Celebrations Design Group, Ltd.

[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed Administratively Resolved]
 Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:
The informatoin provided in the response is not all accurate.
In my initial complaint I detailed the facts of what we have experienced which I have emails to support.
I think it should be clarified that I put through my dispute with the Revdex.com on November 20th at 11:30 am. When I spoke to Tom on November 19th in the evening he stated he would need to check his records to see what his contracts said and would let me know on Monday if we would recieve a refund. After I hung up I was not comfortable believing that we would recieve a call back or a refund considering we still to this day never recieved a correct invoice outlining what he would provide us with at our wedding and Monday was five days away from our initial conversation. Let me also reiterate that it took me two days to get in touch with him to tell him we no longer wanted to use his service. I called Tom back about an hour later to request we resolve the issue that night. No one answered the phone so I left an email advising that we want the refund and that would be the only way to resolve the matter. When I still didn't hear anything back I decided to go to the Revdex.com. I did not hear back from Tom until 6pm on 11/20 24 hours after sending him an email stating we wanted it resolved immediately. We did recieve the $500.00 refund on November 28th and the check was dated November 24th.
Further Tom tries to make accussations in his response about my character which you will see him also do in his negative [redacted] reviews, he does not ever accept the blame for his mistakes. The comments he made about my character are completely erroneous. All of the detail I included in my initial complaint are facts supported by emails and documentation about the nature of the service we recieved. He made it sound like I was impatient with him getting back to me, but I would say waiting for a correct invoice for over 10 months for an invoice and 5 months before the wedding is extreme patients. Most people would not even do that.
It is for the reasons mentioned above that I do not accept his response. 
Regards,
[redacted]

Review: Upon meeting with Tom C[redacted] at Celebrations Design Group we were told we would need to provide a $500 deposit to hold our wedding date and also to ensure that we did not take his ideas and go to someone else after our meeting. We recieved an email also advising that the $500 deposit would eventually go toward our balance once the invoice was provided. The initial email I recieved stated to bring my ideas for our wedding flowers and decor to the meeting with him on February 20, 2014. I provided an expansive amount of pictures detailing our ideas. Tom did not bring any of his ideas to the table during our meeting. We were told after we met with him that we should expect a contract from him within a week of our meeting. On March 19th, a month later, I recieved an email from Tom stating that he was sick and that was why he had not sent our invoice (containing the details and pricing for our wedding day decor/flowers) to us yet. We did not recieve the invoice until June 2nd (almost 4 months after our initial meeting and 3 months after he stated he was ill) after I sent a follow up email to him. The invoice we recieved was not correct and I promptly sent an email back explaining the revisions to be made to the invoice. Tom wrote back and stated he would have Laura (one of his employees) get back to me shortly after she reviewed the changes. Upon explaining to our parents what the invoice showed (some of which looked cheap), they wanted me to request samples of the arrangements to make sure that Celebrations would prove to do as good of a job as he said they would. After having to speak to Laura and basically argue to get the samples, Tom finally agreed to 'fit me in' to his 'very busy' schedule to show me some of the samples. This is just one occassion where Tom made me feel as though I was annoying him and taking up his time. I was also told via phone call that they may charge me for the samples, which I was not in agreement with. After seeing the samples I expected to recieve our revised invoice, but we never did. After not receiving anything throughout the summer months, I followed up with Laura on September 2nd asking for the revised invoice. Laura replied September 9th and stated that she would not provide a revised invoice until 4-6 weeks prior to the wedding. This was the first time I was advised of the 4-6 week timeframe. The original invoice that we received stated that our second installment of half of our total balance would be due April 2, 2015. Since our wedding is May 2, 2015 4-6 weeks prior would be right around the same time the next installment would be due and we did not even have a correct invoice to know how much that would be or if our expectations of what we wanted including the corrections to the initial invoice were even going to be considered. I asked Laura to put me on the schedule to meet on March 28th to go over everything and give us a little more time before the April 2nd due date and she agreed. In the meantime, I was upset thinking that this company was asking us to pay half of our balance before even being able to see our final invoice to make sure it was correct, at this point I feel they had more than enough time to provide us with the revised invoice we had requested. In order to try and help, I took the initial invoice and re- wrote it including all of our changes. I sent my copy of the invoice to Laura and to Tom via email on Monday November 17th, included in the email I asked for confirmation of our March 28th meeting. Tom wrote back stating that he has not set any appointments for 2015 and they would try to put me on the schedule for the date I requested. I responded right away asking for a phone call and never recieved one. After this response and speaking with my fiance, we decided to try and find another florist/decorator for the wedding. We are now less than 6 months from the wedding and trying to find another florist was not easy. Once we nailed down a new florist we attempted contacting Tom. After attempting to call him several times and leaving emails we finally heard from Tom at 4:30pm on November 19th. During our phone call we stated we would no longer be using his company for our wedding to which he replied "fine, no problem". I then stated we would also like a refund of our $500 because we feel that Tom and his company did not follow through with getting back to us timely and to this day we still do not have a correct invoice from Celebrations outlining our wedding decor/flowers. Tom stated it was non-refundable. All of the paperwork and emails that I have on file do not state anything about the deposit being non-refundable. I show that it is considered a retainer fee in one of the initial emails, but it is my understanding that a retainer is refundable if services are not provided. I asked that Tom provide me with documentation that the $500 is non refundable to which he stated he is not sure what the communication that was sent to me stated and that he would need to contact me back on Monday to work through a resolution together. I informed my fiance of our conversation and we are both in agreement that we do not want to wait any longer to resolve this matter. I sent a follow up email to him around 6pm on November 19th explaining that the resolution to this matter is providing us with a $500 refund of our deposit. We have not heard back from him since. I have all of the emails and communications documented that have transpired on file.Desired Settlement: We want our $500 deposit returned.

The other florists (three different ones) that we researched in trying to find a new vendor advised us that they do not charge a deposit and their process is as follows: a free consulation, free samples, and a free floral board outlining all of the plans for the wedding. Once we are in agreement they issue their invoice, we make a payment to them. The new florist has been extremely easy to work with and the communication is on a very professional level. I am not sure why we were asked to make a deposit of $500 as we did not recieve any ideas from Tom, nor did we recieve any services from him and we have cancelled all future service with him. We were not provided the things we were told we would recieve and when we did recieve something it was well beyond the set dates provided by Tom and his employees.

Business

Response:

From: CDG Office<[email protected]>Date: Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 11:40 AMSubject: [redacted]To: [redacted]To: [redacted]From: Tom C[redacted], owner, Celebrations Design GroupRE: [redacted]Date: December 1, 2014Thank you for taking the time on the phone this morning to review the correspondence I received in regard to the above noted complaint.Of utmost importance to note, the bride has received a complete refund so the situation & the contract between usis completely concluded and resolved.