Complaint Review: Alfred Angelo - Houston Texas

This was the letter I wrote to Alfred Anglo's customer service:

To whom it may concern,

While I love the style of wedding dress I chose from Alfred Angelo, I am appalled at the poor treatment I have recieved at your 8066 Westheimer Store in Houston, Texas. I am writing this letter as a record of my formal complaint.

I ordered my wedding dress (Style 1774NT) on January 12, 2008 from my Houston store. I paid an additional $50 for the shorter version of the dress. The dress was received twelve days later, but no one called to tell me. I finally called them nearly a month later, and had my first fitting February 22, 2008. I ordered the dress in a size that made it three inches shorter all the way around. When I tried on my dress on the twenty-second of February, it was the longer style. The lady in the store argued with me, trying to convince me that this dress was indeed three inches shorter and that I needed to pay to have it hemmed. She showed me the order where we specified the shorter style, as if that were proof. Finally I was frustrated enough that I grabbed my same dress off the rack and held it up to the one I had on. Sure enough it was the long version. The woman never apologized. I was charged upwards of $150 to have the dress altered, and promised that I was not being charged to the hemming since it was the company's screw up.

My step mother then called more than three times on different days trying to pay for the alterations that were ordered with a credit card. No one she talked to knew where my dress was, what was being done to it, a total amount, or if I was even a client. Finally I had to call them to straighten it out, and my stepmother called back one last time where she was finally permitted to pay for the work we had ordered.

When my alterations had finished, again, no one called me. Finally I called in mid-March to see where my dress was and schedule a fitting for April fourth. I showed up on the fourth and to my surprise, my dress was three inches shorter... but only in the FRONT. They had only hemmed HALF of my dress. On top of that, the dress material that was attached behind the lace trim on the dress was so long, (on the portion that was hemmed) it was visible from the front of the dress.

I asked to have the dress taken in again, and the seamstress kept pinching in along the sides of the dress, along the seam. This caused an unsightly pucker. I asked if it could be taken in from the zipper or the darts. She said no, that was not possible. I pointed out the puckering and the bagginess that existed just above my rear and she told me that my strapless dress "was not supposed to fit tightly." Exasperated, I told her that they could fix the hem for free and I would take the dress to my tailor in town to have it taken in the way I wanted it done. It was only then that she stopped arguing with me and began to take in the dress along the darts. Once again, I received no apology for the argument.

On april 7th I called to see what all my charges were. It seemed strange to me that to take a dress in from the seems was nearly $150, and to take it in along the darts was only $50. When I called to see why the first total was so much, the assistant manager told me that hemming was around $100, and the seam work was about $60. which would have added up to my last total of over $150. When the assistant manager asked if I was calling to pay for the alterations I had ordered on April 4th I became irate. She Informed me that Hemming the dress was $100, and that since I had already paid $50 when I ordered the dress to have it 3" shorter, that the store had deducted $50 from my total.

"But hemming it cost $100. So I paid $50 for hemming?" I said.

The manager never could give me a straight answer. Instead, in true Alfred Angelo form, she argued with me. I was never offered a reimbursement if the charges were wrong. In fact, the manager admitted that she had no idea if they were wrong or not, as she could not read the seamstress's pricing book.

My wedding is now a month and five days away. I just want my dress, I want my money back from the hemming I paid for that looks so bad and was half done, and I want to go to another tailor. I am frazzled and unsure of how to proceed. I am not an ugly bridezilla, but having a dress hemmed all the way around just shouldn't be too much to ask for.

Jennifer

houston, Texas

U.S.A.