Background
Based on their large selection of winter hats, I chose
WholesaleHats.com as the vendor to supply hats for an event I was
planning.
The event, an upscale bar
crawl, was to feature custom-embroidered beanies.
The hats were an important part of the event
for two reasons:
first, they were a
promotional item intended to promote my business and secondly, local establishments
were giving us discounts and were identifying whom to give the discount by our
hats.
I had 50 attendees who had paid
for the event and all expected to get a custom hat.
As an aside, I have organized a number of events such as
golf tournaments where I had to work with a few different custom embroidery
companies. I am not new to the process.
Timeline
Monday 12/2/2013
–
I contacted
WholesaleHats.com,
provided them with my logo and requested a quote.
I clearly explained that I was willing to pay
to ensure the hats arrived on or before Friday 12/13, the day before my event.
Throughout Monday afternoon and evening I worked with their
sales and design department. I ended up
having to drop the logo (image) and resort to a text-only design due to the
high cost (relative to stitch count) for embroidering the logo.
Tuesday 12/3/2013
– After a few more discussions on Tuesday morning, I approved the design for
the text-only logo. I received an email
on 12/3/2013 at 1:46pm eastern (note – this company is in California) from Beverly (not her real name), Executive Account Manager, confirming the order. The email included the following text:
“We will have your order moved onto the production
process. With your selection of
Expedited Rush Production order will
ship to arrive no later than 12/13. And tracking information will be emailed
from our shipping department, the business day afterwards as confirmation.”
Later, only after approving the work order and being
charged, I discovered that I was charged the logo rate instead of text-only
rate…about $100 additional. When I
called to inquire, I was informed that I was charged for the logo rate because
they used the font I provided. Had they
used one of their fonts, I would have been charged the text-only rate. This should have thrown up a huge red
flag, however despite being annoyed, I let it go.
Saturday 12/7/2013
– Realizing I had not heard anything back all week, I sent an email to Beverly
asking “I haven't heard anything since this email this past Tuesday. Can
you confirm the order is still on track for delivery no later than
12/13? “
Monday 12/9/2013
– I receive an email from Beverly at 1:04pm Eastern. She states the following: “These are shipping
today via UPS 3 day air, to land eta on 12/12.”
Great! On track for
delivery two days before my event.
Friday 12/13/2013
– On the evening before my event I get home from work and the package is not
delivered. I call WholesaleHats.com and
inquire. I spend over an hour exchanging
phone calls with the general manager Brian Burr.
In summary:
·
Brian first tells me that the UPS package was
delayed due to weather and the package would not be delivered to me until
Monday (two days after my event). He
explained that weather is an act of God and thus WholesaleHats.com was not liable.
·
I respond by pointing out that I paid for a rush
production order and asked why the product didn’t ship until Monday.
·
Brian’s response is that the order shipped on
Friday 12/6. I point him to the UPS
tracking, which clearly indicates the product wasn’t shipped until 12/9. I repeat my question asking why the order was
shipped so late.
·
Brian back tracks and confirms that the item was
shipped on Monday, but he isn’t sure why that occurred.
·
I then spend 5 minutes explaining that despite
this mistake, I was told by Beverly that the order would ship 3-day air, so
I assumed it would still arrive in time.
·
It was at this point that Brian admits that not
only was the order not shipped until Monday, but it was shipped UPS Ground!
Brian offered two solutions:
1.
Allow us to keep the hats, and give us a $200
refund.
2.
Allow us to return the hats at a 100% refund.
Neither solution was acceptable.
Because of
WholesaleHats.com’s multiple
mistakes, I wasn’t going to have the product that my customers paid for, my
event would be unsuccessful, and I would have 50 angry customers to deal
with.
I declined both solution and requested that I get a 100%
refund and also keep the hats. At least
then I could mail them (at a significant personal cost) to my customers who
paid for them. Brian refused and said
he would rather give the hats to the homeless than refund me and allow me to
have the product.
In the end, I had to accept the second solution. Immediately (as evidenced by UPS tracking) Brian
recalled the order via UPS so that we would never see the product. Note that at the time of writing this
(Tuesday 12/17/2013), I still have not seen the 100% refund I was promised!
1.
Questionable ethics during the ordering process
(e.g. charging me the logo price for text only).
2.
Negligence in executing the rush order I paid
for.
3.
Lies on the phone about the when the product was
shipped and by what shipping method.
4.
And finally, a general manager who was unwilling
to make up for a situation that was completely
the fault
of his business.
Furthermore, the
WholesaleHats.com website states “
We have
never missed an order deadline. Ever!”
Based on my experience, I believe this is an outright lie and should be
removed from the website.
