This is interesting….

This is something that came extremely fast today and is certainly, in some senses, not a surprise and in some respect, I feel that I owe the tea community something of an apology.

We, at Tea Trade, hosted the Magic Carpet store. I personally assisted them in getting their operation going. We have a number of excellent sellers (many of whom you know here on Steepster), who provide great products and service to their customers. However, the principal person behind Magic Carpet was a known quantity. There were members of our community that were publicly attacked and I had more than one tense conversation with the owner of the company about his manner. We originally hosted two sites (a blog site and the store) for them, but after an incident in the early fall (the second incident this year) we deleted the blog site and I deleted the user account from our system and told him he was no longer welcome on Tea Trade.

The owner and I negotiated a deal, however (though I was told it was primarily going to be Mrs. Magic Carpet, with whom I had very little contact with) to host their sales site. We did so warily but vowed to monitor their activities, knowing full well what Mr Magic Carpet was capable of. Our thinking was that since they (more he) was now in the tea business, there was an ethical burden to behave under pressures of running a good business.

There was a rather public, and shocking, incident that occurred on Twitter about 2 weeks ago that caused us to think again about continued support for their business. That incident came and went and evidence of it has been deleted. And we’ve had no chatter with them on Tea Trade recently, with them only logging in to check orders. From our previous arrangement, they were forbidden to use any of the social features of Tea Trade.

Anyhow, this thread was brought to our attention and, quite frankly, I’m not surprised. I am aware, having watched them for the last 6 months, of what is possible and of the causes for it. I am not at liberty to talk about them, because those are private to the people involved, but they do not excuse inappropriate behavior.

For myself, and my wife Jackie, with whom I operate Tea Trade, I am sorry that the community was subjected to this. I do feel some burden of responsibility for this because we enabled them to operate their business and I am saddened that he was not able to keep himself in check after the chances and help we gave him.

I have personally seen the types of insults that he is known to send at people, some of it has been actually disgusting. I am disappointed that the community even had to put with it and I am deeply sorry to any of you who may have been insulted or offended by him.

Pete Davenport
Tea Trade

nomadinjeopardy Send Message

Rated 368 Teas

Profile

Following These People

Moderator Tools