Weddingbee

Remember her below?

When I blogged about how insanely similar I looked like her at that moment, well I still do, because my invitations are painfully killing me slowly. But I wanted to share one of the humps that I had to get through when Monster Crayons, my previous videographer, dissolved their business with a nice apologetic letter and a promise of refund.

But guess what? I never got that money back from them …

I gave them the benefit of the doubt and respected their distress with the dissolution of their business. I emailed back a couple times to follow up and attempted to contact them via phone with no response. You can understand my slight increase in panic.

I checked in with my friends who got married late last year that I had referred to Monster Crayons. One friend got their video as promised, but they weren’t too happy with the quality they received. Another friend was upset because they missed her ceremony; she received her video but with a lot of important moments that were filmed but not included, and was given a refund with no follow-up as well. You can imagine how bad I felt because I had referred my friends for their once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Miss Penguin then notified me of more brides that were in similar situations on The Knot Boards. There were brides who had not received their product or deposit money like me as well. We all tried to try to contact Monster Crayons via phone (I’m talking every other day) and email time and time again, but yet no return phone calls. It became increasingly worrisome.

Action needed to be taken and pronto! I was out a lot of money and I was not having it. I couldn’t freak out and cry and scream, so I just had to take a ….

Plan of action:

• I contacted brides that were in the same situation as myself and asked them how they were dealing.
• I contacted PayPal, which would not consider my dispute because it was past the 45 day period for dispute.
• Next I contacted 7 on your side and started a thread to advise other brides to do the same so that it could draw attention to our case, and spread the awareness that it was a large pool of brides affected.
• Last, I contacted my credit card company to file a dispute.

Advice:

1.) Make sure to keep all documentation: electronic and hard copies

• Emails: I have my emails grouped by vendors so that I can easily pull up any and all conversations we’ve ever had
• Contracts: Everything MUST be in writing. Every vendor I am working with, I have requested some sort of documentation. Whether it be confirmation via email or a hard-copy signed terms and agreement contract
• Receipts: Every payment I’ve made, I’ve printed and stored in my binder chronologically

2.) Try to make payments with your credit cards instead of cash/check

• Not all vendors accept credit cards. If they don’t, pay with a check so that you have hard copy documentation along with your contract that clearly states that payment was received and paid.
  • I’ve taken to printing a copy of the check after it had been cashed to serve as additional form of receipt of payment as well.

It is not exactly green, but I have printed all of the above in hard copy form, just in case I don’t have access to a computer or something goes wrong, I have everything I need within reach.

The conclusion: Because of all my extensive documentation, which really helped my case, I was able to file a dispute in writing and receive a refund from my credit card company! Although the letter (which I know is standard) said that I was granted credit, if my case is somehow proved invalid, they’ll rescind the credit.

Lesson learned. A little hump hopped over. Hope you won’t have to go through the same.

Anyone else deal with a similar situation? What advice do you have for other brides?

• I’m Engaged Again
• Let Them Eat Cake!