Strange ending to a giveaway win.....

A couple of weeks back, you may recall I posted on my sidebar about a giveaway by a blogger named Alice. She was offering 3 prizes. I won one of them....another blogging friend, (Tango), won another. I don't know the third winner. Anyway......my prize, which is a nice one...book and fat quarters...... arrived early last week (pictured here) BUT I had to pay $5.85 in postage due. I was a bit shocked!!! Tango contacted me and....lo and behold....SHE had to pay $5.85 postage due, also. I emailed Alice and informed her that I thought her post office had made quite a mistake. My prizes are worth more than $5.85, to be sure, but I'd not heard of any blogger doing a giveaway and having the winner pay "postage due". I wanted her to know her post office made this mistake. Well....I discovered on the box that she uses Click and Ship, which means she does the postage herself at home. So...the mistake would seem to be hers. Now...I know people make mistakes (and I certainly have made my share...and will make more). But...what I find odd is that Alice has never replied yet to my email (and my post on her blog about this) nor to Tango's email....yet she has posted on her blog since we contacted her, so it would seem she has been online. I would think the polite and correct thing to do would be to at least answer our emails and apologize for the mistake.....but it seems we are being ignored, and I don't think that is right....do you? See....I told you this was a strange ending to a giveaway! (And if any of you have, unexpectedly, been charged "postage due" for a giveaway you won, please share your story with me here!!! If there was a prior agreement for the winner to pay postage, that is one thing, but not for it to happen unexpectedly like this!) Okay....rant over!!!
EDITED to ADD: There was just an anonymous post put here (gotta love how people won't identify themselves when they are talking trash). I have deleted it, of course. If you aren't brave enough to identify yourself, then you don't deserve to have your comment posted! That person tried to suggest maybe it was a SPAMMER collecting the postage from me. DUH......I paid it to the mail carrier who came to my house with the package in a USPS truck...the same mail carrier we have had here for years hardly a spammer!!!

Am I the only one.......?????

Okay...I understand a few more things about Blogger that were foreign to me when I first began reading blogs (and when I started my own). For one thing, I understand that when I'm working on my blog by changing something around or writing / editing a post, YOU will get an error message if you try to read my blog at that particular moment and won't get to my blog until I'm finished with what I'm doing. I further understand the need for word verification (although I don't think I have that enabled on my blog...do I????) We do want to make sure it's a "real" person commenting on our posts....and word verification is the only way to do that. BUT......why, sometimes, are the letters in those little word verification boxes all squished together.....so squished, in fact, that a REAL person can hardly decipher them and sometimes "fails" and has to get another word to verify. (Thank goodness, the second set of letters I get always seems NOT to be squished together and seems easier to copy!) Other types of blogs have them on a background that looks like I'm reading them through 6 layers of window screen and makes them hard to see sometimes. Does anyone else have this happen? I mean...WHY do the letters have to be all tilted and squished together?? Why must they often be on a silly background that makes them hard to read??? Is it not adequate to just string together a bunch of letters CLEARLY and have us copy it???? Okay....rant over....was just wondering if I'm the only one who has these same thoughts? Sorry no picture today, but I couldn't figure out how to copy and paste one of the word verification boxes here.....and that was about the only thing that would be suitable for this post!!! LOL

Gee....how interesting.....maybe I'm RICH

I'm thinking many of you have this same situation. I guess I could call this one of my pet peeves....something that really "bugs" me. I have my emails sorted into separate folders.... ones from folks I know and another folder called "Junk" email. I do check my junk folder each day because sometimes there are new people who visit my blog and their emails land there....until I get to know them and approve them for my regular email folder. I also find in that junk mail folder many MANY emails that say things like this: Dear Email owner, Your email has won a total Cash Prize Of Six Hundred Thousand pounds sterling and a consolation prize of Dell pentium M laptop, T-shirt and face cap. Contact our claims office on;
Email: richardmatlock6@hotmail.co.uk
Claims officer: Richard Matlock
with your winning numbers above to process your winnings. Regards, Mrs Kate Gerard
Guess this means I might be rich (but since I never claim these prizes and have no intention of doing it and I quickly assign these emails to the "delete" folder, I am not seeing any upward swing in my bank account.)
THEN........I also have many MANY emails asking me for kind assistance as the writer claims to be in a desperate situation and in need of my oodles of money (that I guess the previous email writer told them I have from my big prize winnings)!!!
Geesh....I love the internet and it has been a wonderful resource, but I get so tired of these types of emails and I truly hope there is nobody who falls for this type of nonsense. How about you?