a little argh

Edited to add: KnitPicks made it right - the extra copy of the pattern was a replacement, and they removed the charge from my PayPal. (I came home to a phone message)

I started the Kaleidoscope Hat yesterday. It's....not a simple pattern. You knit it vertically - that is, you knit up and down the full height of the hat and use short-rows (wrap and turn) to shape the top. It calls for nine stitch markers - five of one color and four of another, because apparently that's how you tell where you are? (I used the markers, but I also wrote out tick-marks on the paper to know what row I was on).

At one point, there are two rows in succession where you do a short-row and that....seemed wrong to me. So I went erratum-hunting. And yes, it turns out there was an error. But. To see the error I had to log in to my Knit Picks account, and then it said, "There are no patterns associated with this account."

Oh. Yeah. I paid by PayPal, because a couple years ago they had a breach and had a bunch of credit-card numbers stolen* So the pattern wasn't linked to my account there. I tried the order number and phone number bit (they suggested as an alternate) and no-go.

(*Though honestly, now? Where HASN'T? And considering ALL our information (except for the ultra-hermits or the homeless-without-money) has been stolen in the Equifax breach, I don't know...)

And then I thought: well, maybe tomorrow you could call them and maybe you'd get someone helpful and maybe they'd understand. Or maybe not. And anyway, it would mean NOT working on the hat that evening, which was what I wanted to do.

And I thought: the pattern is three bucks. I'll buy another copy, even though the very idea of that irks me. So I did.

And guess what? The "error" was an error in the chart, which (a) I had already figured out and (b) I wasn't using the chart anyway. Womp womp.

So, I had put in the comment box about "I had bought this pattern earlier but your silly website disavows that I have despite my having the order number, and I need to see the erratum, so I am just buying the pattern again, although it annoys me to" and figured maybe, just maybe, someone might e-mail me and ask, and maybe even refund my $3?

Well, not quite.

Today someone there e-mailed me a THIRD copy of the pattern, in .pdf form like the first two.

Facepalm. (I don't know the ethics of such a thing....I think, arguably, because I paid twice for the pattern, I own two copies of it, and I could, without violating copyright, give one away, but I still don't know. But I am somewhat annoyed and this tells me two things:

1. In the future, if I want a bunch of patterns from KnitPicks, I buy them in physical-book format, which also pleases my inner Luddite

and

2. If I want just a single pattern, maybe I look first to see if there's something comparable on Ravelry I can buy through there - they have a very seamless and nice "Oh, here's an erratum we fixed on the pattern you bought" process.

Anyway, I guess it's good I'm making two (and POSSIBLY three - if this goes really fast I might make one for my AAUW gift-thing) hats off this pattern....