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Annals of dismal customer service
Nov. 25th, 2011 02:21 pmThis year's award goes to: MacKintosh Yans!
Since the owner is refusing to respond to my emails, has left the "Contact Us" page on her website in a borked condition, and deletes anything I post to her Ravelry forum, I may as well gripe here. If you are not up for a good whine, continue on.
I ordered 2 skeins of yarn from her on 20 September. Paid via PayPal, so she had the money immediately.
About a month later, I realized I had not yet gotten the yarn. So I emailed to find out when it might be coming. No response.
So I checked out her website, noticed that (as a customer) I had an account, so I logged into that...and saw that the order was still listed as "Processing". By now it was more like 6 weeks - so I was rather astonished that it hadn't finished processing - after all, it was just 2 skeins of her standard yarns. Sent another email through her "Contact Us" page (which was working them) - although I realized I would have to wait a bit, as her main page showed she was at a fiber festival. Then emailed again (both ways) after she should have been back. I finally got a response, saying she had missed my emails because her email system was not putting most recent messages first (apparently, she is accustomed to go weeks without getting any emails - only way I can think she would have missed it so long). She assured me the yarn was going right out.
So I waited a week....then another week.....and the yarn didn't come, and in fact still showed as "Processing". So I did another email blitz - no response. Finally I was so aggravated I posted something on her Rav forum, asking if anyone else was having difficulties getting orders filled. That was immediately deleted, of course, but she did finally contact me. This time I got a sob story about a relative dying of cancer, and a promise that the yarn would go right out, with an extra skein. Which would have been fun, but I wasn't counting on it - good thing, as it happens, since she didn't actually send it. What she did send was this:
The color I ordered was Burr Bush - on her website, it looks like this:
- which looks to me like a handpainted yarn with distinct areas of old gold and rose.
The color scratched out is "Morrigan" - on her website, it looks like:
which is a pretty uniform heathered purplish color. Exactly like the skein I was sent. And not at all like the color I ordered.
So I emailed back, pointing out that there seemed to be a mistake in the order (with the picture to back it up), and asking if I could get the color I ordered. You can probably get how much of a response I have gotten. To the first email, to subsequent emails - even a discrete post to her forum. Oh, and a Rav pm.
And it's getting really hard to believe this was an honest mistake. She can't tell the difference in color in her own yarn? If I had stood a customer up for 8 weeks, I would have tried to send her my very best, to make up for the inconvenience. She apparently feels I'm a color-blind idiot who can neither remember what she ordered or figure out how to check it, so ripe to be pawned off with an obvious fake.
Of course, there isn't much I can really do about it. PayPal won't go after a disputed charge after more than 45 days - now I have to wonder if that is the real reason she waits at least 6 weeks to respond to email I guess I should be happy she got one skein right (amusingly enough, Burr Bush has a "Customers who bought this also purchased" thing at the bottom - showing the other skein of yarn I purchased - so apparently there isn't a huge demand for the color, if I'm the only one who bought it). I guess I am supposed to comfort myself that I did get _one_ skein I wanted - nice enough yarn for the price, not so much given that I have essentially paid double for it. But really - how does anyone expect to stay in business if they ignore their customers, don't send things out promptly, screw up orders, and are flat-out dishonest with their customers? THIS IS NOT A GOOD BUSINESS PLAN, PEOPLE. I can get that a small business would be thrown out of whack by a personal emergency (although given she managed to take time to do a fiber festival, I have to wonder how serious that really is) - but you don't deal with that by mishandling your customers, you do it by by just telling them a situation has arisen that may cause delays in filling orders. Might even be wise to give your customers an option of just taking a refund and re-ordering later. But just grabbing the first thing that comes to hand and relabeling it to try to fool them - not cool.
I will admit, she has some pretty colors. If you like them and don't care what color you actually get (let alone when or if you will get it), by all means, go by her sale. If you are one of us tedious folk who expect to get what we pay for, you will probably want to give it a miss.
Since the owner is refusing to respond to my emails, has left the "Contact Us" page on her website in a borked condition, and deletes anything I post to her Ravelry forum, I may as well gripe here. If you are not up for a good whine, continue on.
I ordered 2 skeins of yarn from her on 20 September. Paid via PayPal, so she had the money immediately.
About a month later, I realized I had not yet gotten the yarn. So I emailed to find out when it might be coming. No response.
So I checked out her website, noticed that (as a customer) I had an account, so I logged into that...and saw that the order was still listed as "Processing". By now it was more like 6 weeks - so I was rather astonished that it hadn't finished processing - after all, it was just 2 skeins of her standard yarns. Sent another email through her "Contact Us" page (which was working them) - although I realized I would have to wait a bit, as her main page showed she was at a fiber festival. Then emailed again (both ways) after she should have been back. I finally got a response, saying she had missed my emails because her email system was not putting most recent messages first (apparently, she is accustomed to go weeks without getting any emails - only way I can think she would have missed it so long). She assured me the yarn was going right out.
So I waited a week....then another week.....and the yarn didn't come, and in fact still showed as "Processing". So I did another email blitz - no response. Finally I was so aggravated I posted something on her Rav forum, asking if anyone else was having difficulties getting orders filled. That was immediately deleted, of course, but she did finally contact me. This time I got a sob story about a relative dying of cancer, and a promise that the yarn would go right out, with an extra skein. Which would have been fun, but I wasn't counting on it - good thing, as it happens, since she didn't actually send it. What she did send was this:
The color I ordered was Burr Bush - on her website, it looks like this:
- which looks to me like a handpainted yarn with distinct areas of old gold and rose.The color scratched out is "Morrigan" - on her website, it looks like:
which is a pretty uniform heathered purplish color. Exactly like the skein I was sent. And not at all like the color I ordered.So I emailed back, pointing out that there seemed to be a mistake in the order (with the picture to back it up), and asking if I could get the color I ordered. You can probably get how much of a response I have gotten. To the first email, to subsequent emails - even a discrete post to her forum. Oh, and a Rav pm.
And it's getting really hard to believe this was an honest mistake. She can't tell the difference in color in her own yarn? If I had stood a customer up for 8 weeks, I would have tried to send her my very best, to make up for the inconvenience. She apparently feels I'm a color-blind idiot who can neither remember what she ordered or figure out how to check it, so ripe to be pawned off with an obvious fake.
Of course, there isn't much I can really do about it. PayPal won't go after a disputed charge after more than 45 days - now I have to wonder if that is the real reason she waits at least 6 weeks to respond to email I guess I should be happy she got one skein right (amusingly enough, Burr Bush has a "Customers who bought this also purchased" thing at the bottom - showing the other skein of yarn I purchased - so apparently there isn't a huge demand for the color, if I'm the only one who bought it). I guess I am supposed to comfort myself that I did get _one_ skein I wanted - nice enough yarn for the price, not so much given that I have essentially paid double for it. But really - how does anyone expect to stay in business if they ignore their customers, don't send things out promptly, screw up orders, and are flat-out dishonest with their customers? THIS IS NOT A GOOD BUSINESS PLAN, PEOPLE. I can get that a small business would be thrown out of whack by a personal emergency (although given she managed to take time to do a fiber festival, I have to wonder how serious that really is) - but you don't deal with that by mishandling your customers, you do it by by just telling them a situation has arisen that may cause delays in filling orders. Might even be wise to give your customers an option of just taking a refund and re-ordering later. But just grabbing the first thing that comes to hand and relabeling it to try to fool them - not cool.
I will admit, she has some pretty colors. If you like them and don't care what color you actually get (let alone when or if you will get it), by all means, go by her sale. If you are one of us tedious folk who expect to get what we pay for, you will probably want to give it a miss.
