Parasite At Work

Yes, the parasite a.k.a. my stalker a.k.a. Sandy a.k.a. a woman with no talent from Westerville, Ohio keeps feeding herself with my ideas, but even more so with ideas of other shopkeepers.

She is so obvious it's pathetic. When she wants to add a new section to her shop, before she does anything she has to gather ideas, other people's ideas, of course. How does she do it? She goes to the marketplace, searches for the designs in the niche she plans to attack next and then steals, steals, steals everything she can find on top of the marketplace for that search.

Must be very pathetic to live a life as a parasite.

Messages!

Hey, Sandy,

I've seen your shop. Very nicely plagiarized designs and descriptions from my shop. Other than lack of respect for my work and all the help you got from me, you seem to suffer from a lack of shame, too. I won't even talk about the lack of intelligence to come up with your own ideas.

Ah, well, you know what they say "karma is a bitch" and I bet she'll give you a very nice ride once you face it.


Everyone else, here's a couple of tips from me,

Keep your shops secret from other shopkeepers. It won't stop copycats like Sandy from stealing your ideas, but it will at least make it harder for them to find you.

Be careful of who you help. There are a lot of bad people out there. I made a mistake by helping Sandy and she back stabbed me. Don't make the same mistake. Help only the people who deserve it.

That's all.

Let Me Tell You About My Stalker

There is a person reading this blog several times a day each day. I am quite sure I know who this person is, but lets pretend that I don't know and keep it at that. I don't check the stats for the blog often, but whenever I do, that person is near the top of the page with more visits and page views than anyone else. That is actually nice, someone is interested in what I write, I appreciate it.

Ohhh, but that person is not just interested in this blog. Nope, that person spends hours and hours and hours visiting my premium shops. That's fine, too, because I chose to share those shops with everyone.

You'd think the person would stop there, but no. The person is a regular visitor at my 4thClick shops, too. Both of them. There, the person, found a new game to play - put stuff into the shopping cart. So, "the person" is going around both 4thClick shops putting stuff into the cart, coming back the next day and viewing the cart and than repeats. Was it because I mentioned a few times that I get frustrated when people put things into the cart and don't buy or for some other strange reason? I don't know and don't really care.

I could have lived with all of the above and never would have said one single thing about it here, but the next thing that happened spilled the glass for me. A few weeks ago I mentioned that I made some new political designs. Surprise, surprise the person shows up in my political shop via marketplace after the search for "newly arrived" political designs. How many hours did it take to go through all the newly arrived designs and shops and try to figure out which one could be mine? Why this obsession? Is it really a copycat or someone with too much free time and no respect for me at all?

Last night shortly after I wrote about my efforts to get visitors to see the design I wanted them to see and buy, there's the person. Spent 2 hours 40 minutes in my shop. First came from a bookmark or a cashed page, than in the middle of the visit left and came back from the marketplace after searching for the design that this person suspected I was talking about in my latest blog entry. (Note: the blog entry in question was later deleted from this blog.)

How does that sound to you? It doesn't sound good to me at all. If I wanted people to snoop around my political shop I would have put a link to it in the sidebar, so everyone could do it. Isn't it enough that I keep three of my premium shops public and both my 4thClick shops, too, so that anyone could see what they are about, check out prices, see the shop organization and use them as learning material if they need to? (Note: my shops are now edited out of the blog.)

I am really upset over this. I feel like someone is constantly breathing down my neck. I didn't mention anything giving the person a benefit of a doubt and hoping that the person would find something better to do than chase around CafePress trying to discover my shops or play with my shopping carts. Well, now it has gone too far, I can't not talk about it.

So, I am talking directly to you, now. Bravo, you succeeded in a few things. You made me regret that I ever started this blog. You made me not talk about certain things that would be helpful to the rest of the readers, because I knew you'd abuse them. I used to really love keeping this blog and put my heart into recording my experience as a shopkeeper and found joy in helping others make it on Cafepress. Not any more. You took the fun and joy out of it for me.

I have too many other things to worry about to have the energy to keep writing this blog as I did up until now and have to measure every single word, so I wouldn't mention anything that could be abused by "the person".

After explaining everything, I am sure that everyone will understand why this has to be the end of this blog as we know it. I might return once in a while to write a thing or two, but from now on, don't expect me to write every day or even every month.

I will still be present in the community and if you want to talk to me (everyone except "the person", I don't want to talk to you) you can drop me a private message via the forums (username is BZ).