If you’re a regular sex blog reader or writer, you’re probably aware of EdenFantasys.com (Eden Fantasys). They’re one of the many companies competing for your internet sex toy dollar, and they are more prominent than many because they spread a fair amount of money (and sex toys) around the blogging community in exchange for reviews and attention. They never impressed me much — despite advertising briefly on ErosBlog — because their store front and inventory always seemed hopelessly “more of the same” to me, with nothing to distinguish the brand. But, probably, that’s just me.

One of the smart things they did was to hire AAG (formerly “Always Aroused Girl”), whose sex blogger credentials and contacts were (and are) very good, to do PR and outreach for them. And she did it well.

The not smart thing? When their business relationship with her went sour, they refused, she says, to pay her for work performed. Apparently they forgot the first rule of business, which is that your PR professional remains a PR professional even after she stops being your PR professional.

My own many years of doing business over the internet have taught me something that serious businessmen already knew — namely, that business is all about trust, and especially about character. I’ve quoted J.P. Morgan before: “A man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom.” Thus, in my opinion, a person, or a company, that fails to resolve its business disputes on the labor side, is also the sort of outfit that can’t be trusted to fairly resolve its disputes on the customer side. Whatever the details of AAG’s dispute with EdenFantasys.com, I know her well enough to know that she’s not unreasonable. If they failed to resolve their dispute with her, I personally don’t trust them to resolve their dispute with you, if you should be unhappy with your results after playing the big internet gambling game that is forking over your credit card and ordering merchandise from Hera-only-knows-where.

Hence, this warning.

There are plenty of sex toy stores on the internet. You don’t need to take a risk on an outfit that treats its contract employees unfairly.

One final note: Eden Fantasys is currently sending out spammy form letters to sex bloggers, seeking to arrange link exchanges, toy reviews, and the like. If you get (or have gotten) any of these, you might consider responding with a suggestion that they resolve their dispute with AAG. I’m sure she would appreciate the support.