So bright, it’s illegal!
September 30, 2015 7:00 AM Subscribe
This brand has everything: fake deaths, Nazi costumes, legal threats against 13 year-old girls, hacker attacks, class action lawsuits, FDA warnings, credit card fraud, cold sores, and questionably named eyeshadow palettes called "China Doll." Why Lime Crime Is the Most Hated Beauty Company on the Internet
Best quote from the article:
After publishing a review critical of Lime Crime, the blogger known as Grey from Le Gothique was sent a letter threatening legal action for libel and slander if she did not delete her review and replace it with an apology, provided verbatim by Lime Crime itself.
Here’s where it gets tricky, though. That letter is difficult to verify because that blogger, Grey, faked her death and was subsequently doxed from the internet once before — by the online knitting community. There is, I have found, a dramatic community for everything.
That's just ... comedy gold!
posted by math at 7:16 AM on September 30, 2015 [11 favorites]
After publishing a review critical of Lime Crime, the blogger known as Grey from Le Gothique was sent a letter threatening legal action for libel and slander if she did not delete her review and replace it with an apology, provided verbatim by Lime Crime itself.
Here’s where it gets tricky, though. That letter is difficult to verify because that blogger, Grey, faked her death and was subsequently doxed from the internet once before — by the online knitting community. There is, I have found, a dramatic community for everything.
That's just ... comedy gold!
posted by math at 7:16 AM on September 30, 2015 [11 favorites]
Oh, you don't even KNOW, math. Faked deaths are just the start in the knitting community.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:24 AM on September 30, 2015 [31 favorites]
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:24 AM on September 30, 2015 [31 favorites]
Oh, you don't even KNOW, math. Faked deaths are just the start in the knitting community.
posted by bitter-girl.com
Eponysterical! I bet you've got some stories to tell!
posted by math at 7:25 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by bitter-girl.com
Eponysterical! I bet you've got some stories to tell!
posted by math at 7:25 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Judging from the introduction, I expected something about some deep web site that sold every service you needed to fuck someone's lives up.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
posted by lmfsilva at 7:26 AM on September 30, 2015
Truth is stranger than fiction.
posted by lmfsilva at 7:26 AM on September 30, 2015
In the article, there's a mention of a bigger crime. Someone had $7000 stolen out of their checking account via fraudulent debit card transactions after Lime Crime's customer account details were stolen, and their bank wouldn't reverse any of it! Even stuff that was obviously fraudulent (out of the country). Just a reminder that, however bad someone is, there's a banker somewhere that is almost certainly worse.
posted by Mitrovarr at 7:35 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Mitrovarr at 7:35 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
A month into Lime Crime’s launch, Deere blogged a photo of her dressed as Hitler for Halloween. The image has since been removed from the blog post, but the cached photo is viewable and continues to float around. A few years later, she removed comments from her blog in what some former customers have described as censorship. But you can still viewed the cached comments on the post. Most are actually incredibly supportive and compliment her commitment to the Hitler aesthetic.
Well, if you're going to be Hitler, make sure you're committed to the Hitler aesthetic.
posted by xingcat at 7:42 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
Well, if you're going to be Hitler, make sure you're committed to the Hitler aesthetic.
posted by xingcat at 7:42 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
Make no mistake, the online knitting community is serious business. These are not little old biddies politely sipping tea, but a vast and sometimes terrifying range of personalities and backgrounds. Consider yourselves warned.
posted by Diagonalize at 8:24 AM on September 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Diagonalize at 8:24 AM on September 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
a vast and sometimes terrifying range of personalities and backgrounds. Consider yourselves warned.
QFT. The closest I've ever gotten to a sociopath was through this community.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:57 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
QFT. The closest I've ever gotten to a sociopath was through this community.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:57 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
And they have needles.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:07 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:07 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
This post should be brought out every time someone comments in an EVE post about how down-the-rabbit-hole things can get.
posted by k5.user at 9:11 AM on September 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by k5.user at 9:11 AM on September 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
Aw, man, journalfen is down or I'd link to the "God's magical pubic hairs" knitting wank.
Anyway. I was really surprised when Lime Crime popped up on Sephora's site for, like, a week. Someone didn't do their due diligence.
posted by rewil at 9:12 AM on September 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Anyway. I was really surprised when Lime Crime popped up on Sephora's site for, like, a week. Someone didn't do their due diligence.
posted by rewil at 9:12 AM on September 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Make no mistake, the online knitting community is serious business. These are not little old biddies politely sipping tea, but a vast and sometimes terrifying range of personalities and backgrounds. Consider yourselves warned.
As with any subculture, the details of the activity is a McGuffin when it comes to drama and jockeying for ego-territory. The fact that it's about knitting rather than, say, open-source software or punk rock or something is about as relevant as the doctrine of the transubstantiation is to the Northern Irish troubles.
posted by acb at 9:48 AM on September 30, 2015 [12 favorites]
As with any subculture, the details of the activity is a McGuffin when it comes to drama and jockeying for ego-territory. The fact that it's about knitting rather than, say, open-source software or punk rock or something is about as relevant as the doctrine of the transubstantiation is to the Northern Irish troubles.
posted by acb at 9:48 AM on September 30, 2015 [12 favorites]
Make no mistake, the online knitting community is serious business. These are not little old biddies politely sipping tea, but a vast and sometimes terrifying range of personalities and backgrounds. Consider yourselves warned.
They have to be referencing ravelry.com - I was in a Warcraft guild who's forums were based on that site.
posted by synthetik at 9:58 AM on September 30, 2015
They have to be referencing ravelry.com - I was in a Warcraft guild who's forums were based on that site.
posted by synthetik at 9:58 AM on September 30, 2015
Aw, man, journalfen is down or I'd link to the "God's magical pubic hairs" knitting wank.
The Wayback machine's got it, though. Good thing, too, since that sounds like a quality wank.
posted by sciatrix at 10:08 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
The Wayback machine's got it, though. Good thing, too, since that sounds like a quality wank.
posted by sciatrix at 10:08 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
The makeup world, especially the beauty Youtube world, is totally bonkers.
posted by SassHat at 10:10 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by SassHat at 10:10 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
I got the impression the faked death by Grey pre-dated Ravelry. There used to be some very active knitting communities on Livejournal as well as other place my memory can't put a name on.
For some reason, I've read a lot about Lime Crime in the past (fandom wank?) and this article seemed short on actual details of Lime Crime's drama, other than repackaging.
Also, what exactly is a "favorite deep-Internet fashion retailer" because Urban Outfitters doesn't really seem to fit the concept well.
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:59 AM on September 30, 2015
For some reason, I've read a lot about Lime Crime in the past (fandom wank?) and this article seemed short on actual details of Lime Crime's drama, other than repackaging.
Also, what exactly is a "favorite deep-Internet fashion retailer" because Urban Outfitters doesn't really seem to fit the concept well.
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:59 AM on September 30, 2015
Oh, you don't even KNOW, math. Faked deaths are just the start in the knitting community.
This sounds like a fantastic FPP waiting to happen.
posted by Itaxpica at 11:58 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
This sounds like a fantastic FPP waiting to happen.
posted by Itaxpica at 11:58 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
The makeup world, especially the beauty Youtube world, is totally bonkers.
Ohhh yes, especially the indie makeup world. One person will making and selling their own cosmetics online, because they love makeup and they love creating and it seems like such a neat way to make a little money doing what you love. If you have a small customer base, you can do this for a while with no problem, but every so often an indie label picks up buzz in the online makeup community and explodes into cult status seemingly overnight. It's more than most one-person businesses can handle, and it's easy to get overwhelmed. Orders get delayed, emails go unanswered, batches of substandard product get shipped because there's no time for quality control (or no quality control in place), customers get angry. And the person behind the label might crack from all the pressure and disappear, or lash out at the people badmouthing them online, or, yeah, fake their death. The same thing happens with indie yarn dyers. I'm sure it happens with other hobbies/fandoms/communities that have both a large online presence and an interest in indie-made products.
The latest shit to hit the makeup world is the Mentality nail polish debacle. Mentality was a well-loved indie polish brand, until this summer when people started noticing that the polish was severely damaging their nails. A fuckup of that magnitude would easily do any small business in, no matter how carefully they handled it, but the owner of Mentality reacted with Amy's Baking Company levels of defensiveness and ridiculousness. I considered making an FPP about it, but it seemed too rubbernecky to call even more attention to it.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:17 PM on September 30, 2015 [9 favorites]
Ohhh yes, especially the indie makeup world. One person will making and selling their own cosmetics online, because they love makeup and they love creating and it seems like such a neat way to make a little money doing what you love. If you have a small customer base, you can do this for a while with no problem, but every so often an indie label picks up buzz in the online makeup community and explodes into cult status seemingly overnight. It's more than most one-person businesses can handle, and it's easy to get overwhelmed. Orders get delayed, emails go unanswered, batches of substandard product get shipped because there's no time for quality control (or no quality control in place), customers get angry. And the person behind the label might crack from all the pressure and disappear, or lash out at the people badmouthing them online, or, yeah, fake their death. The same thing happens with indie yarn dyers. I'm sure it happens with other hobbies/fandoms/communities that have both a large online presence and an interest in indie-made products.
The latest shit to hit the makeup world is the Mentality nail polish debacle. Mentality was a well-loved indie polish brand, until this summer when people started noticing that the polish was severely damaging their nails. A fuckup of that magnitude would easily do any small business in, no matter how carefully they handled it, but the owner of Mentality reacted with Amy's Baking Company levels of defensiveness and ridiculousness. I considered making an FPP about it, but it seemed too rubbernecky to call even more attention to it.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:17 PM on September 30, 2015 [9 favorites]
That’s when money started disappearing. Their website had been hacked by people exploiting their SSL certificate (which allows a secure connection from a web server to a browser — as long as it isn't compromised), and customer information was used for months to make purchases elsewhere
Just FYI, this makes very little sense. SSL protects the data you send to a website while it is in flight. It is there to avoid Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attacks by someone at, say, your ISP or WiFi provider. It doesn't protect against the server itself storing credit card details. This sounds much more like someone has found a way into the database itself.
This is a bit weird though:
So I went into my transactions and right off the bat, from the morning I bought that lipstick, I noticed seven or eight transactions that weren’t mine.
Seems odd to have such a rapid response, but on the other hand perhaps this person just got unlucky and used the site just before the details were stolen ...
PS: These days, credit card transactions are almost always handled by a third party payment processing gateway that absolves your company of the responsibility of storing or in fact ever seeing credit card details. These gateways can afford the high costs of maintaining PCI DSS audit compliance. The obvious poster children are Paypal and Stripe, but there are worthy competitors out there.
posted by nickzoic at 3:08 PM on September 30, 2015
Just FYI, this makes very little sense. SSL protects the data you send to a website while it is in flight. It is there to avoid Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attacks by someone at, say, your ISP or WiFi provider. It doesn't protect against the server itself storing credit card details. This sounds much more like someone has found a way into the database itself.
This is a bit weird though:
So I went into my transactions and right off the bat, from the morning I bought that lipstick, I noticed seven or eight transactions that weren’t mine.
Seems odd to have such a rapid response, but on the other hand perhaps this person just got unlucky and used the site just before the details were stolen ...
PS: These days, credit card transactions are almost always handled by a third party payment processing gateway that absolves your company of the responsibility of storing or in fact ever seeing credit card details. These gateways can afford the high costs of maintaining PCI DSS audit compliance. The obvious poster children are Paypal and Stripe, but there are worthy competitors out there.
posted by nickzoic at 3:08 PM on September 30, 2015
The knitting community is indeed a vicious place - although they tend to keep the drama to a few places on Ravelry which are easily avoided. I was greatly entertained a few years ago by the saga of a magazine publisher which kept going bust and then restarting new craft publications. I know of the Rubberneckers' forum on Ravelry as well, but not sure where else it hangs out. Am I right in thinking the faked deaths thing is usually a way for people to get out of posting out yarn subscription packages and the like? There is a craft section on GOMI, but they mostly talk about how the most feted bloggers have the worst techniques, and people with poor drafting skills trying to make money from flogging their patterns - there's not a lot of knit talk there.
The most vicious internet community I've come across, though, were the livejournal groups for girls who dressed in the Japanese lolita style. Given how the whole aesthetic was cute and demure, they were some nasty young ladies.
posted by mippy at 8:28 AM on October 1, 2015
The most vicious internet community I've come across, though, were the livejournal groups for girls who dressed in the Japanese lolita style. Given how the whole aesthetic was cute and demure, they were some nasty young ladies.
posted by mippy at 8:28 AM on October 1, 2015
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