07/12/2021
Psa
*July 23 update*
The dust has settled and we had the opportunity to talk with Swift Paintball. Concerns were voiced on both sides, they offered us several options the best they could, but we kindly declined after a team vote. Lessons were learned on both sides and hopefully this situation will have helped both parties learn and grow. Lessons learned: we failed to ask for a physical print sample before accepting the order. We suggested to Swift that going forward, they should, as a part of their quality assurance process, offer a print sample and integrate the costs related to this in their pricing structure, to avoid a similar situation going forward with future custom orders.
*End of update*
It's ranting time boys and girls! Gather around the fire, grab yourself a cold one as uncle Kelly tells you the tale of the botched OOO jerseys from hell.
Getting new team jerseys is usually a moment of great joy. But not this time around. After our resident Photoshop/Illustrator expert Vik Correia designed a special jersey for the team's 10th anniversary, we decided to give Swift Paintball a try, as one of their reps was local to us. We've seen their work before, they did great jerseys for a local field. We were stoked and we submitted our design. They send us a mock-up. Stuff looks amazing, we're soiling ourselves in pure joy and we send them payment.
Then we wait. And wait some more. When asking for updates, they give us various excuses, but we're a patient bunch because 1) we're Canadian, eh? and 2) we know businesses have been affected by COVID, so we don't act like as****es.
May gets here. Then June. Excuses are given, so we wait some more, because we're a nice bunch. Still nothing. Tension rise, we finally get tracking info. In the end, we don't care about delays, we just want to hit the field with our brand new jerseys.
We finally get the news that the jerseys have arrived in Canada, but were shipped to the Swift contact in Canada instead of us. We demand a picture to see what the jerseys look like.
Sweet grilled cheezus. The jerseys look bad. Like sitting in the summer sun for 3 months straight bad. Mind you, we know that actual product colour might differ *slightly* from the mockup, but we provided them with CYMK-friendly colours. The colour hue is off. It's no longer green, it's blue. This looks nothing like what we requested. The team is pi**ed, we demanded a refund so we could take our business elsewhere.
Sadly, PayPal cannot refund a custom order. We are s**t outta luck. Swift offered us free t-shirts to compensate. Yeah, like that is going to help.
"Hey buddy, your jersey looks like ass!"
"Yeah, but you should see my totally sweet T-shirt though!!"
So in a nutshell, that's our story. The team spent more than $2700 on jerseys we will never use and Swift Paintball lost our business. We will NEVER do business or promote them ever again. Never. They had the opportunity to make things right, but they didn't. Shame on them.
Avoid at all costs.
TL;DR:
-OOO ordered jerseys from Swift Paintball on Feb 18
-We get tracking number on June 18
-We do the happy dance
-June 22, they tell us we got wrong tracking number
-We throw a hissy fit.
-June 25, jerseys arrive... At Swift PB's house, not ours.
-We ask for picture of jerseys. Sadness ensued.
-We promptly filed a PayPal claim and got cockblocked.
-We are now whining on social media because we can.
