Complaint Review: EMA - CD Maker.com - Austin Texas

I do not know who the Lee is who signed at the bottom. I remember Millie very well. I remember our initial meeting very well. It was not cut short. She was welcomed and we began to speak of her project. Once we got to the deposit requirement she made it clear that she didn't want to leave one after she wrote her check. I slid it back over to her and said she was not being forced to give me a check. For the past 18 years we do custom work for each client and incur hard costs and production time to produce their CDs and DVDs. If she wanted to work with my company a deposit is/was required from all clients. She was free to take her project elsewhere but I did advise her that she should be prepared to leave a deposit no matter who she ended up working with. She slid the check back over and said she wasn't used to leaving deposits of that amount. I asked her again if she wished to work with us, a reluctant deposit is not what I wanted. She assured me that she wished to work with us. Prior to our meeting, on the phone I did ask her kindly to not email the images through the email. I tried to explain to her that if they were images that we could use that they would be so large as to clog up the email server and we can not receive anyone else's emails until it is deleted and then we'd be back to the point of asking for the images on disk. It was clear that computer knowledge or FTP file transmissions weren't her strong point. During our meeting she showed up with an audio master and a disc with what she said was her artwork already completed. She did not have any print outs to confirm the state of her artwork. At that time I advised her that any production time is billed in 15 minute increments based on $65 per hour. She immediately decried the cost etc. I said it was up to the state of her artwork as to what work we may or may not have to do for her. I would call her if it was more than one hour of production. Initially her estimate was $242.50 which included one hour of production and a deposit of 75% was required which was 181.00. The balance would be due at the completion of the project. After she left it was determined that she had left a 1" square image of 300 dpi and a text file. That was it, no composite files nor anything for the CD face. I called her the next day to explain what we had and what it would take to get her to where she wanted to be. She did no want to pay any additional production costs so I said that we couldn't do what she wanted without production costs but if we could fit it all within one hour we would. Later she called b ack and it became extremely clear that she did not understand my response to her that her request to make the picture fit on a 4.75 square insert would effectively reduce the clarity of the image. She seems to not be able to get the concept that while we could do as she asked, it would look terrible. I could have done what she asked but I was certain she wouldn't have been pleased. She then became frustrated and told me that someone else would do the artwork and she would have that artwork turned into us. I repeated back to her the same thing (she would send the front insert, traycard and CD face artwork files) to make sure I understood - this was a Friday and she assured me we would have all artwork from her on Monday. If that were true we would be able to complete on the project in the timeline and price she agreed to in the meeting. She had me confirm the price of the CDs only and I said that if all the artwork was provided in spec, then all she would need to pay for was the CDs and any printing and packaging. On Monday afternoon at approx. 5pm she called the office in a panic and apparently did not remember she had promised to provide artwork the previous Friday and pressured my graphics designer to make a CD face for her. He dropped everything and stayed late to complete on it for her. When I called her back the next day to inquire when we would have the artwork and to confirm that the CD face creation that she herself had requested was billable time and there would be a charge, she began to weep on the phone and couldn't speak with me and rang off saying that she would call me back. The last instructions from her were what were the costs to just print the CD faces and provide them unduplicated to her. I gave her the price .90/unit. She rang off before I could remind her that while that was the price of the CDs to print them only, there would be the production charge of $65 as well. From call to call she kept changing the nature of the project and in each call after a change was made, she could not remember that she herself had made the change to the order, it was clear that she had no idea of what she wanted and was increasingly irritated with anything I tried to explain. After 19 years of explaining artwork basics and process I can not recall someone who I've had literally 0% effectiveness in explaining. What technical understanding she claims in her version of the events was not present when she spoke on the phone with me. She claims understanding of the very concept I was attempting to explain but having no success. One call she would say she would handle the artwork and in another she demanded further explanation about why we could not. I emailed her a complete invoice to ensure that I had communicated that the production charge also applied even though now she didn't want us to print any inserts or assemble the CDs into cases or even duplicate the CDs. In one of our most frustrating of calls, someone did indeed walk in for their appointment and we were in a heated discussion where I'm trying to explain (AGAIN) that the artwork she gave us will not look good when stretched to a larger size, I told her that had to go to meet with another client and that I would not spend any more time on the phone explaining this issue again, she needed to go to Kinkos and get them to do the inserts. It like being in a "who's on first" conversation over and over and over. In one of the final calls with a high degree of frustration on both sides, she informed me that I had best be careful since the deposit check she left had not cleared the bank. I took that to mean that she had issued a stop on the check. By the end of our interactions it was clear that being "nice" or "just one more try to explain things" wasn't working. I become extremely direct and plain and only after exhausting every other method finally drew the line that I wasn't going to explain it anymore. By the end she was charged for what she eventually asked for - CDs printed but not duplicated $45 and the production time on the CD face $65 which was a total of $110. From the deposit I would refund $71 but if the check had not cleared she would need to bring cash to pick up and then I would mail her the full deposit back. Given the tenor of her phone conversations I was left with the conclusion that she had indeed placed a stop on the check. They, Millie and her husband were very upset that I would not trust them and just write a refund check on a check that hadn't cleared. At one time, he called and apparently wasn't aware of the changes in instructions Millie had given us. It was clear that he wasn't calling to inquire, he was calling to threaten me with legal action if I didn't refund their money. Once the check had cleared, which I could only ascertain on the morning she was to pick up the CDs, I made a check out for the refund of $71, left a message for her on the phone number she asked me to use which was different from her cell, and placed the CDs upfront. She did not show up on the day she requested me to have them ready. It was at least 4 days afterwards before she arrived at the office. She came in, picked up the CDs, the check, signed for them and left. Several months later she had someone else call about the CDs and inquire as to why they weren't duplicated. I replied that they were not duplicated at Millie's own request, she received what she asked for and she received what she paid for. If that's ripping her off, then she needs to redefine the meaning of rip off. I have no regrets on what action I took or my staff. But knowing what I know now I would not have continued with her project once she started changing the nature of the project the first time and it was clear she didn't remember doing it.