Remember my lamps? These lamps? I’m not surprised if you don’t—I mentioned them over a month ago, when I thought the chaos was over and the refunds were coming. But they didn’t come, at least not right away. However, last week, I finally got the fiscal end of things straightened out.

It was a long process—about 8 weeks long, which is way too long, in my opinion, for something like this to drag out. Too long to keep track of phone calls, emails, people I’ve dealt with. Too long to try to remember what happened last and who I should email. Too long to keep staring at the ugly lamps in my living room thinking about how things could be different.

But I did it. I followed through. I kept my lists and my order number and knew which email was sent last. I pursued them through an unfair settlement and finally got things in order. And that’s what I have to say to all of you who are looking for some sort of settlement on the consumer level: stick with it.

Nope, it’s not fair. Nope, you shouldn’t have to. But sometimes you do have to in order to get your money back. Sure, you have to decide how much it’s worth to you, but think about it this way: Big Online Retailer A has 100 people every month who have mistakes made against them, for an average of $50 per mistake. If even half of these people choose not to pursue Big Online Retailer A, that retailer makes $2500 dollars. Now, that’s not so much money. But it’s quite a lot to make for making mistakes.

Now me, I don’t think that’s fair either. I don’t know how this works out for most companies (and I know I’ve heard that some stores lose a lot each month in thefts), but I don’t want anyone making money off of me like this. So I pursue retailers when mistakes are made, and I encourage you to do the same.

You’d be surprised how often you get what’s yours.