The Cast of This Annoying Drama

So here are the people I've dealt with at Paymaster.  There are only three.

1) Robert Koper.  This is the President of Paymaster... and it's kind of a stretch to say I've dealt with him.  I've emailed and phoned him, but he's never gotten back to me.  I've left messages for him with others.  I've been told point blank that he'd be calling me.  It's a good thing I didn't hold my breath, because that was six months ago.

Anyways, apparently this is the only person who can make the official decision to return our money.  Why has he not made that decision?  Lord knows.  Why hasn't he responded to my communications, or called when I was told to expect his call?  Lord knows.  The most generous interpretation I can put on it is, he's completely out of money... and doesn't have the courtesy to tell me that, so instead they've just chosen to leave us hanging for months on end.

2) Patricia Olson.  She's the one we dealt with when ordering the machines, and she remained our contact for several months after that.  After originally telling us in writing we'd have the machines in 4 to 6 weeks, she spent a long time saying they were having trouble getting some parts for the machines, and didn't know when they'd be able to ship our machines to us.  At some point she stopped communicating with us entirely.

I spoke with her again once in the fall.  She just said I'd need to talk to Mr. Koper and refused to say anything more to me about it.

3) Kathy Vlasak.  Kathy is the person who normally answers the phone when I call their offices.  She's nice.  She's apologized and said she doesn't feel good about the situation, that she's worked there a long time and this isn't normal.

If I just wanted to talk to someone nice, she'd be great.  But I want more than that.  I want the money back.  I'm not aware that talking to her has gotten a single thing accomplished, except for early on when she wrote that they'd have to return our money.  I am grateful to have that in writing.  If and when this goes to court, that email will be an important part of the record.

But otherwise, I feel badly about the time I've spent phoning or emailing with her.  She's not always responded to calls or emails.  She's sometimes promised to get back to me and then hasn't done it.  (What it is with this company and leaving people hanging?)  She's said they were "making arrangements" to return our money.  She's said again and again that she'd  have to ask Mr. Koper, or I'd  have to talk to Mr. Koper, or  Mr. Koper is the only one who can make this kind of decision.  I don't expect she intended to string me along for so many months as she did.  But even if her intentions were pure, at the end of the day it amounted to the same thing.