Sunday, January 15, 2006

Why Tabula Rasa cannot be trusted...

or, alternative title: How Tabula Rasa is trying really hard to ruin my wedding

Okay, so when I have thought about getting married when I was younger I always wanted to spend the money to get invitations from Tabula Rasa, they were part of the fairytale, right? So I get engaged, I am looking to get invitations, I go to Tabula Rasa.

Problem number one that should have made me re-think what I was doing: the condesending manner in which the manager referred to me and to my mother. Also the same manner in which we were treated when we went to order the invites.

Problem number two that should have made me re-think what I was doing: when we were ordering the invites, the manager kept getting his days confused and kept saying that the invites were going to be in a week later than what he was telling me should happen with the shipping dates.

Nether-the-less I ordered beautiful invitations that left a scalding hole in my parents' pockets.

We ordered the invitations on the 3rd of January. The proof was signed on the 5th, the printing company would then need 3 business days to complete the printing which would mean that they would be completed by Tuesday the 10 and shipped out on Wednesday the 11th at the latest. We paid for next day shipping, making it Wednesday or Thursday at the latest for receiving the invitations. I called on Wednesday, was told that the invitations were not there, and that they had been shipped a day late but will be there tomorrow. I called on Thursday, now there was some delay in shipping because of the weather. I called on Friday, some problem with FedEx, was told that he was going to request a Saturday delivery. Called on Saturday, told that the box was somewhere in Salt Lake but that FedEx was unwilling to deliver it.

At this point I was enraged, and Mr.3 got involved. We were told to meet the Assistant Manager at 6:30pm, because she was going to be in later due to a bridal show. We are there at 6:30, the Assistant Manager isn't there,but she will be there in another half hour and she was told earlier that we were going to be coming. Mr.3 makes the salesman call his manager on the phone, and Mr. 3 talks to her the entire time of her drive back. No matter how many times we explain the situation, no one is willing to do anything for us about our invitations. 7:15ish Assistant Manager finally arrives in the store. Apologizes, doesn't know what is wrong, feels really sorry for us. 20 minutes into this conversation we have to mention the possibility of a refund of some sort....the Assistant Manager says that there is no way she is going to pay FedEx after the situation---hello...you already charged us for the shipping...you don't pay anything. It is also around this time that we find out the invitations were not shipped until the 12th, the day that we have in writing as the day the invitations would be in by. Even with being shipped by that time we still should have had them by Saturday. Yet now we are being told that they might be in on Monday, but they can't guarentee that. And we have no assurances that they will give us any sort of a discount. Mr.3 did a wonderful job trying to work with them and dispite the efforts of negotation...I snapped.

I jumped up from my seat, crying and began to yell in the store how this situation was impossible. They find a way of getting those invitations tonight or we were calling the credit card company and reversing the charges. I was the irrate bride.

The Assistant Manager did nothing to help us. She didn't even try to deal with FedEx beyound talking to a tier 1 lackey. They failed to notice that there was a problem with the order on Wednesday when I first called (but they did manage to keep a record of my calls). They also did nothing to notify me that there was a problem with my order. They also never called me last night to tell me what they had managed to find out about the invites. So we called the credit card company to cancel the charges for failure to deliver. Tabula Rasa now has to eat $350+ in non-reuseable invitations, I hope they enjoy them.

We have now wasted two whole weeks in getting out invitations, and now we are scrambling to make them. Mr.3 and I bought (after multiple "disagreements" on how to arrange everything) pre-made invitation kits to make the invites. I went online and stole the grafics of the invites that I had originally ordered to put on our new invites...hopefully the printer ink will hold out, but I am not sure. Mr.3 has been working his magic on the computer and printer to get everything done, but as it is invites will be getting to people 3 weeks before the ceremony. We are easily in our 6 hour of printing and haven't gotten to the reception cards yet.

To say that I am disappointed with Tabula Rasa would be an understatement at best. I feel betrayed and swindled. They have proven themselves to be a snooty sales staff with no customer services skills whats-so-ever, and a company that can not deliver on any business promises that they make to their customers. Do not ever buy anything from them, especially pre-printed invitations, you will only get burned!

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