I’ve been entering giveaways for less than a year now, but I’ve been fortunate enough to have won quite a few items. I’ve won mostly kid and baby stuff, such as books, furniture, clothes, even food. While I’m happy anytime I win anything – regardless of the retail value of the prize – I’d be lying if I told you that it’s not a special thrill when I happen to win something on the expensive side. And since that hasn’t happened all that often, I vividly remember the few times it has.
Back in June of this year, I had the craziest 48 hours where I won not one, but two really cool high chairs – which was exciting enough, but to top it off I was also notified that I won a beautiful crib bedding set! I had entered a giveaway on the fabulous Project Nursery site (if you haven’t been there, you have to check it out!!) where Inspired Crib Bedding was sponsoring this great contest where the winner won one of these bedding sets:
Cool looking, right? I was so excited to have won! That is, until I started dealing with Inspired Crib Bedding’s owner, Yael Even. On June 22nd, I was notified that I won and asked by Project Nursery’s Melissa to choose a color for the set and email Yael my decision, which I did that same day. Since I’m not currently pregnant I requested the Geo Sage so that it could be used for a boy or a girl. Yael emailed back immediately to say that they were out of stock of the Geo Sage and the Geo Aqua, but she could send me the Geo Orange.
Now, at this point, since I thought I was dealing with a reputable and trusted store, I asked if she thought she may get more stock in sometime soon because I didn’t mind waiting a little bit if she thought that might work out. She responded that they’d have the Geo Sage in stock in two weeks, if I didn’t mind waiting. I even went so far as to ask if I should contact her in two weeks as a reminder or if she’d just ship the package – trying to make her life easier – and she responded that she’d send me the tracking number when it shipped in two weeks.
Problem solved, right? Yeah, not by a LONG shot.
July 27 – over a month from our first contact. I emailed Yael to check-in since I hadn’t heard from her and hadn’t received my package. Just for the record, each and every email that I sent to Yael was thanking her profusely, apologizing for bothering her and trying to be flexible. Anyways, so on July 27th she says that they still don’t have Geo Sage in stock but that she’ll “contact me next week when we finish production”.
August 19 – Hey, Yael, hope all is well – just checking in on the status of my shipment – hate to bug you! Her response was that they had “suspended production” of the Geo Sage and only have Geo Orange. Here’s what she says (copies and pasted from her email):
“…I can send you accessories all in geo sage (fitted crib sheet, changing pad cover, hooded towel, feeding & support pillow, Swaddler and blanket) it adds up to the complete set amount if you are interested or you can choose the Geox orange & Green design for the set.”
Here’s my response (again, copied and pasted):
“…That’s fine with me, I’m happy to switch to the other accessories in Geo Sage. Thank you for offering the option 
I especially love the stroller blanket – I have a friend who is having twins and I just might have to get another for a set of two to give her as a gift! I can’t wait to get everything ” (I gave her my mailing address again here)
September 19th – I email her again and say that it’s been three months since I won the giveaway and I’m really hoping to receive my prize soon. Here’s her response:
“…I sent the request to the warehouse but I guess it didn’t get processed, most of the Geo sage accessories are not available expect the changing pad cover, nursery pillow and fitted sheet. let me know if you would like that.”
At this point I contacted Project Nursery because I just felt like I was getting nowhere. Now Yael was offering me products that were a fraction of the value the original prize was, but more than that, if I did take those items I’d have to buy other items that match and I didn’t want to have to build a nursery around just a couple of items. Melissa at Project Nursery was wonderful and finally Yael sent her the following (on October 29th)!!!:
“Hi Melisa, When the giveaway ended I offered the winner a different set and she didn’t want it, I’m sorry it came to this point but right now we are very low on inventory and cannot afford shipping sets for free as we need to reserve the inventory for vendors.”
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! I have every single email that i sent to this woman, as well as her asinine responses. What happened is that she is obviously having financial troubles and couldn’t afford to let the product go if there was still a possibility someone would purchase it and give her money. Had she just said that, I would have understood and tried to figure out a compromise. Instead she tries to blame the problem on me. Just unbelievable.
The worst part is that Yael Even still seems to be doing business at Inspired Crib Bedding!! It looks like you can head over to the site and buy a crib bedding set – even in Geo Sage!!! What is the matter with this woman?! Aside from being an awful businesswoman, she is clearly a liar and that she made no actual effort to try and make this situation right means that she would have no qualms about screwing a customer over, too.
If I was buying a $300 crib bedding set, I’d want to know ahead of time to not give this company or this woman my money. I tried for three months to be polite, kind, non-confrontational and understanding, but all I got in return was lies, evasive answers and a sick feeling that both myself and Project Nursery trusted this woman. I sincerely hope that no one does business with Inspired Crib Bedding – you very well may be just throwing your money away anyways.
Wow – that is awful! Makes you wonder why Inspired Crib Bedding offered their stuff in a giveaway. That goes beyond poor customer service, just as they thought the “free press” would be good for the company and get them a lot of new traffic, the bad press for faltering will hit the internet and spread like wildfire.
I recently won a cookie giveaway where the blog host was told by the store owner to offer 1 dozen cookies, 3 each of 4 flavors. I eamiled the store owner my choices and mailing address. But I was sent only 7 cookies – 2,2,2 and 1 of the flavors I had chosen. There was no note of explanation from the store owner. I contacted the blog owner who hosted the giveaway – not to complain, just to let her know that the company did not provide as promised.
Good customer service seems to have gone by the wayside.
Like so many others here, my first thought was “Wow!” I am just amazed that a company would promise a prize and then insist that it’s out of stock while still offering them for sale on their website. I would never trust that company at this point.
How horrible! If anyone I know is ever looking for bedding, I’ll make sure to tell them that Inspired Crib Bedding is NOT the place to do business.
Wow. I am so sorry that happened to you. Good for you for speaking out against them finally! They deserve all the bad press they can get. I hope everyone who reads this spreads the word because I know I will!
Ugghhh…don’t you just hate that!! I am having a similar experience right now too and not only is it frustrating but rude and incredibly annoying. For me, good and honest customer service goes a LONG way. When a company (or person) can not provide that and then insists that I was the one being uncooperative….that ends everything for me…just walk away and make sure everyone you know knows about the situation so they won’t fall into that trap. I am so sorry that this happened to you. I really hope that others don’t have the same experience.
I just went through almost the exact same problem. Except, my problem was the blogger. I tried being nice to her, even after 2 months of not hearing anything except “you’re the winner”.. So i finally contacted the company, and they sent me my stuff in a matter of days.
Sorry this happened to you.
That is very frustrating. I have only had one blog win that I never received. Oddly enough, it was the owner of the company offering the prize that contacted me a couple of times because she hadn’t heard from me (we had a house full of sick people, including myself, and I hadn’t been on the computer). After we finally got everything settled on the design I never heard from her again. I was so disappointed as it was a really neat prize..and my kids were excited about it, too.
Ahwell!
This kind of thing must happen a lot… unfortunately. I have received wins VERY late, after many emails, but I did eventually get them, and sometimes the sponsor was so apologetic they threw in something extra for the trouble. That’s the way to build consumer confidence.
But the one that still sticks in my craw is the blogger who tweeted that she would award a nice prize (OPI nail color set) to her 500th follower. That happened to be me. Woo-hoo! Lucky me!
I notified her, she responded, said she’d get the prize right out to me, and I waited. And waited. And waited. I emailed to remind her about it. She said oh, so sorry, I just forgot, I’ll get that out today. Ok, no problem.
So I waited. And waited. I emailed again to tell her I didn’t get it, was it perhaps lost in the mail? She responded that she would have to check with the post office and see if it could be tracked. So I waited some more. After another month, and having heard nothing, I went back to check her blog. Was she still around? Had something drastic happened?
Nope. She was still there, still posting, still holding giveaways, etc. And completely ignoring me. Not good. Not good at all. I let it go at that point because I knew I was beating a dead horse. But let me just say that if you promise a prize, FOLLOW THROUGH!! At the very least, she should have gone out and purchased something just to fulfill her obligation to me. Or an online gift card. SOMETHING. ANYTHING.
We enter giveaways because we love finding new blogs, meeting new virtual friends, finding terrific new products we might not otherwise have found, and yes, the thrill of winning occasionally. Being told you were a winner but never getting your prize is like telling a child they can have an ice cream cone and then never giving it to them. Children don’t forget, and neither do ignored winners.
I’ve even thought several times of blogging about this myself, because this kind of thing needs to be exposed. You know if this happened to ME several times, multiply that exponentially. That’s just not acceptable.
Oh what a crock! Why even bother offering up a prize if you can’t afford to donate it to the blog/winner when they win?! What an AWFUL business practice
Interesting. I asked them on Facebook:
“Do you have the Geo Sage complete bedding set ($299) available and in stock right now?”
And about an hour ago, they wrote back: “Hi, Yes it’s in stock.”
Here’s the link to the exchange:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Inspired-Crib-Bedding/41116879710?ref=mf
I am so angry on your behalf! This is utterly ridiculous that they are jerking you around.
I just had this other thought on this topic and decided to share it here…
Many times I see where a second or even third winner had to be chosen because the original winner (supposedly) never responded to the email notifying them of the win. I ALWAYS check my spam box and filters to make sure I don’t miss legitimate emails. And yes, sometimes a win notification goes to spam, so it pays to check now and then!
But what bugs me is I’ll respond… and then never hear anything back. For cryin’ out loud, how much time and trouble does it take to just shoot back a quick “got it, thanks” email to let the winner know her response was received?!
There have been a few times that I followed up a day or two later when I still hadn’t heard anything, and guess what, they DIDN’T get my email. So it’s a good thing I followed up!
I don’t like to hassle anyone, but until I get a response back that you got my acknowledgment, I’m on pins and needles wondering if I’ll be disqualified because you never heard back from me.
Kudos to you for for being so persistent with this chick.I just don’t understand why people operate their businesses like the owner of Inspired Crib Bedding does.I would rather have someone be upfront with me about a problem instead of lying and being evasive.