Tuesday, May 12, 2009

You're not going to believe this

I still don't have my invites in hand. And today, when I contacted the seller to ask her to follow up and warned her that I would have to report this as a non-delivery if I didn't hear from her ... she changed my Etsy purchase status to "Declined"!!

OK, you can't finish the order. Annoying, but OK. But you ignore my communications and passive-aggressively cancel my order 4 months after accepting my money, and don't offer to refund any of it?! Aargh!!!

Let me re-iterate the major lesson from my mishap, friends. Never, EVER pay in full for a custom order up-front. NEVER. No matter how nice the seller seems or how glowing her feedback is. NEVER. An honest, experienced professional will not object to a half down, half upon delivery payment plan.

The good news: Econo Boy and I spent some time playing around with some blank A7 cards and we think we've come up with a nice, cost-effective way to print our invitations ourselves. I've asked the seller to refund enough money for us to rush-order invites from Wedding Paper Divas, but if that doesn't look likely, we'll probably go with the lower-cost option.

I'm kind of venting right now, but to be honest, I've spent so long being upset over this that I'm pretty much over it. The weaselly move she made in canceling my order confirmed for me that this woman is profoundly unprofessional, and while it was foolish to pay up-front, this is her fault, not mine. And most couples I know had at least one awful vendor, whether it was a photographer or a florist or a caterer. Hopefully this means I got my mandatory wedding disaster out of the way, and the actual party will be nothing but fun!

8 comments:

Jennifer said...

What is so ironic is that I have been experiencing less-than-professional-dont-you-know-this-is-a-big-day-for-me vendors myself. I do have to say, the venue where my wedding will be has been exceptional is their accomadations and honesty and professional demeanor. But I lost a DJ along the way, both parties to blame.

I have been calling places for cupcakes, rehearsal dinners, and seamstresses and have had no luck. In this economy you think people would be begging for your good business, but it seems as if customer servise has completely disappeared!

Good luck, I need it too!

Abbie said...

I feel your pain on the invites. We haven't gotten ours either... and the RSVP date we requested is a month from Friday-- with 90% of our invites being OOT. Awesome. Isn't it amazing how some people just don't seem to want business? It just irks me how there is such a lack of ethics in the world.

Anonymous said...

I hope you give her a horrible review. And that you get your money back. You'd better get it back! What a nightmare!

CaitStClair said...

Ugh! You're right, I can't believe she did that! I hope you can still leave feedback that will be posted on Etsy. Have you had any luck contacting the head honchos?
It sounds like your DIY invites would still turn out really nicely though. Good luck pulling everything together!

LPC said...

Iyee! I never can figure out how people who behave like this can live with themselves.

Bride in Exile said...

Cait and Apricot, here's the trick -- now that she's "Declined" my project, I no longer have the power to give her feedback! (Ten bucks says that's why she did it.)

To be honest, I feel a bit sorry for her. She struck me as a nice but disorganized person who was in way over her head, and I think she has had some genuinely bad luck this year and just couldn't recover her step and finish all the projects she promised. Feeling sorry for her didn't stop me from reporting her to Etsy this afternoon, though. We'll see what they say!

Katie said...

Oh no, that is so awful! Hopefully you will get your money returned so you can get the invitations you want.

Bride in Exile said...

Hmmm. I don't know if this had anything to do with my letter to Etsy, but she got back in touch with me, said the post office had tracked down the package and that it was on its way, and even refunded me some money for my trouble. Which is good, but I'm still not sure if we'll get the invites in time to send them out. We're cautiously optimistic, but still planning to order the blank A7 cards this weekend as a backup.

This is my last post about this until we mail the damn things out!