Socks That Rock

I know I don't usually say much about knitting on this blog (that's what my other blog is for, but this is really incredible. For the Muggles (you know, non-knitters) out there, you may not completely understand this, but Knitters are a powerful, powerful force in the Universe. Recently, a sock yarn company had its bank SHUT THEM DOWN because they had a Sock-of-the-Month subscription service and so many people signed up, the bank assumed it was a scam, that there was no way that many people could be interested in knitting socks, and they refused to listen to the owners and refunded all the money. I'm only an occasional sock knitter, so I don't subscribe to this, but holy crap was that a stupid move on the bank's part. They totally underestimated the power of Knitters. It's all OVER the knitblogverse now, and I figured even Muggles would find this interesting. Read all about it chez Harlot, or pretty much anywhere else in knit-blog-land.

*Edited to add: A Google search for "Socks that Rock," the official name of that sock club, yields over 67,000 results, most of which are knitbloggers writing about said product. Those chumps at the bank could have spent a whole 20 seconds doing that and realized that the Sock Club was totally legit, especially since they apparently approved of the company's regular business.

Comments

canadahauntsme said…
If all us non-knitters are such muggles, why haven't you knitted any Weasley sweaters?
canadahauntsme said…
I hate to bring this up, but something in Yarn Harlot's blog really got under my skin:

"...my sister Erin... would like to take this opportunity to ask you if a bank would have done this to a group of men?"

I am by no means defending the bank, but I am questioning the validity of a comment suggesting that said their actions were malevolently sexist. It is more probable (and this is assuming that the bank committee was indeed just a bunch of men) the decision was made out of pure ignorance to knitting; a pastime predominantly (but not exclusively) enjoyed by women.

And I know I'm really sticking my neck out with this comment and will probably receive a lot of flak for it.
Becca said…
I have to admit, I did not know that knitting was as popular as it apparently is. And after reading about Blue Moon and the mystery bank, I'm tempted to start knitting, myself!

Joe, I agree with you on the men comment. While I think it's odd that the bank did not do the research to see how popular knitting is, I'm not surprised at the decision and I don't think it was intended to be discriminatory. Since I work in the financial industry, I know how diligent banks have to be--not in the interests solely of making money, but in the wake of increased federal regulations enacted since 9/11 through the Patriot Act, Sarbanes-Oxley, and other legislation. Every transaction must have an audit trail, every bank must assess risk with every account, and assess businesses--especially new ones or odd ones--on the risks of being drug scams, terrorist cells, or laundering of some kind.

I can tell you, first hand, that laundering and factoring are common in the smallest of businesses (even though in established areas of business). I can completely understand why numerous orders for sock yarn for over 200 a pop would raise warning bells. Most importantly, from a fraud aspect, credit card issuers have to protect themselves from chargebacks--if Blue Moon were not reputable, and the bank paid all those $200 enrollments and then Blue Moon disappeared, then the bank would eat the cost. While I don't know how many customers were impacted, I'm guessing it was a highly significant number for the bank to take such protective action.

While I'm glad things are working out with a new bank, and I ache for the amount of work Blue Moon will have to do to correct the memberships and switch payment systems, I don't buy into the lost business philosophy of the comments. Look how many people are resolving to buy more? Blue Moon will come out fine.

As for flooding the bank with socks and emails? That's petty. I think they route the anger in a different way--I read several comments about charitable drives knitters have done. How about each person who is upset about this knits a pair of socks and sends it to a charity instead of the bank--publicize the effort and the redirect of anger into something good to bring more awareness to the knitting community. THAT would make the bank bleed more than anything--seeing how big this business potential really was and how much they lost out on the accounts receiveables.

Sorry about the length, Suze. This really made me think this morning.
Suze said…
wow, guys, you've really thought about this! i have to admit i thought her comment about "what if men were running this business?" struck me as a bit reactionary, but i think that comes from having knitting time and time again characterized as a "cute little craft" rather than the art that it is. that said, knitting has certainly gained a lot of respect (and avid fans) in the last few years, so i think that attitude has changed.

becca, i LOVE your charity idea. i might even suggest that to the yarn harlot herself. she gets floods of emails every day, so who knows if she'll bite...but i like it!
kclblogs said…
just curious -- why are non-knitters called "muggles"?
Suze said…
katie, I think the yarn harlot came up with that. maybe it's because the world of knitting is so magical?

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