I ordered 1 pair of diamond earrings from what I thought was a good, honest woman. I told her ultimately that I would be wanting 3 pair. One small pair, one medium pair, and one large pair, but that the first pair I wanted to order would be the smallest pair, which she told me would be $230.
I told her that once I got the first pair paid for, then I would order the second pair, and when I got that paid off, I would order the third pair. When she called me to tell me that they were in, I went there, and she had ordered all 3 pair, totalling $1,200. I was very upset to say the least. I started crying, and told her that there was no way I could afford $1,200, because I am disabled, and only make $550 a month.
I'm a person of my word, so I felt obligated to pay for them. I asked her why she ordered all 3 of them, since I had asked her to only order one pair at a time, and she said that she figured that she might as well go ahead and get them all, so that they would be there when I wanted them. I felt if she would have been telling me that truth, her reason would have been because she wanted me to feel pressured into buying them all from her, instead of maybe purchasing them from someone else.
She told me that I could just take my time paying for them. I told her it would take me 10 years to pay that much, and she said no problem. That she understood my situation, and not to feel pressured at all. She said that we were both country folk, and that we country folk stick together, so however long it took for me to pay for them, that she trusted that I would pay for them. I struggled very hard to pay as much as I could, and cut myself short in other things that I needed, just to try to get her paid off as quickly as possible.
I managed to pay $920 within 2 years, which was extremely hard for me, but I put everything I had into trying to do it as quickly as possible. I had a car accident, after paying off the first 2 smaller pair, and had paid off $920 of the entire amount. I still owed her $280 for the largest pair. The smallest pair cost $230, the medium pair cost $390, and the largest pair cost $580. I had everything paid off except $280 on the largest pair. She had given me the smallest pair, and the medium pair, since I had paid those off.
I had paid $300 of the larges pair, and still owed $280 on those. My health became such an issue that I could no longer work at the flea market. I found out that I have a disease on top of everything else, that there is no cure for, so I'm dying, and I just wasn't able to work it anymore, due to severe pain.
My fiance' went to her to explain that we couldn't pay the rest of it, and asked her if she could reimburse us for the $280 that we weren't able to pay, or if she could allow us to pick out something else that cost $280 to make things right to satisfy us both. She said that she would look up the books on the exact amounts, and would get back with him the next week.
When he went back the next week, she said she had spoke with her attorney, and because it had been so long since we had been able to make a payment, that in her words, we were "sh*t out of luck". That we couldn't get our money back, and we couldn't get another piece of jewelry that was worth the $280. The manager of the flea market even asked her if we could come up with the $280 to pay for it, if she would consider selling them to us. She told him no. That she was done dealing with us in any way.
We were told by one of the management that we needed to go to the better business bureau, contact an attorney, or go to our local tv news station to bring attention to the situation to try to get her to do right by us. I didn't want to do that, because even after the way she had done me, I still liked the woman, and didn't want to do anything to hurt her. I asked my fiance' to go back and ask her if we couldn't come to some understanding without doing anything that would cause harsh feelings. He went back there, and waited in line to talk to her, because he didn't want to bring it up in front of other customers that was there that could hear it.
Her husband had a man in the next booth go get security to make my fiance' leave. Upon hearing this, I went to the security guard why he would do that, and he said that my fiance' was horassing her. I told him that he was in no way trying to horass her. That he was only trying to discuss it with her to try to come to some understanding with her, and wanted to talk business with her. The security guard said that she said she didn't want to do business with us.
I told him I'm sure she didn't want to do business with us, because she had in my opinion, stole $280 from us. We are now banned from her booth. We tried our best to handle this in a decent way, but they've completely tied our hands from being able to do this. Being disabled, I cannot afford an attorney, and will probably be dead before it would go to court anyway. To be honest, my feelings are that she's counting on me dying before it goes that far.
Being a christian, I feel that her stealing like that will send a person that would do this to hell. It's just so sad that someone would send themself to hell for such a small amount as $280. The money aspect of it bothered me at first, but that's not even what the issue is now. It just hurts me that I trusted this woman, and my heart aches that she would do this to me.
When I first put the earrings on layaway, she gave me the brown stub off of the bottom of the envelope that had the earrings in it, with the $50 that I made the first payment with, but after that, she just wrote each payment onto the brown envelope. I asked her about a receipt for each payment, and she said that she trusted me, and hoped that I trusted her as much.
I honestly thought she was my friend, and felt that I could trust her, which was my stupidity, but I'm from West Virginia, and was raised to trust people who are friends of mine. Again, my stupidity.
I know there's nothing I can do now. She just taught me a very important lesson. Where money is concerned, there is no trust, even between friends. I just feel that I need to let this go, because I don't want to use what amount of life I have left having to go through something like this.
I want to spend it enjoying what life I have left, and trying to be happy. I just hope that one day she will realize what she has done, and will ask for forgiveness, and mean it from her heart. As for me, my heart just really aches over being done this way.
Afraid of Retaliation
columbus, Ohio
U.S.A.
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