I am not one to share my grievances publicly, but my hope is that when someone is contemplating using the website Printingthestuff.ca they will come across this post and think twice.
At Papillon Press we sell our greeting cards wholesale to stores across North America and internationally. I wanted to introduce a couple cards with gold foil accents this year so I sent two greeting card files to Printingthestuff.ca. I asked them up front if the cards would be printed in Toronto, because they seemed kind of shady and I did not want the printing outsourced to another country. It’s our company mandate that all our goods be made in Canada; it says so on the back of all our cards. The sales person, Steve, wrote back in an email: “Yes we print within Canada”. He also confirmed this on the phone when I spoke to him.
My second up front question to them was: could they print on a particular paper stock which all our offset greeting cards are printed on (Cougar Cover Smooth Natural White 100 lbs) and they replied “Yes we can print on 100 lb paper”.
Fairly satisfied but still apprehensively, I sent the files off to be printed. After a couple weeks DHL calls me up and tells me we have to pay $18 in brokerage fees because we’re told that “printing materials” are being sent to us from Pakistan. Having no idea what this package could be, I start to get a sinking feeling that they are the greeting cards I ordered from Printingthestuff.ca. Lo and behold, those “printing materials” are the greeting cards. Not only that, but they were not printed on the specific paper I requested (wrong shade of white and gloss coating on the inside of the card). Both these facts were a direct contradiction of what Steve had written and said on the phone.
I first tried calling Steve 3 times, no answer or voicemail. I emailed Steve with my complaints and asked for a full refund because we had been deceived about the origin of the cards, and they printed on the wrong paper stock. He fired back an email that said he had never guaranteed any of the above things (I had even attached the emails he had sent as proof, but he still denied it) and refused to give a full refund. He said that he had never guaranteed to print on Cougar paper, just 100 lbs paper. He also said that he had never said the cards would be printed in Canada and that it clearly states on Printingthestuff.ca that the printing is outsourced (I can’t find that info anywhere on the website).
Here’s the best part though; he then called me a racist for having a problem with the cards being printed in Pakistan and not in Canada:
Regarding racism, Yes your statement is defiantly racist. Because you are concerned with countries not your printing, whereas we clearly state on our website as we do outsource work overseas to give best prices to customers as well as this is not to be informed to customer as our responsibility is to supply them with correct printing.
There defiantly is no refund as product is right.
I love how he “defiantly” refuses to give a refund or basically do anything to accommodate my dissatisfaction.
I wrote back saying this was extremely poor customer service and that he had deliberately deceived me. He wrote back reiterating that I am racist and again denied any of the above claims, despite having emails as proof.
Let me be clear that I never would have ordered from this company if they hadn’t assured me on the two aforementioned points. There is absolutely no way I would have been fine with the printing being done in Pakistan…or on the wrong paper stock. We’re talking about over $700 in goods here that are completely useless to me.
The next thing to do was to file a dispute with Paypal, send a complaint to the Better Business Bureau and write this blog post. Printingthestuff.ca OR K & Z Services Pty Ltd OR Beeprinting.com.au or whatever they’re called again refuse to give me a refund through Paypal. The dispute is then escalated to a claim and Paypal looks into it, doesn’t bother contacting me for any supporting documents (remember I have proof in the form of emails of the lies Steve told) and finds in favour of Printingthestuff.ca
I am now filing a complaint against Paypal for not giving me the chance to show supporting documents or explain over the phone (they had afforded this chance to Steve, apparently). As it stands right now, I am over $700 out of pocket because of being lied to by a shady printing company. The battle continues and I can’t tell you how frustrating this whole process has been. Not only was I blatantly lied to, but then subjected to the absolute worse customer service on the planet. Consider this a bad review. What should have been an obvious resolution to Paypal is now leading me into another battle with them. Ugh.
I hope this blog post will help potential customers of Printingthestuff.ca steer away from their shady company. I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to go through this. Beware of companies that claim to be Canadian but drop ship their goods from somewhere else.
Update Paypal is telling me their Purchase Protection does not cover custom made items or customized items and service which is why they decided in favour of Printingthestuff.ca, because the cards are custom-printed. Make a note to yourselves; that’s a huge range of items that Paypal will not help you out with if something goes wrong.
Papillon Press 