The Wedding Dress Fiasco - and why you should not trust online reviews

This is long, but please share as this serves as a warning that seeing is not believing and can leave you way out of pocket!?

My wedding dress was beautiful, it was custom designed dip-dye grey silk simple dress made to measure, it was the most expensive thing I bought for the wedding simply because that was what I wanted. Looked great in all my pictures on the big day, but as we got married in the rainforest it did get wet and muddy. I wasn’t too worried, I was planning to send it to a dry cleaner when we returned so it was looking clean again by the time, we had our wedding reception in the UK (this Saturday!)?

Returning to the UK, I had a look through Google and Hello Laundry popped up, they seemingly had great reviews with Google and Trustpilot and they could also do pick-up and delivery. I spoke to them, explained how muddy my dress was and they were happy to pick up Friday and return on Monday lunch. Perfect!?

I booked and sent it off. Pick up was fine, no issues there. It got to Monday evening and no sign of my dress. I thought as it was muddy maybe they needed more time, so I left it. By Tuesday afternoon I hadn’t heard anything so I started to worry and called them. Which was a mission in itself as either no-one picked up or it rung out...which for what they claim is a big company is odd. Finally, someone picked up and I got a vague answer of it still needs cleaning; it should be back tomorrow. ?

I then started looking properly at reviews, the more what it seems now more genuine reviews and my heart sank, I felt sick. People complaining there is lack of communication, not getting their items back or items being returned dirty or dirtier than when they sent them. By Wednesday evening, I just wanted my dress returned whatever mud was left on I would deal with it, the dress was more important than the mud and they hadn’t given me much faith in them as no-one was really giving me any proper answer online or on the phone.?

I called and asked for it back straight away, I also contacted them online and they delivered the next morning. Was it muddy? No. Was it reeking of smoke? Yes! Literally my entire house smelt from the dress and touching it made my hands black and I of course contacted them straightaway.?

?The response I got “This was so dirty for a long time; we did hand wash and sundry” - you don’t dry silk in the sun. In response to saying it smelt like it’s been on a BBQ and touching it makes my hands black I got “it now needs to be washed and steam ironed” followed with pictures of my dirty dress. They continued to argue with me, until eventually they stopped responding. They then charged me ￡120 for the pleasure of having a dirty dress returned with no invoice.

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Later that evening my husband noticed someone else on Trustpilot was complaining that their clothes had been returned smoke damage and there was a fire at the facility they use in East Ham. Looking online I found https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/incidents/2022/may/laundrette-fire-east-ham/ my dress was in the facility at the time, which explains the smoke damage. But they did not tell me anything about a fire, they simply told me it was my fault the dress was damaged.?

Annoyed they had lied to me so much, I proceeding to look into Hello Laundry further, they are listed as working from Purfleet, clearly this is a lie. They masquerade as this huge company when realistically it is a small company thanks to this handy tool https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-a-company and using LinkedIn (lots of workers = lots of LinkedIn profiles, right?) I?then emailed them several times about this fire and was again ignored. It wasn’t until I posed as a customer online and threatened court action with advice from CAB https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/somethings-gone-wrong-with-a-purchase/dry-cleaner/ that they eventually replied and admitted there was a fire at the facility.?

They said they were claiming through their insurance company and to send all original invoices for the value of the dress – which I sent immediately. Still nothing. Chased again and they said the insurance company has not responded yet this was now 5 weeks after the incident.?

Distraught that my dress was ruined and unwearable I contacted the original dress makers and heroes of my story Lucy Can’t Dance, with only a couple of weeks left before my reception they agreed to redye my dress so it was in wearable condition. Thankfully they have done a great job, it was unable to be repaired to its original state but I wanted something to wear and keep that at least resembled my original dress. Of course, this cost me, not only for the repair but driving to and from the shop again. They were also kind enough to take photos of the damage so you can see the damage from the dry cleaners.?

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I sent this invoice to Hello Laundry and spoke to them online again. This time they argued my dress was not damaged as it is now fixed, just because something is fixed does not mean that it was never damaged. Once a piece of paper is screwed up it can be flatted again so it is usable but impossible to deny that it was once screwed up.?They also argued that I refused to give them my dress to fix it (why would I give it back to a dishonest company who lied and tried to blame me originally?) and offered 50% of my money returned, though failed to state 50% of what money. Fantastic customer service right there. ?

Not long after the online conversation, Roy called my phone, told me lots of people had all of their clothes damaged in the fire, but none of them were claiming or complaining (though reviews now say otherwise) as they know it is a natural event and as it was in a third-party facility, which means Hello Laundry were not responsible for it. I worked for insurance companies for many years, a?facility fire caused by textiles is not natural or classed as a natural disaster so you can claim. Secondly, I do not believe anyone would not claim money back for their “entire summer wardrobe” as they told me. ?

To finish up the call Roy offered me ￡100 as compensation (for half of what it cost me to repair to a wearable state) or told me to feel free to take things further or wait for the insurance company, who they do not have the name of as it’s through their solicitor who they refused to spell out the name for as I did not catch it the first time. It did not matter if the solicitor would not speak to me, I just wanted to know if they were real. At the moment I don’t even have much faith that they have any sort of insurance.?

This was followed up with another email again blaming me for the state of my dress, which if they were doing an insurance claim they would not be arguing with me as this would simply be dealt with by a loss adjuster.

All in all, no matter what a company looks like with great Google?and Trustpilot reviews, fancy website, you cannot trust them.