G D.

I wanted to believe in this seller, but I feel like I've been duped.

April 9th, I made my purchase with this seller via Ebay. All seemed fine until I waited a week. Normally, if someone's within the same state as me, that seller is legit, and they mail out orders after 3-5 business days. I waited a week but never heard an update about the progress on my item. The listing claimed there were 5 available, with no mention of being made-to-order, and absolutely no time frame within the description. Thus, I expected to have my item within the week.

I contacted the seller, who got back with me within the day (April 16th), telling me he was sick with the flu, and was *just now* feeling well enough to work. That seemed reasonable... if he was telling the truth. And why wasn't his Ebay store set to Away, like what most *smart* small business owners do? But still, I was never given any window of when this would be done. I only received the promise "first thing." That's cool, so you meant tomorrow, right?

Nope. I waited until April 21st before I sent another message telling him I'd like to cancel. Guess what this seller does? He DOESN'T get back to me. He doesn't communicate at all. Instead, he goes ahead and marks my item as shipped. Sounds like a jerk move, honestly. I never got a message before or after the item was sent to ship. What makes this even better? He doesn't accept returns. Gosh, I wonder why. Could it be his shady tactics?

Yes, I know the seller has the right to go through with the order. But in terms of customer service, this guy sucks. I've worked in screen printing. I'm an artist who takes commissions as well. Any time something crazy is happening, I let customers know ahead of time. I update them enough to make them feel slightly annoyed, but it's to show I care, and I want them to know they can trust me. But I don't trust this seller. I feel like my niceness was taken advantage of. So I'm going to make sure that every avenue available knows this service isn't to be trusted.

Update: Apparently Hidden Hand Graphics is somehow associated with ARC Digital Printing's Orange city location, Sipper Photography, and Karina Rindt Design & Packaging. I'm not entirely sure if Sipper Photography is related to these, but Karina Rindt's web design looks nearly identical to Hidden Hand Graphics, so the two could be in business together. I did this extra research to help make sure no one gets duped by the same people.

Also, I did get the item I originally ordered. Because of that, I'm not sure if Ebay will honor my request to step in on April 26th, but I will see what action I can take given the underhanded behavior of Hidden Hand Graphics by claiming sick, to buy time and play on someone's sympathy. This is what I get for trusting someone who happened to be a local seller. I don't even have the heart to give my boyfriend this item as a gift, because it feels tainted in association with my terrible experience.

I've been using Qmee more seriously the past few months, though I've had the Chrome addon for over a year. The more I've visited the site, the more I've seen it improve. Qmee's web search addon takes some calibrating, and it does work, but it's sporadic. Sometimes I don't see anything even if I'm hunting hard for a particular item. Yet, there are times I'm not trying, and the shop/search feature kicks in for 3 paid visits.

But as a survey site, right now it's one of the best I've used. There's only one other I use besides Qmee, and they work to fill in each other's gaps. The best thing is that Qmee pays out instantly, which is great if I feel I need a few more dollars in one day for whatever reason (online purchase, "beer money," etc). My only hope is that their anti-bot and anti-cheat features stay strong, because survey routers immediately start to buckle down when cheating becomes prominent on a rewards site. I've seen it happen first hand on sites like Swagbucks.

The only cons I'd mention with Qmee is the history feature. It would be helpful if the history went back to the last 24 hours. This is helpful if a pending payment simply doesn't pay out. It's rare, but it does happen on occasion.