Refund for prom dress service not carried out

[TheMeatyDrop]

DD prom dress, taken to alteration shop. Indicative prices are on website.

Dress hem pinned up, no other work needed on the day. Website says pinning is a free service. Also I requested a price for straps added for us to consider.

Got to till. Woman gestures card payment machine at ne & mutters the price. The cost of the hem is significantly more than the website suggested, the cost of straps has been added without informing or discussion at all about price.

I was shocked and queried this but was (looking back) rudely dismissed by the woman & felt pressured due to her tactics saying these prices were normal & we'd not find anywhere else decent now. Customers were queuing behind me in the small shop & their shop phone was ringing with only her at the counter huffing, I felt I was holding everyone up. Also conscious of my DD & wanting her to have a nice experience of prom prep.

I left the store & immediately felt sick like I'd been conned. The woman's manner was not pleasant. I took about 1 hr out to process then returned to get dress back & a refund. No work had bern carried out during this hour.

Woman refused a full refund. Claimed she had to keep some back for 'work done'. Only work done was pinning which website says is a free service & anyway she removed the pins before giving the dress back. I asked why she thought she could hold money back, she said because I'd wasted her time... yet SHE WASTED MINE!

I took what ££ I could at that point, but want to follow up to get the rest back. I wasn't given a refund receipt and in the horrible exchange from her to me & my DD during all this I forgot to ask. I'm still waiting on the refund to appear back in my accountbut assuming thats a standard refund processing delay. The original payment has been taken.

Thoughts on where I stand legally?

I can't find anything clear on this situation online. Things I've read cover faulty services. I can't see how she can keep moblney when no chargeable work was completed & the order was cancelled within an hr or so.

So you wanted her to pin the dress up, for free whilst doing no other chargeable alterations?
They arent a charity.

I wanted them to do the dress alterations until the price they put thru at the till was inflated & not discussed.
Their website says free pinning service.
They removed the pins anyway so I did not take back a pinned dress.

Refunds can take up to 7 days, they don't usually but it can happen

Did you go in just to get it pinned and no work done? Cause that feels like CF territory

And if you didn't want straps then I wouldn't have paid for that immediately anyway.

Honestly you sound like a CF.

Maybe the pinning is only free with another paid for service?

Also "I left the store & immediately felt sick" and "I took about 1 hr out to process" what a lot of drama.

I hope your DD doesn’t feel like you’ve spoilt the fun around her dress.

You sound a lot like my own mother - she was a total drama queen and always believed that people were trying to get one over on her. Her rudeness with customer service staff - constantly picking fights and demanding refunds/free services - ruined countless milestones and family occasions. I very rarely speak to her now.

Yes, a free pinning service for [ customers getting other paid work on.
Why would a business use staff time to do pinning on a dress that they are doing no other payable alterations on? Why?

Its an benefit for paying customers, not a freebee for some random that wants a dress pinned for nothing. you really think businesses do that?
You thought you were pulling a fast one by getting the dress pinned up free whilst getting nothing else done. They didnt fall it. You are pissed off.

Of course they took the pins out.....

It depends doesn’t it? Have they charged you £20 or £2000. What are you considering ‘hugely inflated’?

I think it depends a lot on what you’ve been charged. It does sound a bit cheeky to only go in and expect a free service BUT if they are clear about offering it AS a free service then it’s not really your fault. Unless it clearly states that it’s free with another purchase? It could be a loss leader to get people in the door!

This is really confusing.
what service did you actually want doing? Just the pinning or also the hemming?
surely you’d ask how much hemming would be? Hemming a satin floor length slip, is obviously going to be a different cost to a poofy ballgown style dress - most people would ask what the cost was?

what was the cost difference for the straps that surprised you?

Can I ask how much she was charging as we may need my daughters prom dress pinned?

Then this was the point to say NO THANKS, that's not what your website said regarding prices.

You need to be assertive if someone tries to rip you off. If they then tried to charge you for pinning, you would have had a case, because they can't just change the amount they charge you. By agreeing to the price and paying, you had agreed to the service.

Hemming can depend on fullness of skirt and number of layers. You should have got a quote first. However I’ve never known to pay in full upfront. How much £ is involved?

Honestly you sound like a CF! Usually things like that are free of you're getting the work done there. You can't expect someone to do a job and not get paid for it!

As an example my DD is a figure skater - fitting boots is usually free if you purchase the boots from them but it's charged if not. Because like pinning up a dress correctly it's a skill that is learnt over many hours and years

Did you think that pinning meant hemming? You can't just pin a dress, you have to then sew it too. They weren't trying to charge you for an extra service- you're just confused about the terms.

I don’t understand the free pinning thing. Why advertise free pinning if it’s part of a paid job anyway?

Surely the pinning would only be free with the hemming service, that seems common sense? Otherwise, they’d be overrun with customers all with work for free with no capacity to do paid work.

I really don’t understand people paying for stuff they could easily do themselves. In the time it took you to take dress for alterations, you could have pinned & hemmed the dress & changed straps. Not rocket science, and pretty straightforward.
Get yourself a basic sewing machine & save yourself a lot of money!

I’m a bit confused, so you said the website price for hemming was different from what you were charged but you also say it was free according the to the website, or was that for a different type of hemming? So was there an actual price for it online? And you say you were charged for the straps without discussing it, but did you have the straps done? Or was it a charge for something to be done in the future or did you decline it and they charges you for it anyway?

What work exactly was done and what was the price?

Did you even bother to read the post? Pinning is free. You don’t advertise free pinning then charge for it.

This is confusing. I think we just need to know what she wanted to charge you for the full job, which is presumably pinning and sewing. It seems odd to advertise pinning for free as it is part and parcel of the alteration job but equally, if she took time and effort in pinning and you decided not to go ahead, of course she wants to recover her time back?

Pinning is free... then sewing the hem up afterwards it's charged - probably at £x per inch. They aren't going to spend half an hour pinning a dress and send you on your merry way with their pins in the dress for you to sew at home.

You've estimated the costs of hem and straps from published prices.
Dress has been pinned to agree the hem work to be done (FOC). You've then been quoted a price, agreed by paying for the work, then on reflection decided to cancel the order. The shop has said you can't have a full refund because they've already incurred costs.
They state that they don't charge for pinning ie for assessing a dress and giving you a price. Therefore it's unreasonable to charge you for it because you're not going ahead with the work.
However, you'd not have much recourse to get this money back. Advice here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cancelling-goods-or-services-guide-for-consumers/cancelling-goods-or-services
You wouldn't go to small claims court over this amount.

Given you're losing this % fee she's held back, is it really worth starting again with another seamstress? Is it going to be cheaper than just continuing with thr first one? They're nearly all a rip off at this time of year. Just the way it is

After reading the op, don't think she is being a CF, she was not after a pinned dress to then alter when at home

What I get from the op is, Op is pissed off that she had changed her mind within an hr due to the cost of the alterations. Only thing done to the dress within that time was pinning which is advertised as free but they only offered a partial refund when no other paid work was done on the dress