A negative review.

--Unfortunately a Negative Review:  Gothic Angel Clothing--

I absolutely hate being negative and I even strive to be positive in all situations, but this week and a half has really tested my niceness, patience and even my cucumber-cool! All thanks to one Gothic clothing company that lies, undercuts and lies to customers and leaves people who paid bloody good money hanging around!

I'll set the scene for you: 
Happy little Hisui needs some sexy new boots for her model shoots and just general every day wear as she likes to be six feet tall and platformy to scare passing children and to help give her some sexy Goth confidence back as she was feeling un-sexyfull, a dangerous thing for a woman to feel.
She has also even saved up (something extremely difficult for her!) about £80 of her money to treat herself to her absolute favourite boots, Demonia Trashville 518s (She had some once before but they were a 6 so they felt weird!) The very same shoes that one of her idols, Wednesday 13, is known to wear. You can kind of see already that these do really mean a lot to her.

Hisui sips her eldritch tea, flaps off onto the Demonia site, and the Alternative Footwear site and finds they are both a bit out of the £80 price range and there's no sales this time around - bummer right? She needs them ASAP as she is fed up being a not-so-short-arse when she DJs! Also she is not nearly as menacing when she looms over people. So she surfs teh Googles for something a wee bit cheaper, and low and behold; Gothic Angel Clothing pops up!
Now Hisui is lax to buy from anywhere but eBay normally, but she has a look through the Camden based website anyways, as it looks pretty inviting, their Facebook page and Google. She doesn't find any more reviews than one on YouTube, and literally no feedback at all on their Facebook page, but she figures; they are based in Camden...maybe they just do a lot of their sales from their shop? The prices for everything rock, what could possibly go wrong?!

A lot, as it happens.

Merrily paying for the boots and practically singing as they were £15ish cheaper, she feels pleased for being an epic Googler and a Gothy bargain hunter. The website says her order will be processed within one day (by the 16th), and the boots will arrive within the usual five day delivery time, perfect - they'll be here for the weekend she thinks, but oh my Goth, she was wrong...

The next day, in the afternoon, she checks her order status, but isn't surprised to see it still says processing, she expected it to. However she has to email them anyways as for some reason the first time she paid, their website borked and made the payment twice >_< she asks them to cancel one of the payments, and emails them the request, as she only had enough for the one bloody pair anyways.
They don't reply for a whole day and a half, she's a little annoyed that they still say processing too, but the "Support Team Member" labelling herself as "Ellie" with a smiley face, said sorry and that she had cancelled the first, borky order and that the boots would be finished processing soon.

 these sexy PVC buggers right here - I know right? They remained in the "processing" state, bearing in mind I ordered them on the 15th of February, that's this month. Nothing else was heard, so on the 18th I sent a very polite email asking how long it would be before they would be processed and sent to me, even saying thank you with a smiley face at the end, even though I was a bit annoyed, as had I bought them from Demonia or Alternative Footwear, they would usually have arrived within three or four days! I didn't actually hear anything for two days, so on the 20th I sent my first snotty email to Gothic Angel Clothing; "I'm more than a little bit fed up now as my order has been processing for five days. Are these being sent soon? It's really not hard to send things you have in stock...Every time I ask I am essentially being fobbed off..." - quick clarification from me; they had been updating their Facebook page tons, so me being me, decided to comment on absolutely everything they posted until I got my answer, much like the online equivalent of poking someone with a sharp stick, it was the infamous "Ellie" once again, who showed her first instance of being tired with me, she only did the online page she said, which we know to not be true, and would ask the "Support Team".

I then had a fellow called "John" email me back, who was nicer than "Ellie" but seemed a tad uh...slow, he ignored my question of precisely why they were taking so long and my judgement of if they lacked the skills to put a sticker with my address on it onto a box, but there we go. He said sometimes processing took longer but that they were ready to be sent now, so I said "So they are being sent tomorrow?" which would have been the 21st of February.
However, the 21st came and bloody went, and I really was getting pissed off now, and was pretty convinced by this point that they were scamming me, this was exacerbated by some of my Facebook friends who told me "my order took ages" and "I've been into their Camden shop and it's awful and messy"...oh sh*t.
I was panicking as I had had to put off shoots with people til my boots came, as a cyberfetishgawfik won't look very sexy in her ratty old Airwalk trainers.
So I decided to reply to this "John" and say, which I think was fair enough; "Why exactly does it take over a week to dispatch when they are labelled as in stock?" - I don't think that's rude or anything, I think that's quite a fair bloody point to be honest. "John" had previously told me to not feel fobbed off and that the boots would be with me by the 26th (that's actually today). God help him if they had only just arrived today, let me tell you >_<

I was then told by "John" (I think "Ellie" had grown tired of me by this point) that they would be dispatched on the Monday the 24th. That's not really a five day delivery time is it? :( He apologised for any frustration caused, and I tried my hardest not to call him a dick, as "Ellie" was already ignoring me and if "John" started in on the old cold-shoulder as well I would just be sitting there moaning at the screen to no avail. By this time though, they had decided to just answer all my emails with the same thing, they would be sent on Monday.

To be quite fair though, I no longer gave a shit, as they had taken too damned long already and I had missed out on shoots. I took to their Facebook page and found something very interesting; another girl had commented with the exact same problem, her order had been made a week ago and she had had no update...interesting...
I decided to comment on her post and ask her if she had heard anything as they were doing the exact same thing to me, when, I'm guessing "Ellie" decided she had really had quite enough of old Hisui and blocked me from the bloody Facebook page! I took to Yahoo straight away and asked them what the hell their frigging problem was, and mentioned that "blocking someone from your Facebook page doesn't really solve anything" and even included a nice smiley face, to antagonize "Ellie" more so than because I was feeling nice...Livid Gothic Rage might be closer to what I was feeling by this point.

"Ellie" sent me another pissy email later on Monday evening, saying "I'm really sorry but I have answered absolutely all of your emails the best I can. Your order has already been dispatched and you will receive the 'shipped' email as soon as I can get around to completing all orders this evening. I have passed your complaint onto my manager who I will ask to get in touch with you."
- Graded D- for poor punctuation, sentence structure and cold, rude indifference Also points removed for no smiley face after your name as was in previous emails.
I was wondering why the boots were not automatically marked as dispatched when the box was bunged into the FedEx man's van, was "John" on a tea break?

All I had said was that "9 days of processing really takes the P!" Which to be fair, it really freaking does. Once more I had questioned their ability to print out my address and stick it on a box, and also reiterated, once again, that I didn't believe they even had ever had these boots in stock in the first place. I had also explained that they "would be receiving a PayPal case against them" if they didn't respond to me by 6pm that evening, and that I would be reviewing them on my well-read Goth blog...

*waves*

I waited a bit longer than 6pm, just to make 'em sweat, and "Ellie" sent me the previous email ^ a few hours afterwards, cutting it quite fine I think. I didn't open a case, but I wanted a reply first and was about to open a case with PayPal on Tuesday morning, however the boots bloody magically arrived to my door!

Tuesday the 25th of February...not really 5 day delivery was it? The box was delivered in a bag that looked like it had been through the postal service equivalent of Hell; ripped, torn, covered in dust and crap...I turned on the old Hisui-Smart-Girl-Brain at this point and realised something; the address from which me old booties were sent from was NOT London. It was Carlisle, bit out the bloody way from London really...
So I did some more Googling, and found out that the lovely boots I had waited so long for and worried about and rearranged my shoots for; had been bought from a website that is a wholesaler, it also looks like a frigging sex shop, seriously. Seriously!
I made an account in order to check just how much Gothic Angel Clothing had bum-raped me for with regards to price (cheaper ain't always better, kids) and was told I had to wait 48 hours for verification, I'm still waiting...but when it's done I will definitely let you know the price!

The manager, someone called "Lizzy", had emailed me in the interim and said she had a long chat with "John and Ellie" the previous day and agreed with me that the service did no meet expectations.

No shit Sherlock.

She also said that they had missed three attempts of me talking to them, by "missed" I think they mean "ignored by Ellie". She said they were only a small company and thank you for bringing the problem to her attention, and she hoped there was a way she could help me feel better about my shopping experience with them...
I briefly considered asking for "Ellie's" head in a box but decided to just say I didn't know how she could "appease" me, like I was some epic Goth blog extraordinaire followed by legions of angry PVC-clad babes.
Which I very well could be for all they know *hint hint*.

Anyway, I replied that I had "found the answers both vague and toward the end quite rude too, I'm a customer who had questions about my order processing for nine days, when I can see now they were just coming from Carlisle..." - At this point I should add, on the Kevco site that "Lizzy" or one of her minions ordered my boots from, they specify a delivery time of one week. Interesting...that would fit onto my timeline of fail quite well wouldn't it!

"Lizzy", credit to her, acknowledged that they did indeed come from Kevco and that the wait must be very frustrating, but that they "couldn't afford to keep all the boot stock in one warehouse" - what like every other company ever?! I think what she really meant was, herself, "Ellie" and "John" keep all their stock in the spare bedrooms of their London digs and their silly friends might spill wine or flick Cloves ash on them so they order them from fucking Carlisle?!
She also said she couldn't see rude comments, I'm guessing she didn't notice "Ellie" leaving off the smiley face after her name, which we all know is the email equivalent of spitting in my eye then pulling my wig off.
"Lizzy" then asked how they could appease me once again, leaving me to think they were sort of hinting that I should ask for something simple like a money off voucher, which made me giggle for a while, I'm making sure to never let these people at my pennies ever again!

I, however, said "I would have been much happier to have just been told that by the support team" as you can see, that is cleverly worded to reveal to me whether or not "John" or indeed "Ellie" knew that they were coming from...seriously, Carlisle.
Turns out, they did!
"Lizzy" said that I was quite correct and that the team could have raised this point.

Hisui - 1
GAC - 0
"Ellie" - -100

She said she was very keen to end my experience on a positive note and that if I come up with any ideas for that to let me know. Part of me is thinking of asking for a £50 gift voucher and I don't care if that's pushing it xD they pushed it hard enough for me! "Lizzy" has said that she is sending me a "little something in the post as a goodwill gesture..."

I'm still holding out for "Ellie's" head...