholic's blog. This led to a culture of silence because if victims couldn't issue their complaints on the owner's blog AND they didn't feel comfortable sharing negative experiences on other blogs (because of Kim's popularity leading to fear of ruffling feathers) then no one else was warned.
Roxy is hosting a great discussion about finances, blogging, budgeting, and shopping at Effortless Anthropologie that has a lot of people (myself included) sharing in the comments.
Little Girl Big Closet is speaking bravely and candidly about shopping addiction and personal struggles with with oniomania, which has generated productive discussion too. She also shares her own experiences (multiple and including positive and negative transactions) with Kim's personal shopping service. Similarly to Dea, Tara's words raise a significant question about popularity, power, and hierarchy in the blogosphere. How do we rebuild trust in one another while maintaining some policing mechanism to prevent this from happening again? When can we speak up even if it is about a beloved and popular member of the community?
Edited to add that Anjali of Goldenmeans shares her thoughts on why she was not that surprised or shocked that Kim did this. Instead, because she knew Kim's longer pre-blog history she's left feeling sickened and sad. I too knew Kim before she started her popular blog. I also knew this history making me unsurprised by Kim's actions. Both of us are confused that she didn't learn the lesson when she did this on a much smaller scale and was caught. Facing criminal charges and larceny will be a lot harder to brush under a rug.
The Mascarade also belongs to the forum mentioned by Anjali where all of us are members. She is weighing in on Kim's previous deceptions to members of the community. And she reminds us that many forum members tried to issue warnings to the community a year ago.
And finally, weighing in with some much needed levity are the hilarious ladies of Looks Good From the Back.
Are there others? These were the ones on my radar but feel free to share yours or share more.
25 comments:
You're right. As the stories emerge it is becoming clearer how purposeful and strategically designed the entire delaying process was (allowing the dispute options for purchase protection in paypal to expire).
Gosh that is just horrible, Kate. I hope you file a report and I hope you are somehow able to recoup the funds.
From Roxy's blog, "The link to the IL AG’s downloadable complaint form is: http://illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/consumers/filecomplaint.html."
I noticed that and was dismayed. Even if she has been refunding people with payments that went through it makes sense to file a report with the Illinois Attorney General's office.
I know what you mean. I think a lot of us who knew her before the blog were really wary and nervous when we saw the personal shopping business being launched. But none of us had any idea how widely it would be used or how popular it would become.
Me too. I really hope that people file reports with appropriate channels and authorities.
It's really upsetting for sure. I hope that the people harmed report it and find a resolution that satisfies them. I also hope that Kim realizes how serious the situation is and learns from it. I worry that the blame game is still happening today.
You are delusional. We all tried to warn people and help her.
She stole thousands of dollars from hundreds of people. She is a common thief.
Yes, I will be one of the people saying she is a grown woman, yada yada yada. When she brought up the idea of her personal shopping business on the fashion board, several people warned Kim and said that it was not a good idea for her since many of us were aware of her inability to balance her personal finances; how was she going to manage other people's money? I feel absolutely no responsibility for her actions, her lies, nor her myriad of insincere apologies and excuses.
Kim has a shopping addiction and is a pathological liar. With any addict, people around them can try to help or feel like they could do something to intervene. But ultimately the addict has to own up to his or her own demons and get help. No one can do that for them. If an alcoholic gets behind a car and hurt or even worse kills someone, are we to give a bit more reflection? If a gambling addict loses his or her home and life savings, are we to give a bit more reflection? I'd would not ever feel any responsibility unless I directly catered to the alcoholic or gambler with a means to their feed their addictions. Yes, I do have sympathy for addicts because they need help. But there's a fine line when a little alcohol here, a little gambling there, and a bit of shopping or white lie blows up and spirals out of control. Anthroholic needs help. But she can only get help when she owns up to her problems. She offers insincere apolpgies only when she gets caught in her webs of lies. Then she goes off and tells more excuses. Some based off partial truths. Some that seem outrageous but I can't comment whether they are true or not becaise I don't know for sure. She is delusional if she really believes some of these stories she does tell. Kim needs to own up and get help. She has done many people wrong on her blog and on several other fashion related boards that spans back several years. This is not just one incident. Kim just hasn't learned from any of these mistakes.
Sharon, I don't mean any disrepect to what you have written, but I just don't think Kim needs any more people coddling her and allowing her to screw people over while feeding her addiction. She needs to stop and get help.
Thank you for the helpful update and links.
I can't help but wonder if Kim was pulling some variation of this for years. This is a question she had about a "pay check." Why would she be asking to cash a pay check at the currency exchange instead of depositing it to her account. Wouldn't it be more likely that she was looking for a way to cash a foreign (ie, Canadian) check more quickly? Here is her query from 2008:
"Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I received my pay check today. I have a checking account with Bank of America. If i deposit it to my checking account, will my money be available right away? If not, how long does it take? I'm wondering if I should just cash at the currency exchange. Thanks!" [creditboards.com]
Thank you for the link love, and thanks for sharing all of these posts. It's been helpful to read everybody's thoughts as we all come to terms with what's happened.
I agree with JG spot on. Thanks for the link collection.
Thanks for the summary and links.
What was this fashion forum that you, Anjali, and Kim were part of?
Hi Lisa. It's a spinoff from Makeupalley (where many of us including Kim were members).
Thanks for the link! Great round up.
Maria also has an excellent post on her feelings about the situation at Infinite Whimsy.
Thanks Jess, I'm kinda catching up now after a crazy week...except for me it means resolution of a year's worth of frustration dealing with this self-centred chick. I usually prefer to hunt things down myself online- that's part of the thrill- but when she lost her job I thought it would be nice to ask her to pick a couple of sale items for me, since it was improbably expensive for Canadians to order from the anthro site at the time. 14 months later I finally have my refund, found the sale items myself, but missed out on the entire lifespan and diming-out of my beloved d'armee dress. urgh. I really hope everyone gets their money back, otherwise I'm happy to say this is over for me!!
until I pick up the dress on the trade forum. :)
Hi, Jess
I am slowly learning about the disaster.... as I have been busy... Thank you very much for the postings..
What color and size D'Armee dress? I might be able to help as I located two for myself recently. tgwtss (at) gmail.com. Good luck. <3
thanks- sending ya an email...
I don't mean to belabor this issue, but I just read from two of Kim's "customers" that she was providing totally false tracking numbers. The depth of this scamming continue to really disturb me. I hope it is dealt with via the appropriate legal channels.
I unfortunately have to agree with the post below that stated Kim was a very skilled manipulator. This is not about a person';s shopping getting out of control, it's criminal and part of a much bigger problem.I received a number of e-mails from her stating she was being stalked by a guy, that she had a lot of haters on a fashion forum who were" jealous" of her, even herd from her that now a neighbor was stalking her. All too unbelievable. Now I read below that she is telling people her father had cancer and her brother in law was suicidal - all of these given as reasons why she could not deliver their purchases. My experience with being e-mails friends with her for several years was that she always had some story of why she was the victim - and I doubt any of them were true.I also read several people stating she made up false tracking numbers for their packages. I hope this is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Personally she owes me $450 in refunds and I doubt I will ever see a dime. I kept getting told too many stories from her about how UPS lost TWO packages, about how she never received my e-mail, how her father was dying, howe her brother was suicidal, and how a neighbor was stalking her. There is a much bigger problem here than money mismanagement.Flag
Apparently this problem is continuing. Several readers posted on EA that a payment Kim promised to refund them was returned due to a closed bank account.
Personally, I feel somewhat responsible for how far this was able to go. I knew Kim on Fashionism, I knew she had some problems and I long surmised she had a shopping addiction. I think there were others in this blogging community who knew it as well. I know that I didn't do anything. I didn't talk to her about it, I didn't even try to intervene and encourage her to get help even though I knew she needed it. I don't recall any hue and cry from the blogging community when her personal shopper service started so people could be warned. Again, a lot of bloggers knew she had a problem.
I'm sure this will spur comments about how she's a grown woman and knew what she was doing, she's responsible for her own actions, yada yada yada. When I reflect, I realize I could have done something - whether it would have had an effect or not - and there were others who could have as well. I think a bit more reflection and a bit less indignant anger is in order.
Thank you for posting this. I only just read about this today as I have been too busy at work to even look into the Anthro blogs lately.I am sad to hear this as I got to know Kim through e-mails. She always seemed kind, friendly, helpful. Now I am upset because what she has done is outright criminal, she lied many times, and then denied it. Really pathological behavior.I once tried her shopping service almost two years ago and had a bad experience, so for her to say things got beyond her is a ridiculous lie. Not for two years of continuing to take thousands of dollars from people.I hope that people press charges. This is definitely criminal, and it seems Kim has a problem with telling the truth and is always blaming others.I heard in about 5 different e-mails from her about how “some problem she used to have on a fashion forum” was due to people who were jealous of her. I then heard her talk about some guy who was stalking her and “was just crazy.”, so she said. Now all the stories of her stealing thousands of dollars and lying that she never received people’s e-mails, etc.Everything is one big grandiose lie. I think this lady needs serious help and to be prosecuted too. I am not trying to be harsh, but just how many years can someone get away with all this?
Post a Comment