# Customer Dispute



## harishmabish (Sep 28, 2012)

Hi guys,
I contract out my embroidery-
Someone asked me for a rush order (1-week) and after checking with the embroiderer we confirmed we could go ahead with it.
I sent the digitized logo and the garments to the embroiderer.
I sent the customer an e-mail with a thread swatch and asked her to pick the exact colours she wanted- and she did not reply.
Being a rush order, I had to tell the embroider to "colour match" with the printout I had sent them.
She received the final product direct from the embroiderer, but now refuses to pay since she wanted "burgundy" for part of her logo but I guess the embroiderer made it "firetruck red".

She says she did not see my e-mail and that I should have called. And she cannot pay me because her club doesn't want to buy the shirts with the wrong colour.

So I don't know what to do, any advice?


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## TUANISAPPAREL (Oct 14, 2012)

Have her send them back and write it up as a lesson and a loss.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using T-Shirt Forums


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## marzatplay (May 25, 2014)

How many shirts was it? Did you provide the shirts or buy them from you?


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

No Matter who supplied shirts tell her they need returned. People try to get stuff for free. They are probably wearing them and laughing how they got free shirts. Be clear that if the shirts arent returned you will proceed with collections

I dont do rush jobs without the customer taking all risk as procedures get skipped. you should always get a deposit so at least your never out all the money.

Youll have to chaulk this one up to a learning experiance.


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## Ripcord (Sep 2, 2006)

Good lesson for the future. If you're on a deadline and haven't gotten an answer by email, you should call, so the customer is right about that. But if you can't get answers and there's no wiggle room on the schedule, ya gotta do what ya gotta do to get it done on time, even if you have to make the decisions yourself and the customer should be happy that it got done on schedule.

Oh, and absolutely you need to get those back if she doesn't intend to pay. No different than a store, If you buy something and you don't like it, you return it for a refund. You don't get to keep it and also get a refund.


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

I see two lessons. One is to get the money up front on rush order and second do do anything without approval.


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## harishmabish (Sep 28, 2012)

About 20 polos totalling $300.


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## marzatplay (May 25, 2014)

harishmabish said:


> About 20 polos totalling $300.


Take them back (no freebies)and re do them. Depending how much you sold them for, you should break even and retain a customer for future orders.

In the future always follow up with a phone call until you get someone to talk to.


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## Ripcord (Sep 2, 2006)

Something else occurred to me...Did the embroiderer use the wrong color? If you sent her a jpeg that shows the color as burgundy, she should have used burgundy, not bright red. (Granted, each monitor will display a color a little differently, so you can't really rely on a jpeg for an exact color match...) Maybe you can get her to share the cost of the redo. You are her customer and if she made a mistake she should account for it.


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

Neil good point although you know as well as I do every computer monitor, printer unless calibrated displays or prints very differently even with same models. Unless a customer specs the colors by a catalog for threads or a Pantone for printing I do not guarantee color matches. 

I be willing to bet the customer is wearing the garments and because you sent the email seen a way to get free stuff. With new customers I usually text a picture of a test print and the first actual print. I give them 5-10 min to respond while I finish prepping for the print. In this case though it was contracted out. I also contract out embroidery. I have a thread color card from my contract embroider unless a customer comes and picks actual thread colors in person there is no guarantee of results. On all my bid sheet I have this info listed.


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## Ripcord (Sep 2, 2006)

I contract embroidery out too, and if the customer just wants to match a jpeg, I usually choose the thread color myself rather than depend on the embroiderer to choose it.

I can't remember any customer complaining about the shade of a color, either in printing or embroidery, as long as it's close to what they had in mind. If they don't specify a PMS (which they hardly ever do...) I just match it as closely as I can, also keeping in mind that my monitor will display it differently than theirs...but, if their "art" shows burgundy and it comes out bright red, they're gonna complain.


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## Optiq (Oct 13, 2009)

Yeeeeeeeah.... when it comes to stuff like this you should ALWAYS stalk them through every medium of communication you can just to be sure. If you can't get in touch with them STOP THE PROJECT!!!... it's better to have THAT blow than this one. As someone else pointed out, they could be sitting there laughing about how they scammed you out of free shirts, because HOW did this mistake occur?.. How close to the color on the picture does the thread actually match?..... Did she at some point say "but instead of this red we want it burgundy"...???... has ANY of this been covered?

If all she did was come in and say "I need this embroidered onto these shirts"... and said NOTHING about the shade of red..... then that's HER fault... But you did say you tried to call and verify with her, so that indicates SOMETHING led you to think something could possibly be wrong with it... what was it?... Depending on what that is the fault could be YOURS..... Is the "Red" in the picture actually burgundy?.. and the thread is WAY off to the point where it doesn't make sense for them to have used it?... Every monitor is different...... but I do graphics.... so I KNOW how much things can vary... it's not THAT drastic of a difference to where it's THAT many shades off... that can happen more with yellow and bright greens because a monitor uses Green to make Yellow so sometimes on other monitors a yellow can look kind of "lime-ish".. but red and burgundy... not so much unless their stuff is just WAY off... which means they should have tons of other orders backfiring on them... if that's the case... it's THEIR FAULT!!!.... which means they should re-do them...

If it was you who messed up, then you should have them re-done... either way just as a "good gesture" try to give a couple extra shirts... or seeing that they're a group get a good print of their logo n put it in a nice frame they can hang in their "club house" or whatever... or if you have the equipment print them a 6X2 banner.... Of course only in the event that it's either your or the embroiderer's fault... because they may very well just attempted to pull a fast one on you.

As an Artist I come across people like that all the time and avoid them as soon as I see they're that way. One of the biggest indicators that gives them away is being too "professionally relaxed" as I call it. What I mean by that, is when you're sitting there with whatever forms you have to take an order or rough sketch their idea on a template just to get an exact bare representation of what they want you to do before you do it, etc. and their response is always "look all I want is just (blah) it's not that complex we don't have to go through all of that".... Or when you try to get an EXACT and CLEAR answer and or choice about something they always respond by saying "I'm trusting your judgement on this... whatever you think will work best... you're the expert"... basically getting out of having to clearly verify details that they won't be able to use as an excuse to wiggle out of everything if they give an answer to it.

All in all they want you to be less professional and treat you like you're making everything TOO COMPLICATED by simply trying to dot your "i"s and cross your "t"s... DROP THESE PEOPLE ASAP!!!.... they will ALWAYS try to pull something like this.... when you tell them "if my process isn't working for you maybe I'm not the guy you need for the job because THIS is how I go about delivering great quality in a timely manner with minimal problems.... if I change my formula it'll change the results and I can't afford that" they'll either snap in line or get up and walk out. Sometimes some people think this is just how you do business because that's what they see everybody else doing so they don't know any better. But it's like there's a secret book floating around with certain little tricks and traps that everybody reads and tries to do the same stuff thinking they're invisible... 

It's fun shutting them down because they expect you to be desperate enough to do ANYTHING... so to send them away after they told you about how many shirts they plan to order throughout the year and how they have tons of other groups/teams they're involved with who're looking for shirts and how they want banners and websites and water bottles and whistles and EVERYTHING ELSE they can think of to make theirself seem like your ticket in life.... n you just walk away..... IT KILLS THEM.. and when they rub it in your face that you're making the biggest mistake of your life and missing out on your chance to be a Millionaire you're STILL like "yeah yeah I don't have time for this... I got an order for 5,000 shirts I need to get done by Wed. because I'm gonna be busy the next two weeks with another huge order and if I don't get them done now they're not going to get done... have a good day"..... or something along those lines.... it shows them how small and stupid they really are. the looks on their face is priceless... It might be a little cocky and condescending to do, but they NEED to be treated like that.

Due to them being use to everybody else being the "dummy" and panting like a puppy dog believing their lies and tricks, they've always felt "powerful" and "on top" because they get away with it. When you treat them like that and show them that their money doesn't make or break you AND you have REAL STUFF that's a LOT bigger than what they're doing.... when all they have is a lie just to get a couple shirts.. it places you above them AND shows you now don't want to be bothered with them.... which makes them see doors closing on them because as it turns out you're actually one of the types of people they take pride in being able to say they know to make theirself sound important... so it'll push them to GROW UP and be honest. Good Luck..


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## Stefano (Aug 5, 2013)

harishmabish said:


> Hi guys,
> I contract out my embroidery-
> Someone asked me for a rush order (1-week) and after checking with the embroiderer we confirmed we could go ahead with it.
> I sent the digitized logo and the garments to the embroiderer.
> ...


"Being a rush order, I had to tell the embroider to "colour match" with the printout I had sent them." 

Don't second guess a customer's wishes. If they didn't answer the email, call. If they don't return the call, their rush requestd is no longer in force because the order wasn't confirmed.
BTW, you didn't mention - did you take a deposit?


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## SunEmbroidery (Oct 18, 2007)

To add, with rush orders, I mention to my customer when they will be be receiving a proof and add "so please look for it". Sometimes this means obtaining additional contact information especially if its over a weekend. I think more emails are being lost with people using smart phones rather than desktops and multiple email addresses.


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## Viper Graphics (Mar 28, 2009)

This sucks.....that's why you get at least half up front. Period. I tell my customers if the product is wrong when they get it to immediately notify me for return approval or pickup. Items must be returned unworn, unwashed and in original packaging. If they wear the garment then it belongs to them.


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## djque (Feb 5, 2013)

Point blank if they didnt answer your email you should of not printed it. And without a call to her she is right. 

You made a rookie mistake and had them print them without there ok.


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## drdoct (Jul 26, 2011)

Sounds like you haven't seen the shirts yet. I would tell her to come in and bring all the shirts that are unworn. I would go over each shirt to check if it had been laundered and just look over the job your contracted out. Is it acceptable? Discuss it with her face to face with the product in front of you. If any shirts have been laundered or are smelly, then return those to her and tell her that those will need to be paid for. Then depending on how it looks and her attitude, I'd go from there. 

Never do a rush for someone who doesn't feel the need to get back to you quickly. If they don't rush, I don't rush. Never do work without a deposit to cover your blanks or outsourcing fees. And don't do jobs unless it's 100% signed off on. If it's embroidery, then they need to verify the actual color.

If she's upfront and honest and not scamming you, then I would redo the shirts for her (taking the original ones) and just eat it. I would talk to your embroiderer too to try and share some of the blame/cost. You could do that after you have the shirts and do the same thing she did to you with your vendor. See what happened and get it ironed out. If you don't get satisfactory answers, then you may need to find another contractor. Don't be scared to communicate with everyone involved. Everyone messes up and it takes good communication to find out where and why.


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