Solopress

My company ordered A4+ glossy folders for a client seminar. When they arrived the quality was shoddy to the point of being unusable. The edges were not aligned, there was cracking on the folds and the business card slits had been cut landscape rather than portrait.

I complained and asked for the job to be reprinted. I was asked to send photos which I did immediately. The response from Solopress was that as I had missed their error with the business card slits in the proof it was my fault and as they had overprinted by 50 folders that made up for the poor quality.

I accept that I missed the error with the business card slits when I approved the proof; I simply did not think to check something quite that basic. However the error with the slits absolutely does not excuse the fact that the edges of the folders didn't line up because they had been constructed badly, or the cracking on the folds. The fact that they sent an extra 50 folders that I couldn't use in no way addresses the quality issues, it just meant I had an extra box to throw away.

Solopress then said they would collect the entire order to examine it but that was several days later and by then we had thrown all but a couple of folders away as there was no point in having 10 boxes of useless marketing materials cluttering up the office. Solopress then jumped on the fact the folders had been dumped as an excuse not to re-do the job, despite having plenty of close-up photographic evidence of the poor quality.

The fact that Solopress left us without useable marketing materials for a major client event was bad enough but the fact that they have no sense of responsibility and find such shoddy workmanship acceptable is abominable. If I treated my clients like this I soon wouldn't have any.

I gave Solopress ample opportunity to rectify the mistake and I also said I would give them poor online reviews if they didn't and they simply didn't care. They certainly won't be getting any more business from our group of companies and I am writing this review so other people know what treatment they can expect from this company.

As an artist, I work with printing companies all the time. I can confidently say that SoloPress is the worst company I have ever worked with (or tried to, in my case).
I wish I could take back all the hours I wasted speaking to their customer service, trying to reach them to get my order done. It's been a nightmare.

I placed a large order for brochures on the 28th of August (spent almost 2k). A week later they still hadn't sent me the digital proof for approval. I sent countless emails and messages asking for the proof, they replied telling me to resubmit the files because they were "damaged". I did so promptly, days went by, I sent more emails asking for the proof, they asked me to resubmit the files AGAIN. I did so again, and never heard back.
I have a feeling they use the excuse of "damaged files" to buy some time, as none of the other printers I worked with had problems with the **exact same files**.
I was never informed of the issues directly, they only mentioned them after I had already spent days trying to reach them.

After a week, and no proof in sight, I asked for the order to be cancelled. They promised to send me a digital proof that afternoon, and a free printed proof in the post - so I decided to give them a last chance.
I should not have been so gullible.

After another 3 days, and no proof, I asked once again for my order to be cancelled.
They outrightly LIED and said the digital proof was sent, that **I approved it** (I never received it, and I most definitely never approved it), and that they were preparing the printed version.

I was absolutely speachless. It's one thing to be incompetent, but to LIE on top of that was just plainly disgusting.

I eventually got my refund, and placed an order with Mixam instead, which fulfilled my order in 3 days with no issues.

Ultimately, my advice is to save yourself a migraine and order from a more professional company.

One note of merit goes to Hannah, from their webchat. She was the only person that behaved gracefully and kindly, and given SoloPress' way of working I can imagine that she has to deal with a lot of angry customers on a daily basis, and that can't be easy.