Hey cool, as a crafter, now I have a store to never shop at! Off to spread the word! I hope the site/shop dies from bad publicity.

@Stephen Schenck: Nice work, you managed to be first to post and found a way to blame the consumer for getting verbally (writtenly?) abused. Keep up the quality posts.

While I may not support the company's response...I have to admit that her email wasn't very tactfully worded in the first place. I would recommend a gentler approach with fewer outright demands when inquiring about something. Exclamation marks are rarely, if ever, needed and tend to be so horribly overused!!!!111 It's like writing in all caps, not cool.

How unprofessional! Did you see that spelling and grammar in the comment? No capitalization AT ALL, no apostrophe used ("hows that for compensation") and very poor sentence structure; Cleary a F-.

Oh, and calling a customer a whore doesn't help your grade either.

Um. Guys, a couple of extra punctuation marks and a bit of a brusque tone on the part of the consumer in no way warrant or explain away this response. Somebody in shipping/receiving at Urban Expressions almost certainly lost his or her job this week.

@Stephen Schenck: MOST people read that type of availability description as exactly what it says, 48 hours. Otherwise, it would be specified right?

I think the only thing that the OP should of changed would be to change the word "compensation" to "free shipping" or something.

@Aesteval: I don't really see that as relevant. They don't get to call customers whores no matter how many exclamation points they use.

This highlights a common issue with online vendors. The most efficient have a great communication policy, so they keep the customer informed of when the item is likely to ship, when it has shipped, and when it should arrive.

They make it easy to find out what's going on.

It's frustrating when they don't tell you what's going on and there's no easy way to find out. I can understand this particular customer's frustration.

Given the tone of the response, it's pretty clear that this company doesn't really care about keeping their customers informed, or this hostile/insane staff member would have had a nice, easy form e-mail to send back with the information the customer wanted and a kind apology for the delay.

But, yeah, I do hope that Princess Leela is right and that someone is no longer working in shipping/receiving at Urban Expressions.

I don't know...this doesn't seem quite real to me. Are you sure it is legit?

Her email doesn't seem to warrent such a shocking response. What "attitude" was she displaying exactly?

Methinks there might be more to this story.

First, just to get this out of the way: I see nothing particularly "urban" about any of the tools for "expression" that they sell.

Second, found this gem in the FAQ:

Can I Pay Via Money Order.
We Accept ONLY U.S. POSTAL SERVICE MONEY ORDERS. Keep your prince of nigeria scams to yourself, In Fact Email Me & I'll Tell You Where You Can Put Them. : )

I mean there's "stitch n' bitch," then there's this.

@Aesteval: That's a pretty venomous response, no matter what it was replying to. Bad CSR, BAD! *smacks with newspaper*

@punkrawka: I agree 100% with what stephen wrote. I dont see where he blames the consumer for getting abused.

@floraposte: And I never said the company's response was appropriate. It's actually highly inappropriate. I was just pointing out what I felt was not the most beneficial way to get an issue and point across and recommended a means to have an easier time getting what they wanted next time. There's a saying about flies, honey, and vinegar.

Here is an update to the post, with a response from the owner:

http://www.weddingbeepro.com/2009/07/16/craziest-vendor-response-ever/

@veg-o-matic: I'm changing my opinion about whether someone was fired. Sounds like this site is run by a single very cranky and snarky entrepreneurial type. Which also may explain the shipping delay.

@Princess Leela: My thoughts exactly.

@Stephen Schenck: I agree asking for compensation is not appropriate, but the response from the company is still unacceptable. I'd do exactly what the OP did and send this to every possible consumer site and email it to friends and ask them to forward it around.

Still, you should never ask for compensation. You're much more likely to receive compensation is you take a professional tone and explain your problem.

Just a guess here but given that the Urban Expressions website is a free online store generated by a system to do just that, for anyone wanting to sell stuff, probably the "company" is an individual selling stuff from home. If that's true, responses like this aren't really that surprising as people can do whatever they want to do. If the business owner got ticked off by the customer's attitude, then there you go. Unprofessional to be sure, but ultimately pointless to rage against. Backlash against the "company"? Well, how many minutes would it take to auto-generate a new free online store in the event the "backlash and outrage" is too much to overcome? 5 minutes?

I agree that asking for compensation for the delay on a $16 dollar order was over the top.

They will be losing every job they ever @Princess Leela: They will lose every job they ever (somehow manage to) get.

I myself am planning a wedding for later this year (not too much later now... man, time flies) and I have been amazed how many vendors out there seem not to want my money, and seem content to have me go out there and tell every other bride on the internet not to bother with them either.

Seriously. Thanks to blogs like weddingbee, as well as offbeat bride, the knot (ugh), and countless other big blogs and communities, a single glowing review or total dismissal can either generate a lot of business for a company, or cost a lot of business for a company. I've been out saying nice things about our jeweler, photographer, and florist every chance I get, but the caterers who were nasty, or the hairdressers who couldn't be bothered to reply civilly to an e-mail? Forget 'em.

This business didn't just cost themselves that woman's order; this story will now hit pretty much every wedding and craft blog / group out there in the next week, and they'll have cost themselves plenty of other DIY-er orders, too. Well done.

Unless a company drops the ball and forgets to deliver a kidney, don'r DEMAND compensation. Be polite, then get mean. Thats the whore way.

@Aesteval: According to [www.wisebread.com] that saying is wrong.

I don't have a point really. Just surprised when I read it and wanted to share.

@Aesteval: I think every complaint letter could be phrased better; I'm an editor. But I still don't think her phrasing is relevant to the issue at hand, and I guess we just disagree on that.

@Rectilinear Propagation: ...yeah I was actually going to start arguing about why I personally thought the literal meaning was wrong but figured that the theory behind it is more important than the practicality of it.

Whats the big deal? I think it is a bit funny.

@veg-o-matic: This company must be run by the same guy that runs Jansen Medical.
What's up with the weird capitalization in the FAQs?

I mean there's "stitch n' bitch," then there's this.
LOL

OMG, check out their Terms of Service.
This is the entire thing:

All Sales Are Final Unless OtherWise Specified.

@pupu: "Whats the big deal? I think it is a bit funny."

This won't be popular, but I agree. She basically was told, "No soup for you!" in a different way.

I found this too utterly hilarious to care that the customer got abused.

And if you look at the story on the WeddingBee site, they got a response from the company and were called an "e-warrior" by the owner.

@Aesteval:

At that point, it had been a week, and the item hadn't shipped, and she hadn't received notification. I'd be a bit perturbed myself. I just ordered a video card from Dell 10 days ago with 4 days shipping. The item has been in "processing" for 10 days, and the delivery date is July 28. Why 20 days? It doesn't say backordered. They have it listed under "being built". They don't build the video cards, they simply sell them. I emailed and got a canned response back that explained nothing.
So I know how the OP feels. Service in this country is going DOWNHILL, and that is a shame because that is our main industry.

I suspect this is some kind of craft lingo that people outside of that community cannot understand.

Over the top from both customer and company. To get that upset about a delay in shipping a hole punch? The response was highly unprofessional and the company deserves the publicity they are getting. A simple "we're sorry that you have not found our services sufficient. We have gone ahead an cancelled your order." would have done... or no comment at all, but quite the attitude from both sides.

If you follow through to the blog entry you will see that the owner of the company sent an email stating "have a nice day, and have fun being an E-warrior hiding in the depths of the anonymus internet blogs that no one reads.

Two comments to the owner.
1 - Learn to spell anonymous
2 - Do a Google search for Urban Expressions Craft and you will see now that the Consumerist post is the first search result. So much for no one reading about it.

There's an update at the Weddingbee link. Supposedly the owner sold the company last week? I find it hard to believe that anyone who writes "anonymus" had 1.7 million dollars worth of inventory. C'mon troops, lets put our detective hats on! Is there any way to substantiate this (ridiculous) claim? If it is true then Captain McExpressions is kind of a d-bag, setting the new owner up for failure.

@HiPwr: xactly. those needlework bitches can be snarly when you interupt their hoops and loops. this prissy wants some cash? wat see xpect, an appology from the president of the united states???

Come now, "whore" has been around forever... it's not much of an Urban Expression. I mean, it's origins trace back to Old English ("hore", w added sometime in the middle ages for fun I suppose).

@HRGirl: I find that very difficult to believe also. I stand by my estimation that this was / is a small time home based sole-proprietor business.

@Stephen Schenck:
@Aladdyn:
I think what you two have both missed is this: "most items will be shipped within 48 hours unless otherwise specified - you guys did not specify otherwise". Note where she states "you guys did not specify otherwise". She was aware that all orders do not ship out within 48 hours and those that don't require notification to the buyer - she was given no such notification and therefore had every right to expect her order to ship within the 48 hours.

@BadHairLife: I have certainly sent off snippier e-mails, sometimes justified, sometimes because I"m overtired/hormonal/upset, and a professional, polite, informative response goes a long way towards a) making me feel bad and b) keeping my business.

Also, EVERYONE in a service industry or service position should be aware that sometimes you are going to be on the receiving end of someone venting. (And often the largest part of customer service is letting someone vent their whole story before you solve the problem ... people just don't feel better until they feel heard.) If you can't cope with that, you need to find a job where you don't interact with people.

@CreativeLinks: I'm with you; the response seems like it was written by someone who was trying to get fired. Or maybe their system got hacked into by a teenager.

@HRGirl: I don't buy it either. If they actually sold it and didn't care either way then they wouldn't feel the need to keep attacking everyone who brings this up.

They're hoping people feel sorry for the "new owner" and buy something from them.

@Rectilinear Propagation: I like how they capitalize 'Wise' in 'OtherWise'. Pro.

@Princess Leela: From the Web site, it looks like the owner of the business gave the response and then sold the business. Way over the top on the response.

It is never appropriate to call a customer whore unless she is selling her body to you.

@Aesteval: More important but not as funny.

@Applekid: I think if the owner should have gone with the 'more urbaner', whure (Who-ur). Actually this is the first time I've spelled that out. Think Frank from it's always sunny in philadelphia.

"Who here slept with my whure wife? DID YOU SLEEP WITH MY WHURE WIFE?"

The screen cap looks just a little photoshopped on the line. It was the only thing that looked imposed after.

I worked retail for many years and I find that some people you can't deal with as a vendor and yes I have yelled back at people. Sometimes you get what you deserve. Even if you are right and the company is wrong there is always respect esp if you want things to get done.

I love how the CSR (or owner?) acts like canceling the order is some sort of punishment. 'Now you'll have to take your $11.16 all the way over to Michael's! Ha! Take that!'

Am I the only one that thinks the response from customer "service" might actually be an Urban Expression?

Maybe they are just trying to play the part.