Bonestone and Earthflesh Tarot

[katrinka]

On 3/3/2020 at 1:01 AM, Raggydoll said:

There has been a really small update, at the very end of this video:

 

 

She basically says that she is waiting to hear back from the fulfillment center (sounds like the costs had to be recalculated for some reason) and then she will "press print". I could have sworn I heard her say that she had pressed print and that we already have a print date (in February, after the 16th)... There was also an update some time ago saying that she wasn't issuing anymore refunds because the funds were locked now that she had pressed print. Not sure what the process of "pressing print" really entails, but it looks like it hasn't been done. So.. There you have it 🙂

 

The fulfillment center, the printer, the dispatch center, the post office, the neighbors, Alfred Hitchcock, Mary Poppins, Bobby Sherman, Jim the Wonder Dog, Popeye...

[gregory]

Tinkerbell.... I can see her NOW asking for all our addresses. Again. (Mind you for me she has NO excuse; etsy has it safe.)

[FindYourSovereignty]

I know I said I was releasing this deck, however, Ana’s work is so amazing and it is difficult to see her art and not want one.

 

I am wondering if I am reading Avalon’s latest newsletter accurately. Can you help? Is she saying that she must sell 400 refunded decks before she is shipping - Does this also mean she is not printing since the plan is to print and ship. Am I misunderstanding this? Does this sound like a whole new campaign with that number of sales needed?

 

 

[Raggydoll]

8 minutes ago, FindYourSovereignty said:

I know I said I was releasing this deck, however, Ana’s work is so amazing and it is difficult to see her art and not want one.

 

I am wondering if I am reading Avalon’s latest newsletter accurately. Can you help? Is she saying that she must sell 400 refunded decks before she is shipping - Does this also mean she is not printing since the plan is to print and ship. Am I misunderstanding this? Does this sound like a whole new campaign with that number of sales needed?

 

 

From what I understand, she will list them and have them sell quickly (I bet they will be gone in less than an hour) and then she will add the addresses of those buyers to the fulfillment center so that all the decks are printed in one batch and sent out at the same time. So this means that those who pre-ordered will have to wait until the remaining decks have been sold for everything to go to print. Many have complained about this but Avalon is not changing her mind. The other thing that I reacted to is that she says that she does not want to store more than 50 decks in her tiny home, so that makes me uncertain whether she intends to have any back up decks at all. I have no idea what will happen if someone receives a damaged or faulty deck, or doesn't receive a deck at all. Someone has asked Avalon this on her page so I will update here if/when she replies to that. 

[FindYourSovereignty]

22 minutes ago, Raggydoll said:

she does not want to store more than 50 decks in her tiny home, so that makes me uncertain whether she intends to have any back up decks at all. I have no idea what will happen if someone receives a damaged or faulty deck, or doesn't receive a deck at all. Someone has asked Avalon this on her page so I will update here if/when she replies to that. 

Good point! Thank you for sharing the update with her response. 
 

I will need to be one of the 400 if I am going to see one of these as well. A friend introduced me to the deck last July, but I had no idea it would be this crazy to get one. 

[FindYourSovereignty]

@Raggydoll did she happen to share in the FB group when she will be listing them? 

Edited April 23, 2020 by FindYourSovereignty

[gregory]

God alone knows what she's up to. Was it on kickstarter ? I preordered from Etsy; I don't like the sound of what she says about that - she seems terminally confused., If I don't get mine without having to do anything, I don't care what she says about refunds; she WILL be debited for mine... Etsy is not OK about people not delivering on preorders.

 

However good her future work, I shall never buy from her again. Luckily it isn't her art, so that won't be a huge issue !

Edited April 23, 2020 by gregory

[FindYourSovereignty]

31 minutes ago, gregory said:

God alone knows what she's up to. Was it on kickstarter ? I preordered from Etsy; I don't like the sound of what she says about that - she seems terminally confused., If I don't get mine without having to do anything, I don't care what she says about refunds; she WILL be debited for mine... Etsy is not OK about people not delivering on preorders.

 

However good her future work, I shall never buy from her again. Luckily it isn't her art, so that won't be a huge issue !

 

This is why I haven't wanted to order and am really hesitant! I thought if she actually had the decks then it would be okay, but now, again, it is a preorder and I am not excited about that. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

 

Maybe I just need to find Ana's work and go a different direction. 

 

[gregory]

Well, pass on her Hidden Waters....

 

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/hidden-waters-tarot/

[RavenOfSummer]

My understanding is the same as @Raggydoll from the latest newsletter, so yes @FindYourSovereignty I think you should be able to order one of those- although you can see what you're getting into 🙃

 

@gregory I am with you. The lack of straightforward communication, the seeming incomprehension that those of us who purchased decks would like to know what's going on, the multi-month timeline of confirming addresses...it's just too much.

 

As far as I understand there was no Kickstarter for this project, just Etsy pre-orders in a couple of different rounds. The problem is that although Etsy is good about taking care of customers when there's an issue as you've said, I believe there is a time limitation of 6 months from your time of order. All of us are WELL past that at this point. (I ordered in September 2018 and I know that I was one of the last people to order before pre-orders closed.) So if we DON'T receive our decks, I don't know that there's anything Etsy can/would be able to do at this point in terms of refunding our money. I imagine they would try to take some sort of action if they received enough complaints, but I don't know that we would get our money back.

[gregory]

UK credit cards are pretty good about chargebacks - and anyway - the number of people who are likely to be complaining if she's made the mess she appears to have made, I think etsy would not want to let it slide. And for god's sake - etsy stores addresses; there's no reason she has to keep checking them.

[RavenOfSummer]

1 hour ago, FindYourSovereignty said:

 

This is why I haven't wanted to order and am really hesitant! I thought if she actually had the decks then it would be okay, but now, again, it is a preorder and I am not excited about that. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

 

Maybe I just need to find Ana's work and go a different direction. 

 

@FindYourSovereignty Ana's beautiful Abyss Tarot should be released by US Games sometime in the not too distant future. I'm not sure whether coronavirus might be impacting their timelines though. I know their offices are closed right now.

[RavenOfSummer]

It looks like you can't "open a case" with Etsy if it's past 100 days from your item expected delivery date: https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015570547?segment=shopping . Of course there are other ways to contact Etsy.

[gregory]

I would be running with "report this store" and also contacting my credit card company.

[FindYourSovereignty]

22 minutes ago, gregory said:

Well, pass on her Hidden Waters....

 

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/hidden-waters-tarot/

Agree! Not for me!

 

15 minutes ago, RavenOfSummer said:

@FindYourSovereignty Ana's beautiful Abyss Tarot should be released by US Games sometime in the not too distant future. I'm not sure whether coronavirus might be impacting their timelines though. I know their offices are closed right now.

This is the one I want to get my hands on. Thank you for the details. I have been very curious about it and not finding a lot of information. Thank you!

 

21 minutes ago, RavenOfSummer said:

My understanding is the same as @Raggydoll from the latest newsletter, so yes @FindYourSovereignty I think you should be able to order one of those- although you can see what you're getting into 🙃

 

@gregory I am with you. The lack of straightforward communication, the seeming incomprehension that those of us who purchased decks would like to know what's going on, the multi-month timeline of confirming addresses...it's just too much.

 

As far as I understand there was no Kickstarter for this project, just Etsy pre-orders in a couple of different rounds. The problem is that although Etsy is good about taking care of customers when there's an issue as you've said, I believe there is a time limitation of 6 months from your time of order. All of us are WELL past that at this point. (I ordered in September 2018 and I know that I was one of the last people to order before pre-orders closed.) So if we DON'T receive our decks, I don't know that there's anything Etsy can/would be able to do at this point in terms of refunding our money. I imagine they would try to take some sort of action if they received enough complaints, but I don't know that we would get our money back.

 

This is my understanding as well, and, tbh, I am a bit concerned with all that she has used as excuses and the length of time this has taken, that this new push for sales is so she can deliver on her previous orders and has me more than a bit uncomfortable. On her original Etsy ordering page for the deck it says that the shipping charge is calculated from Australia, but other messages indicate that she will be shipping from a dispatch (I'm assuming in China) - it is all very, very confusing.

Edited April 23, 2020 by FindYourSovereignty

[RavenOfSummer]

4 minutes ago, FindYourSovereignty said:

On her original Etsy ordering page for the deck it says that the shipping charge is calculated from Australia, but other messages indicate that she will be shipping from a dispatch (I'm assuming in China) - it is all very, very confusing.

Yeah, that is another bizarre aspect of all this. The shipping costs from all the pre-orders was based on her shipping out the decks from Australia. I remember a number of people asked about the shipping costs which were rather high, and she said that was simply the cost of AUS postage. But then after pre-orders were closed, she said she had decided to use a fulfillment center in China to ship everything. Presumably this will make the shipping costs lower...or at least would have before the pandemic, since my understanding is shipping costs from China have increased. But I remember when she first said that, someone tried to ask her if we would be refunded the additional shipping costs that were based of shipping from Australia. As far as I know she never responded.

 

9 minutes ago, FindYourSovereignty said:

This is the one I want to get my hands on. Thank you for the details. I have been very curious about it and not finding a lot of information. Thank you!

It really is gorgeous! I know Ana was originally planning to release the deck independently, but then was contacted by US Games and agreed for them to publish it. The only bummer about that is I feel certain is Ana had indie published we would have the deck in our hands by now! She was super on top of things and moves through projects so quickly. I'm sure US Games will do a nice job with it though. I believe the plan was to release sometime this year but again not sure if that will be pushed back. Even Ana doesn't know the publication date last I heard, but there may be updates since then.

 

[RavenOfSummer]

13 minutes ago, gregory said:

I would be running with "report this store" and also contacting my credit card company.

Good ideas.

[FindYourSovereignty]

34 minutes ago, RavenOfSummer said:

I'm sure US Games will do a nice job with it though. I believe the plan was to release sometime this year but again not sure if that will be pushed back. Even Ana doesn't know the publication date last I heard, but there may be updates since then.

Yes, I have several US Games decks and am happy with them. I do hope it will be this year, too. The art is stunning! 

[kudos91]

I think if she really had the intention to get things done, she could have done it easily once she finished drawing it. I recently purchased a self published version of Rider Waiter (only 32 decks printed for test print) from one of our member here and she got thing sorted out really fast. The deck was printed in Italy with excellent card stock and distributed through a distribution center in Germany and I pay only bit more than half (shipping included) of what Avalon asked for her deck... I am sure printing and postal cost in China for large print run should cost even less

[FindYourSovereignty]

50 minutes ago, kudos91 said:

I think if she really had the intention to get things done, she could have done it easily once she finished drawing it. I recently purchased a self published version of Rider Waiter (only 32 decks printed for test print) from one of our member here and she got thing sorted out really fast. The deck was printed in Italy with excellent card stock and distributed through a distribution center in Germany and I pay only bit more than half (shipping included) of what Avalon asked for her deck... I am sure printing and postal cost in China for large print run should cost even less

😏 I don’t even know how much she was asking, but I see a lot of comments about the price being high. Every time I get drawn in again, I am reminded to release it!  

[gregory]

It is expensive, yes. But for a deck like this, I didn't have an issue with that. She didn't "finish drawing it", either - she paid an artist, who makes her living from art. A revamped Smith/Waite actually doesn't have the same expenses attached to it. It may also have had extra features - I really can't remember any more. The member you refer to lives in Europe, so the European printer also makes more sense. They don't actually charge more than the Chinese printers, either. Some high end decks are printed in China now.

 

It's the mess of organisation that's the issue, and the total lack of information over many years (I paid for mine in 2017.) And the appalling manners, dissing everyone who complains, blocking people with legitimate worries on facebook. I have another one backed that is very badly delayed - the Blood Moon. I get updates about once a week. THAT's OK - the artist has PROPERLY explained the delay, and can be seen to be working at it.

Edited April 24, 2020 by gregory

[kudos91]

5 hours ago, gregory said:

It's the mess of organisation that's the issue, and the total lack of information over many years (I paid for mine in 2017.)

Exactly my point Greg, it is easier than the past to print and distribute a deck, she can even put it on an print on demand platform and limit the number of print to be issued. Regarding the price she can ask for whatever she wants and for sure a deck like this will still sell, what I was saying was she had a good margin to cover the cost and send it. What I have seen in recently years dealing with Chinese competitors is that they move  and get thing done really fast, so pandemic aside, it's strange that she took that much time to print....

Oh btw the Blood Moon tarot that you mention looks really good, may I asked how much was the cost for pre-order (the page was no longer available when I clicked)?

Edited April 24, 2020 by kudos91

[gregory]

That's because it was a kickstarter; you had to back it while it was open. I THINK it was $40 + postage. I didn't know he was taking preorders.

[Raggydoll]

Avalon just replied to a question where someone had asked her regarding her newsletter, where she said she would only keep 50 decks at her home, in case she need to send out replacements. (I believe she previously spoke of 200 decks). 

 

[gregory]

Bollocks to her. As usual.....