Terrible service

I am in the process of starting a clothing brand. I came across the stitchbury page on IG & decided to contact them after seeing they have worked with brands that I am fami**** with.

I submitted an enquiry via the website & received a response email within 3 hours with the process forms attached. In this form it states that once they have received the necessary information, I would be invoiced for the consultation & once POP is sent through that an appointment will be scheduled “within 5 working days, maximum”.

I prepared all that I needed to & sent through the information on 12 September & requested the invoice so that I could make the payment. I sent a follow up email on the 15th of September asking if my email was received. I got a response to this email saying that my email was received & I would be invoiced for the consultation shortly. This was the case as I received an email later this day with my invoice payable.

On 19 September I sent through the proof of payment for this invoice. By the 22nd of September I had not yet heard back & sent a follow up email. On Friday the 23rd my email was answered & I was told to resend the proof of payment as they did not yet receive it. All I did was forward my previous email with the proof of payment & requested to be informed once it had been seen. I received no response by the next Tuesday & decided to make a phone call to enquire as the slow communication was becoming very frustrating. I was quite irritated that the terms in the initial email did not reflect the service I thought I was going to receive. On this phone call I spoke with Waldette who informed me that Hele was available to meet with me on 29 September after reviewing her diary. I agreed to this and was exited to finally get some direction about the manufacturing process and get things started with my new brand.

On short notice before my scheduled meeting I received an email saying that Hele had a doctors appointment at the time & was asked to reschedule to 3pm the next day on the 30th. This was extremely annoying as I had a full day booked with work but made arrangements to accommodate for this rescheduled meeting. Friday 30th has arrived & again I was excited for the meeting (3 with all the poor communication I had received up until this point).

Around 11AM on Friday I received a phone call from Hele saying that my moodboard sent through was not sufficient and I in fact needed to create a moodboard for each item. She said that I could complete it and send it though. My initial documents were returned on 12 September so why I am only being informed that there are things missing a few hours before the rescheduled meeting on 30 September was frustrating. I put my other work aside and completed the requested work and sent it through by 12:20.

At 13:57 I then sent a follow up email asking if the items were received. Again I received no response, however thought that they would reply to me by the time of our meeting as they needed to send me a Zoom meeting link.

Just before 15:00 I sat down for our rescheduled meeting. I had receive no response up until this point and then decided to send a WhatsApp at 15:02 to the same person who phoned me this morning. The WhatsApp was read at 15:03 and no response was received. At 15:30 I decided to send another message asking who I could make contact with as I was waiting to have my meeting.

Feeling super disappointed and extremely frustrated at the waste of my time I then took the time to read google reviews. To my surprise there were 2 other people who had experienced similar experiences within the last 4 months. Seeing these other reviews gave me a terrible feeling. By 16:28 I had decided I was done waiting and sent a WhatsApp and email stating that I was disappointed and would like a full refund.

On Monday 3 October I sent a follow up email and reiterated that I wanted a refund. No response. Again on the 6th of October I sent another email and requested that my email at least be acknowledged. Today is 9 October (I will be sending ANOTHER email tomorrow) and I am yet to be responded to.

I barely received a service but the service I did receive was absolutely unprofessional and I would not recommend Stichbury at all. This whole process has been a pain and a waste of my time.