ComplaintsforWidmer's Carpet Cleaning

• Initial Complaint

  03/29/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  ***, the manager of Widmers in Anderson ought to be ***d. A couple months ago I dropped off a $800 Ted baker suit (the nicest clothing I’ve ever owned by far). When I went to pick them up the pants were missing. I was very polite and calm, knowing mistakes happen and not wanting to place blame even though I knew it was the drycleaner’s error and not mine. *** tried to tell me I only brought in the coat and no pants. She kept repeating we have a record of 1 item in and one item out. Finally I said, “ok but I brought 2 items in and got one back” to which she snapped “I can count!” (Clearly something she’s insecure about because she was unable to count to 2). She offered no solution or apology just blamed me and basically accused me of lying. I called the area manager and explained the problem and she apologized like an adult and said that there could have been a mix up and to give them some time as someone could return it. After a month I called her back and she sounded confused and said “didn’t *** call you to check in? She was supposed to.”  She did not, but that didn’t surprise me at that point. Yesterday I got a call saying they found my pants, (two months after I brought them in). I wear a suit for work so I had already replaced it at that point. When I went in to pick them up *** continued to be rude to me, refused to apologize or acknowledge any sort of fault on her part and when I asked why I hadn’t been refunded the initial $39 dry-cleaning fee for my trouble she said “did we talk about that?” I didn’t think I would  even need to ask for a refund for this level of trouble (multiple calls, multiple drives to Widmers, buying a new suit for work, multiple emails to the GM, ect…).  It is truly astonishing that she is still employed and I guarantee I’m not the first customer to be treated in this way. I emailed the GM and President about a refund but they didn’t respond so I figured I’d let everyone here know to go to Mr ******** Cleaners next store.

  Customer response

  03/30/2023

  Hello, 
  
  I’d like to withdraw my complaint (temporary complaint ID ** *******. 
  
  The manager reached out and fixed the is***.
  

• Initial Complaint

  10/20/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I took my suit to be dry cleaned and they lost my suit and tried to give me a suit that did not belong to me. They refuse to pay for my suit.

  

  Business response

  10/21/2022

  We are surprised to receive this complaint.  We had been working with the customer because he stated that he received the wrong suit.  All of the records showed that it was his suit and it has not been claimed by another customer.  We were still working with him to work on a settlement since no other customer returned a suit that did not belong to them.  He had told us that he did not have a receipt for the suit but he had purchased it at ****** * **** in ********.  We reached out to the retailer, they have records of other items but not a suit being purchased.  When our store manager (Nancy) followed up to discuss with him further he essentially told her not to worry about it. We were waiting for further contact/more information from him.  We did give him other items he had cleaned with us at no charge due to the pending claim. 

  Customer response

  11/04/2022

  *****
  
  I am rejecting the response from Widmer’s Cleaners due to it being an unfair compensation. Over the weekend of September 16th  I picked up my suit from Widmer’s Cleaners on ******* ***, once I got out of the store I noticed that the suit that I was carrying felt lighter than my own. I went back inside the store and tried on the suit jacket and it was too small. They looked for my suit and could not find it at that moment and asked for more time to locate it. Because I was leaving on a business trip that week I returned later with another suit in which they wanted to charge full price to clean. I requested that they do this free of charge and they agreed to charge me the difference between the two suits . A week after that I called the store and they told me they could not find my original suit and continued to try to tell me that the suit I picked up was the correct one. At that point she offered me $100 and I turned it down because I purchased the suit for $329 cash from *** * ****. I unfortunately did not have the receipt for the original purchase of this suit as it was purchased over a year ago. They then called me and notified me that they did research and called *** * **** to attempt to locate a receipt, but because I paid cash *** * **** did not have a record of my sale. As you can see from their website Suits | Buy Suit Deals, Grey Suits | **** ** **** Clothiers (***********) , none of their suits cost less that $300. I am requesting that they pay me a maximum of the full price of my suit at $329 or a minimum of the average of their offer of $100 and the original cost of $329 which would $214. Please let me know if there is anything else I can provide to get this matter resolved. Thank you for your time.
  
  ***** ******
  ******* ******** * ********* ***********
  

  

  Business response

  11/29/2022

  As of this date the suit this customer returned to us has still not been claimed, nor have we had another customer bring us a suit that does not belong to them. We did research through our system and our records and were unable to find a mix-up with this suit. We were willing to offer $100.00 as a courtesy because we value our customers and wanted to take care of him. We do not believe that full replacement value for a new suit is a fair settlement. We are willing to offer $200.00 to the customer to settle this complaint as a courtesy, even though he had previously told our store manager not to worry about sending him anything. Tell us why here...

  Customer response

  12/01/2022

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
  
  Regards,
  
  ******** ******
  

• Initial Complaint

  05/09/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  This past February, my son brought a $210 sweatshirt to Widmere Cleaning in West Chester, OH for a small repair. A spark from a fire hit the sweatshirt and created a tiny hole. He was told that in order for them to do any repairs to clothing, the clothing always needs to also be cleaned by them. He agreed to this. When he went to go pick up the sweatshirt, it was completely discolored with spots that looked like it was bleached. The woman working told him that it was dry cleaned and explained that there was alcohol all over the sweatshirt and "filthy" when brought in. This is completely untrue. The sweatshirt had only been worn a couple of times, each time only a few hours. It was very clean when brought in. She explained the dry cleaning process and told my son they could try to clean it again. My son then contacted me for advice. After he was told it was cleaned again, I went to pick it up. It was much cleaner looking, but still had some odd spots. It also appeared to be a brighter yellow color. The woman at the front desk insisted it was filthy when brought in and covered with alcohol which caused the problem. I told her I knew this was completely untrue. I asked her if she had any pictures of the sweatshirt before it was cleaned to show me. She said she did. She showed me pictures that showed the same spots I was seeing. She gave me her phone to hold to see the picture. When I hit the picture, it showed the date and time it was taken. I asked her if that was really taken before being cleaned. She insisted it was. I showed her the date and time and that it was taken after it was ready to be picked up. She said she must have spoken, and it was taken after being cleaned. There is much more to this story, but I believe it was not cleaned properly and then also dyed. I contacted the Drycleaning and Laundry Institute International for analysis. They told me I could not do this, but suggested contacting you and that you could request this.

  

  Business response

  05/17/2022

  As *** ****** stated, her son brought the sweatshirt to our West Chester location for a repair.  We will do repairs on clean items but the customer brought it in without cleaning it first and it was heavily stained.  *** ****** did not bring the sweatshirt in for cleaning, she did not see it before cleaning. The first cleaning was completed and the repair was done.  There were areas of discoloration after the first cleaning which we often see when an item has something on it that dried clear and becomes more evident after cleaning.  The sweatshirt was sent to be re-cleaned.  Our store manager had asked me to look at the sweatshirt before it was sent back to the store after the second cleaning to make sure that it looked better and didn't require a signature to go against the care label. I didn't see it before it went back to the store, the manager took a picture and texted it to me to let me know it looked better and that she wasn't sending it back to me - we usually do not take pictures of our customer's items. There have been several conversations regarding the sweatshirt between our store manager and *** ******** son, in addition to several between *** ******, me, and our store manager.  Although we often have customers inquire, we do not dye items and we do not know anyone that does.  We did not dye the sweatshirt.  It was cleaned twice by us according to the care label, we do not go against care labels without a signed authorization from the customer.  I told *** ****** that we would reimburse her son for the cleaning and repair since he is not happy with it.

  Anne W

  Area Operations Manager

  Customer response

  06/02/2022

  Hi ****,
  Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to write you back.
  I became involved with my son’s issue with Widmer’s Cleaners after he went to pick up his sweatshirt and the woman at the front desk was responding to him in a really surprisingly unprofessional manner.  Because I had helped my father buy this particular sweatshirt for a birthday gift for my son, I asked him if he would like me to go to pick it up after they said they were going to try to fix it.  The sweatshirt was only worn for a very short time and was perfectly clean, however a spark had hit it and created a tiny hole.  They told him that they could fix the hole, but that in order to do any repair, it was their policy that the item would be cleaned as well.  
  
  When my son went to pick it up, it appeared to have bleached looking spots all over it.  I included a picture of it that he had taken when he went to go pick it up.  The woman at the front desk told him that it was “filty” when he dropped it off and “covered with alcohol”. She mentioned that it was like what a young guy would do.  She said this is why the bleached looking spots occurred.  My son adamantly told her that was completely untrue.  There was zero alcohol anywhere on the sweatshirt and it was very clean when he dropped it off. She also insisted the hole was a cigarette burn, which is absolutely untrue.  She continued to explain the dry cleaning process to him letting him know it was because of what he had on it that it was ruined, but she said they would try to reclean it.
  
  When I went to go pick it up, she again told me the same story…that just like guys his age would do, it was “filthy and covered with alcohol”.  I asked her if she had a picture of the sweatshirt to show me how filthy it was.  I completely expected her to say no, but she told me that she did.  I told her I would like to see that picture.  She showed me a close up of a part of the sweatshirt and explained to me that you could tell it was "completely filthy”.  I was trying to get a better look at the picture and she told me that I could take her phone to look at it.  When I did that, I must have tapped the picture because the date of the picture showed up very quickly.  I could see that it was taken the day it was set to be picked up.  I asked her again if that was taken before it was cleaned and she said yes it was.  It told her to look at the date of the picture, she went further on to explain that it was taken right before it was cleaned.  I told her that the receipt that we had showed that it was set to be picked up shortly after the picture was taken.  She looked baffled, tried to insist she was right, but then told me that she simply mis-spoke, that it was actually taken after the sweatshirt was cleaned.  I told her that she just flat out lied to me.  She said that she didn’t, that she mis spoke.  I told her that I had asked her multiple times when the picture was taken and she said it was before it was cleaned and that was why she was showing it to me, to show me how “filthy” it was before it was cleaned.  I was completely shocked with how she was behaving.  
  
  Because she had gone into detail to explain to my son how the dry cleaning process can cause issues if there is alcohol on a clothing item, I asked to see the tag to look for the cleaning instructions.  She told me that they follow the manufacture’s cleaning instructions.  She told me that it was only laundered, and was not dry cleaned.  I told her that she went into detail explaining why the dry cleaning could have done this and that it was dry cleaned.  She denied saying that.  I told her that she had just lied to me and so it was hard to believe what she was now telling me.  I asked her how, if there were parts of the sweatshirt that were lightened after the first cleaning, those spots were now yellow.  She said the lightened spots were cleaned and that is why it was now solid yellow.  This made absolutely no sense to me.  The color looked like it was now dyed. The tag was also yellow which supported my thought that it was dyed, but I honestly never paid attention to the tag before it was cleaned, so I suppose it could have been yellow when it was new.  I included a picture of that tag dyed yellow in my complaint.
  
  She was incredibly rude and was insisting that my son was lying about his sweatshirt coming in clean and was insisting it was so dirty because that’s what young guys are like with their clothes.  I had to encourage my son to finally wear that sweatshirt because it was very very special to him and he never wanted anything to happen to it. He only wore it a handful of hours and it was spotless when he brought it in…minus the tiny hole made by the spark. 
  
  The sweatshirt now has some small marks left on it from this cleaning process.  It also appears to have been dyed. The owner of the store did call me and offered to refund the cleaning cost.  She also told me that she wasn’t sure why the woman at the front desk told my son or me what she did…but when I went back to talk get a paper signed about what cleaning process was used by them, that woman was still there and did not offer any apology at all. My son and I both told them that what we are asking is that they reimburse him for the cost of the sweatshirt, which was sold for $285.  Besides the fact that it looks worse than when he brought it in, they have been incredibly rude, dishonest and insulting.  This has taken an incredible amount of time.  He went out of his way to find a dry cleaner with great ratings.  We found The Dry-cleaning and Laundry Institute International who offer ITAL Garment Analysis.  I contacted them to pay to use their service to help determine what cleaning process was used on the sweatshirt and to find out if it was dyed.  They let me know that they do not offer that service to the public but that I could contact the BBB and they could request it to be done.  We would happily pay for that.
  
  To be totally honest, at this point, besides the money back for the sweatshirt, we are hoping to simply let them know that this was not ok at all to do.  They treated my son horribly and lied to me and continued the narrative about my son being a typical young guy who doesn’t take care of his clothes.  This could not be further from the truth.  
  
  If there is anything else at all that you need from me, please let me know.  Thank you so much,
  *****

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