Complaint Review: Sports 55 - Severna Park Maryland

Having used Sports 55 last year, we thought it would be easy to order additional uniforms of the same design.  Even though last year's order took 8-10 weeks to deliver, we felt that the learning curve had been achieved and that we would surely receive what amounted to a re-order within the advertised 6 week window.  We placed the order on Sep 4 and paid the full amount - $1608 - at the time the order was placed.  Today is Dec 19th, our fall season is complete and we still don't have our uniforms.  We have received many excuses and promises that they were working "through the Thanksgiving weekend", etc. to fill our order.  We have been trying to get our uniforms since mid-October and have received nothing but more excuses.  Now it appears that Sports 55 has "re-branded" as TeamUniforms123.com.  I don't know if we'll ever get our merchandise but I do know this - we will never ever utilize this company by this or any other name.   

Excerpts from e-mail exchanges:

From Sports 55 on Oct 23, 2013 @ 11:43am:  "I assure you this order will ship at the latest next week.  We have already spent 1000's of dollars trying to restore our bookkeeping site.

Send me your list of names and numbers and the mock up you approved and I will personally go to the sewers tomorrow and make sure the jerseys ship Friday.  The hoodies will be early next week.

Our delivery is an estimated 4/6 weeks plus ship time."

Nov 1, 2013 @ 9:12am:  "So the bottom line is that nothing has changed and last week’s pledges and assurances were nothing more than an attempt to buy additional time.  Quite frankly, I’m amazed that you are still in business if you have screwed the other 100+ teams that have orders pending the way that you have screwed us.  I don’t know what information you needed to pull up from your system that I haven’t already provided back to you – aside from the order form, which you have, what else did you need? XXXX specifically stated that, “We have your art your set up files and graphic we just don't have any access to po or ship info.”  I provided a copy of the PO and the shipping address – highlighted below - so what is the problem?

I don’t need apologies, I need the uniforms that I paid for 2 months ago.  Our 14U team plays their last event of the year tomorrow – that will be 3 tournaments that they will have participated in without the uniforms that were supposed to be here 3 weeks ago.  We specifically scheduled the tournaments for weekends after the expected delivery date of the uniforms so that the players would be properly equipped.  You failed to deliver as advertised, thus requiring us to buy additional stock uniforms so that the team would not be embarrassed.

Your response that you will start to resolve some of the issues with our order next week is unacceptable and contradictory to the statements and assurances that John provided to me last week; see the highlighted statements below.  I was willing to take Sports 55 at their word and that the uniforms would have been shipped to me by now; at this point, I must explore the possibility of legal action."

Sports 55 Response on Nov 1, 2013 @9:31am:  "We provided you an estimated delivery window at the time of order.  Because situations can occur beyond our control we can not make a promise as to delivery times, so you scheduling tournaments is on you not us.   I apologize we could not meet the estimated time frames, but it is not because of lack of effort.  I have personally lost about $ 50,000 since the systems have gone down.  No one wants everything back up and running moreso than me.  You forwarded me the email specifically stating that it was an estimated time frame.

We are trying our very best to take care of everyone, XXXX and I are both working very hard to recreate the information in the system so are production teams can properly complete and ship product. I am not going to complete items on a hunch or a guess and end up eating 10's of thousands of dollars of merchandise if it is made wrong.  As we re create items in our system those items shoot to the top of production.  Now you threaten legal action?  We were hoping our systems would be back up by now but we have only been able to restore to May 1.  We have restored our art site, and our pant builder, and last night when loading an additional back up the systems went out again, and it was only at 5am did they come back up.

No one is buying time, we are tyrying to be honest with you and work with you to compelte your order.  If you provided everything to XXXX as you stated then we will get the items out as quickly as possible.  Since this weekend is your last tournament, what happens next, practice, spring games?  We will work with you on any add on players, and we will try to get you some product out as quickly as possible."

Nov 26, 2013 @ 12:37pm:  "XXXX, another week has passed & we are now at 12 weeks since our order was placed & paid in full.  We keep being informed that they are in production but with no other information provided on the status.  I understand the sublimation process is more extensive than screen printing but surely it does not take 3 months to produce a uniform.  I am asking when I can expect delivery of these items."

Response from Sports 55 on Nov 27, 2013 @10:07am:  "Myself and my entire production staff are working today tomorrow Friday and Saturday to catch up on orders.  The only thing is tomorrow were working a half-day because of the Thanksgiving holiday. It has not been our intentions to have any order take this long and we have insisted that we will work with you because of the delays. I continue to work on getting you answers but right now I do not have a completion date for you."

Dec 19, 2013 @10:20am:  "It has now been another 3 weeks (15 weeks in total since our order was confirmed, payment in full made & we were told it was in production)  & still no word on our uniforms.  I am trying to be patient but this situation is becoming intolerable to myself & my parents who have paid nearly $200 each for a uniform that their daughters will now wear for 1/2 a year (provided we receive them before Jan).  And, just so we have things right, it is us that are working with you on this order & delay, not you working with us.  I am asking you to please provide me with delivery of this order by the end of the year or after 4 months of working with you to get our uniforms, I will have no choice but to seek other alternatives."