Scammed E.

SCAM ALERT. Prior to being made ineligible to be a seller due to multiple complaints, Imogen AKA "Imogen Valentine" from Sew Smitten Commissions (www.sewsmitten.net) was selling Disney cosplay/costumes on etsy as "Sherryval". She scammed me and others out of amounts of more than $250 each. In my case she was very belligerent in responding to my e-mails requesting a refund as she failed to deliver the merchandise I paid her for. She was reported to her local police department and despite insistence from police she refuses to issue refunds for non-delivered goods.

As of 5/13/2014, this seller has now posted the following on their new site:

"Sadly there has been some confusion online about this website, it sucks because I was unfortunate enough to pick a name for my profile site which matches someone's store. This is website which was built to show off my costumes and for my blog, it is not now nor ever has been a store. My name is Imogen, not Sherry... or Sherrywal whatever. If you see the reviews please understand that my website has only been up since February/ March and is still incomplete. I am not Sewsmitten commissions. There is a sewsmitten shop but it is not mine and it is not here. :D Thank you!"

The above statement misses the fact that I have stated she did this while selling as a seller on Etsy, and demonstrates an attempt to "hide her tracks". I never stated that I purchased from SewSmitten.net - only that the person who has opened this site is the same individual that ripped me off for $250. If you visit her site, you will also see that the browser tab still displays "SewSmitten Commissions".

To be clear, the aliases: Imogen, Imogen Valentine, Sherryval, and Sherry Imogen are all the same person, and have been verified using publicly available information. These are all aliases for Lisha Davis. I feel very strongly that this individual should not have the opportunity to ripoff future customers under any name. All further updates to this issue will utilize her legal name, which in addition to the aliases Imogen and Sherryval, are the names she used while communicating with me. All the information posted in this complaint is publicly available.

"Purchased a $250 custom Disney cosplay/Halloween costume from etsy seller Sherryval (AKA "Imogen Valentine" SherryImogen and ImogenVal) in Sep 2013. Sherryval agreed to ship costume in time for Halloween. After failing to ship the costume on the agreed date, there was no way it was going to arrive for Halloween. She never made my costume, lied several times about having made it/shipped it and after many delays and excuses eventually admitted that she had never made it and would refund my money. She told me she processed the refund several times and lied about why it hadn't gone through. (She never initiated the refund.) She stopped replying to my e-mails asking her for the status of the refund.

I found that she opened a new shop at www.sewsmitten.net. When I contacted her through the new site the seller was openly hostile and refused to refund me, stating she shouldn'thave to foot the bill for my mistake and "buyer's remorse" (I paid her for a costume, never received anything) and that she does not do refunds?! Not sure how she would be "refunding me something she never sent, let alone made. As of Apr 2014 I still do not have my refund. My belief in her multiple lies caused me to be unable to report this to etsy, paypal or my credit card in time to initiate a chargeback.

Etsy can't help me because it went past the reporting period - I think this is a problem specific to etsy's allowing sellers to do custom listings. The processing time can take so long that by the time someone figures out they are being scammed it is too late to get $$ back from etsy, paypal, or their credit card companies. Etsy needs to put better processes in place for custom sales.

Discovered that this seller is now operating outside of etsy under several names, including Sew Smitten Commissions, Sew Smitten Creations and Sew Smitten Seamstress, among others. Even with insistence from law enforcement, this seller still refuses to refund my money. "