About Mending Broken Relationships Episode 4 (05032023)

The speaker discusses a negative experience she had with a business transaction involving her book being sold on Amazon by fraudulent sellers. She talks about her frustration with Amazon and her efforts to resolve the issue. She also shares another incident involving a fraudulent charge on her Zoom account. She emphasizes the importance of looking at difficult situations from a different perspective and taking action to address them. The speaker concludes by encouraging listeners to seek resolution in their relationships by gaining knowledge and understanding. Hello, this is Karen Penn coming to you with Bridging Our Gap, the podcast that focuses on relationships and the dynamics between mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, husbands and wives. Today, I want to talk about or ask the question, are all relationships mendable? I'm going to share an experience that I had, but first, I would like to read four verses of a scripture from the 69th Psalm, Psalm 69, verses 1 through 4 says, save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters. The floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help. My throat is parched. My eyes fail looking for my God. Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head. Many are the enemies without cause. Those who seek to destroy me. I am forced to restore what I did not steal. This chapter and these four verses came to me this morning, and I had already wanted to talk about the experience I recently had with a business transaction, actually. I had a client, a customer, I have a book entitled, When Mama Never Heals. When Mama Never Heals. And you can find the book on Barnes & Noble, and the author is Karen Penn. I have the book also on Amazon, but I'm not promoting Amazon. I'm very disappointed in their service. I had a client, or a friend, I should say, recently inquired about my book, and they wanted to know where they could find it. They said they didn't see any links, and they wanted a link to order a copy. So I looked up on Amazon quickly just to grab the link from Amazon and send it to the person. And when I did that, I went to Amazon, looked up my book. I found that the book was selling for more than what I had posted it for. And I thought, did Amazon change the price? Who did that? Does it go up automatically? You know, today with all these algorithms, they just jump and do things that nobody told them to do. So I was confused. But I went to my website, clicked on the book, and it went to the correct Amazon link. So I copy pasted that and gave it to the person and went back to Amazon to check out, why is my book at a higher price than what I put it at? And so as I looked closer, I saw a seller was selling my book for a higher price than what the book sells for, and they had a used copy for sale for even higher. And I'm thinking, why would they sell the used copy for more than the new copy? And also, how did they get my book? Who told them they could do that? I was so getting more and more furious about learning this and investigating more of it. I found the company that was selling it. Matter of fact, it was two sellers. The first seller was in Atlanta, Georgia. I found the company, called the number I saw. Person answers the phone, and so I say, I have a question about your books on Amazon. And the person says, yes. They answered the phone, such and such and such, goodwill, something, something. And so when I asked that question, they said, yes. And so I said, yeah, one of the books that you're selling, the old version is, excuse me, the used version is more than the new version. The used version is $31, and the new version is $20. They just said, yes. Well, steam was going up to my head right away. So right away I said, this is the author, and that's my book. You should take it down. Take that down. She says, well, ma'am, hold on a minute. I'm going to check with whoever. And so I said, okay, is she going to hang up on me or what? So I held on just to see. If she hung up, I was calling back to get some answers. So she came back and says, ma'am, those books were donated to us. This is a charitable organization. We receive donations, and then we sell them. And we put the information into Amazon, and it allowed us to sell the product. She said, you should check with Amazon and see, you know, why they allowed us to upload the book and sell it. I'm thinking, Amazon, you did it. Take the page down. I'm telling you, I'm the author. And so the lady says, yep, we'll look into it. We'll take it down. She says, but check into Amazon to see, you know, why they allowed us to post it. I was like, what? So then I said to her, what gives you the right to take a picture of my book and all my information and upload it again, I don't know what she did, and sell it for a higher price? What gives you the right? She says, ma'am, we are a goodwill organization. We take donations and we sell them. You know, sort of like, you know, you go to the goodwill and bring your old clothing, and they can do with it as they wish, which includes selling them. I says, okay, well, thank you. I'm going to contact Amazon. Contacted Amazon. Went through so many people. I was getting the runaround. It was like they didn't want to touch the issue. Okay. I did that for an entire day. Totally furious. Needed so much prayer. It was just incredible. My husband prayed for me. I had a daughter who gave me some jokes, so it became lighter. I finally reached out the next day to Amazon, and I got information. The two people or sellers that were selling my books were considered scammers, fraudulent businesses, fraudulent sellers, and they told me it will take some time, but they're going to look into it. The second seller was selling my podcasts, which are free, over in China. Go figure. I couldn't even read what their writing was that they were selling, the information they were giving out about selling my podcast, and so what would they want to hear my English podcast for? I couldn't figure it, but they were a known fraudulent business, so they were going to look into it. Meanwhile, these people got sales off of me. I received no royalties. I saw zero regarding royalties with my book being sold. So I really wanted to share this because how do you mend this kind of relationship? Do I stop selling my book? Do I stop selling my book on Amazon? Do I sell it myself and just not trust that relationship between Amazon as a business partner? My resolve came, I would say, when the final person on Amazon comforted me by saying, we will go after the sellers. They are fraudulent. They're doing fraudulent work, and we will take care of it. It will take a little bit of time, but we're on it. That was so comforting. I had calmed down before that, so that was good. And this scripture, you know, it expressed completely how I felt, like I was sinking in the Murray depths, and there was no foothold. I couldn't get a grip of the situation. And the deep waters of the situation felt like they were engulfing me, like it was flooding me, and I was consumed. The waters engulfed me, as the scripture says. I was worn out. I was worn out calling for help. I was worn out calling for help from Amazon, from God, getting prayer. And my throat was parched. That's what I felt like, the scripture says. My throat was parched. My eyes failed me, looking for my God. Where is my God to help me in this situation? I felt like this particular scripture, last verse, for those who hate me without reason, outnumber the hairs of my head. Many are my enemies without cause. Those who seek to destroy me. I am forced to restore what I did not steal. Wow, that really says it all. I'm restoring things that I didn't steal, and what about the enemies? What do they get? I was so traumatized by that situation. So, could I say the relationship was unmendable? I don't know. You have to look at it in a different light, I would say. Looking at things in a different light can cause things to come together, to be in the right place. And had this friend who reached out to me not inquired about my book, I would not have just felt like looking up my book on Amazon. It was like a rippling effect. One thing revealed another thing that revealed another thing. And so, I wanted to just say, if you are experiencing difficulty in any relationship, whether that be between mother and daughter, father and son, husband and wife. If it seems like the relationship is unmendable, the situation that you're going through, the difficulty, there just seems like no way that you will come together on one accord about what's going on. There is always a resolve. There's always a resolve. There's always a resolution, a solution. Even if that resolution and solution is something that is, if you would call it, a stalemate. No one's winning, no one's losing. On one hand, my book is getting more exposure. More people are reading it through these fraudulent companies. More people are hearing my podcast. They're promoting it. They're getting it out there. I think what I thought was unfair, though, was that I knew nothing about it and I received no proceeds. They were making money off of me. So weighing the situation can help resolve things, looking at the worst scenario, looking at the good part of the situation. There's always something good. Something is always being revealed. Take a look at what's being revealed. I took the reins, took control of my situation, or I am working on it. That makes me feel victorious instead of just feeling like the world is so unfair, the situation is so unfair, there's so much evil in the world. Oh, gosh, when you stay on that treadmill. I think it was good to get it out and feel that feeling and go through it. But then what are you going to do about it? It's time to make a move, make a change, inquire, find out information, and then take action and relieve your spirit. Because that stuff can get in you and you just are distraught all day. Everything bothers you. Everything piles on. If any other thing happens, you're thinking, oh, my gosh, what is this? Why me? Why is all this happening to me? It is for a reason. Sometimes it's that you need to take notice of something that you weren't noticing before and you need to figure out how to address it, seek out how to address the issue, and move on. I also had one last incident that I will share. I have Zoom, and you pay for the Zoom service when you want to use Zoom for a longer period than 45 minutes. Up to 45 minutes, you can meet on Zoom for free. So I received in an email that I had upgraded my service on Zoom for a monthly payment of something like $16.99. And they said, thank you for the upgrade. Well, I never upgraded it, so why did I get this thank you and a swipe on my card when I didn't swipe it? So I checked with, and then the card number that I saw, the last four digits that they used, it was unfamiliar to me. I didn't use any card with those last four digits. So I'm thinking, what in the world is going on? I asked my husband, is this your card number, last four digits? He said, no. I asked a daughter of mine. She says, Mom, I'm not hooked up with your Zoom. And I had canceled whatever I was, whatever billing plan I did have before. I long ago canceled that, so why would I suddenly upgrade, get an email saying that I upgraded? Finally, I called Zoom. They're like, oh, we're so sorry. That looks like fraudulent activity, and we will cancel that. So hold on a minute. And I'm thinking, first of all, the guy sounded like he was, I don't know, at the beach, according to the background. And this is in California. So it was an 800 number, but it was in California, so he probably was outside. Anyways, he puts me on hold, and I'm thinking, is this like a fraudulent number? Like, there's so much fraudulentness going on. Like, I'm getting suspicious. So he puts me on hold for a while, comes back, and he says, yes, yes, we're going to reimburse you, et cetera. I get off the phone, and I decide to check my online banking to see exactly where that card number came from. Is it an old card number? I'm thinking, what in the world? I check. My husband's card number does not have those last four digits. My card doesn't have it. All of a sudden, there was an arrow to press to see another card. Bam, there's those last four digits in my name. My bank had never deactivated the previous card. What the? And I'm using a new one. Usually when you use a new one, it automatically deactivates the old one. So this card was on file, activated. Somebody could have used it. It had, I guess, I don't know. I didn't even check to see if there was an expiration date. Of course, I couldn't call my bank. It was too late. I did the email thing, but they responded right away. We're so sorry. We deleted it immediately. I'm thinking, what? Now I want to go back and see, was that card used on something else? And I didn't realize it. Wow. Just a rippling effect. One thing leads to another. But because of what I had already went through, I was on it. I was on my game like, I'm not going to be upset. I'm just going to check it out. Check it out. So I want to say to you, instead of getting upset over things that don't seem to be working out in your relationships, check out things. Look closer. Discover things. What are you supposed to learn so that the mending can begin with knowledge, with understanding, with wisdom applied to the situation? This is your host, Karen Penn. I want to thank you for joining me on this episode of Bridging Our Gaps, and I look forward to talking to you next time. Feel free to email me at info at bridgingourgaps.com if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. Have a great day. ♪♪♪