Lady Cat Lady

To readers: Below please find the entirety of the email sent to Ali, the customer service manager of Adult Friend Finder, a dating site I was a member of, regarding his decision to ban and not reinstate me. This letter was also sent by certified mail to Jonathan Buckheit, the current CEO of Friend Finder Networks, at his office in California. Adult Friend Finder is a subsidiary of Friend Finder Networks.

Here is the note to his boss

April 19, 2024

Dear Dr Buckheit,

Below please find the email I sent to Ali, your head of customer services. Considering you are his boss, I feel you should know my complaints about his abilities in “customer assistance”. Don’t worry, I’m not mean or abusive, since I know that is something you’re concerned with. However, I am direct since I have unaltered digital evidence for most of my claims.

You can read this entire email on my blog at ladycatlady.com, if you would like to follow the links.

FOR THE ATTENTION OF ALI R, HEAD OF CUSTOMER SERVICES

Dear Ali,

Now that the ones who wanted to return have, I can say what I want. I will be quoting the Adult Friend Finder Terms of Use (TOU) throughout this email. Additionally, I have sent a copy of this email through certified mail to your boss, Jonathan Buckheit, just so we’re all clear.

It is highly entertaining that a customer service manager of an adult dating site isn’t adult enough to reach out to the person he banned to tell them they were banned. It’s even more comical given I was told by your customer service agent to wait to hear from you. Glad I didn’t hold my breath because I never got that email!

15. Termination.
(a) We reserve the right to terminate or restrict your access to or use of the Services, without notice or liability, for any or no reason whatsoever. In addition, we may terminate your Account and any membership and/or subscription with us by sending notice to you at the email address you provided in your application for membership, or pursuant to Section 31 below

31. Notices. Except as explicitly stated otherwise, legal and other notices (including but not limited to notices of legal proceedings) shall be delivered to Various, Inc. by U.S. mail at 1615 S. Congress Avenue, Suite 103, Delray Beach, FL 33445 , USA Attn. Legal, or to you at the email address you provided us (a) at the time you registered; (b) through a subsequent notice of an address change; or (c) through a posting through the Services. Physical notices shall be effective when received. Email notices allowed hereunder shall be deemed given 24 hours after email is sent, unless the sending party is notified that the email address is invalid. In addition, we may provide notice by certified mail, postage prepaid and return receipt requested. In such case, notice shall be deemed given when received.

I can appreciate the irony of the person who sparked the “revolt” being the one who told me I wouldn’t be reinstated after defending her. Not that I blame her, I know where the responsibility lies.

It’s amusing how your Live Chat, whom you insist speak “fluent” English (Gaslight much?), told me I had been “deactivated by our higher department” and that someone would get back to me, and yet you nor anyone from the company ever did.

Here are a few pictures of that conversation, so we’re all clear about how wonderfully these agents speak English.

I left out parts of the conversation to protect my privacy. I messaged to ask why I couldn’t get into the community. He asked for my sign in information, I gave it to him and told him how my friends were in the blogs and I couldn’t get in, then he said something unintelligible and that’s where the pictures begin.

Your agent never even checked on the status of my account before he lied to me. He tried to tell me no one could get into the blogs, including customer service. Yet, I was talking to several of my friends who were looking at the blogs at that moment. Until I called him out for implying my friends were liars, he never even did his job, he tried to gaslight me instead.

The rot starts from the top.

I was told by him to wait to hear from the “higher department” which I assume was you, and yet…I never heard one word.

I also never broke the TOU, however, I’m well aware you can terminate my account for any and no reason. I have no recourse, and to be frank, I don’t care.

Despite the efforts of friends pushing you and Jon to reinstate me, I have made it super clear to every single one of them that I will not go back without major changes, and one of those changes includes you no longer working there.

Weirdly, you offered to allow me back if I open a new profile. So, I’m bad enough that I can’t be reinstated, but not bad enough that I can’t be on the site? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? Listen to yourself.

This is about a man on a power trip wanting to silence women by taking away their followings because they hurt his feelings or whatever. Who even knows? It’s not like I was given the courtesy of being told why I was banned. Yes, I know you don’t have to do this.

15a We are not required, and may be prohibited, from disclosing to you the reason for termination of your Account, membership or subscription

It’s not like I was even given the respect of being told that I needed to be careful. I wasn’t warned, one of the people you reinstated was warned before being banned. I wasn’t. No one from that site has directly contacted me regarding any of this.

Why would you? I wrote a blog that was only about gardening, cats, and my back problems for months.

But, yeah, I crossed a line that nobody knew existed because it still doesn’t exist in the TOU today. Mmmhmm. Yep. Makes perfect sense.

It’s ludicrous you think I would be willing to return to a site that is more concerned with criticism than child sex abuse material, otherwise known as “child porn” (I have proof. Unlike AFF, I will not be distributing it.), scammers (got lots of proof of those too), censorship, inconsistent moderation, possible sex trafficking, and promotion of content theft.

It’s farcical how you have different rules for different members depending on how much you like them based on some caricature in your head, and gaslight members through customer service and the SiteSupport blog.

But what do I know, right? I’m just some “angry woman on the internet”.

I can tell you what I do know, I would never go back to a site with a gaslighting customer service manager who seems to be afraid to speak to customers.

I hope censoring and punishing those who constructively criticize rather than fix the actual problems works out exactly as it should for you and the company. Given the voices in my inbox from members who stopped paying, it sure sounds like it is.

Sincerely,

Former EnigmaInitiative

All hail the end of that fucking debacle!