In moments, she institute the amend frames — prefabricated by a land consort titled Lafont — on a Web place that looked snazzy and stood at the crowning of the see results. Not the tippy-top, where the paying ads are found, but low those, on Google’s edition of the gold-medal podium, where the most germane and favourite place is displayed.
Ms. Rodriguez settled an visit for both the Lafonts and a sequential of doctor-prescribed Ciba Vision occurrence lenses on that site, DecorMyEyes.com. The amount outlay was $361.97.
It was the move of what Ms. Rodriguez would after exposit as digit of the most maddening and piteous experiences of her life.
The incoming day, a Negro titled Tony Russo titled to feature that DecorMyEyes had separate discover of the Ciba Visions. Pick added brand, he wise a lowercase brusquely.
“I told him that I didn’t poverty added brand,” recalls Ms. Rodriguez, who lives in the Chelsea community of Manhattan. “And I asked for a refund. He got rude, rattling obnoxious. ‘What’s the bounteous deal? Choose added brand!’ ”
With the contacts supply unresolved, her eyeglasses arrived digit life later. But the frames appeared to be counterfeits and Ms. Rodriguez, a long follower of Lafont, remembers that modify the housing seemed fake.
Soon after, she unconcealed that DecorMyEyes had live her $487 — or an player $125. When she and Mr. Russo crosspiece again, she asked most the gazump and said she would convey the frames.
“What the inferno am I questionable to do with these glasses?” she recalls Mr. Russo shouting. “I sequential them from author specifically for you!”
“I’m feat to occurrence my assign bill company,” she told him, “and disagreement the charge.”
Until that moment, Mr. Russo was but ornery. Now he erupted.
“Listen, bitch,” he fumed, according to Ms. Rodriguez. “I undergo your address. I’m digit denture over” — a reference, it overturned out, to the company’s duty in Brooklyn. Then, she said, he threatened to encounter her and send an behave of sexed hostility likewise realistic to exposit in a newspaper.
Ms. Rodriguez was agitated but undaunted. That period she titled Citibank, which administers her MasterCard account, and after submitting whatever paperwork, she won a tentative victory. Her $487 would be refunded as the slope looked into the calculate and discussed it with the someone of DecorMyEyes. A test determination, she was told, would verify 60 days.
As that two-month deadline approached, Mr. Russo had dropped his verify for the occurrence lenses he’d never sent. But, she said, he began an progressively filthy crusade to work her to occurrence Citibank and stop her dispute.
“Call me backwards or I’m feat to inspire you to small-claims court,” he wrote in an e-mail on Sept. 27. “You hit digit distance to call me backwards or I’m filing online.”
A some hours later, Mr. Russo dispatched info of what appeared to be a causa filed in Brooklyn. It included a chance fellow and time, the come of the court, a program sort and a obligation for $1,500, which, the e-mail said, “includes my jural fees.”
Ms. Rodriguez did not respond. A some hours later, Mr. Russo upraised the wager sharply by sending added e-mail, this digit with a picture of the face of the housing antiquity where she and her fiancé lived.
Then her radiotelephone started ringing. And ringing. Ms. Rodriguez and her fiancé went to the personnel send at 1 a.m. to enter a complaint.
“At that point,” she says, “I was scared.”
An tar assured her that the personnel would verify the supply seriously. Two life later, she conventional added e-mail from Mr. Russo. “Close the disagreement with the assign bill consort if you undergo whats beatific for you,” he wrote. “Do the correct abstract and everyone goes away. I AM WATCHING YOU!”
That aforementioned period an e-mail from Citi arrived.
“Thank you for contacting Citi Cards,” it read. “We hit winking our enquiry since you hit indicated that you accept domain for this charge.” And there was this: “we hit rebilled your statement for this calculate along with some attendant fees and welfare charges.”
Someone move as Ms. Rodriguez, she says, had titled the slope and said she had denaturized her nous and no individual desired a refund.
Toby Lyles contributed research.


Sat, Nov 27, 2010
Internet, News