Friday, October 3, 2014

MyFancyPrincess.com Ruins Halloween!!

Steer clear of MyFancyPrincess.com.   On July 13, 2014 my mother placed an order for the Anna/Elsa dresses that were on pre-order as she wanted to get the Anna/Elsa dresses for my twin daughters (age 2) so we directed her there as the reviews of the company were great and it pricing was great.  We all understood that this was a pre-order item and would not be receiving it right away.  Some time went by and I wanted to follow up with www.myfancyprincess.com so I asked my mom to forward me the confirmation email so that I could get the order number and follow up with them. So she did and I sent the following email on 8/25/14 to follow up on the order:

I am trying to follow up on the order status for:  myfancyprincess-xxxxx

I know the order was for pre-order, so I just wanted to follow up on the status for the actual items.

On the same day I received the following response:
According to the date you ordered, you are in our third presale shipment which is not due to arrive here at our location until the end of August/early September.  Once we receive the shipment and check it in, then we will ship in the order received.  If there are no further delays you should see a shipping confirmation somewhere around mid to third week of September. 

Thank you for your business and your continued patience.  We sincerely appreciate it!

Excellent, a quick reply and an approximate date of when to expect the dresses.  So some more time goes by and we hadn't received the dresses yet, so I called my mom and asked her if she had heard anything, and she had not.  So on September 23, 2014 I sent a quick email:

I just wanted to follow up on this order as we still have not received anything and it is now the end of September.

Another 5 days went by without any type of response, so on 9/26/14 I sent another email as their phone system says the way to get the  quick response is to email them:
I have not received my order not a response from you this week, not quite sure what is going on.
On 10/01/14 still no response, so at this point we call and leave a voice message, as well as send another email:
I am sending yet another email to follow up on this order.  Please its getting close to halloween and it was our understanding that we would have these items by now.....

So no response  for most of the day on 10/02/14 so I send the following email, granted its definitely confrontational, but all I am looking for is a status update:
So yet another week has gone by.  Both my wife and I have called and left messages as well as sent email and NOTHING has been responded to.  This is totally UNACCEPTABLE and I will start a social media campaign soon if I don't hear back.

Also being slightly disgruntled at this point, I figured I would try another contact medium, Facebook.  So I posted a message along the same lines as my previous emails. (Which has now been deleted).  That seem to get their attention and I received the following email reply.
Any details regarding the order are released to the purchaser only.  We see we previously responded to an e-mail but that was a mistake.  Thank you.
To which I responded:

Ok please email the purchaser (my mom) with an update and I will contact her to get the details.
And they comment on my Facebook feed also that they have responded to my email as well as forwarded the information along to my Mom, great an update, we are happy.  My mom then tells me that the email states the dresses will not be shipping for another 1-2 weeks and then we'll receive them 5 days after that.  They also explained that this is not their fault and that it is the fault of their manufacturer/distributor.  So hey what are you going to do, so we just have to wait.  Well it seems that they didn't like some of the negative comments that some of my friends/family put in the thread that I had started with them.  So they deleted the post.  And sent the following email to my mom, the original purchaser:

We have gone ahead and canceled this order.  Order delays from our supplier are not our fault and we will not continue to be bashed publicly for something that is not out fault.  we just spoke to our supplier yesterday and they are the ones delaying, NOT us.  We have explained this just this morning to your husband (I think they meant son) who also tried to publicly shame us for this.  We explained it respectfully and nicely.  Yet you felt the need to once again publicly bash us for what we already explained was not our fault.  We are just as upset over this as you are and have on more then one occasion expressed out disappointment that we are the ones taking al the blame for the delays that are not our fault.  We also gave you an option to switch to other in stock dresses (Double the cost) and instead of e-mailing us to work something out you once again went on our page to publicly express your disappointment  (My mom, the actual purchaser, never posted on the page, my wife did when she saw they deleted my post to their page).  You have every right to be disappointed, but please understand that we did not cause this.  You have been refunded in full and the order is now cancelled.

Well that got me really pissed as they could have use the opportunity to shine in a customer service issue, and they chose not to.  So I looked back at some of their Facebook posts to see if anyone else was complaining on their Facebook page and found a recent one within the last day or two and commented on that posting stating to be careful what they post as if they find it "offensive" or that it is "bashing" them they would cancel your order.  Since that comment their Facebook page is now completely locked down, no commenting, no liking and no posting.

Ultimately they should have been sending status updates on these pre-order items, thats the right thing to do.  They also could have used the Facebook posts to shine in customer service but chose to hide everything in email.

I am sorry but if you are on social media you must take the good and the bad with it.  You can't just delete/hide everything that you don't like you have to use it as a tool to show everyone else how you can treat the customer with respect.

In the end who suffers, my 2 year old twin daughters, as we are really close to Halloween and no one else has these costumes in their size.  My wife just told me that she let my daughter Sarah know that she might have to be something else for Halloween and she started to cry.

Shame on you www.myfancyprincess.com!!