Short version: the job was printed wrong and was late; MiTe accepted no responsibility and instead blamed me and insulted my intelligence. Shamefully bad work, infuriating customer service.
Long version:
The job - I had a very simple 1 color, no bleed, double sided invitation for them to print, including blank envelopes and 1 color postcards. The postcards were correct; everything else was screwed up. And the whole job was delivered late.
This was bad enough, as they were wedding invitations and, as with most weddings, the deadline was very tight - basically, the invitations were ruined and we had no time to fix them.
The problem - the print shop for some stupid reason offset one side a half inch from where it should have been (this means they did not even look at the files I provided). I've been a designer for 20 years, I double checked the files, they were correct - the printing was wrong. Secondly, they sourced envelopes that were the wrong size. If you're not familiar with the print world, these are A9 envelopes and they are not difficult to find. There's no excuse for this error.
It gets worse - Now I've got bad invitations and an upset bride and my own stress at having delivered this mess. My reputation is hit, my bride is frustrated, the printing is late, and we can't fix it before the wedding. Fun stuff.
So when I pointed out the above errors to MiTe, they told me that I hadn't included crop marks in the file, that the error was mine. This was just a plain lie - the crops were there. It also insults my intelligence because they seem to think I'm too stupid to either have included the crop marks or to double check that I had (I did and I did). They also tried to tell me that the job which was promised on a Wednesday and not completed until Thursday at closing time was done on time. And to top it off, they blamed me for not calling on Wed. to check. Really? If I had called when it was due, it would have somehow magically been finished, even though it wasn't finished until a day and a half later? That's insulting.
The solution - hey, business owners, when you screw something up, APOLOGIZE and REFUND - it's not that hard. But MiTe instead blames and insults the customer for its own failures. I had wanted this shop to be a good resource for me, but it turned into a nightmare. (Btw, I tried to resolve this privately, to no avail, so here's the crappy Yelp review - you asked for it, MiTe). read more