Complaint / Review
Celebrate Express - Costume Express
Birthday Express Took $, Held $250 worth of merchandise, then sold some of it to someone else!

I placed an order for several Halloween costumes and accessories with this company on September 14th (you know the company&they send out catalogs for Halloween and birthday items)&I was told all items were in stock and they charged my credit card (or as they said, "held" the fund which they will release at some later date.)

Then 10 days later, I get an email saying some boots I ordered are backordered until 10/1... Frankly, I already expected the order to be delivered, so I called and told them not to bother with the boots... They said they had come in that day and would overnight the whole order to me...

I call 2 days later and they say another item (a flashlight) is backordered. I tell them I don't need the flashlight and just to send the rest. They say the boots are still not in. I am aggravated but I tell them to send the rest anyway and they agree, with free overnight shipping at this point.

Then I get a nasty phone call, telling me some of the boots are in but not all and what do I want them to do? I call&keeping in mind it's been THREE weeks now&and I say, just send me what you have. We go over the order, and the rep assures me everything except the boots and the flashlight are already packed and leaving the warehouse that day.

I wait, and call again... Oh, something else is out of stock now. I say, how can it be out of stock&I ordered this a month ago. The rep tells me they do not actually hold any of the items until they are shipped&so while I waited for their idiocy, their incompetence after I told them I did not want the boots or flashlight&they sold out of all of one of the costumes I ordered. Now I have to tell my 9 year old daughter that even though we ordered it over a month ago, her costume was sold to someone else. I can't believe it's legal to hold my money but not my merchandise.

I will definitely be filing a complaint with the Washington State Attorney General's office. This is a costume I could have gotten somewhere else but is now—this close to Halloween—sold out everywhere.

The worst part is, the company does not care at all. I am a repeat customer&I've ordered at least a half dozen times from them for birthdays and Halloween and the 6-8 sales reps I talked to on this repeatedly lied to me and frankly acted like this was no big deal. I will never order from them again... And in case, you're keeping track, I have still not received a single item from this horrible company.