A very close friend of mine asked me to be in her wedding and I was completely honored and very excited. Little did I know that it was going to be such a hassle and expense to get my bridesmaid dress. She chose to order the dresses (7) from The Encounter. I gave my measurements to a salesperson and he said he would order me a size six even though I wear a size 4 because the "dresses ran small".
So, when I finally got the dress (one week before the wedding), I discovered it was a size 10! I immediately called to speak to the owner I was told by the person who answered the phone that she was not in and that I could come by on Monday and speak to a manager. I explained to her that I lived an hour and a half away I wanted to speak to someone now. I wanted to know how I ended up with a size 10 dress and what they were willing to do about it-pay for alterations. Miraculously the owner, Ethel appeared on the telephone (even though I was told she was not in the store). She said that she would not accept responsibility for ordering the wrong sizes and would not pay for the alterations.
My dress fell to the ground and the cost for the alterations ended up being $68.00. Another girl's alterations cost more than the dress itself. When all of the bridesmaids got together at the wedding we discovered that all of us had very similar stories. Some girls were even charged extra because they were told to order larger sizes. Not one single girl was ordered the correct size dress. We even had to pin one bridesmaid's dress at the wedding because it was still too big.
The owner lied to the Better Business Bureau (where four of us filed complaints) telling them that the bride called to thank them. The bride never did that and she actually filed something with the Better Business Bureau herself. They ordered us the wrong size dresses on purpose because they thought that we would use them for our alterations and they could make some extra money.
They (Ethel) have lied to us, yelled at me personally on the phone, have accepted zero responsibility for their actions and have simply disregarded our complaints. I hope that they are put out of business. I have never been treated so unfairly by a business in my life and I think that the owner is a disgusting human being. I also wonder what good the Better Business Bureau really is. They wrote 2 letters on my behalf and accomplished nothing.
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