I placed an order March 22 for custom bedding for my 12-year-old daughter. Payment of $445US was made by paypal immediately after order was finalized. I was told fabric swatches would be mailed.

By May 6 the swatches didn't arrive, nor did the bedding. I sent a follow-up email asking very specifically when to expect the order. I received a reply on May 8 saying the swatches were sent by regular mail some time ago. The person who responded requested my address and said she would mail them again. She did not answer the question about the order. I asked again on May 8th very specifically 'where is my order.' No reply; no swatches.

By June 9, I started to realize I was being taken for a ride! I sent a message with the subject 'very concerned about order not received'. I said I would have to dispute it through Paypal if I did not get a response by June 9.

This time, I did get a response -- an out of office reply saying they would be back June 15. It said all paid orders up to June 4 were shipped. I gave the benefit of the doubt once again, but June 15 came and went without a response.

On June 23, I sent another email with the subject: 'Order not fulfilled - dispute resolution to commence.' After no reply, I contacted Paypal to find that I was beyond the 90 day-period I had to dispute. I then turned to my credit card company and it seems it may be possible to charge back the amount. I will update you as things proceed.

I searched through the negative eBay feedback left for this person. It was interesting to see almost all the complaints were about not receiving orders, and not receiving replies to email. She likes to blame spam filters for missing email messages, so I did a little test. I sent a fake inquiry under a different address and received a reply 2 days later.

Also interesting is that I found out during my investigation that this person is featured in the eBay Success Chronicles, released 11/2006 by Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.

The female proprietor had plenty of personal information in various places on the internet. I am perplexed as to how a mother with 3 sons (3 buttons) and 2 daughters (2 bows) who presents herself as such a model entrepreneur and parent can act in such a heartless way. All she ever had to do was respond: tell me what went wrong and either offer to fix it or give me my money back.

I tried every conceivable way of getting the attention of 3buttonsn2bows.com to resolve this issue myself.

After being ignored by 3buttonsn2bows.com (Heather, I believe), I was able to get all of my money back through my credit card company! Of course, before I went down that road I sent 3buttonsn2bows.com more than one email warning her of what I was going to do. I gave her every opportunity to save her (not-so-good) good name by giving me a credit. 3buttonsn2bows.com chose to ignore my request.

3buttonsn2bows.com has negative ebay feedback left for her fairly regularly about unfulfilled orders and unresponsive email. She always blames it on the customer. In my case, 3buttonsn2bows.com simply did nothing at all.

It took a lot of my time, energy, and then paperwork to get my money back from 3buttonsn2bows.com. I hope this report will save someone else the same trouble.