About a month ago I was excited to tell you of a blogger who was starting a business to make an 'indie' box much like birchbox, etc. It seemed completely legitimate and people were getting there orders. Suddenly her blog disappears, the facebook group isn't updated and the main page seems to pause. Turns out Grey or Le Gothique (known by many other names too) faked her own death, and some people didn't receive the package they paid for.
I feel awful for supporting them by informing you about Indie Style on my blog, and I sincerely hope you either didn't order or received your box if you did.
The blogging community has been very quiet about this and I may be stepping on toes here but as someone who buys a bunch of indie cosmetics I feel that others out there who trust in bloggers etc. should be notified when something like this happens so that things like this don't happen again. By knowing about the people who do things such as this we can hopefully be more cautious in the future.
I would like to also state that the companies that were so willing to be involved with the formation of an innovative indie cosmetics pack were also taken by surprise. I know quite a few had already committed to the Valentine's box and are also dealing with the fall out. I know Geek Chic is asking people that didn't receive there box to contact them for the coupon code that they gave out as a part of their contribution.
Basically what I'm saying is there will always be people out there for whatever reason are doing not so ethical business actions, but that there are a bunch of good small businesses out there too.
For more information, please check out this Twit Longer Link that tells a bit more about what has happened.
Thank-you for your time! (And just as an aside companies that I have had very good success with are listed through the tab at the top of the page. I know many people are wary about who to trust and who not to trust and these are the (ever growing) companies that I personally have purchased from.)
I have been wondering what has been going on. You are right, everyone has been pretty quiet about this!
ReplyDeleteYou know all I can think of is The Doors People Are Strange song ringing through my head. I just don't get some people at all!
ReplyDeleteWhoa. Well, honestly I'm glad you wrote about this, because I would have never been able to figure out this mystery on my own. I knew SOMETHING was up though!
ReplyDeleteThis isn't *quite* right, she faked her own death as one of her previous online identities, not this time. Her previous identities were found when people began to wonder why she had been private messaging some of her (now former) friends about how people were out to get her and were turning on her, apparently this happened just before she stated she was quitting the internet. Her full name, life story, appearance, hobbies, speaking style and tattoos all match up to several former identities of hers, including the one with which she faked her own death, scamming people out of money for "charity" in the process. This time around she merely failed to mail a lot of things people had paid for, including all of the international Awesome Boxes, even though she did mail all of the US ones. Nobody was aware of this until the last week or two, and it's only become more public in the last several days.
ReplyDeleteHopefully people won't be put off buying indie from this. Not everyone online is a scammer or con artist out to screw us, thankfully!
Thank-you for the clarification Erin. I had heard multiple other bloggers assuring people that she hadn't died/wasn't hurt, and so concluded with the other information that she had faked her death more recently. I do completely agree with you though that indie still has great things and great people- it's just that because we're such a small community scandals hit us harder I think.
DeleteThank you for blogging about this, I don't know why everyone is being so quiet about this. She really seemed like the last person to pull this kind of crap. I know about the past incidents but I want to know what's going on this time around...
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU FOR BLOGGING THIS. It needs to make it to as many people as possible, to help prevent this from happening again, so thank you so very much for helping to spread the word.
ReplyDeleteAnyone looking for more information can join the facebook groups which have sprung up to help spread the truth about Grey/Gina; unfortunately a few people have been trying to say that the only way to get the true story about this sad situation is by emailing them privately, and that is, quite frankly, not the right thing for anyone to be doing. A link to one of the groups is here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/218649321553867/
(I hope it's okay to post links here, if not, my apologies!)
B, for this sort of thing links are more than okay! I completely agree I think this is something that everyone in the community needs to know. Indie cosmetics are a valuable resource but everyone needs to understand the system and who ARE trustworthy to truly benefit. Thanks for commenting!
Delete