TB Dress
Complaint 216351 Details

I ordered a custom made dress from TBDress.Com. It was for a concert, and upon ordering it, everything looked good calendar-wise, based on the info on their website. As it later turned out, the dress would not make it in time.

This is what happened:

1) BEFORE I PLACED MY ORDER, their Chat agent LIVINGSE said that shipping times are guaranteed and never said there was a holiday. Keep in mind, this chat conversation was not week nor months before I purchased. This was the day before I ordered.

2) Because their chat agent said the shipping times were guaranteed, and their website indicated I would receive the dress in time, I placed the order with expedited shipping. The dress was supposed to arrive by February 13th at the latest. Otherwise, I would have NEVER ordered. This was for a concert. I had A LOT of things to memorize/worry about. I was not going to leave to chance something as crucial to a show as wardrobe.

3) I contacted them to get updates via e-mail. I never received a reply for more than a week and many e-mail and website message attempts. In spite of the situation, I had to contact the company in China over the phone, and spoke to CRYSTAL, who said the dress was in fact READY, but could not be shipped because of the Chinese national holiday. She said that the dress was ready and in time for expedited service to deliver it before the needed date, but the shipping company would not ship it because of the holiday.

4) Because I would not receive the dress in time, I asked their agent to cancel the order, which the company eventually did. They never sent the package, as instructed by me. However, this was not a frivolous order cancellation. I was NEVER told there would be a delay of any sort, but the opposite, so the mistake was from the company in the first place. It is NOT my fault that I was misinformed by the first Chat agent. I ordered based on incorrect information that I was given by the clothing company. As a result, I had to purchase another emergency dress for my event, at a much higher cost.

5) Later, I called again to follow up... MANY agents spoke to me on the phone with REALLY BAD phone etiquette and manners, passing the phone to other agents. That is unprofessional. ONE agent should take care of ONE customer -- not THREE or FOUR AGENTS! I worked in customer service in hotels and in call centers for 5 years. TBDresses' call center NEVER uses background music when they put a customer on hold, which is also very unprofessional, and I could hear the agents speaking Mandarin among themselves, which I could assume was them talking about me. Not professional, very tasteless. I speak 3 languages, and I know better than to speak a language with someone else in front of a 3rd party who doesn't understand it.

6) Finally, after being passed on over to many agents, an agent (WENDY) said on the phone that per their manager (ALEX), they would refund $200 of the $230.55. I was still not happy, but then later, another agent (SUSAN) emailed me saying (VERY conveniently) that no one ever said this to me, and that they would only refund shipping. I was a Foreign Languages student. I'm not stupid. I know how to communicate with people who speak English as a second language, and I know what I heard, because I even asked to double check. When I claimed this, the e-mail agent said that to prove so, I (THE CUSTOMER!) had to provide the recorded conversation in which the phone agent said their company would refund $200. RIDICULOUS EXPECTATIONS!

7) In short, this company is a joke. I have the screen shot of the initial chat conversation in which the agent says shipping times are guaranteed which I sent to them 3 times, along with all email conversations. They refuse to make-up for their mistake, pulling a Devil's Advocate scheme, saying "it's not their policy". They were the first to violate their own policy when they gave me false information. We are customers. We ask questions, and have no other option but to trust that the people who are hired know what the are talking about, and when it has to do with time sensitive things, it aggravates the customer times 20.

8) During the many times I have called, there is NEVER an available manager to speak to. What kind of customer service is this? I understand not everything in the world has to be the American way. I have traveled extensively and have tons of patience, but what I experienced from TBDresses.Com was horrible by ANY standards.

9) Because I paid via PayPal, I finally decided to open a PayPal dispute and escalated it to a claim. Having sent all the details and evidence, PayPal luckily decided in my favor.

10) In my experience, and the treatment I received, TBDress staff is sneaky, dishonest, applies the policy when it is convenient for them, doesn't correct or make up for their mistakes, makes the client feel unappreciated, they are uninformed, not elegant, and even when they made mistakes, they still OVER AND OVER pushed for me to accept to receive the dress, weeks after my concert, when I no longer needed the dress. JUST HORRIBLE!

Are the dresses pretty? On photo, yes. I've seen terrible customer photos of dresses that arrive stained or totally different from the picture on the catalog. And even if they are perfect princess dresses, who needs the aggravation??? This is NOT a pro-customer company at all!

So unless you have no problem taking screenshots of EVERYTHING on their website; recording your own phone conversations (because they claim they don't record anything themselves); have the willingness to deal with so much aggravation and bad service; and STILL want to risk having them tell you they will only honor their policy towards the customer, even if they violate their own customer service ethics -- BY ALL MEANS! Knock yourself out! And make no mistake: you WILL!