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Barbara Staples - LimeBarb did not deliver products & ignored paying customers Chicago Illinois
Limebarb.com is the site of Barbara Staples, who takes commission orders for anime and video game themed costumes. She had been taking orders since 2001, and was working as a full-time costume designer in early 2003.
Late in 2003, many of her commissions were behind schedule. By February 2004, she had missed several hard deadlines that she promised to keep with multiple customers. All through 2004, she had missed many more deadlines. As of February 2005, several customers have been waiting over 16 months for their costumes, long past their deadlines.
It has been recently revealed on her own site, and from associates, that Ms. Staples was still accepting new orders throughout this time, despite missing many orders. Several newer contracts were completed instead of other contracts she was obligated to finish a long time ago. It has also been revealed, on her site, she has been making costumes for herself and her friends, while ignoring those of paid customers.
Throughout this time, there have been inadequate attempts at contacting her customers to notify them of any problems. Frequently, contact requests sent to her by phone, email and mail were ignored. Ms. Staples has only been posting vague updates through her website, which are inconsistent. After her account manager left in mid 2004, it became impossible to contact her by any means. After that point, she had made no attempts to contact customers, except a recent thread in a public forum, which called her out.
To date she hasn't given a reasonable explanation for her activities, only vague excuses and conflicting statements. It appears her network of friends has been working to intimidate and quiet anyone making public statements of the horrible service that Limebarb.com offers, resulting in several public complaints being removed from forums.
Myself and several others have been issued partial refunds over a duration of time, noting some expenses. The portion withheld, in my professional opinion, doesn't reflect what little work was done, but the difference doesn't warrant a suit. Complaints have been filed with the Chicagoland BBB office, and multiple public mediums. While some complaints were removed by Limebarb associates, more and more are still standing. The questionable business practices and unreliability of Limebarb's business warrants careful consideration for future prospects.
Anna
Elmhurst, Illinois
U.S.A.
5 Updates & Rebuttals
Limebarb.com
Chicago,Illinois,
U.S.A.
To Clarify
#6REBUTTAL Owner of company
Fri, April 10, 2009
The rebuttal's look a tad out of order. I would like to point out that the response from Peter is the completely false one. The "Response to Complaint in 2005" is directed towards the customer. My rebuttal to another customer appears to have shown up on this original post as well, so I apologize for any confusion.
^_^
Barb Staples,
owner,
limebarb.com
Limebarb.com
Chicago,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Rebuttal
#6REBUTTAL Owner of company
Thu, April 09, 2009
A majority of this post contains rumors, hearsay, etc. all concerning 2005 and earlier. Very little of it contains content of a real persons direct experience with limebarb.com. Any order discrepancies from this era have been resolved. if Anna from Elmhurst still has some kind of issue with us, she can contact us directly to get it sorted out by emailing limebarb@limebarb.com
At the time in early 2005 the business we co-owned by two people. Some unfortunate miss-management at the time, and the break-up/splitting of the other partner left my (at the time) one person company with a an overwhelming amount of catch up work. At the time my hands were very full with trying to pick up the pieces, but I made sure to be responsible to my customers in fixing the delays that happened at that time.
I would also like to state that this article is merely one complaint, written 4 years ago. Please take into consideration that limebarb.com is an every growing business. In 2004 it was a one personal business completing 90 projects a year. It is now a 7 person operation completing nearly 400 custom made costumes a year.
Barbara Staples,
limebarb.com
______________________________
As a side note we would like to express that we do not support ripoffreport.com as we feel that they promote flaming and complaining over supporting actual customers with actual complaints that need resolution. We recommend to anyone out there who, as a customer, have a valid complaint with any company to contact the company and attempt to reach a resolution with them. If none can be reached, lodge your complaint with the Better Business Bureau, as they have been around for years, and are set up to properly work with both consumers and businesses.
Limebarb.com
Chicago,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Response to a Report from 2005
#6REBUTTAL Owner of company
Thu, April 09, 2009
Dear Lois,
and future customers,
This customer placed an order in August 2004 for a costume delivery of Oct 2004. At the time the business we co-owned by two people. Some unfortunate miss-management at the time, and the break-up/splitting of the other partner left my (at the time) one person company with a an overwhelming amount of catch up work. Unfortunately Lois's was one of the orders that slid into being delayed. I tried to complete it as soon as I could, but dissatisfaction of the customer led me to just refund her the full amount of the costume with my apologies. I am sorry that she had to wait so long for a resolution. At the time my hands were very full with trying to pick up the pieces, but I made sure to be responsible to my customers in fixing the delays that happened at that time.
It should be noted that Julia Cretens was not an employee of limebarb.com at the time of this situation so this complaint has nothing to do with her. It should also be pointed out that this complaint is peppered with rumors and hearsay aside from this customers actual complaint.
I would also like to state that this article is merely one complaint, written 4 years ago. Please take into consideration that limebarb.com is an every growing business. In 2004 it was a one personal business completing 90 projects a year. It is now a 7 person operation completing nearly 400 custom made costumes a year.
Barbara Staples,
owner,
limebarb.com
Limebarb.com
Chicago,Illinois,
U.S.A.
This is a completely false report
#6REBUTTAL Owner of company
Thu, April 09, 2009
This report is a false report. This person has never ordered any item or costume from limebarb.com. He is merely spouting hate speech in the direction of limebarb.com. The contents of this report are filled with rumors, hearsay and overly dramatized information, and all of it from early 2005, 4 years ago.
This is not an actual account of a customer's experience with limebarb.com.
Peter
Deerfield,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Limebarb.com Poor Service
#6Consumer Suggestion
Fri, February 11, 2005
As a personal acquaintance of Barb Staples and several of their current and former employees, I can attest to the fact that very many costumes were not completed on time.
Costumes for the personal use of Barb Staples and her employees and friends almost always took precedence over those of paid contracts.
Of the paid contract costumes that were completed in a timely fashion, it was often due to it being a duplicate of a previous commission or was because Barb had the intention of making a duplicate for herself of for a friend.
Case 1: LimeBarb.com completed a Guilty Gear XX i-No costume in a timely fashion, though with several obvious mistakes that required the owner to fix, and wore a duplicate costume (minus the mistakes) to the same convention as her customer.
Case 2: A number of costumes missed their deadline date, as well as the convention date, as Barb had put them off (or entirely ignored starting them) to complete her Bee costume for Ohayocon.
There are also many cases where the quality of commission costumes suffered because personal projects required more attention or funding. This, in spite of the fact that Limebarb.com advertises that they make professional-quality costumes and their commitment to quality is so high, that in three years of taking costume commissions, we have never had a single person ask us for their money back, which was an absolutely false statement at the time that page was updated.
On a personal level, I can assert that Barb isn't intentionally ripping off customers. On a professional level, I feel that their business is too poorly run to recommend to customers.