When we sat down with the two ladies in late August we had already talked to the Comcast rep and set a deadline. We told them the commercial needed to be done by September 16th at 11am. They both agreed that was plenty of time to get things done. On September 7th we went up to Longview to meet up with Karen and Summer. Summer wasn't able to make it so we sat down with Karen and looked at different parks on a map. We found one that was just off I-5 and liked the look but we were worried about the sound. When we asked about it, we were told that it would be fine and so our spot was chosen. After sitting down multiple times and being told that they would have a script for us, we also found out they wanted us to come up with the script right there on the spot so it would be 'more natural'. I have to say, more natural was really just more awkward and embarrassing. We had no clue what we were going to say and we were just winging it, not to mention one of the park guys had just come through and mowed which was great an all except he stirred up the bees that were underground by allowing his blades to scrape...oh by the way, have I mentioned that my husband is allergic to bees? Yes it was an adventure but we were grateful to be started on something new, something that would hopefully make us stand out.
Next was the week and a half of calling. Who was calling who though? Oh yes, we were calling them. Do you think they called us back though? No not till four days AFTER missing our first deadline. This was a red flag but we're forgiving ant patient so we readjusted our date to September 23rd at 11am. We were also informed that the audio wasn't great due to I-5 traffic...didn't we ask about that? Yah we did, but we don't know anything apparently. So when she called on the 20th we scheduled re-filming for the 22nd.
When the 22nd rolls around we get a phone call saying "sorry we don't have the mics needed, the guy just left town with them" it's a little frustrating, or maybe it's just us. Didn't seem to bother them. We re-scheduled filming again for the 23rd which once again bumped our start date back to the 30th. Did I mention this was supposed to start airing on the 16th? Anyways 23rd comes and we get a phone call, "the guy still isn't back yet so we still don't have the mics". Again we re-schedule for the 24th. Does anyone else see a pattern here? The 24th comes and we receive another phone call...again "the guy had to leave town with the mics, we'll have to wait till he gets home." At this time Alex and I are gritting our teeth and pulling our hair out. Alex called her back and said "forget the mics, we'll just have to work with what we've got, we don't have the time to waste."
On the afternoon of the 24th we went out to Lucia Falls and re-filmed the commercial. This time Alex and I had written a script ourselves. Before leaving home, we'd ran through it multiple times while timing it to make sure it wasn't too long or too short. Filming went okay. By this time there was a lot of pressure to 'get it right'. We really tried to get some direction from them...where should we stand, is this enough light, etc. Pretty much the only answer we kept getting was "ya ya ya" what kind of answer was that? We were just happy that our part was done.
The next week we spent calling and texting trying to get a hold of Karen to see how it was going. We got no answer till the night of the 29th when she said she needed more time. We flat out told her that was unacceptable and so she agreed to have it done and to our office by 9:30am on the 30th so we could make sure everything was right and get it to the comcast building by 11am. At 9:01am we get a text...not even a call. She didn't have it ready and needed more time AGAIN. Grrrrrrr I was pacing and pardon my language but I was pissed off to say the least. She had then blown 3 deadlines and still had our money. We finally dropped the bomb and told her that it had to be done by October 1st at 5pm or we wanted a full refund.
October 1st came around and she called us at 5:03pm. Splitting hairs wasn't worth it so we told her we were busy at the moment and we'd call her when we could head up to Woodland and meet with her. Apparently she didn't listen to the 'we'll call you when we're headed that way' because she was already there waiting when we called an hour later to say we were on our way. At least she got a taste of what it's like to have to wait for someone since they are almost always late where ever they go. When we got there we sat down with her. Alex put the CD in his computer to preview the commercial. Hmmm something is really wrong, it's pixelated, you can see our tag line under our logo and everything looked like garbage. We figured the pixelation was an easy mistake because a computer will naturally compress a high res video to fit it on a CD unless you tell it not to. We told her what needed to be changed and gave her till October 3rd at 11am to be in. We got a call saying it wasn't done. In desperation we called our Comcast rep and got the deadline moved back to two. If she didn't have it done and in by then we would be getting our money back, no questions asked. At 2:30 Alex called her back and said that we needed our money back since it was still not done. She said she would talk to Summer but they didn't have the money to give back to us. We told her we didn't care and it wasn't our problem.
8:45 at night and I'm sitting there massaging my husband's shoulders and the business line rings. It's Karen, 15 minutes AFTER we closed but Alex answered it anyways. She said "I've got the project finished, would you be willing to take it in exchange for the money you already paid" we told her no and she went into panic mode using her three favorite words, well, umm, and but...over and over and over again. She didn't know he had it on speaker phone but I almost took it away from him and told her off but I didn't. She said she'd talk to Summer again but they really didn't have the money. Once again we told her it is not our problem and they would have to come up with it. She told us she would call sometime before 9:30am the next morning.
The next morning Alex was getting ready to head out on a call, so when his phone rang I answered it. You could tell she really didn't want to talk to me. She started saying "well I talked to Alex last night and asked that you guys rethink everything, have you thought about it" and I said "no we haven't, we told you we wanted our money back." She started to do her ummm but thing again and I stopped her dead in her tracks. I said "Karen, this is NOT our fault. When the first video didn't work out, we should have known with in a few days that wasn't working, not a week and a half later, AFTER we missed the first deadline." I didn't stop there. I went through how a paying customer comes BEFORE all their volunteer stuff. I talked about how she had then missed FIVE deadlines. When I asked her if this was okay she said "well..." well? What kind of answer is that? Anyways, for once, I shut her up and have yet to hear from her since. Throughout the day we found videos and posts put up on their facebook page and website that we had not authorized.
After talking to my mother, Alex and I sat down and wrote a very straight forward, you screwed up, give us our money back letter...professionally worded though. We told them they had till Friday October 7th at 5pm or we would take legal action. We sent it to them on Wednesday. On Thursday night we got a call from Summer but we were busy not to mention that at this point, we were tired of hearing their excuses that they keep throwing out. She left a message saying she wanted to 'talk'.
On the morning of October 5th we called her back. She informed us that she had written a letter but that we could 'talk' about it instead. I said "fine lets talk". She informed us that she was mailing us the check that day for the first half. Then she said that she would mail us half of the other check later. I said "half?" She said yes half because she believed that they had 'good intentions to market us'. I told her good intentions to market was NOT missing five deadlines and never returning phone calls, not to mention posting an unauthorized video online that portrayed our business in a crappy light. I told her as long as we got 100% of our money back I wouldn't go after them for copyright infringement but we must get it ALL back. She kind of hesitated and then said okay. She knew she was in hot water. I also told her that whether or not they put half in the mail or not, if it was not all here by 5pm that we would go after them. She said "I guess you have to do what you have to do then."
Oh and did I mention that in the time it took to fight them to get some of our money back, we had another guy that drove clear up from Salem, shot our video, went home and produced it in two days...with another emergency in the middle? Yep he got it done and for way less. It's amazing how little time it takes to record and produce a 30 second commercial. And we knew nothing....
Anyways our commercial will be airing starting this Monday evening in the Cowlitz County area. Hopefully this will bring in the business that we were supposed to start getting a month ago.
Other thank this headache, we have been getting busier which is a good thing. I'm still working on building my send out cards business and deep cleaning our house for Luke's birthday party which is in a couple weeks. I'll try and do better at writing, I've just been busy the last month.
At the airport seeing Grandpa Hoffman off to Hawaii.
My first Halloween Costume
(last year he was only 10 days old)
(last year he was only 10 days old)
This ones for you Uncle Josh, "I'm a Chick Magnet"
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