Jocelyn M.

It's shameful to think a business has run its public service this way. Why bother to respond at all? As much as I may be tempted by doctored pictures I will not do business this company.

I loved this dress on the model, so I ordered it from DreamProm.com, but the dress they sent me looked nothing like the dress on the website, and when I tried it on, the armscyes (armholes) were so cut away that everything under my arms showed. I e-mailed DreamProm and asked to return the dress for a refund. One year and over 135 e-mails later, they still have every penny ($263.37) I sent for the dress. They did offer me a $20.00 refund and went as high as $60.00, which I did not accept. Below are excerpts from our e-mail exchanges. Please contact me for the entire e-mail thread.

DreamProm: " we also have inspected the dress before ship it. So there should be no problems in our dress."

Me: " I have shown you my pictures of the sleeves on the dress you sent me. They are very different from the ones on the dress on your website. Because they are different, I cannot wear the dress."

DreamProm: "Hi, we also spend money on this dress, we have paid the labor work, and bought the material, there is no enough for us to give you a full refund, please accpet the partial refund, this the maximum we can offer. Have a nice day." ($20.00 refund offered)

Me: "... you sent me a dress that was so different from the picture on your website that I cannot wear it."

DreamProm: "The dress we have made is just for you, there is nothing wrong with the dress..."

Me: "A $20.00 refund means that I am still paying about $240.00 for a dress I cannot wear. That is not acceptable."

DreamProm: "Can you keep the dress and accept a partial refund? As a compensation, we would like to free your customize fee and rush fee for your future shopping."

(At this point, we had exchanged about 30 e-mails. I realized that I should find the actual charge for the dress on my credit card statement before continuing my correspondence with DreamProm. This wasn't easy, since DreamProm.com was not listed on any of my credit card statements. I started to doubt whether the charges had actually gone through, and was about to contact DreamProm to let them know when I found a charge for $263.37 to a company called "Fishinthesky." This was the charge for the dress.)

Me: "I am still waiting for my refund of $263.37 for the dress that wasn't the same as the one on your website. I will send the dress back to you as soon as my refund arrives."

DreamProm: "Hey, you again. Wow half a year has passed, are you still going to send the dress back? Please just keep it." (No refund offered)

Me: "Yes, half a year has passed and you have done nothing..."

DreamProm: "How about we give you a discount and then you buy a new one?"

Me: "I will not buy anything from you ever again, so how would a discount help me?"

DreamProm: "Hello, thanks for your email. We are so sorry as it is too late and it has passed half of the year, our bank told us that the money can not be refunded to you. How about that we offer you the most favorable discount which is unavailable for other customers for your future shopping?"

Me: "Every time you offer me a discount, you are really telling me that you want me to spend more of my money with you."

DreamProm: "... we offered you a refund of $60... The only way is you can buy something else and we take the refund as discount. Why not have a new dress rather than we both stuck in this situation. We can imagine that you joined many proms or parties actually."

Me: "If I had accepted your refund of $60.00, I would still have paid over $200.00 for a dress that was different from the one I ordered and that I could not use in any way."

DreamProm: "If you are always stating that a refund, we will have no idea what we can do for you."

Me: "You said at the beginning that you could not refund my money, then you said that you could refund only some of it, then you said that you could refund a little more of it, then you said that you could only refund a little of it, then you said that you could refund a little more of it, then you said that you could refund none of it. Now you say that you could have refunded my money earlier, but not now... You have told me many different things. If one of those things is true, the others cannot be true."

(DreamProm offered $20.00, $30.00, $40.00, then $60.00 refunds, all of which I refused. I would have settled for $200.00. I was willing to lose $60.00 or so, but no more, for a dress that was different from the one on their website, that I couldn't wear.)

DreamProm: "thank you for your email. But we can hardly give you 200 usd. We have spent so much for making the dress to you. We have bought the high quality fabric and we have paid for the expensive salary for the professional tailors who have worked day and night to make the dress for you specially. We even covered the shipping fee. There is no any profit left for us. So could you please kindly take the hard work of our tailors into consideration and donate the dress to charity this time?"

Me: 'You seem to be asking me to donate $263.37 to your company for no reason. I cannot afford to do that. It does not matter how much you paid the tailor or how expensive the fabric is if the dress is not what you said it would be. It is a shame that those things went into a dress that I cannot wear, but that is because your company made a mistake. You made the mistake and I did not, but you are telling me that I should be the one to pay so that you will not lose your profit."

DreamProm: "Too many times pass, the 20 usd is really the most we can offer..."

Me: "Why should I have to pay $240.00 for your mistake?"

DreamProm: "Hi... we still suggest you buy another one dress cause now dresses are much cheaper than before, just take the chance. Thank you."

Me: "You are telling me that you won't fix your mistake, you will keep my money and I should buy another dress from you? No. Please refund me my money in full immediately."

DreamProm: "Hi, we are trying to fix this but just in another way actually. We would like to but you always say no, that hurts actually. Sad"

Me: "I'm sorry it hurts you that I won't accept a $30.00 refund. I'm sorry it hurts you that I won't accept a discount on another dress you want me to buy from you. I don't believe it hurts as much as losing $263.37 and having to spend even more money on another dress."

DreamProm: "Hi, if i refund you in full i will be definately fired actually. Will you help me?"

Me: "Who is in charge of finances? That is who I'd like to speak to. If I speak directly to the person in charge, you will not get in trouble."

DreamProm: "But it is very hard. We are having a Tomb-sweeping Day holiday, see you next next week."

Me: " I hope you had a nice holiday. It's been almost a year and we've exchanged almost 130 e-mails. Please let me know how much longer your customer service department will take to help me."

DreamProm: "Please don't hope for the refund. Think about something else."

Me: "Please do not tell me that you can take my money but you cannot give it back."

DreamProm: "Hi, sorry we are not able to send you a check or use wire transfer. The supervisor told me he would't do that. I don't know what to do now. Sorry cannot help you with that. Why won't you buy yourself a dress..."

Me: "I tried that a year ago. One year later, it is still a very bad experience. Please refund my money."

Me: "Please share my emails with your supervisor and have him contact me."

Me: "I am still waiting to hear from your supervisor."

Me: "I'm still waiting. You have not even sent me an automatic response."