Marion S.

At a recent museum visit, the spouse was admiring a painting. I decided we needed to spruce up our home, so I ordered a print online. The first print was cheap and awful. I returned it. Lesson learned. I bought a higher quality print from a museum online store. Then what to do? I thought I could just cut the white border and get it into a 24 x 30" frame -- the largest size that isn't super expensive. The frame came broken and I returned it, but I took this as a sign. I needed to respect the art and get it framed right. I wanted matts but that would bring the size up to custom made. I have a few framed prints in my home, none bought recently. I remembered that it was expensive. I didn't remember HOW expensive. In 2023, what I wanted, a decent metal frame, 2 matts, a clear screen, estimates were over $500! And that was before the upselling! It was impossible. So when it seemed like Frame It Easy could give me I what I wanted for $168 including shipping that seemed like a deal.

The frame came with everything I ordered and needed, except maybe the hammer to nail the hook in the wall. They did include soft bumpers for the wall which I thought was a nice touch. Was it tricky? Not really, and there are helpful videos. I don't think I was quite prepared for how hard it is to keep dust and pet airs out of the screen, so my "pro-tip" would be (1) vacuum first and (2) there's a reason the framer in the video is wearing gloves.

Does it look as good as what the professionals would do? Possibly not, but the difference isn't very big. It's like putting together Ikea furniture. It allows ordinary people who might not have a lot to spend to have nice things if they can do a little bit of the work. Not a bad trade-off!

In my case I knew what I wanted and had already priced it out. I'd recommend you do a little research first as well, but you could probably start with the videos as they explain a lot. I'm happy I made this decision, saved money, got the frame and matting I wanted, AND had the satisfaction of feeling like I did it myself.

Due to an expired credit card, and an old full of spam email, my spouse missed a bill from Ionos which has hosted several sites for us for years. When my main business site was down, he checked and saw what happened. He paid for the domain names and restoration. He requested a change of email during that call, and put in a new credit card. He was told everything was fine. And it seemed to be. Two months later my personal blog was gone. Years of stuff. Fortunately the stuff was still on the server and we were able to save it, but my the domain name -- which is actually my name -- was sold. An email with a "credit" was sent to the old email that we thought they changed so we didn't even see that to track anything was wrong. The site was actually sold weeks after my husband had paid to reregister it! Customer service said there was nothing we could do and we bought a new domain name, but here is the thing, I don't want a "new" name. I am in danger of damage to my reputation and of extortion if I try to buy back the site. The only option I have is to pay Ionos's "partner" $70 initally to "negotiate" with the criminal element that bought my site. And then pay Sedo and the extortionist even more to get MY NAME back. It looks like Ionos as a partner with Sedo also profits from this scheme.

This is a common occurance. People and small business owners forget about expiring credit cards. If this happens to even a small percentage of people and Ionus realices their domain names and sells them through its partner, Sedo, that could be large profits that Ionus is making while damaging its customers. If that doesn't sound like something deserving class action, I don't what is!

The photo below is from the Ionos website and shows my option for getting back my name. You can see that they refer to Sedo as their partner.

Just a few months pre-COVID, before massive supply chain issues, I purchased a gift through the registry for my cousin's wedding. A couple of weeks ago I was looking for her contact info by searching old emails and I found a shipping email from BB&B. On a whim, I clicked the tracking. I was shocked to find: Carrier Awaiting Shipment. I thought this must be a glitch. There was also a "delivered" email, but I had a bad feeling, so I clicked the customer service chat. I was told that the item had been out of stock and never arrived! So my cousin never got the gift and there were no emails or anything to let me know. I was mortified. They also told me I was never charged because the order didn't go through. That seemed confusing. I was never informed that the payment didn't go through AND I got the shipped and delivered emails. I checked the credit card I would likely have used and didn't see anything on the card, but I chatted again to make sure. I was also requesting that they reach out to my cousin because I felt awful and I wanted her to know that there really was a present, but they wouldn't do that. Just: "Sorry for the inconvenience." The second chat I was again told my "credit card" wasn't charged. I still felt there was something else they should or could be doing, and reached out through Facebook messenger. This time they got back to me after doing "research" and said that they couldn't get authorization from my credit card so it was never charged. Nothing about the item being out of stock. A different story and one that seemed to put the blame on me for not checking charges on my credit card. No explanation for the two emails -- "shipped" and "delivered." They offered me a $65 credit which I thought was weird, but I said sure. I was using the credit to get toys for my cousin's now 1 year old son. I looked at my account and was able to find the receipt for the wedding purchase. I hadn't used a credit card. I used PayPal. It was on the receipt. I went through old PayPal records and found that the money had in fact been taken out of my account. So they had taken my money, and sent me a shipped email and a delivery email and the items had never been shipped or delivered. I wrote them back. I haven't heard anything. Here's the thing, I don't believe that this is just me. I think this is a scam they have been running for years. Think about it: How many times when you buy a gift through a registry and it is being delivered to the recipient's home, do you actually check that it got there? Maybe you get a thank you from the recipient, but if you don't do you pursue it? Do you ask: Did you get my gift? I think Bed Bath and Beyond doesn't deliver a certain of the gifts. They wait for people to check. A certain percentage never checks. They keep the money. It's the perfect crime. Steal a million from one person and you'll get caught, steal an average of $150 from 10,000 people who won't check, and that's enough to float a dying retail legacy retailer for another year. Do not register with them. Do not buy from their registry. Find the same product elsewhere and let the bride/mom/etc know why.