Complaint Review: Ciera Bridal & Formalwear - Pickerington Ohio

After a long and almost painful search for a unique wedding dress search online, I found Cieras/Wedding Factory Outlet after I saw some comments from people about how much luck they had at buying their dresses directly from factories in China. After all, that's where wedding dresses come from anyway, right?

My mother and I placed the order for (what I thought was) a chic, unique couture-looking dress in mid-february for my wedding which was July 3, 2009. I was returning to my family's home for Easter Weekend in April so we had about 10 weeks for the dress to be delivered there so I could try it on for my mother, grandmother and friends before seeing if it needed alterations or if it wasn't a keeper (if that was the case we were only out $250... Well, $300 with rush shipping of 6-weeks, just to be on the safe side.)

After 6 weeks, the dress hadn't arrived to my mothers house. At 7 weeks she tried calling and emailing them and finally received a generic response back that dresses should be shipped in 8-10 weeks but they'd put a rush on it so it should arrive on the Friday before Easter. We were miffed, but figured we had time. Though I did only have a tight time frame in which to be back home, we knew even if it came by Monday or Tuesday after Easter I'd be ok.

It never arrived.

After countless more attempts at contacting this "front" and receiving countless emails stating someone would respond in 24-72 hours, we recevied an email in mid-May that (no lie) said we should pray on it and with God, all things are possible so MAYBE we'd have the dress by the end of may, but that they were very busy with prom and wedding season.

We kept hoping for something. We never got someone on the phone, just needless runarounds through a voice system that is clearly designed to get people to just hang-up. Another email led us to believe we'd have the dress at the end of may so I drove the 400 miles back home the weekend after memorial day, hoping it would be there. Thank god by this time I had 2 alternates to try on (and ultimately ended up choosing one that worked nicely).

With the wedding now about a month away we decided to cut our losses, figuring since we;d given them the date of the wedding in our initial order in February and had paid for expedited shipping and were told that dressess ususally only take around 8-10 weeks that it may come by the time I went home for the wedding. WRONG.

A week after the wedding we emailed them demanding a refund as we had paid and they had never even delivered a single scrap of material. We got no response at all, ever again.

It took me an hour on the phone with a sympathetic bride-to-be at my mothers bank to dispute the charge. The money was finally credited to her account about 2 weeks ago.

I am DISGUSTED that a company like this is allowed to exist. I kick myself for having expected more. There's a reason why retailers broker directly through Chinese sweat shops (so you and I don't have to).

I urge people not to be fooled and get their hopes up. There's something to be said for dealing with real live human beings that can understand the issues you face around such an important event. Thank god I'm not the sort to let it ruin my day but it definitely added undue stress.

These people are scam artists. Point Blank. If one other hopeful bride can be dissuaded then I've done my bit. If there's a way for direct contact, I'm happy to share the UNBELIEVABLE email responses we got back from these shady theives. The wedding business is a racket as it is. Pay the couple hunderd dollars more to go to a bridal salon, let them tailor a dress to your needs, and don't thank that you've found the deal of a lifetime on Cieras. It's not worth it.