Yesterday on the 31st March I renewed my Pefumista subscription which was due to expire on that date. I paid through Pay-pal and received confirmation from them and also conformation from POL for that pay ment. POL has not credited my payment even though they said they had

As you can see I'm not a Perfumista any more. I did email Jeffrey about this but he has not replied. PLEASE, please can you help sort this out.

Hi, volupte, the mods can't take any action on subscriptions; only the administrator (Jeffrey Dame/perfumeo) can do that. However I did forward the link to your post to Jeffrey in the hopes it will be called to his attention promptly.

Hope it gets ironed out soon.

Thank you Fiveoaks. I hope this can be resolved soon. I remember another member had this problem that went on for a long, long time. Let's hope Jeffrey soon takes care of the matter.
Shirley.

Volupte, you are far from the only person to have this problem when trying to renew. It must be very frustrating. I don't know why it occurs but I do hope it gets smoothed out permanently.

OH NO! The problem continues and I am SOO sad to hear this. Yes, it took me MONTHS to get it resolved and yes, only Jeffrey can fix it. Hang in there and keep trying to get a hold of him.
WE all know that you are still a PERFUMISTA!.

I used to be the strongest advocate of contributing to Perfume of Life. I have often described the act of contributing to this ad free perfume board as being like subscribing to a very useful, entertaining magazine. For 4 years I never let my subscription lapse.

Yesterday or the day before I was logged in and saw that Perfumeo was also logged in. Jeffrey, don't you even care about all the people who love this board, and have made friends here? You need to do better than act like an absentee landlord. People who post here really appreciate what you've made possible. We also appreciate the intelligent, wise and patient volunteer moderators.

I am co-admin of a forum and know that to do the 'hobby' right takes more genuine commitment and energy than most people realise. Jeffrey, you and the mods here made and continue to make POL possible. We all appreciate your initiative and commitment. Every now and then people need you to be 'hands on' and speak to us. If you don't deign to communicate some members will disappear. They will disappear if problems aren't resolved. Why I haven't renewed is because it doesn't seem to matter if I do or not.

I think you must really care in a bitter sweet way. I hope you realise that the rest of us -most, especially the mods (of whom I'm NOT one)- love POL very much. It's a wonderful board for perfume lovers.

Thank you, Morticia.
Every time I see one of those "updates on missing members" it makes my blood boil. There are so many wonderful persons out there who love (loved) this board and made it such a wonderful place to be. Unfortunately, they finally gave up after all the serious and constant trouble they encountered with the board.

Thank you all volunteer mods for your endless patience and generous giving of time and support.

Our volunteer mods have proven themselves over and over again. Jeffrey, if it is not possible for you to give the Board sufficient time, PLEASE consider giving these persons additional power to keep the board running smoothly.

Amen.

I've emailed Jeffrey Dame 3 times regarding my Perfumista status and have yet to get any reply.

Does anyone have his telephone number? If you do please pm me and let me have it, maybe a phone call will get him to rectify.
Thanks,
Shirley.

I have reached him in the past at Irma Shorell--try there.

Maybe you mods could get together and send him a collective email, asking for more power to solve problems like this? Since it seems he doesn't have the time to attend to them himself.

The vote of confidence is appreciated. I can't speak for the other mods but as a mod I'm not so sure I want more power (and more responsibility) regarding the administrative functions. It's unfortunate communication can be so difficult but I think the issue has to be dealt with at the admin level.

Thanks anyway. I'm sure it's unbelievably frustrating to the members it continues to affect.

Perhaps it is time to start a new forum and/or join another group. Too many unresolved problems here including:

-Some would like to join but cannot use PayPal.
-Little and sometimes NO activity in the swap section
-No activity in the live chat room
-Constant and ongoing trouble renewing subscriptions

I am so sad to see the board in this condition. We have lost a great number of wonderful people over that last year or two.

A few have tried to start new forums, but for some reason they don't seem to be terribly productive.

I sent my 5th messgae to Jeffrey Dame last night.

As of yet there's been no word from him.

One member who was having problems renewing said she tried waiting until the subscription expired and then renewed, and had no problem. Maybe it does not work beforehand but it has to be totally expired first.

Volupte, it says you are a Perfumista now. Has the problem been resolved?

I really like and trust the moderators and longtime members of POL. I'm a fan of certain longtime people here. I'm afraid to leave many out, but Fiveoaks, Gloriious1, St. Andrew's Girl, Volupte, Demetrue, Clancurrey (not a mod) are always and kind and attentive to everybody. You all certainly can view IP numbers and such, right? Or is that only an administrator function?

Well, perhaps Jeffrey is tired of the Perfume of Life forum. Repeated no answers are an answer.

Why don't a couple of mods get together and start a back-up board over on Yuku? Yuku is the super duper improved EZBoard hosting company. It's got all sorts of cool features for boards and members and it's free to start a board. You can model everything on POL but members will have unlimited messages and all sorts of fancy things to do with the board and profiles, including options for music, embedding videos, et cetera.

Visit the link on my post here. Click on my profile at Vincent and Morticia's Speakeasy. Click on Dauphine's profile. She's Orchidbloom here. Orchid would be goodd to consult with re: design. Her MySpace page is very goodlooking! Vince's Profile is great, too.

You all can do MBA or open forums for swaps, whichever you prefer. You can choose from some handsome board skins. I can't change V&M's look because Vince is the board owner.

Yuku has good tools so you can ban obnoxious 'trolls'. Now they have it where you don't even get the 'spam' ads. Please consider Yuku for a board. All the POL members who were over on EZBoard will be pretty familiar with the EZ functions. Many of you are already registered, anyhow.Your old accounts are already on Yuku, or you could start new ones. I highly recommend Yuku as a host for a new and improved version of Perfume of Life.

You all would have to make up a new name for the board since I think Jeffrey copyrighted Perfume of Life ot TMed it. Y'all have fun making up a new name which is similar but different. ~smile~

Here's the info page for starting up a Yuku board. Look at all the custom skins and things you can do.

http://www.yuku.com/

I would definitely trust a forum run by the present moderators.

I can't edit. I think not being able to edit posts unless you pay for Perfumista is bad. If you start a new board you needn't follow that rule. You can make it where members can edit but not delete. There are -as I mentioned- good security tools to prevent trolling. Since the mods here do all the work, why not start a new forum? Also, when you start a board on Yuku you can have your URL read Perfume Something.com instead of at yuku.com.

Here's a link to the forum I co-administer. I know you girls would pick a much nicer, prettier 'skin.'

http://vincentandmorticiasspeakeasy14846.yuku.com/

Also at Yuku, there's a built in group of people who might search for a perfume board. I hope Jeffrey doesn't get mad at me for posting this info. It's merely info, nothing more.

Well, here I am again as a Perfumista!! Yea :-)



Thank you to everyone you helped and supported me while we had this problem, especially the mods who may have sent messages to Mr. Dame.

Fiveoaks,

Yes, your right. To renew you must allow your subscription to expire before renewing. I think that's rather stupid but there we are. This is the way to do it in future............I must remember that :-)

Thanks again everyone.

Here's a link to the Yuku info about cost for an ad free board with over 50,000 views. Maybe Jeffrey might even be interested:

http://www.yuku.com/home/goldpricing/

I tried to send Orchidbloom a message a minute ago. As only a contributor I can't do that. When you think of all the 'can't do's' unless one pays to be a POL member, perhaps that's why some members seriously into perfume have gone to another board. I used to think it was fine to contribute, but I always had so until now I didn't realise how off-putting the 'punishments' are when one is only a contributor. Not being able to message other members or edit or look at profiles or swap. It could be that these 'incentives' to make people pay have become counterproductive.

So happy to hear that Volupte is back.
Morticia, thanks for all the great ideas. And, I think you are correct in the following:

"Well, perhaps Jeffrey is tired of the Perfume of Life forum. Repeated no answers are an answer."

I came to this conclusion months ago. It seemed to coincide with increased Ebay activity on the part of Irma Shorell.