When you open a business there a million things you have to think about and a million problems you have to handle. You just have to make decision after decision with no guide to tell you if it is the right thing to do. That is why I can sympathize with a President or Governor or Mayor because running government is sort of like running a business. Except you can't lose your shirt running New York State. A case in point.You are looking at a beautiful Angora wool swing coat from one of our top designer labels. It is just about the most expensive thing we have in the store. We only got two of them and they were earmarked for specific customers who we had show a sample to and who ordered and prepaid for some time ago. It is 100% Angora with a silk lining. When one of the customers was picking up her coat, another of our good customers saw it and immediately demanded that she wanted one. We had to call up the company and order it and go through a lot of stuff to get it. She called every couple of days to inquire because she had to have the coat for the holidays. I worked hard at it and managed to get it to her in the time for Christmas just the way she wanted.
So she gets the coat and everything is great right. Well she goes to Vegas for New Years and while she is there she spills ketchup on the coat. She sends it to the hotel dry cleaner and they ruin it. She comes back and wants me to take the coat back because she couldn't dry clean it. She tells me I should stand behind my goods since she should be able to dry clean the coat and if she bought it at Bloomingdales she could just bring it back. Now I do stand behind my goods. If the lining split or the sleeve came off or something of course I would have it fixed or have the company give me a new one for her. But when she got stains on it and the dry cleaner ruins it then it is not my responsiblity. I mean if she spilled paint on it am I supposed to give her a new coat? Angora wool is very delicate and extra special care must be taken in cleaning it. Certainly in removing stains. You just don't hang it in bag outside your hotel room to have it cleaned. I used to do the taxes for the cleaners that operated in the basement of the Gramercy park hotel. They did all the linens and bedsheets and the dry cleaning sent down by the guests. And you know what. They threw stuff all over the place and put everything in the same piles to clean more or less. So it is no wonder that they messed up the coat. Plus I don't think Bloomingdales would take back a garment that you stained and then ruined by trying to clean. So I will have to tell her there is nothing I can do. I am sure to lose a customer but that's just way it goes. If I replaced every garment that someone stained I would be out of business in a week. Business is tough enough as it is, and you hate to lose a good customer. But what can you do?
7 comments:
Seriously Trooper-do you need me to bitch slap her?
First of all-if she had any sense the Hotel has a lot more pull with -the Vegas dry cleaner.
The Vegas dry cleaner probably used the wrong procedure or solution and should have tested it-first on an inconspicuous part of the coat.
It's not apparent that the coat itself is defective-and actually a conscientious dry cleaner would have noticed and stopped-but with the volume a hotel brings I doubt that happened.
Wow, that's major league chutzpah.
It's clear as a bell that if she stained the coat it's either her loss or she takes the dry cleaner to small claims court.
I went online to see how to clean Angora and it is very tough and needs special care. Otherwise the little bristles are damaged and you can't do anything. The only solution I came up with is that she can send it to the designer and they might replace the collar or sleeve or whatever but she would have to pay for that.
Aren't dry cleaners responsible for ruining stuff?
You would think. And this woman is the only thing worse than a journalist.
Not your responsibility.
Trooper, my understanding is this is actually partially regulated by the FTC and the industry trade group, the Drycleaning & Laundry Institute (www.ifi.org). You might want to do some investigation on those web sites and more generally.
My recollection from a radio show is that if the cleaner failed to follow the care label, they can be liable. If the care label is wrong, the manufacturer can be liable. The DLI has a lab which investigates cleaning complaints to determine what happened.
According to this, the FTC tells consumers they have the right to a refund or replacement and to return damaged garments to the retailer if care instructions were followed.
Given she sent it to a Vegas hotel drycleaner, I suspect care instructions were not followed, and thus she has a case against the drycleaner.
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