And in the 10 pages of posts I made it through before I went cross-eyed, I was actually surprised at how civil the discourse was. There was some sniping, yes. And there were some harsh words. But I didn’t feel there was anything said that was out of line. Hands were thrown in the air in horror when someone used the word “fraud,” because they’d met the store owner personally and she was such a nice person! Well, Merriam-Webster defines fraud as “any act, expression, omission, or concealment calculated to deceive another to his or her disadvantage.” I will leave aside the speculation about the store owner’s excuses, because it was only speculation, but at the very least, the store owner was aware that neither her shipping solution nor her email system were working, and yet she continued to make promises that required both. Making a promise you know you might not be able to keep, to me, is fraud, no matter how nice the promise maker is nor how well intentioned. It appears that she fully intends to make things right, and I hope she’s able to.

Back to my point about the positive/negative effect of the Internet… Any company that wants to stay in business would be well-advised to keep the power of the Internet uppermost in their thoughts. Case in point: I once wrote a blog post entitled “F@#$ you, [online travel company].” (Immature, but heartfelt.) We had just moved from Virginia to Texas via Pennsylvania, and had experienced problems with several hotel reservations. Once, the company had failed to actually make the reservation with the hotel, and we’d sat in the lobby for several hours with an exhausted, starving, and screaming 2-month-old while they screwed around fixing it. Later, we had needed to reroute our track unexpectedly due to a little bit of inclement weather (also known as Hurricane Katrina). The online travel company charged us for making the change because we didn’t give them enough advance notice. You’d think a Category 5 hurricane would get you a break, especially considering our earlier experiences, but apparently not.

Imagine my surprise when the very first comment was from someone in that travel company’s customer service department, complete with a name and phone number to call so they could make it right. I called (half suspecting it was a prank), and within 24 hours we were refunded both the cost of the first hotel stay and the change fee. Great customer service…but I should have gotten it in the first place. Instead, it took going public with my grievance to get someone to treat me well. But that was a company that clearly understood the power of the Internet and wanted to do all they could to protect their name.