ComplaintsforBen Firth Studio

• Initial Complaint

  08/31/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  8/16/21 I put down an in-person deposit of $6,500 on a carving using my **************** credit card. No work was to be done on it until the winter and it was expected to be completed by May '22 or so. I was not given a contract nor was I given or informed of their refund policy. (Never again). Due to a family emergency I canceled the order in Oct '21. The merchant did not respond to my calls or texts. Finally, they responded to my emails and credited my **** $3,000 on 12/10/21. Since that time, I emailed them repeatedly asking for the remaining $3,500 back.I explained that I had never been informed of their refund policy. When They refused to refund me the balance I suggested a payment plan. They refused this also. I initiated a dispute via *********** and they did a chargeback to my **** card. But the merchant responded to the dispute by stating after the fact that they had a "nonrefund policy". *********** charged my **** the $3,500 back. I continued the dispute telling *********** that I had never been informed of a "nonrefund policy". But now, *********** has closed the dispute because I could not produce the merchant's refund policy and contract. I told *********** by phone and claim documents submitted that the whole problem was that the merchant had not given me a copy of their refund policy and contract-so of course, I was unable to produce these! And wasn't this the merchant's responsibility? *********** asked ME to email merchant to request a copy of the refund policy and contract! So I did this yesterday and also repeated my plea that they just go ahead and refund me the remaining $3,500. I do not expect a response from the merchant. Why should they? At this point they have "won" and get to keep my $3,500. I figure I will have to *** them but thought I would try BBB first. I will add supporting dox later...

  Business response

  09/13/2022

  On August 16,2021 the customer was in our family art ******************** and commissioned a $13,000 antler carving from my husband.  She made a deposit of $6,500 down with the remaining $6500 due upon completion of the carving in the next year.  Three months later on November 11, 2021, the customer emailed and said she had been trying to contact us to cancel her order and wanted $7000 returned.  We have limited hours during our off season after Labor Day and we were away from the studio and had not gotten her phone messages. I emailed her the next day after receiving her email on November 13,2021and offered to postpone her order or allow her to choose already completed artwork for the value of her deposit, which was $6500 and not $7000, but that it was not our policy to refund deposits. A deposit on a commission is a pledge to pay the full amount for the finished work.  Cancelling the commission forfeits the pledge.  A deposit that must be returned on demand serves no purpose. This is a commonly understood business agreement.   She emailed the next day on November 13, 2021 and declined both options we gave her and asked for an exception to our policy.  On Friday December 3, 2021 I emailed her and told her we did make an exception in her case due to her family emergency and refunded her $3000, which was as much as we could, and told her the order was cancelled. After emailing us again at the beginning of this summer to request the rest of the deposit, I emailed the customer on June 9, 2022 offering to open an order again for her if she wanted to pay us the remaining $9500 she owed us for the carving she initially ordered. I did not receive a response. Shortly after this, we learned she put in a dispute with her credit card company , causing our credit card processor to attempt  three times to access our bank account and withdraw the disputed $3500.  We did not have the funds to cover the withdrawal and received nonsufficient funds charges three times and our credit card processor stopped all deposits going into our bank account from new sales made during the dispute which went on nearly three months.  We submitted all our paperwork for this order to her credit card company for the dispute and her credit card company resolved the dispute in our business's favor and closed the dispute in the end of August 2022. After the customer lost  the dispute case, she emailed us again on August 30, 2022 demanding her nonrefundable balance or provide information for her card company. We had already provided all the information to her credit card company during the dispute.  The order was cancelled on December 3,2021 and the dispute was closed after resolution in our favor in August 2022. All of this correspondence is attached in emails above along with our commission paper from the order with her email and phone number written by her in our studio on the day of the order.  Deposits are ******* money sealing a promise between buyer and artist and  are taken to protect the artist from the very thing this customer is demanding.
  

  Customer response

  09/14/2022

   
  Complaint: 17805987
  
  I am rejecting this response because: The merchant never informed me of any refund policy in writing or orally. That is why *************** had to drop the dispute: because I could not produce a signed written no refund policy from the merchant. I would ask that the merchant produce this document now or return my $3500 As I was not informed and no work was done
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *************************

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