Why I won’t use VistaPrint’s services again

French summary: La raison pour laquelle je n’aurai plus recours aux services de VistaPrint (France). Le 28 août, j’ai commandé l’impression d’un grand autocollant. Avant de la soumettre, j’avais consciencieusement calulé les marges et édité mon modèle en conséquence afin que le résultat imprimé soit de la taille désirée. Expédition le 1er septembre, tout allait encore bien. Une mauvaise surprise m’attend cependant à la réception le 3. Les marges ne correspondent pas à celles que j’avais demandées (et pourtant vérifiées sur leur aperçu avant validation). S’en suit un mois et demi à tenter de naviguer dans les méandres de leur service client, ce qui revient à déchiffrer du HTML dans le texte (leur logiciel envoie des mails avec du HTML dans des parties en text/plain), à envoyer toutes les demandes au moins deux fois et à résumer l’ensemble du problème dans chaque email pour combler les lacunes de leur processus de suivi client afin d’obtenir une réimpression ou, à défaut, un remboursement. J’ai finalement obtenu un avoir d’une partie du prix de mon impression. Il a cependant été si difficile de l’obtenir que j’avais déjà résolu que cet achat serait le dernier. Aprés encore quelques emails dans la même kafkaïenne incompréhension, j’ai enfin, et à la décharge de la compagnie, obtenu un remboursement complet sur mon compte. Aprés 36 courriels ! Suite à la conclusion de cette affaire, je me suis récement vu proposées d’autres réductions en guise d’excuse. Correct, mais un peu tard. Je voulais juste mon autocollant, moi…

On the 28th of august, I ordered a sticker printout on the French VistaPrint. Before finalizing the order, I carefully checked the margins so that the printout would be exactly the size I needed it to be. Shipped on the first of september, I received it on the third. I eagerly openned the box only to find a wrong-sized horribly pixellated sticker, not fit at all for my use. Following is a month and a half of trying to communicate with customer service. This mainly consisted of manually scouting their HTML tags-ridden plain text emails for information and sending all messages in duplicates to account for their lack of proper issue tracking. I first wanted a reprint, then couldn’t be bothered and asked for a full refund. I first got a voucher for part of the price I paid, which wasn’t satisfying as I already resolved that this order would be my last transaction with them. In their defense, ending a Kafkaesque exchange of about 36 emails, I enventually received a full refund on my bank account. More recently, they een offered me some coupons as an appology. Just a bit too late. And all I wanted was a nice sticker…

Many people know VistaPrint. This company has made their name offering cheap-as business cards, and the assorted letterheads, stamps and other office paraphernalia. Even I have to admit that I fell for the 200 business cards with my PGP details on it. I even indulged myself in paying an additional bit of money not to have the VistaPrint logo on the flip side!

On an idle day, I recalled that iBook I saw at some early occurence of the Libre Software Meeting. It had a cool black and white Tux sticker on the lid. What made it so cool was that the now almost ubiquitous luminescent apple exactly on its belly. Of course, it ran Linux. Hey! My iBook has always been running Linux. I realised I had to have a similar sticker.

After a bit of Googling, it turned out that VistaPrint was also in the sticker market. Made confident (maybe overconfident?) by my previous experience with them, I opted for their services to print my sticker. They do not have “iBook G4 lid” sticker size natively. Who could blame them for that, though? I eventually settled for their biggest size of sticker, on which I realized that I could fit two images of the Linux mascot instead of one. I then took up to carefully edit my source image, adding margins so that, given the resolution and the size of the printed support, the sticker would fit nicely on my laptop’s lid. I was comforted in my (somewhat iterative) process by the preview given by the VistaPrint website itself.

Just a few days after submitting my final order, paid via PayPal Express, I received an email informing me that my item had been shipped. I was pleased to note that their services were quick. I soon understood how they managed to have such quick services when, a couple of days later, I received my printout.

Double-checking, even their final preview (which I assume is based on the printout) lacks the margins.

A close-up on the Tux printout — Even at 72dpi (my fault), I’m still impressed by the size of these pixels. I suspect the margin reduction to have induced a bit of rescaling…

Yep, the margins are nowhere close to those I created, and both images are horribly pixellated. On that last point, I’m partly to blame as it turned out that my source picture was of quite a low resolution (72 dpi) to start with. What I do not understand is why their web interface didn’t warn me about that (I just double-checked, and it now displays a big warning that images should at least be 300 dpi, at least they are open to suggestions). Regardless of this issue, the margins were all wrong (read: almost non-existent), and the images were then too big for the lid of my laptop.

Not really pleased with this service, I decided to contact customer care. The following is a summary of the worst experience I’ve had to date with any customer service. Disclaimer: Please note that it only concerns the French speaking customer care and that I do not make any generalization about their operation for other languages. The relevant parts are translated only for coherence with the rest of the English-only content of this website.

To record my complaint, I used the web form they handily provide somewhere on their website. It collects relevant information such as name, VistaPrint account and order ID. After a quick summary of the problem, I thus asked to get either a decent reprint or a full refund (including shipment). I also informed them that I could send the unsatisfying printout, at their expense, if they wanted me to. As will be revealed, I had to make these statements many a time before eventually getting anywhere.

Shortly after filing this request, I receive an automated email informing me that it will be processed within 48 hours. That sounded reasonable. This was on the 3rd of September.

Unfortunately, by the 5th of September, no reply had come. On the 9th, I replied to the automated email informing them of this fact.
As could have been expected, this was to no avail.

On the 22nd of September (note the time warp), I received a second automated email. Before an educated inspection, it didn’t quite look like anything but gibberish, though:

From:[email protected]
To: XXX
Subject: RE: Réponse de VistaPrint à votre demande BP#xxxx REF#[xxxxxxxx]
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:55:09 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: JavaMailer

<SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Times New Roman’,’serif’; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA” lang=FR>
Cher client,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /><o:p></o:p>
Suite à une forte augmentation du nombre de mails reçus, nous n’avons pas été en mesure de répondre dans les temps voulus à votre requête.<o:p></o:p>
Sachez que VistaPrint accorde une importance particulière à répondre aux demandes de ses clients dans les meilleurs délais.<o:p></o:p>
Nous vous prions par conséquent d’accepter nos excuses quant à ce retard.<o:p></o:p>
Si votre requête est toujours d’actualité, n’hésitez pas à nous contacter à nouveau: nous mettrons tout en oeuvre pour satisfaire votre demande le plus rapidement possible.<o:p></o:p>
Nous vous remercions de votre compréhension.<o:p></o:p>
Cordialement,<o:p></o:p>
Gerard Malesherbes<o:p></o:p>
Service Client France<o:p></o:p>
Cliquez sur le lien suivant pour bénéficier de 25% sur votre prochaine commande :<o:p></o:p>
http://www.vistaprint.fr/vp/gateway.aspx?S=4540430222<o:p></o:p>
Original Message:Date Sent: 09/03/2009 04:26

Order ID: 75913-22521-8I7

Bonjour, Je viens de recevoir la commande ci-dessus mentionn?e. Il s’agit d’un grand autocollant avec une image r?p?t?e deux fois. J’ai cr?? l’image moi m?me et me suis assur? que les marges soient correctement dimensionn?es afin que, lorsqu’imprim? sur un format 490mm x 321mm, chaque image fasse 21cm x 25cm (pour info, la zone imprimable avec les deux images fait 45cm x 26cm, positionn?e au milieu du support). ? l’impression, il semble que mon image ait ?t? redimensionn?e afin de supprimer ces marges, rendant de ce fait les images trop grandes pour l’usage que je veux en faire. De plus, cela a cr?? un vilain effet de pixelisation. Pourriez-vous me r?imprimer cette commande sans modifier mon image de base et me le r?exp?dier ? J’esp?re cependant que cette r?impression/r?exp?dition ne se fera pas ? mes frais. Si cela est n?cessaire, je peux vous renvoyer l’autocollant que j’ai d?j? re?u. Merci d’avance.

The readable bit is actually the text from my request (except the accents and special characters were properly encoded). The rest of the HTML soup turns out to be telling me about how their customer service was quite busy and hadn’t been able to process requests within said 48 hours (Really? I didn’t notice… Or did I?). It also instructed me to refile my request via the same form, if this was still relevant (“Oh, no, it’s alright, the margins actually grew on their own and are now the correct size.”). My request was still relevant, so I proceeded to follow their instructions.

Note to self: Do not ever use JavaMailer for anything. It seems to be encoding-agnostic and take a nasty pleasure in shoving HTML in text/plain email parts, which is absolutely not compliant with Internet standards at all and confuses some email clients, mine included.

Coming as a surprise, by the 28th, I still didn’t have any answer, despite having received a new automated email promising sub-48h processing. I sent a new email reminding them about how I’m still expecting an answer. Please note how, in the previous email, the ID of my order stands out, all alone on a single line. This was included verbatim in my reminder email.

On October the first, I received my very own first human-written email. Oh the excitement! I still had to decypher it, though…

From: [email protected]
To: XXX
Subject: RE: Réponse de VistaPrint à votre demande BP#xxxx [xxxxxxxx] REF#[xxxxxxxx]
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 02:57:56 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: JavaMailer

<SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Times New Roman’,’serif’; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA” lang=FR>Chère Madame, Cher Monsieur, ,
<SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Arial’,’sans-serif’; COLOR: #232323; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin”>Merci d’avoir contacté Vistaprint, votre allié pour faire impression à moindre coût.
Afin que nous puissions répondre à votre question dans les meilleurs délais, nous vous demandons de répondre à cet email en nous fournissant le numéro de la commande concernée.
Vous trouverez le numéro de commande dans votre compte VistaPrint, dans l’ “historique de vos commandes”.
N’hésitez pas à nous contacter si vous avez d’autres questions ou requêtes.

<SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Arial’,’sans-serif’; COLOR: #232323; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin”>Merci d’avoir choisi Vistaprint !<SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Verdana’,’sans-serif’; COLOR: #0070c0; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial” lang=FR>
Cordialement,
Jean M
Service Client Vistaprint
<SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Verdana’,’sans-serif’; COLOR: #0070c0; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial” lang=FR> Original Message:Date Sent: 09/28/2009 08:29
Bonjour, Je n’ai toujours pas de réponse à ce problème. J’ai déjà re-posté ma question comme demandé dans ce message (illisible en texte pur !) et, encore une fois, le délai de 48h mentionné est largement dépassé. Pour rappel, la commande que j’ai reçu m’est inutilisable. Merci d’avance pour vos rapide prise en compte et action sur ces requêtes. On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 03:55:09AM -0400, [email protected] wrote: > <SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Times New Roman’,’serif’; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA” lang=FR>> Cher client,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /><o:p></o:p> > Suite à une forte augmentation du nombre de mails reçus, nous n’avons pas été en mesure de répondre dans les temps voulus à votre requête.<o:p></o:p> > Sachez que VistaPrint accorde une importance particulière à répondre aux demandes de ses clients dans les meilleurs délais.<o:p></o:p> > Nous vous prions par conséquent d’accepter nos excuses quant à ce retard.<o:p></o:p> > Si votre requête est toujours d’actualité, n’hésitez pas à nous contacter à nouveau: nous mettrons tout en oeuvre pour satisfaire votre demande le plus rapidement possible.<o:p></o:p> > Nous vous remercions de votre compréhension.<o:p></o:p> > Cordialement,<o:p></o:p> > Gerard Malesherbes<o:p></o:p> > Service Client France<o:p></o:p> > Cliquez sur le lien suivant pour bénéficier de 25% sur votre prochaine commande :<o:p></o:p> > http://www.vistaprint.fr/vp/gateway.aspx?S=4540430222<o:p></o:p> > Original Message:Date Sent: 09/03/2009 04:26 > > Order ID: 75913-22521-8I7 > > Bonjour, Je viens de recevoir la commande ci-dessus mentionn?e. Il s’agit d’un grand autocollant avec une image r?p?t?e deux fois. J’ai cr?? l’image moi m?me et me suis assur? que les marges soient correctement dimensionn?es afin que, lorsqu’imprim? sur un format 490mm x 321mm, chaque image fasse 21cm x 25cm (pour info, la zone imprimable avec les deux images fait 45cm x 26cm, positionn?e au milieu du support). ? l’impression, il semble que mon image ait ?t? redimensionn?e afin de supprimer ces marges, rendant de ce fait les images trop grandes pour l’usage que je veux en faire. De plus, cela a cr?? un vilain effet de pixelisation. Pourriez-vous me r?imprimer cette commande sans modifier mon image de base et me le r?exp?dier ? J’esp?re cependant que cette r?impression/r?exp?dition ne se fera pas ? mes frais. Si cela est n?cessaire, je peux vous renvoyer l’autocollant que j’ai d?j? re?u. Merci d’avance.

I have to admit that my excitement quickly dropped down when, after assuming the role of an HTML parser, it turned out that this helpful customer service person was asking for the order ID to which my request was related. I don’t quite understand how, with three different reference numbers in the subject, and the order ID appearing clearly in the email being relpied to, it wasn’t possible for them to work out what order I was dissatisfied about.

I suppose JavaMailer is one of these email clients which gets confused by HTML included in text/plain parts. Even if it has generated it itself…

On the 6th, after an email sent on the first stating the ID of my order, I received yet another HTML soup telling me that they couldn’t find my account under the email address I used to send them the messages. It’s true that I didn’t use exactly the same email adress. I find it weird, though, that they told me in the very same message exactly what email address was associated with my account, while claiming they weren’t able to find it. I dutifully gave them all the information once again, mentioning that I already did several times. I even asked them to call me (giving them my mobile phone number) to settle the matter more quickly.

The 9th of october saw the reception of more HTML wid real parts ofa message init. For a change, rather than asking for my order ID, they were asking what my request was. The subject of the email still sported the three reference numbers that I mentioned before, but I was starting to wonder if they were but some elaborate meaningless decoration. I sent them back the content of my very first request, all details included. I took the opportunity to also express my doubts about their complaint tracking processes.

On the fourteenth, though I was expecting to send the same information again, I actually got a relevant reply telling me that the printing issues were my fault as they don’t have any Q&A to cut costs down. I admit that the resolution problem was mine, but not the margin issue, which I stated in my relpy, asking once again for a reprint or a full refund. I also mentioned that I would see myself forced to report the problem to my fair trading association if they didn’t come up with an acceptable solution.

From: Olivier Mehani <XXX>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Réponse de VistaPrint à votre demande BP#xxxx [xxxxxxxx] REF#[xxxxxxxx]
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:43:02 +0200

Bonjour,

Au cas oû votre système informatique fait encore des siennes :

Nom: Olivier Mehani
Email/Conpte VP: XXX
Numéro de commande: 75913-22521-8I7

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 02:22:46AM -0400, [email protected] wrote:

> <SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Times New Roman’,’serif’; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA” lang=FR>Cher Monsieur Olivier Mehani,
> <SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Arial’,’sans-serif’; COLOR: #232323; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin”>Merci d’avoir contacté Vistaprint, votre allié pour faire impression à moindre coût.
>
> En réponse à votre courrier, veuillez savoir que comme il est indiqué sur notre site et au moment où vous passez la commande,
> nous ne pouvons pas être tenus responsables pour le contenu, et les erreurs de frappe ou d’orthographe qui apparaissent sur
> les documents imprimés. Nous imprimons les documents exactement comme ils ont été créés sur notre site.

Ayant encore le modèle que j’ai envoyé à VistaPrint, avec les marges
appropriées. Je peux vous assurer que le document que j’ai reçu n’est
pas conforme à ce que j’ai envoyé, ni même à l’aperçu présent sur votre
site. Voyez les pièces jointes : notez la différence entre les marges et le
niveau de pixélisation entre l’aperçu généré par votre site, et le
document final, encore une fois accessible sur votre site.

J’exige soit un remplacement (à vos frais), soit un remboursement
intégral des 22,50 € que j’ai payés pour ce travail d’impression. Si nous
n’arrivons pas à un accord en ce sens, je me verrai obligé de porter
l’affaire à la connaissance de mon association de consomateurs, dans un
premier temps.

> Pour pouvoir garder nos coûts de production au plus bas et partager ces économies avec vous, VistaPrint ne relit pas le contenu
> ou l’orthographe des documents envoyés par les clients<SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Arial’,’sans-serif’; COLOR: #232323; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin”>Merci d’avoir choisi Vistaprint !<SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Verdana’,’sans-serif’; COLOR: #0070c0; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial” lang=FR>
> Cordialement,
> Jean G

<snip>Previous emails buried in HTML</snip>

They replied the same day saying that they received an email without a question. I replied with, once again, the summary of the problem, informing them that if I didn’t get a decent reply within 48 hours, I would act on my previous threat of contacting my consumers’ association.

Amazingly, adding this deadline helped them read my emails (still on the 14th), find all the information they needed (including my VistaPrint account number!), act on the problem and credit my VistaPrint account with a voucher for parts of the price I had to pay for my sticker. At last some good news, but insufficient considering that I had no use for a voucher given that I resolved never to use their services again, and it didn’t even cover all my costs (not counting the time wasted summarizing for them the previous emails they received).

I mentioned my discontent to them, asking, once again, for a full refund in the form of real usable money. For some reason, I received two replies (!) to this email. One containing the same notice about their not having any QA process (copied and pasted from some sort of standard answer sheet, I guess), and another one just telling me that they were glad to have my trust as a customer. Yeah, right…

I replied to this second one by reminding them that they shouldn’t really consider me more than a just lost customer, and that they surely didn’t have my trust anymore. I also mentioned that I was still waiting for a full refund.

From: Olivier Mehani <XXX>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Réponse de VistaPrint à votre demande BP#xxxx [xxxxxxxx] REF#[xxxxxxxx]
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:31:31 +0200

Bonjour,

Au cas oû votre système informatique fait encore des siennes :

Nom: Olivier Mehani
Email/Conpte VP: XXX
Numéro de commande: 75913-22521-8I7

Mon mail précédent (ci dessous, si vous arrivez à déchiffrer la bouillie
de HTML envoyée par votre système de mail) exprimait mon mécontentement
au sujet du remboursement partiel en avoir que j’ai obtenu. J’imagine
que seule la première ligne de mon précédent message a pu bénéficier de
votre attention…

Je comprends mal, en effet, en quoi votre réponse (“nous sommes heureux
de vous compter parmi nos clients”) a le moindre lien avec mon problème.
Étant donné la piètre qualité de vos services d’impression, et celle
encore plus discutable du service client (ou au moins des procédures de
suivi), vous ne pouvez effectivement plus me compter parmis vos clients.

J’attends toujours le remboursement de l’intégralité des 22,50€ qui ne
soit me limite pas dans l’usage que j’en ferai (c.-à-d. certainement pas
des avoirs chez vous, dont je n’ai que faire).

Vous pouvez les créditer sur mon compte PayPal <XXX>
avec lequel j’ai payé cette commande. Encore une fois, je suis disposé à
vous renvoyer, à vos frais, le document ne me donnant pas satisfaction.

Merci d’apporter une solution acceptable à ce problème qui dure depuis
bientôt 2 mois.

On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 06:46:52AM -0400, [email protected] wrote:
> <SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Times New Roman’,’serif’; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA” lang=FR>Chère Madame, Cher Monsieur, ,
> <SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Arial’,’sans-serif’; COLOR: #232323; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin”>Merci d’avoir contacté Vistaprint, votre allié pour faire impression à moindre coût.
> Nous restons à votre écoute pour toute autre demande complémentaire et nous sommes heureux de vous compter parmi nos clients.
> <SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Arial’,’sans-serif’; COLOR: #232323; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin”>Merci d’avoir choisi Vistaprint !<SPAN style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Verdana’,’sans-serif’; COLOR: #0070c0; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial” lang=FR>
> Cordialement,
> Lotfi L

<snip />

I got a nice answer on the same day (the 15th) asking me to state what my request was! I replied copying the content of my previous email. Again…

As a happy ending, I eventually got a notice from VistaPrint, then PayPal, then my bank statement, that I received a refund for the entire amount that I initially paid. At last!

I have to admit that I’m quite happy to have managed to get out of it. One thing I’m sure of is that this is the last time I had anything to do with VistaPrint.

Misadventures in a Consumerist World

Dealing with customer service and setting the record straight

Why I won’t use VistaPrint’s services again

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