Received wrong tartan, won't fix problems

[Panache]

Oops! Sorry Jaimie, I was typing when you posted your message.

(I'm a two-finger typist; takes a while).

Stan,

Not a problem. You provided a good illustration of why it is best to let Nick have a chance to get to the bottom of this.

To All,


Without all the facts speculation is useless. Rather than close this thread I'm going to ask once more that we all refrain from further comment. Let's leave this thread to Nick and Wife2aScot.

Translation: If you aren't Nick or Wife2aScot please don't post on this thread

OK?

Cheers

Jamie

[Nick Fiddes]

Dear Wife2aScot,

I've now had a chance to review this case with our retail team, and gather information. I'd like to describe our own perspective, and then ask you what you feel should be the best way forward.

Firstly, I have to report that our team is both surprised and genuinely a little hurt by your comments above. What I'm told, and from what I see in our written email records, is that you did indeed contact us to say you were unhappy with the colours of the fabrics you received. But nowhere did you actually request a return. Can you tell me exactly where and when this request was ever put to us?

Also, I've reviewed the detailed (and in my view, accurate) email reply you received from one of our customer service team, answering your issues raised and explaining why the colours differ. And nowhere in it do I see any statement refusing a return. They are therefore quite perplexed by your allegations. Again, I'd be grateful if you could identify exactly when and where we refused this.

I'd also like to affirm that, factually, as opposed to the title of this thread, you did not in fact receive the "wrong" tartan. You received two lengths of fabric exactly as ordered, and as correctly woven by the reputable weaving firms concerned. As we take great pains to point out in many different places on our site, and as described at length in my little kilts & tartan e-book, tartans are defined by their thread counts and by usually quite broad definitions of shades. If you count the colours in your fabrics received, you'll find they accord perfectly with the colours described on our pages and in Scottish Tartans Authority register.

We also go to as great lengths as we can without such warnings becoming unreasonably intrusive, to remind customers that colours shades can and do vary greatly from one fabric to the next, and from one weaver to the next. And, of course, screen images can never be totally accurate in terms of shades, and are often far from so, for a variety of reasons that are likewise spelled out in multiple places in our customer advice, including right next to every online swatch on our site.

This is why we always recommend the purchase of a swatch where possible. This variation is beyond our control, both commercially since different weavers simply interpret the colour defintitions differently (which are all still correct, whilst being sometimes markedly different)... and indeed in terms of physics. One of the fabrics you ordered was in silk, which will often be dramatically brighter than its equivalent in wool, simply due to the finer weave, the reflectivity of the material, and the different dye-stuff absorbtion characteristics of the fibres.

Leaving your own particular experience aside for a moment, if you can find it in yourself to do so, I'd like to ask you what in principle you feel we could be doing better? Given the circumstances described above, where we are striving to offer the widest range of tartan fabrics possible, from a variety of sources who create the 'same' thing in many different ways, what should we do? The commercial fact is that once a fabric is cut into a short length, or a kilt physically made, its resale value to us is negligible, as it could be many years before a customer wanted such a piece again. Do you really think it fair that we should offer a no-questions returns policy on cut-to-order fabrics, so we take the loss if a customer simply dislikes the colour on receipt? The truth is that doing so would quite possibly put us out of business. Therefore we feel the best solution, to offer a quality and viable service, is to inform the customer as fully as possible and make every effort we can to deliver accurate advice. What exactly would you propose we do differently?

Having said all that, we never wish to leave a customer unhappy. That is why our retail manager personally both paged you and left a message on your answering service yesterday. In fact I believe he did so even before your message was posted here, trying to speak to you and asking that you get in touch (at our expense) to discuss your issues. As yet we've not heard back from you. Might I suggest that you call (toll free) and ask to speak to our retail manager so that we can try to assist you as best we can?

I'd be grateful if you could let me know personally if there's anything I've written above that you believe to be inaccurate. And you have my personal assurance that, as ever, we'll do everything we can to resolve your issues as best we possibly can. I'm very sorry indeed to read that you feel so badly let down by us. Please let us know what you feel we should do to resolve this.

With kindest regards

Nick

[Wife2aScot]

Nick,
Thanks for personally looking into this matter. I appreciate it. I'm not sure how my desire to return these fabrics could have been missed in the emails sent and the calls I made. When I recieved the fabric on Tuesday, June 10th, I called your company right away and was told that if I wished to make a return on fabric, I was to take pictures of the fabric and send it to your customer service email. And so I did, with my explanations and disappointments.

As I said . . . kilt makers have looked over this fabric and there's no way possible that it is in fact the MacMillan modern hunting. I will have to respectfully disagree on the statements made by you and the rest of the staff at Scotweb that because different weavers have different dyes (and weaving patterns, etc, etc, etc), this is how we ended up with the fabric looking the way it is. I know that is the case, but this fabric is FAR from what it is supposed to be, and no amount of differences between weavers could have explained it.

You asked when/how I got the idea that I was not able to return the fabric. Yesterday I received an email from a lady named Judy that stated that your company still believes these fabrics to be as described when I purchased them, and since I was told I would not be able to return them if that were the case, therefore I inferenced that I cannot return them.

There is also another issue I had in the email I recieved. Judy stated that the swatch image I included in the first email to your company about the fabric was from a different website than yours, and that is not the case. I got that swatch directly from the page where I ordered the fabric.

As I stated when I first ordered the fabric, I was in a terrible rush and therefore was not able to purchase a swatch first of the fabric. I assumed that it would be correct, and I realize now that I should have just made do with something else instead of trying to purchase this fabric in a short amount of time. That was definitely my mistake.

I apologize if any of my statements made here seem harsh. Please understand that this fabric was very important to us, hence the reason my husband and I are so upset. It's been very hard for us to get real answers out of your company (especially before these items were shipped), and this is why I brought it to a public board. I do appreciate now having a communication open about this issue. The main reason why this upsets us so much is because the fabric is not exactly cheap, and we feel the money has been completely wasted on fabric we have no use for.

You also mentioned that someone called yesterday and left a message. I wonder if you all have my correct number because I never recieved anything like that.

Thanks again.

[Wife2aScot]

Nick,

You also asked what I believe you all should be expected to do when a customer recieves the fabric how it is "supposed to be", but simply does not like the style/colors/patterns for whatever reason. In that case, I agree with you all- you should not offer a return. I understand that by doing so your company would simply lose the money it took to create that fabric that you, in theory, have no use for at this time (or may not for years, as you stated).

That said, I do not believe the case above is what we are dealing with. As I stated, we believe we did NOT receive what we ordered.

We will be out of town for several days so I apologize in advance for not being able to respond to anything said here.

[Panache]

One of the great things about X Marks the Scot is that many of our vendors participate directly on our forum not just as vendors but as members. Perhaps this can serve as an example that trying to contact the responsible party directly through or PM system first is the most direct route to resolving a problem or even just asking a question.

I think it would be best that Wife2aScot communicate with Nick directly via PMs as they work together to resolve this situation.

With this in mind (unless Wife2aScot or Nick objects) I will close this thread.

Respectfully

Jamie