To those of you who remember the underhanded way Graphistudio announced their 'Three for Two' book offer a day after the deadline for Xmas orders last November, a word of warning!

After spending days getting our three books designed and submitted on time last November and emails from various staff in Italy saying that we did indeed qualify for their promotion (the main book of the third order was free of charge, if 3 orders were placed within a 4-5 day period,) we received an email just before the Xmas shut-down of our studio saying that one of the orders had been received a few hours too early so didn't count!?! This, after emailing and checking with them on various occasions and being told by two different graphi staff in Italy that everything was ok.

Long story short, after hours on the phone and emailing various people to complain, they agreed to accept another order from us if we could get it in before Jan 7th. We busted a gut and paid a part-timer to cover our studio while we got another album designed and ready to send. We did this in time and received the discount for the third order.

Our credit card was debited for the two books we had to pay for so the invoice at our end was marked as paid and filed.

Several days later without informing us, they refunded the order total to our credit card. Our business banking is all done via the internet to 'save the planet,' so no paper statements are ever received. As we never receive payments to our credit card, we never check this section of our on-line account for our business credit card. Graphi didn't notify us that they had done this, so we assumed all was well.

Forward to Friday last week, and we receive an email from Italy demanding we pay for these two books as the invoice is still outstanding more than five months later, and well after of end of year accounts have been prepared by our accountant and submitted to HMRC ?!?

We replied saying that it was a mistake of their making and while happy to pay for a service our business has received, felt that some discount as a measure of 'good will' was in order, as we will now have to pay our accountant to change our end of year accounts (finalised in April this year,) and because of the extra admin this is going to create in our business, nevermind the cash-flow consequences of having to find another £800+ during the current economic climate.

Today we received a reply from Italy saying that they if they don't receive payment immediately, they will start debt recovery proceedings and still no apology for a mistake they have admitted to making!!

So a word of warning to all you out there who still use graphi for your storybook albums. Don't rely on them getting their invoicing right, and when they do make a mistake, expect it to cost you even more without any kind of apology or compensation, up to five months later! Oh and don't even get me started on the mistakes they make with orders and poor quality control at the factory we saw with most of our 2008 orders.

Regards,

Nic

PS: We'd be interested to hear similar experiences from others out there who have had problems like this.
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www.niccleave.com
'Give em what they want and they'll come back or send their friends...'
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