My experience with HOB was a nightmare.
1. I placed my bridesmaids dress order online.
2. Six weeks later, i get an email saying "this is our third attempt to contact you. We're canceling your order." This was the first i'd heard from them since placing my order.
3. Confused, i called to figure out what was going on. Gaye, the lady i spoke with, said she did not know what the problem was, and that there was nothing she could do.
4. She refused to let me speak with a manger, saying they only respond by email. She hung up on both me and my husband.
Since they refused to speak to us via phone, the following is the exact email exchange between myself and HOB.
I emailed repeatedly asking the same questions, mainly, why my order was canceled—they wanted me to reorder, but i didn't want to do that until i understood why they canceled my first order so i knew the problem would not happen again. These questions were ignored, and I was treated like i was being the problem, being petty for even asking and not just trusting them.
They never even apologized. The email exchange is below if you would like to read it.
Please also see other HOB usacomplaints.com.
The following email exchange occured after their customer service person kept hanging up on me. I googled the company to find names of managers, trying to explain the entire situation to them and get some answers...
Original Message
From: Jen
Sent: Saturday, October 13 2:02 PM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Attn: All
Importance: High
Attention Krys, Joan and all who receive:
A few months ago I ordered a dress from House of Brides for the wedding of (edited for privacy) on December 28th. I ordered the dress 1 week after the other bridesmaids.
URGENT ORDERING PROBLEM
By looking up my online order form, you will see that I included my phone number and a note saying to please get in touch with me if there were any problems and SPECIFICALLY requesting that someone would get in touch with me if dress would need to be rushed.
I received a confirmation email from House of Brides saying that the order had been placed.
An email was sent to me on Monday (10-9-07) which due to traveling for my job, I did not receive until Wednesday, stating that repeated attempts have been made to contact me with no response and that my ORDER HAD BEEN CANCELED.
Until that email on Monday, I had received NO other email from House of Brides, nor ANY attempts by phone or voicemails.
I responded to the 10-9-07 email immediately upon receipt (and also sent a read receipt) stating that this was the first Id heard of this urgent issue and asking someone to get back with me right away. I again included my cell phone number in this email. As of today (4 days later) no one has responded.
The email (10-9-07) was sent in a spam format and neither the sender line nor the subject line said House of Brides. I almost didnt open it as it looked like the multiple other spam emails I receive daily. Its extremely poor business sense to not have your company name as the sender!
Just to make sure I had not missed previous correspondence, I used a Microsoft feature to run a comprehensive search through all of my emails over the past 4 months to see if Id received House of Brides emails and disregarded them as they look like spam. The search came up emptyI had received NO previous emails (and again, not a single phone call or message)
When I called the phone number on Saturday (October 13), the agent (she said her name is Gaye) said that there was nothing she could do to help me.
When I called back the same day to get her name and see if I could speak to a manager, she refused and said I needed to email. When I said that I had already emailed with no response, she said Theres nothing I can help you with if they didnt respond. Then she hung up on me.
At this point, my husband also called to try to get some help/answers as I NEED this dress by December 28th. The same agent hung up on him on.
She stated it was your policy to not have managers speak with customers and respond by email only. He asked what kind of policy it was and if she could read him the policy, as this sounded strange in such an emergency situation. She responded it isnt documented; its just what we say were doing.
In conclusion, please get back with me as soon as possible regarding how we can solve this issue in time for the wedding. It has already been 4 days with no response.
Thank you,
THEIR RESPONSE%
From: House of Brides [mailto: [email protected]]
Sent: Monday, October 15 3:03 PM
To: Jen
Subject: RE: Attn: All
You can re-order with a rush and receive a dress in time for a December 28th wedding date.
Be sure to provide a valid email address so you do not have any trouble receiving emails from us. If you can please set your preferences to accept all mail from houseofbrides.com to ensure that all mail goes to your inbox.
MY CONFUSED RESPONSE%
Original Message
From: Jen
Sent: Monday, October 15 3:25 PM
To: House of Brides
Subject: RE: Attn: All
Dear sir,
May I ask who I am speaking to?
Thank you for your attention in this matter. I really do appreciate it. THANK YOU for ensuring I have the opportunity to receive the dress in time.
I have a few questions and concerns. Please read then and let me know how they can be taken care of.
1. First, I dont understand why I need to be the one to pay to rush the order. You canceled it on your own without even giving me a phone call (after it was fully paid for), and I still dont even have any idea as to why it was canceled in the first place. Now I have to re-order the dress and pay for rush delivery? That doesnt seem at all fair as it was clearly not my mistake.
2. Additionally, I feel that even if other emails were sent, someone should have taken the time to place a phone call before canceling a wedding dress order, Especially if no read receipt was sent from a recipient (assuming the first 2 emails sent out had a read receipt like the third did).
3. The phrase in your most recent email, please include a valid email address feels like it is supposed to explain why I was never notified before, and implies it was my fault that I wasnt contacted, ie, that everything would have been fine if I did include a valid email address. However, I clearly DID already provide a valid email address, as evidenced by the fact that I received the email from Ecomm4 and several other emails listed below. I have also searched my spam email and junk folders and have not found any other email. The Ecomm4 email made it into my inbox despite the spam format, as seen below:
Below is a screen shot of the emails I have received from House of Brides. The first 2 are concerning this problem, the one from ECOMM4 is the one that said my order was canceled, and the other two are from when my order was placed.
Please get back with me. Again, thank you for your time.
THEIR RESPONSE%
From: House of Brides [mailto: [email protected]]
Sent: Tue 10/16 10:55 AM
To: Jen
Subject: RE: Attn: All
If you would like to submit an order please do so immediately with a rush on it or again we will not be able to fill an order for you in time for your wedding date.
A rush is a rush at the factory. If you do not place a rush on the order Alfred Angelo will not accept your order. They do charge a fee for rush orders. Our designers only accept orders that can be delivered in time for the wedding date.
MY CONFUSED RESPONSE%
Original Message
From: Jennifer
Sent: Thursday, October 18 12:21 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: David
Subject: re: Attn: All
Thanks for defining "rush" for me. Unfortnately i was already aware of that, and wish that at least one of the questions in my previous email had been answered.
I'll rephrase and make them shorter.
1. Despite expressing concern about this in my 3 previous emails, I STILL HAVE NOT BEEN NOTIFIED AS TO WHY THE ORDER WAS CANCELED in the first place. WHY, and HOW do i know this won't happen again?
2. While i'll clearly need a rush now, I PROBABLY WOULDN"T HAVE NEEDED a rush 6 weeks ago. At least THAT WAS WHAT THE HOB AGENT said on the phone when i called with questions about my original order. YOU CANCELED MY ORIGINAL ORDER! It is unfair and, quite frankly, rude, to insist for me to pay for a rush order when YOU WERE THE ONE WHO CANCELED THE ORIGINAL ORDER.
3. Who am i speaking to?
Please respond to all 3 of these questions so that we can get this taken care of in time.
Jennifer D
PS
and i'm not overly upset that a mistake/miscommunication was made, and am truly not trying to be annoying or rude.
I AM dissapointed, however, that I feel i've been treated so poorly. It seems as though you messed things up but feel you owe the customer no explanation, apology, etc, and treat customeres like an annoyance when they try to figure out what is going on with their orders.
You'll be much more likely to keep customers if you simply explain the problem and apologize (neither of which has happened in this case, after now 4 emails!) instead of treating the customers like they are the problem.
I work in customer service, so from one customer service worker to another... The above advice is a simple way to build customer trust/loyalty instead of resentment.
THEIR RESPONSE%
From: House of Brides [mailto: [email protected]]
Sent: Thu 10/18 9:08 AM
To: Jen
Subject: [SPAM] RE: Attn: All
We sent emails to you letting you know this. Why they were not received is not something we can explain. We send hundreds of emails per day and have not experienced this type of problem. Most likely your spam filter discarded our emails.
Please find a store in your area to purchase a dress. It is obvious that our working together will not be satisfactory to you.
We consider this matter closed.
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