This email is in response to a complaint against our company that was postmarked January 27, 2015. The complaint ID # is [redacted]. The situation...
that took place according to our time stamped documentation from our point of sale computer system shows that the Santa suit in question was received for cleaning at 4:42pm on December 22nd at our corporate headquarter store located at 459 State Road 135 South Greenwood, IN 46142. We processed the suit exactly as the care label stated - "dry clean only". We use an environmentally friendly hydrocarbon solvent in our dry cleaning process. The Santa suit was dry cleaned, pressed, inspected, packaged and ready for customer pick up on December
23rd..
Customer came in on December 23th at 6:12pm to pick up Santa suit and claimed the white faux fur trim on the Santa suit looked pink. Our customer service representative offered to re-clean the Santa suit in which customer agreed. As a precaution before re-cleaning, our seamstress removed the ball off of the Santa hat since it was fragile and could fall off during cleaning. The Santa suit was re-dry cleaned, pressed, packaged and ready for pick up on December 24th. Unfortunately, we forgot to reattach the ball on the Santa hat.
On Friday December 26th at 3:53pm the customer came in to pick up the Santa suit and agreed the fur was white again. After getting the suit home the customer noticed the ball missing and returned the complete Santa suit that evening to have the fur ball sewn back on the hat.
On Monday December 29th in the morning, customer came into our store to file a complaint in which the store manager complied and filled out our claim form, but at that time she also explained to the customer that we followed the manufacturers recommended care process exactly and apologized for the inconvenience of having to bring the suit back to have the ball sewn on the hat. On December 31st the customer was called to let them know the Santa suit was ready for pick-up. Customer stated she would send her husband to pick it up. On January 7th at 12:12pm both the husband and wife came in to pick up the Santa suit.
On January 7th, our store manager refunded the cleaning cost to the customer for their inconvenience.
In conclusion, we cleaned the Santa suit 2 times according to the written manufacturers care label and returned the Santa suit to the customer. The customer claims the suit was cleaned "several times by us to resolve the problem", which in reality it was cleaned twice. Sometimes certain dyes in fabric are not colorfast with all solvents and sometimes may need to be re-cleaned to flush out any non colorfast dyes, which is what we did to resolve the issue. We apologized to the customer and refunded their money for the cleaning cost for their inconvenience. The customer stated the Santa suit was purchased in January of the year 2000 (14 - 15 years ago), and now looks like an old suit. We are family owned and have been in business since 1970 and have been in good standing with the Revdex.com for over 44 years. We dry clean thousands of garments every day in gentle environmentally friendly dry cleaning solvent and would welcome the opportunity to send the Santa suit to a 3th party textile laboratory for analysis to see if any unacceptable cleaning process was performed. The Federal Trade Commission states that garments or fabrics must stand up to the manufacturers written recommended care label process. (http://www.ftc.govitips-advice/business-centedguidanceiclothes-caotioning-compl...⇄ Customer states that Santa suit was cleaned 3 times previously by a competitor who may use a different type of dry cleaning solvent. When a "dry clean only" label is attached the FTC states that "garments should be acceptable to clean in all commercially available types of solvents."
I personally have not seen the Santa suit, but would welcome the opportunity to have the Santa suit analyzed by a 3rd party textile lab to see if anything we did to the suit was against the manufacturers care label. If we are found to have cleaned the suit inappropriately, we would be happy to reimburse the customer a fair depreciated value for a 14 —15 year old Santa suit. We do not feel that the customer's request to have the suit replaced is fair or reasonable since the suit is 14 -15 years old. Reasonable life expectancy for any garment is typically 1— 5 years, with exception up to 11 years for certain types of textiles. Please view the following link for further explanation. (http://www.drycleaningcomplaints.com/Fair%20Claims%20Guide=DIA.pdf). Change in appearance of garments can occur over time due to many variables such as use, storage, cleaning, etc.
If you have any questions regarding this explanation of complaint ID It is [redacted], please feel free to give me a call at 317-888-7396.
Thanks,
Tony M[redacted]
M[redacted] Cleaners
459 State Road 135 South
Greenwood, IN 46142
tm[redacted]@m[redacted].com
317-888-7396
This email is in response to a complaint against our company that was postmarked January 27, 2015. The complaint ID # is [redacted]. The situation...
that took place according to our time stamped documentation from our point of sale computer system shows that the Santa suit in question was received for cleaning at 4:42pm on December 22nd at our corporate headquarter store located at 459 State Road 135 South Greenwood, IN 46142. We processed the suit exactly as the care label stated - "dry clean only". We use an environmentally friendly hydrocarbon solvent in our dry cleaning process. The Santa suit was dry cleaned, pressed, inspected, packaged and ready for customer pick up on December
23rd..
Customer came in on December 23th at 6:12pm to pick up Santa suit and claimed the white faux fur trim on the Santa suit looked pink. Our customer service representative offered to re-clean the Santa suit in which customer agreed. As a precaution before re-cleaning, our seamstress removed the ball off of the Santa hat since it was fragile and could fall off during cleaning. The Santa suit was re-dry cleaned, pressed, packaged and ready for pick up on December 24th. Unfortunately, we forgot to reattach the ball on the Santa hat.
On Friday December 26th at 3:53pm the customer came in to pick up the Santa suit and agreed the fur was white again. After getting the suit home the customer noticed the ball missing and returned the complete Santa suit that evening to have the fur ball sewn back on the hat.
On Monday December 29th in the morning, customer came into our store to file a complaint in which the store manager complied and filled out our claim form, but at that time she also explained to the customer that we followed the manufacturers recommended care process exactly and apologized for the inconvenience of having to bring the suit back to have the ball sewn on the hat. On December 31st the customer was called to let them know the Santa suit was ready for pick-up. Customer stated she would send her husband to pick it up. On January 7th at 12:12pm both the husband and wife came in to pick up the Santa suit.
On January 7th, our store manager refunded the cleaning cost to the customer for their inconvenience.
In conclusion, we cleaned the Santa suit 2 times according to the written manufacturers care label and returned the Santa suit to the customer. The customer claims the suit was cleaned "several times by us to resolve the problem", which in reality it was cleaned twice. Sometimes certain dyes in fabric are not colorfast with all solvents and sometimes may need to be re-cleaned to flush out any non colorfast dyes, which is what we did to resolve the issue. We apologized to the customer and refunded their money for the cleaning cost for their inconvenience. The customer stated the Santa suit was purchased in January of the year 2000 (14 - 15 years ago), and now looks like an old suit. We are family owned and have been in business since 1970 and have been in good standing with the Revdex.com for over 44 years. We dry clean thousands of garments every day in gentle environmentally friendly dry cleaning solvent and would welcome the opportunity to send the Santa suit to a 3th party textile laboratory for analysis to see if any unacceptable cleaning process was performed. The Federal Trade Commission states that garments or fabrics must stand up to the manufacturers written recommended care label process. (http://www.ftc.govitips-advice/business-centedguidanceiclothes-caotioning-compl...⇄ Customer states that Santa suit was cleaned 3 times previously by a competitor who may use a different type of dry cleaning solvent. When a "dry clean only" label is attached the FTC states that "garments should be acceptable to clean in all commercially available types of solvents."
I personally have not seen the Santa suit, but would welcome the opportunity to have the Santa suit analyzed by a 3rd party textile lab to see if anything we did to the suit was against the manufacturers care label. If we are found to have cleaned the suit inappropriately, we would be happy to reimburse the customer a fair depreciated value for a 14 —15 year old Santa suit. We do not feel that the customer's request to have the suit replaced is fair or reasonable since the suit is 14 -15 years old. Reasonable life expectancy for any garment is typically 1— 5 years, with exception up to 11 years for certain types of textiles. Please view the following link for further explanation. (http://www.drycleaningcomplaints.com/Fair%20Claims%20Guide=DIA.pdf). Change in appearance of garments can occur over time due to many variables such as use, storage, cleaning, etc.
If you have any questions regarding this explanation of complaint ID It is [redacted], please feel free to give me a call at 317-888-7396.
Thanks,
Tony M[redacted]
M[redacted] Cleaners
459 State Road 135 South
Greenwood, IN 46142
tm[redacted]@m[redacted].com
317-888-7396