@vld-occult-zine / vld-occult-zine.tumblr.com
hello! i know there were several issues with this project, but if there is still a way to grab the pdfs id love to have one if possible!
hi there! if you purchased the zine and didn't receive your copy, please reach out to us in a dm and we'll be happy to hook you up!
we’ve officially sent out pdf files of the sfw and nsfw zines that contributors so graciously helped us compile to all purchasers! please check your mailboxes, and if you have not received them, reach out to let us know!
our email address and this blog will remain active and we will continue to check them until september 1st to answer any questions and help in any way we can.
this has been a long, hard road to travel and we hope that the pdfs of all our contributor’s hard work help in some way to alleviate some bit of the damage caused by gg’s disappearance.
we wish you all the best,
mods king and ashley
will the buyers be able to get the pdfs also if we provide proof of purchase? :( I was not able to get a chargeback successfully *is sad* but I guess I will just have to take the loss, I never purchased a zine since...
this depends on which zine you purchased. if you purchased occult, we've already emailed a copy to each purchaser on our list. check your purchasing email/spam folder for it, and if you don't find it, please reach out and blet us know! if you mean heith, you can email us at the occult email and we'll forward that on to you!
we've officially sent out pdf files of the sfw and nsfw zines that contributors so graciously helped us compile to all purchasers! please check your mailboxes, and if you have not received them, reach out to let us know!
our email address and this blog will remain active and we will continue to check them until september 1st to answer any questions and help in any way we can.
this has been a long, hard road to travel and we hope that the pdfs of all our contributor's hard work help in some way to alleviate some bit of the damage caused by gg's disappearance.
we wish you all the best,
mods king and ashley
Are there going to be PDFs of any of the other TEOU zines besides Heith?
hi there!
at this point, we've sent pdfs of what we had (some elements and materials were lost with gg's disappearance) of this zine's sfw and nsfw version to purchasers as well as the heith zine to those who've reached out, but that's because we were involved and had access to the pieces and contributors from both. the other zines are works we were uninvolved in, so unfortunately we have no updates on whether or not those will become pdfs.
we personally had help from friends and contributors to make these pdfs happen, and we are unaware of any progress with the other zines. we're so sorry that we don't have any further answers for those zines!
-ashley
Even with the preorder comment my bank still say its too long since the initial order to get a refund. Is there no way to contact Michaela or report her?
We've posted all of the contact info for her that we have. She doesn't seem to be active @ michaela.heaphy@gmail.com any longer but it is her personal email.
As for reporting her, please refer to the ask answered just before this one.
Is there anyway we can report GG. $20k is a lot of money.
All of legal action we looked into (not just us but the group of mods from across the affected zines) seemed as though we would have to file a formal suit within the same jurisdiction as GG.
This was an option we were unfortunately unable to pursue, both due to it being an expensive legal matter, and none of us living in the same state.
There is the option to follow the links to her shops and report them as fraud, as well as reporting it to your bank/card company (even if you don't file a chargeback, filing a fraud claim means they investigate her end of the transaction).
It kills us that she's getting away with this in any capacity, but short of finding out her personal details and entirely doxxing her (an option we aren't entirely comfortable with) we don't have any ways to report the matter.
Any more updates?
No communication was ever made again with GG/Astraldefender/Michaela. It doesn't appear that she made any attempts, over this stretch of time, to refund any of the money.
Those who have gotten their money back filed chargebacks to do so, and while many of those were successful some banks have declined the claims.
If you are still attempting to file a chargeback we recommend telling your bank the item was a Pre-Order, this seems to soften them into actually filing a claim against the charge where a chargeback for a normal product would be out of the time window for a claim to go through.
How are the PDFs going?
We are happy to report that the TEOU Heith edition PDF we were compiling is COMPLETE. And can be sent to customers if they email us at vld.occult.zine@gmail.com!
The occult zine PDF remains un-compiled as it's a lot larger, and we are having to ask around to see if a proper formatter can tackle it.
We will update when the Occult PDF has movement.
-Mod King
Have there been any updates?
We have not heard a single peep from GG unfortunately. And as a collective the mods were unable to file any suits against her since none of us were within jurisdiction.
We are working on free PDFs tho! So there's that to look forward to!
I received a chargeback for Beyond the Veil. It’s been too long for my bank to do refunds for TEOU but I’m going to try the Stripe chargeback procedure
We are glad to hear that there's been progress on at least one chargeback for you!
We very much wish there was a better method for filing, as these were pre-orders we know some have been able to mention that they were pre-orders and the companies have continued with the chargeback past the date.
If that doesn't help I do apologize; and sincerely hope something works so you can get the rest of your money!
-Mod King
I manage to get a chargeback through my credit card company for TEOU zine. Strangely, despite having the confirmation email for the occult zine, I couldn't find the purchase anywhere on my cards so I'm not sure what happened there. But yes, I did manage a refund through chargeback.
Awesome! Thank you for letting us know!
Have people got their refunds for this and teou? I've tried but my bank said its been too long since I ordered.
we haven't received any reports of refunds being issued thus far, unfortunately. if anyone had received one, or had a chargeback go through successfully, please reach out and let us know!
-ashley
Thanks for the quick answer. If we can't get a refund. What can we do? I don't want her to get away with this.
of course! we as a mod team are still trying to reach out and get any sort of answer from her. currently, the best option is to continue to report her shop and email the addresses we've provided. i am so sorry your bank wasn't helpful, if there's anything we can provide to try and help appeal the decision, please feel free to message me!
-ashley
so are you just openly admitting to running and be a part of scam zines or?
No, actually, I’m openly admitting to being scammed.
While I was in fact a part of the mod teams on not one, but two of Michaela/gg/atraldefender’s projects, I can openly state that I didn’t really have any leadership abilities or permissions. I had a mod tag, and I had a couple passwords for the Occult Zine, but aside from discord and that, I controlled nothing. All money, main handlings, and actual physical items were (and are still) in the hands of GG.
As a matter of fact, myself and many of the other mods found ourselves to be little more than glorified contributors.
Our work, both art and writing, went into these projects alongside the other contributors. We had a stake in the finished project as more than just figureheads, we were actual active participants.
When GG walked away with the money, the merch, and all the works, she walked away with several pieces created by people left behind on her mod teams.
I think that part of the reason this situation (for lack of better terms) fucking sucks for us as well as all contributors and customers, is that not only were we left to clean up the mess–flood complaints and panic, try to calmly make sure everyone was directed to the best alleyway for refunds, and hold up our parts as mods–we also had our trust betrayed, our names smeared, and our work affected.
What GG did hurt an entire community, officially labeled her as a scammer whether she intended to be one or not, and left multiple people behind as more than victims. It left us as scapegoats, people for those upset, hurt and affected negatively to go to. People for her bad deeds to fall upon.
I’m not afraid to receive anons like this and be the face of explanation for the situation someone else has caused, but before you decide it’s okay to attack and accuse the mods left, remember that what GG did has affected us negatively too, on a pretty large scale, and short of apologizing, admitting that we could have only foretold this situation in hindsight, and working tirelessly to make things as right as we can, there’s nothing else we can do.
We are not the scammers, we are just people who have responsibilities to these projects, and are doing our best to end them and see their victims given back their work and money.
-King
P.S. remember that if you have made a purchase on @vld-au-zinecollection or @vld-occult-zine that you need to file a chargeback request with your bank of purchase. This is the ONLY way we can recommend to get your money back, as we still have no access to funds or updated information on whether GG plans to give refunds herself.
As other people pointed out, also keep an eye out for Premium Garbage Merch which is a shop ran by GG and her roommate Amy, and while nothing untoward has occurred around this shop, I feel it safe to tell customers to be wary after the crushing mess of zines left decimated by GG, and Amy’s apparent lack of care about the situation.
Hello I am not a buyer of this zine but I was with hallowzine. I just wanted you to know that yes you can contact stripe and bigcartel but they both will tell you to call your bank. So to get your money back call your bank right off the bat. The longer people wait the harder it will be to get your money back for certain cards (my personal experience, luckily I was refunded or else I wouldn't have been able to get my money back). Sorry to be a bother >
You're not a bother at all! This is a point we made in our posts about refunds, actually! Stripe and big cartel don't actually handle the funds, so you'll need to contact your bank directly.
-ashley
those who’ve been following me for over a month probably know the story of the hallowzine, a bnha fanzine that was centering around halloween, and how the zine was suddenly canceled and the curator did not give out refunds until i and others made posts about the situation and people began demanding their money back. if you don’t know about this, that’s fine, i’ll give a summary of what happened further down.
hallowzine was eventually refunded in full, from what i know. however, as more time went on, more things started happening behind the scenes and unfortunately, the hole just gets deeper and darker.
i’ve come to the knowledge that the same curator of the bnha hallowzine currently has over $12,000 from a project she ghosted from a different fandom, and is refusing to answer messages or issue refunds.
in order to get the full scale of things, let me tell you about the people and projects involved.
the ‘curator’ is named is michaela. she had two blogs– gutgemacht and astraldefender. astraldefender was deleted after michaela ghosted the projects she stole over 12k from. gutgemacht has search turned off and can only be accessed from the tumblr dashboard. guthemacht has not been updated since the bnhahallowzine happened and has its ask box turned off. messaging is only turned on for blogs she follows. in short, it’s completely impossible to reach her on tumblr. her twitter is also locked. she was using the hallowzine email, but has stopped responding to anything there, too. she was the curator on hallowzine, the vld occult zine, and the this and every other universe collection of zines. she is also a mod on the bnha-bday-zine, along with her roommate.
her roommate’s name is amy. you may remember her from the long post she wrote in response to me calling her out about her lies regarding the hallowzine, in which she insulted me, told me michaela had had panic attacks over being called a scammer, and that michaela had had to “use her christmas money” for refunds. according to others, amy has done some very shady zine things as well (you can find it in the replies of the above post). amy is the curator on the bnha-bday-zine and also helped michaela out on various projects. amy’s blog was inthearmsofathief, but since she was asked to help recover the 12k funds and talk to michaela, amy has deleted her tumblr and the url now redirects to a porn site.
there’s a few projects in question, spanning two fandoms. @bnha-hallowzine was the project that i was part of. here’s some posts about what happened: the first post, discrepancies with finances, my response to michaela’s final post. the other projects in question and from the voltron fandom. i’m going to preface this by saying that i know absolutely nothing about voltron or its fandom. i only know about these projects due to michaela. the projects are @vld-occult-zine and @vld-au-zinecollection, the latter of which was a collection of 5 different zines, which michaela put herself as the curator of.
after the news from hallowzine broke, michaela ghosted the other projects.
she had all the money from them, due to putting herself as the head mod/curator of them. every single penny that was given to the projects was under her sole control. like hallowzine, she did not allow her other mods to control any bit of it. all finances went directly to her, and in the end, they’ve gone into her pocket.
i wasn’t part of the vld zines, but i’m in contact with some people who were. they’ve written a couple posts about the situation, which you can find here, here, and here. the same thing happened in these zines that happened in hallowzine, but then it got worse. michaela, the curator, ghosted. she stopped responding. she was vague about anything that was asked about in the rare times she would respond, and when contributors and people on the project demanded answers and proof that she was doing something, she suddenly dropped the project completely and left, taking all the money with her. in the case of these two zines, this was over $12,000. and like with the hallowzine, michaela did not inform her customers and left the contributors and former mods to pick up the pieces of a project she broke and stole from.
but, like i said, it gets worse. contributors went to amy and begged for help. amy, being michaela’s roommate, assured them that she’d talk to michaela. after a few days with no further answers, amy then blocked the people she told she’d help, and deactivated her tumblr with no explanation. she has responded to a couple emails about the situation, but has not done anything other than telling people it’s being ‘handled’. she also blocks anyone who asks her too much about it. at this point, she is actively helping michaela scam people.
no one has been able to get through to either of them. contributors have done the same thing i was doing with hallowzine–encourage the buyers they can reach to file chargebacks through their credit card company and paypal/stripe, if possible.
in her response to me during the hallowzine fallout, amy made every excuse for michaela. she told me that michaela couldn’t respond to people desperately trying to reach her because she was “celebrating the anniversary of her surgery” and that she didn’t “owe anyone time/a response” despite the fact that michaela had over $6,000 from hallowzine and had completely ghosted. at first, i sort of believed her–michaela was just stupid and irresponsible and, for some reason, put her celebration over the thousands of dollars she’d taken, but then she ghosted the vld zines and has been gone with $12,000+ for over two weeks now. there’s no excuse or explanation for that, in my opinion.
the first message i got from michaela after she ghosted was when my first post gained traction. i never called her a scammer in it, but that was the conclusion people drew from it. the very first message i got from michaela after almost 2 days of hearing NOTHING from her when she had every single cent hallowzine made, was her telling me that she was upset over being called a scammer. no mention of refunds or anything (those were in later messages). nope, she was just mad about being called a scammer, and others have told me that being called a scammer has been her main concern. she also apparently thought i was being mean to her by writing that post even though she hadn’t said anything about the project being dropped to buyers.
my conclusion after all this? michaela is a scammer, and amy is aiding her in pulling off this scam. neither of them have any business running any projects ever again.
last time, the only thing that got refunds going and got michaela to do anything was publicly exposing her, so i ‘m trying that again in hopes that the $12,000+ can be refunded to the many, many buyers that supported her projects. i’m also writing this in hopes that i can reach some buyers of this project so they can get their money back.
if you bought any of the vld au zines or the vld occult zine, please either file a chargeback with your bank or with paypal. with banks, you call them and usually go through their fraud department. if you bought it with a visa/MC giftcard, call them and do the same. with paypal, file a dispute using these instructions. if you used stripe, this is their article on disputes, and you should contact them.
i wasnt part of the vld zines, but i’m sorry to anyone who was part of the project or bought any product, and i’m sorry you have to deal with this and with michaela. i just hope her and her roommate never run a project ever again.
This zine has also contacted Amy and received a response that was little more than "there is nothing I can do but tell Michaela that you are trying to contact her"
At this point no solid, satisfactory point of communication has been found, and many are still struggling to get chargebacks filed.
As of now, we fully recommend filing chargebacks and disputes in order to receive a refund.
The remaining mods of this project, and of the TEOU projects, none have access to funds, therefore we have no way to give refunds ourselves other than advising people to file disputes and chargebacks.
We understand the frustration this causes, and Michaela/GG/Astraldefender's neglect of these projects has had negative effects on all mods involved.
We wish everyone the best in the future, and truly, sincerely, hope that everyone can get their money back.
-Mod King
