Laura Lake Screwed by an Adult Service Provider (and Not in a Good Way!) Schenectady New York

This Ripoff Report is about a "Professional Spanking Disciplinarian and Life Coach" living in the Albany, New York area.  She does not provide sexual services, but I'm filing this report under Prostitutes because I do feel like she screwed me.

Name: Laura Lake (stage name most likely)
DOB: August 17th (age 51 at the time of this writing)
Address: (((REDACTED))), Schenectady NY (((REDACTED)))
Phone: (((REDACTED)))
Email: sober2119@gmail.com (current), LauraLake@hushmail.com (old address which no longer works; it's a Hushmail so it probably expired due to disuse)
Yahoo Messenger: lauralake2119
Website: www.kittenspanks.com
Twitter: twitter.com/kittenspanks
FetLife: fetlife.com/users/1501294
CollarSpace: www.collarspace.com/default.asp?v=1689054&bhcp=1

This is what she looks like:
https://www.adultlook.com/p/802859/picture/2782995
https://www.adultlook.com/p/802859/picture/2782998

Here's what happened:

I'm a kink enthusiast who's into, among other things, being spanked by older women.  (Don't judge, we all have our little turn-ons, even if not all of us act on them.)  I had an upcoming trip to upstate New York approaching, and decided to work in a session with a professional.

12/26/2016:
I looked at BackPage, which still had its adult services section up at the time, and found an ad by Laura Lake.  Her website was professional and some cursory research indicated she had been doing this for a while.  She seemed to be exactly what I was looking for.  I contacted her via email, gave her my general schedule, and asked about a possible session the week of my trip.

1/7/2017:
After not getting a reply, I contacted her again a bit closer to my travel date.  This time she did reply, explaining that she "may not have received your email, i get so many."  But she agreed to a session, provided I send the required deposit.  (This is not uncommon; most professional dominants insist on a deposit because they tend to encounter a lot of time-wasters, people who book appointments and then don't bother to show up.  To discourage this they ask for a small amount up front.  I've done this numerous times before and never had a bad experience until now.)  I replied, asking her about specific days she was available.

1/13/2017:
She replied, saying she was available the 18th and 20th.  She didn't say where to send the deposit, and her website was temporarily down, so I asked again.  She said an Amazon gift code sent to her address would be fine, and I proposed a couple of different times based on the dates she suggested.

1/14/2017:
I sent two Amazon gift codes, $25 each:
AD6H-FLTGEC-N8ZR
AZWQ-RTD4HA-MGAZ
And provided her with my phone number.

1/16/2017:
She texted me to confirm the time, 11:00 AM on Friday the 20th.

1/18/2017:
She texted me in the early evening, to ask when was a good time to call.  Later she did call, and we had a positive discussion about what I wanted to get out of the session.  She seemed very professional.

1/20/2017:
90 minutes prior to the session time, she texted me to say her 23-year-old son had had a heart attack, and she had to cancel to deal with that.  "I will honor our commitment in any way that makes you happy.  Refund, reschedule or the addition of a second girl at no charge."  I replied expressing sympathy but saying I couldn't reschedule as my flight left the next day, so a refund in the form of an Amazon gift card (as I'd sent to her) would work best.  I gave her a few days to get take care of things.

1/24/2017:
I received a text around 1:30 PM, "Please call Laura at your convenience."  I did and left a message as there was no answer.

1/26/2017:
Around 7PM I tried her again, no answer, left a message.  She quickly texted back "Sorry, I can't talk right now.  Call back later."  I asked what time.  She texted back "I'm trying to adjust to getting Owen home.  But I definitely wanted to know when you'd be back though"  I told her I couldn't make our appointment as my trip was over and I had no plans to be back in her area again, and asked for the Amazon refund again.  She replied, "I'm sorry.  I didn't get that request.  You may have emailed me."  (Which I didn't, I texted her on 1/20.)  She said she was not checking email because she wasn't near her computer and didn't get "professional" email on her phone because she didn't think it was secure.  She said if a PayPal refund was okay she'd refund through them.

Now I admit, here I misunderstood -- I thought she meant she wasn't going to send me an Amazon gift card because that wasn't secure.  But in hindsight she actually meant email on her phone wasn't secure, which I understand.  I told her I don't use PayPal and asked again for Amazon.  That was the last I heard from her.  I tried her again on the 27th, 28th and 29th, never a response.  So here we are.

If you have anything you would like to say regarding this Ripoff Report, you can email me anytime at LastHonestPerson@gmail.com.