- Original Poster
- #1
Hi Everyone,
Can anyone offer any suggestions or share any equally bad experience with the online print company Printcarrier.com?
In a nutshell they've basically 'fleeced' me & I suppose I could be posting this on the legal forum but I wanted to get the message out where it could get read by everyone!
I'm a graphic designer & print reseller and have used Printcarrier for several years and while I wouldnt use them for complex print work, have found them to be economical with very basic projects (letterheads, A5 flyers, etc) and their quality is borderlne acceptable. I've had no reason to complain until now....
Several weeks ago I sent a standard job (2-sided A5 flyer) with artwork set to their exact specification and paid online. 1 week later I received the job back & the entire 10,000 run was printed very sub-standardly with uneven black areas and streaks. Without wishing to appear conceited, I'm a graphic designer with 20 years experience and have dealt with printers throughout the UK & Europe and know how to supply artwork to achieve best results.
So basically then I emailed them and they told me to use the online complaints procedure, which I duly did and in which I also incurred extra cost to post a small number of the faulty samples back as requested.
Another week went by & no response, so again I emailed them only to be told that they had not received the samples to which I replied that they had been tracked to that address and not accepted. The parcel had been sent back to the depot a stone's throw from their premises so I quite reasonably asked if they could go and collect to which I was met with a flat refusal; I then took it upon myself to contact their local delivery depot to arrange redelivery & the faulty print samples were finally redelivered.
Another week went by (and incidentally by this point I'd had the same job reprinted locally to me as my customer couldn't wait any longer - so more cost incurred) & still no response, so I mailed them again & several hours later got a response from a 'complaints' manager that they would not be refunding or reprinting as in their opinion the artwork supplied by me was incorrect; I immediately took issue with this as the same artwork was used for some A3 posters printed by them (at the same time!) and as previously mentioned I'd had them printed elsewhere with no problems.
So I emailed them with this information only to be met with the same response - no refund!
I of course started to 'smell a rat' and googled them to find numerous pages of similar tales of bad experiences of these characters.
I perservered 2 or 3 further times with the suggestion of legal action & trading standards but they've simply dismissed me and have essentially said 'good luck' with your legal action as they think their terms & conditions are watertight!
The 'long & short' of it is that Printcarrier.com have £150 of my money & I have several boxes of an unusable product. Does anyone have any similar tales of dealing with these wholly unpleasant 'traders' or can offer any further advice on how I can retrieve my money?
Sorry, it was a lengthy post but I had to get it all off my chest!
Can anyone offer any suggestions or share any equally bad experience with the online print company Printcarrier.com?
In a nutshell they've basically 'fleeced' me & I suppose I could be posting this on the legal forum but I wanted to get the message out where it could get read by everyone!
I'm a graphic designer & print reseller and have used Printcarrier for several years and while I wouldnt use them for complex print work, have found them to be economical with very basic projects (letterheads, A5 flyers, etc) and their quality is borderlne acceptable. I've had no reason to complain until now....
Several weeks ago I sent a standard job (2-sided A5 flyer) with artwork set to their exact specification and paid online. 1 week later I received the job back & the entire 10,000 run was printed very sub-standardly with uneven black areas and streaks. Without wishing to appear conceited, I'm a graphic designer with 20 years experience and have dealt with printers throughout the UK & Europe and know how to supply artwork to achieve best results.
So basically then I emailed them and they told me to use the online complaints procedure, which I duly did and in which I also incurred extra cost to post a small number of the faulty samples back as requested.
Another week went by & no response, so again I emailed them only to be told that they had not received the samples to which I replied that they had been tracked to that address and not accepted. The parcel had been sent back to the depot a stone's throw from their premises so I quite reasonably asked if they could go and collect to which I was met with a flat refusal; I then took it upon myself to contact their local delivery depot to arrange redelivery & the faulty print samples were finally redelivered.
Another week went by (and incidentally by this point I'd had the same job reprinted locally to me as my customer couldn't wait any longer - so more cost incurred) & still no response, so I mailed them again & several hours later got a response from a 'complaints' manager that they would not be refunding or reprinting as in their opinion the artwork supplied by me was incorrect; I immediately took issue with this as the same artwork was used for some A3 posters printed by them (at the same time!) and as previously mentioned I'd had them printed elsewhere with no problems.
So I emailed them with this information only to be met with the same response - no refund!
I of course started to 'smell a rat' and googled them to find numerous pages of similar tales of bad experiences of these characters.
I perservered 2 or 3 further times with the suggestion of legal action & trading standards but they've simply dismissed me and have essentially said 'good luck' with your legal action as they think their terms & conditions are watertight!
The 'long & short' of it is that Printcarrier.com have £150 of my money & I have several boxes of an unusable product. Does anyone have any similar tales of dealing with these wholly unpleasant 'traders' or can offer any further advice on how I can retrieve my money?
Sorry, it was a lengthy post but I had to get it all off my chest!
