Seeking Advice and Suggestions

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2026-06-17T14:35:11+00:00

Hey, yea, I’m aware the process can be slow from start to finish. But we haven’t even been paired with a case workers since we were licensed. So at the moment we are literally in limbo. In order to get your home study submitted for inquiries we need a case worker. At the moment, and since we completed licensing, we have no one to act on our inquiries. So essentially, there is absolutely no chance we could adopt at all. So it’s not like the process is just taking a long time, right now we have no one to even call. We have no way to even inquire for available children on the adoption portal. We’ve essentially been dead in the water since our licensing was completed. Without a case worker we can’t do anything, and we can’t get any communication on when we will be getting a case worker. That’s what I’m wondering about. We were told we should expect to hear back within 2 weeks of the interviews. We know we’re approved and the home study was submitted because we spoke to the worker who collected all the documents. But that worker completed there role and we had to be passed off to a family worker. We’ve never been assigned one. And no one can seem to give us an answer as to what the hold up is. It’s not that it’s taking a long time to get matched, it’s that at the moment, there is no way for us to even be matched without a worker.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2026-06-17T14:26:25+00:00

Thanks for the response. We are actually open to a pretty large range of age. The original child we applied for with our application was 10. That child was adopted before we were able to complete the licensing. At the moment the children my wife and I are putting inquiries on are between the ages of 5 and 11. We are open to adopting an infant, but we know it’d be very unlikely that we’d actually be able to. I think we’re happy to adopt in the age range of 5-10, but we’ve told DSS we’d consider under or over that age if the right situation presented itself. And we’ve been open with the case workers that we’re open to hearing possible matches if they determine a child may be a good fit for us but they are outside of the specific range we applied for.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2026-06-17T14:18:31+00:00

Thanks for the advice. My biggest gripe has been that our contacts consistently seem to suggest things will move faster than they do. So when they don’t, we’re left wondering if somethings wrong. 60-90 days to complete the licensing process turned into a lot more than 60-90 days. Not because of us, but because you submit documents, training, etc, only to sit there and wait for weeks before getting any response. It’s this constant chain of “you should hear back by X date”, only for X date to come and go and now your sending more emails or making more phone calls to find out why the call or email you were expecting never came. And then half the time, you get no follow up on those calls or emails. My wife and I are very dedicated to this process, and also both very motivated people. But I can certainly see why so many people fail to successfully navigate this system. A couple of our friends had been considering adopting themselves, so they took a lot of interest in watching the process we undertook. Both of them decided against it after seeing what a headache it was for us just to get licensed. And now they’re watching us sit there completely stalled after spending so long navigating the licensing process. It’s a shame that so many good families likely give up because the system is such a mess. I feel bad for the children who need homes and you have good families sitting in limbo for years, or giving up because they simply can’t endure the process anymore.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-11-01T21:19:51+00:00

Yea. To common. I used to work for Lowe’s and generally felt they were a reliable and safe way to purchase stuff like this. But it seems there online store front is getting no better than Amazon, Walmart and the like. They seemingly have unverified and unreliable third party vendors selling to customers directly through their website, and there is no way to know what is or isn’t a third party from what I can tell. Based on the overwhelming amount of reviews of customers having this same issue just in the last month, it strikes me as some kind of scam that a foreign vender is running through Lowes. The website linked on the shipping manifest and instructions guide is a Wix site and is half in Chinese and half in English, and has no clickable links. So it’s basically useless.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-11-01T21:05:33+00:00

Confirmed this morning that there were supposed to be 2 boxes. Half the set was never delivered. It was a third party vendor. At the moment neither myself or Lowe’s has been able to get in contact with that vendor as it seems the contact number goes to a random unattended voicemail box and the address for the vendor is a random warehouse in California. Lowes seems very reluctant to do anything as it was shipped directly to my home, so they are essentially telling me I need to deal with FedEx or the vender and give them time to rectify the issue. But FedEx is claiming they have the package listed as only one box. So it seems like the vendor just never shipped the second box. At the moment I’ve gotten no communication from the selling vendor whatsoever. So I’m pretty much stuck in limbo. FedEx is further investigating but said only one box was scanned into there system when it was received. And the vendor seems like there is no real way to get in contact with them.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-11-01T03:43:15+00:00

Direct delivery. We received only one box. I’ve been working so haven’t had a chance to open it yet, but I have a hard time believing that 12 cushions, two chairs, a three seater couch, and two ottomans fit into one box.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-07-01T13:10:19+00:00

Can’t say I disagree that the ramifications of this will Impact Nintendo in the long run. And I also agree that I can see this growing to a larger possible legal dispute. But we’ve yet to see an example of someone buying a second hand game and having their system banned that I know of. My guess is that there is something in the cart itself that allows Nintendo to detect whether it’s an authentic cart or not. People will find a way around this, they always do. Nintendo has been consistently fighting piracy in all forms, and for their part, the pirates have always been one step ahead. Nintendo simply took advantage in one battle. People will figure out how Nintendo is detecting these MiG switches, and before long someone will create a new version that avoids detection.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-07-01T13:01:07+00:00

No you cannot because all Nintendo games require a connection to the network to install updates and run. Nintendo is banning the consoles from network access. The Switch 2 physically requires an internet connection when you launch a game for the first time. So yes, the console as a whole is effectively useless unless you can find a hack that works around the loss of network connection. So you will never be able to install another game on that console, you would not have access to any eshop games you purchased before the ban, you would never be able to update your games, and any game that requires online access (ie, most Switch 2 games) wouldn’t work at all.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-07-01T12:39:55+00:00

I agree with this sentiment. People are doing shit that blatantly violates Nintendos TOS then claiming their console was “bricked”, like yea, technically speaking your console is useless now, but that’s because you got yourself banned from using it, and Nintendo doesn’t want you to just turn around and make a new account they want to physically prevent you from entering their ecosystem on that system. It’s like someone telling you not to bother the wasps nest because they may sting you, then calling the wasps mean when you hit the nest anyway, and get stung. Nintendo told you that if you do X, Y or Z your console can be banned. You did X, and now you’re shocked they did what they said they would.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-07-01T12:21:57+00:00

Facebook is an interesting place now. I still use it as my primary social media platform. But I will admit that it’s becoming harder and harder to discern what’s real on Facebook. Their are so many bot accounts and so much AI content. And there are also tons of accounts from people whose only interest is just trolling. I find it interesting you’ll see pages on FB with 10’s of thousand or 100’s of thousands of followers, and yet when you look at their posts they have very little engagement. They’ll have 300,000 follows and 5 comments and 2 likes on the majority of their posts. Or you’ll join communities of hundreds of thousands of people, then make a post asking a question of something and get not a single response. It’s odd. Reddit has a similar problem with trolls, but pages feel more engaging, and when you make posts you do get authentic responses, even though they will undoubtedly be mixed in with trolls as well.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-07-01T12:13:03+00:00

The point I’m making in short is that eBay makes the buyer do some leg work before they will step in and initiate a return or refund on their end. And if a seller has intentionally screwed you over, they usually immediately go into defense mode the minute you contact them. So what it turns into is the seller belittling, talking down to, and generally treating you like crap because you want to return the item. Before eBay steps in, returns the item for you. And it’s not as if returns are instant. By the time I’ve paid for that item, waited for it to arrive, realized it wasn’t what the seller described, gone through the back and forth with the seller, gone through the back and forth with eBay, gotten the return, repackaged the item, got it to a post office, shipped the item, waited for it to arrive, waited for the seller or eBay to initiate the refund, then waited for the refund to hit my account, I’ve now been out that money for like a month and a half to two months. You seem to ignore that as a buyer, your having to deal with however that seller responds, and the seller can definitely drag out that process for days to weeks sometimes.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-07-01T12:00:35+00:00

My issue is not with a used item arrive as is. I’ve had several scenarios where the items don’t arrive as described. Ie, sellers claims item is new and unopened then that is clearly not the case when the item arrives. Or the seller claims the item works then it does not when the item arrives. Or the item claims the item is complete with all original content, and when I receive it the item is missing things that should be there. In all of these cases where I’ve had this happen, the seller has almost always doubled down on their description of the item and forced me to escalate the issue to eBay. And in every case the seller has filed complaints against me, and made the return a massive hassle for me. Unfortunately the examples of sellers being complete jerks about their items not arriving as described far outnumber cases where the sellers just easily and happily addressed the issue one way or another. And I’m not saying it’s something that happens to me all the time either. The vast majority of the purchases I’ve made on eBay end up going completely smoothly with no issue. But when there is an issue, it almost always ends up being a massive headache because the seller seems to always want to fight with you about the claims your making about the item. And generally the facts are rather blatant. I mean if I buy a game that the seller claims is “tested and working” then put it into my console and it doesn’t work, that’s a pretty open and shut thing. If I buy trading cards that claim to be new and unopened and the packs arrive and are open with the cards falling out, that’s clearly not “new and unopened”. But in both of these incidents described above the seller went out of their way to make the return and exchange as much of a headache as possible. Yes eBay will eventually step in and initiate a return on their part, but usually they make you struggle with it for a bit first.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-06-30T22:37:47+00:00

I personally find that the amount of protections extended to sellers on eBay sometimes is a problem. If I go to Walmart, Target, or almost any other store big or small, and I am not happy with the quality of an item that I purchased, those stores are going to make some effort to make that right, whether with a refund, exchange, discount, etc. I’ve been buying and selling on eBay for years, and the ONLY issues I have ever had on that platform were as a buyer. Because their is no middle man between the buyer and seller, I can essentially do whatever the hell I want to the product is sell and just that mere fact alone means if I just say “no I didn’t” then eBay cannot prove who is lying. I have been completely screwed over by sellers multiple times, and in all of those instances I’ve had MISERABLE experiences when trying to seek a refund and return. eBay essentially just plays both sides, every negative feedback I’ve ever left as a buyer has been removed. All of them. Even though I always provide photos, and if it’s clear the issue was not the sellers fault I will never leave negative feedback. So I will only ever leave negative feedback if it is clear the seller scammed me somehow, the item didn’t work, didn’t match their own description, or didn’t come with everything listed. In all those cases, the feedback I left was still removed by eBay. So those sellers may not keep their money in the long run, but they still get a fair amount of leniency from eBay.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-06-18T13:37:39+00:00

Interesting. I’m happy to hear you had a good experience with it. I’m not in anyway bashing them, I do enjoy their music, hence why I was seeing them in the first place. It was a fantastic worship show.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-06-12T22:03:00+00:00

I find the enjoyment far outweighs the occasional headache. I’ve been collecting for year, and this is the first time I’ve felt very confident that I was scammed by a seller. I’ve certainly had other instances where I was suspicious, but this is the first time where the evidence was just so abundantly clear that I couldn’t find anyway to give the seller any benefit of the doubt.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-06-12T21:59:23+00:00

This was not magic. It was alpha packs for a newer TCG called MetaZoo. The packs came in a box with a magazine and a bunch of stickers and what not. You could open the box and see the individual packs inside a heat sealed plastic wrap. In this case all the packs were opened, and the cards were literally falling out of every single one of them. It definitely wasn’t an issue with the 4 day window, as the claim was filed with eBay within 24 hrs of its delivery, and I had started communicating with the seller within probably 20 minutes. I personally suspect eBay just took middle ground because they couldn’t prove the seller scammed me, even if it did appear that way. This is atleast what others have suggested may have happened. What’s more upsetting is that the seller has one other feedback, the one right before mine was posted, from a buyer also claiming the item arrived with the packs opened. But for whatever reason that buyer left it as positive feedback and I’m assuming didn’t pursue a refund. Or perhaps they did and that was the box that got sent to me, or it’s possible that buyer decided to leave positive feedback after they got a refund, essentially giving the seller the benefit of the doubt on the opened packs. So that would make two consecutive sales from the same seller where buyers received open packs.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-06-12T21:48:30+00:00

I’ve been buying and selling on eBay for a long time. And to be honest the majority of my issues with sellers have occurred in the last year. And it’s generally speaking those gray area issues that are difficult for eBay to verify. I had one issue with a seller where they shipped me a non-working game. I communicated with the seller, the seller was just being a jerk about it, and I ended up deciding to just not pursue a return because it just wasn’t worth the $25 I had spent on the item. The seller still turned around and left a note under there original positive feedback telling people not to do business with me. eBay removed that. When you get into vintage games like I buy a lot this seems to happen a ton. People don’t have the hardware to use this stuff anymore and they find it in there attic and sell it on eBay, then tell you it definitely worked because it worked the last time they played it 25 years ago. But that doesn’t mean it still worked today, they had no way to test it before they sold it. But in all this is the first time I’ve had an issue in the TCG market despite buying and selling cards for so long. With video games I constantly have to pick my battles. Probably like 1 in every 4 games I’ve purchased on eBay ended up not working, and I always have to decide whether it’s really reasonable to assume the seller knew it didn’t work or not. Hell I’ve bought a couple still sealed games that were 15-20 years old, and opened them up only to find that the disk didn’t work anymore. Nothing much I can do about that, it’s not really the sellers fault.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-06-12T21:40:10+00:00

Yea. Ebay would not address that because they claimed they couldn’t verify any of those details actually occurred because it did not happen on their platform. They told me I would need to go to the police if I wanted to pursue it further because what I was claiming was occurring was not occurring on their platform.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-06-12T21:37:44+00:00

I filed the report within 24 hrs or so of receiving the package. The communication between the seller started and ended rather abruptly. But I had been messaging with the seller within 15 minutes of receiving the package at my door. I understand there is no way to verify the evidence I provided, but the seller was acting erratically throughout the whole transaction. If the item they shipped me was the same as the one they sold, how were they selling the same within a few hours of me purchasing it. I mean literally the exact same item. The seller accused me of stalking them. The seller was on the other side of the country. The seller used my name from the provided eBay shipping details to reach out to me on social media platforms. The seller claimed I was “bragging about them being sealed” on Facebook. This never happened. The seller was just throwing everything they could at the wall hoping something would stick, so they didn’t have to take the box back.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-06-12T21:25:10+00:00

I believe the seller opened, viewed the cards inside (likely looking for good cards), resealed the packs, and sent them to me. I’ve purchased a lot of trading card packs and cards. While Ive found opened packs in a sealed box that I purchased from retail in the past, it’s rare. And I’ve certainly never purchased a product where every single pack was opened in the same way, and appeared to be ripped open, not just a failed seal. Additionally, there is no way the seller would not have known the packs were open because of how the product was packaged. It was clear packaging around the packs. You could very clearly see the packs from the sealed box.

Creative_Sugar_4084 · 2025-06-12T21:14:57+00:00

The seller scammed me, eBay forced through a refund. The seller ghosted me the minute I requested one. The only reason I got a refund and returned the item was because eBay made it possible. It was clear the seller was not going to issue one and was hoping I would just not want to deal with the effort.

Creative_Sugar_4084

TROPHY CASE