Hi Ladies,
This just happened to me yesterday and I'm completely devastated!! This is the story.
After I had gotten the call that my dress came in, I had called back twice to see if they could give me a rough ball park estimate of what a hem might cost on my dress. They said they don't know and I'd have to come in and see the seamstress. Okay, fair enough, but a little more customer service would have been nice.
I went in for the fitting which took 20 minutes of just pinning 2 inches off the bottom of the dress. Mind you the dress is very simple chiffon with no beading, nothing. After the fitting was done, the seamstress (who barely speaks English) took me up to the register, she left me with a $243 bill and left. I didn't have the card that I was going to pay with, so I told them I had to go home and I was going to call them back. As I drove home, I decided to not go with them because that was just too much money for a 2 inch hem. I called them 30 minutes later and informed them that I'd like to cancel the alteration. She said I had to call the seamstress since she was a third party contractor and had already taken the dress. I left the seamstress a message, and got a call back from Demetrio’s saying that they'll cancel it and I can come pick it up in 3 days. Okay, no big deal. I'm in no rush at all.
I had called back the day before they said I could to let them know that I was going to be getting my dress in a few days and informed them of why I was picking it up late (cancelled alteration). Fast forward to what I'm pissed about...
I went last night to go pick up my dress and they THEN told me that I had to pay $25 b/c of a cancellation fee for time and pins. No one had told me this out of the 5 times I called and they wouldn't give me my dress until the balance was paid off. My dress is paid off in full by the way. I never signed anything about a cancellation policy, I never signed anything at all, and now they're holding my dress from me!!
When I told them I wasn't going to pay for the "fee" she changed her story about 3 times about why the fee was charged and then she told me that SHE doesn't see where I'm coming from and only agrees with the seamstress. HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!! They have no paperwork to prove anything and they make you feel like YOU'RE the idiot. They are all terrible with people skills and are only nice to you if you buy everything from them. Typical sales place. They failed to give me any paperwork stating that I agreed to any of these policies that they're trying to implement. When I asked to see them, they said that it should be assumed that they work that way. I'm sorry, but good business doesn't work off assumptions and good faith...it goes off paperwork, policies, disclosures, signatures, etc. They are extremely unprofessional once you ask them to do something that they don't want to do. The dress is beautiful and the initial process was without any issues...but those girls are like Jekyll and Hyde. They expect you to ask questions that you should have to even fathom. Please exercise caution with them before going in for any post work to your dress. I don't want any of you ladies to be as disrespected as I was!