Tue 25 Apr 2006
I’ve been thinking about starting a business recently, and I have been asked for a business card, so I figured it was time to actually take the plunge and buy some of the things.
I did a little bit of shopping around. The company that I use to print my photographs actually makes business cards. You mail them an image, and they put it on a card. Quite simple, once you have the image designed. But, from looking at the price, I thought that I might be able to do better if I looked around more. I had heard about Vistaprint from various places. They supposedly had free business cards except for the price of shipping. So, I wandered over to their website (use your imagination to guess what it is) and, sure enough, they offer 250 business cards for the low, low firesale price of $5.25 to cover the shipping and handling. You don’t get to design your own image for that price. You pick from a selection of predesigned cards. Also, they mention that there will be a logo on the back of the card for Vistaprint. If you want to get rid of the logo, you have to pay more. If you don’t want the default card stock, you have to pay more. And so on.
But, all I really needed was the basic card, so I went ahead and designed myself the “free” version of the card. At each step of the ordering process, you are asked if you want to add this feature or that (like the things I mentioned above that add onto the cost). At each step, I carefully made sure to choose the option that kept things “Free”. Shipping times? want it this week? That costs more. Free gets it to you in about 3 weeks.
But, I wasn’t in any big hurry, so I went with the cheapest options all the way. Once you get to the end and have entered your shipping and payment information, you are offered the chance to continue clicking on things to “take surveys and win cash”, “get $10 off your next order”, etc etc.. Things of that nature. Needless to say, I didn’t bother clicking on any of the stuff.
So, the order was in. I got an email saying that I’d get another email when it shipped. I carefully watched my credit card transactions via the credit card’s website. Sure enough, $5.25 showed up from Vistaprint, just like it should have. All was well with the world.
The Vistaprint transaction posted on the 7th of the month, and the transaction was complete on the 9th.
Act 2, Scene 2 (AKA: where things seem to go downhill)
On the 9th, a new charge showed up on the credit card. It completed on the 11th. It looked like the following:
04/11/06 247CS.NET(Services and Merchandise) -$33.36
I didn’t have a clue what this was. I thought long and hard about what I might have ordered, and absolutely nothing came to mind. With a name of 247cs.net, it sounded an awful lot like a website to me. So, I typed that into the location bar of everyone’s favorite non Microsoft browser, and was presented with a page that basically said: “You’re here because you noticed a charge on your credit card for 247cs.net. This is for a music download service. If you think this charge is in error, click here. If you think this is fraud, click here.” etc etc. [The website appears to be down now. Go figure] Well, I didn’t have any desire to give them any information about me. So, I made a mental note of the website, and prepared to call my credit card company.
Upon calling my credit card company, I told them that I had an unknown charge. They found it, said that it was an internet charge, and that I could file a claim against it. It was some company out of New York, and the category was listed as Computer Software. They also called the 1-800 number for the 247cs.net company and connected me through to them. I spoke to a girl named Anyae, and she started looking up my information. I gave her my name. She couldn’t find it. I spelled everything out. I gave my address. She still couldn’t find any indication of the charge. She asked for my credit card number. I was leery of doing this, but the credit card company themselves had connected me through and were listening in on the conversation, so I gave the credit card number, and, finally, she was able to find the charge. Apparently (and this is the interesting part) in their records my middle initial had gotten included in the last name, so the last name that I was giving here wasn’t coming up on her computer. But, she found the charge, and said that she’d file a charge-back against it. I asked her how this could have happened, and she didn’t have any good answers. The call ended, and I started obsessing over my credit card company’s website to see if the charge would actually be taken care of. And, I started thinking about how annoying it would have to be get a new credit card number. But, if I had been a victim of identity fraud or something, I needed to get it taken care of.
Sure enough, a couple of days later, a negative charge came through for $33.36. A day or two later, I got a fraud complaint form from my credit card company asking me to fill out the forms and mail them back. But, they didn’t give me an envelope to mail anything in, nor did they even bother giving me the address of where I should mail to. So, that didn’t really go anywhere.
So, if it was actually identity fraud, it was, so far, a pretty mild case. I kept (and still am) watching the credit card transactions very closely to see any unexpected charges. But, nothing new showed up. About this time, I noticed that the timing of the Vistaprint charge and the 247cs.net charge were… interesting.. So, I started doing some web searching. Apparently Vistaprint has had a history of some bad practices in this area. I couldn’t find anything about Vistaprint and 247cs.net, but they have had some cases in the past where people have gotten signed up for subscriptions that they didn’t want, and have had a pretty rough time getting everything taken care of. Guess you live and learn, huh? So, I’m going to keep watching things closely and see what happens.
Oh, you’re wondering about the business cards? I actually got them quicker than they had predicted by a few days. The extremely poor quality picture I’ve included lets you see what they look like. More than anything else, the picture is useful so that you can get a feel for how big the logo is that they put on the back of each and every card. It says “Business Cards are FREE at www.vistaprint.com!”. I think I can live with that for now. My needs for the business cards are pretty minimal at this point, so I don’t really want to spend a lot of money on them. For me, the cards are acceptable. I would, however, caution everyone to be very careful about credit card usage with Vistaprint. I still can’t say that Vistaprint is actually responsible for the charge that I got from 247cs.net, but they are who I’m currently currently blaming.
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:54 am
I had the same problem, dont be happy that they sent your money back. They violated some contract and constitutional rights. I had them to send themy money back, but sure I had to spend my time to do that. I rodered free cards to save maney not to creat a head pain.
February 11th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Wow, my husband and I are just right now trying to figure out why the hell is VistaPrint charging us $15 MONTHLY since I made my ONE order back in October!
April 27th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
I’m glad I stumbled across this review as I was thinking of placing an order for business cards for my husband. I will stick with Kinko’s most likely. Go to http://www.bbb.org and you’ll see this review from the Better Business Bureau:
Nature of Business
Vista Print USA, Inc. offers full color printing services via the internet. The company custom designs and prints business cards, letter heads, envelopes and post cards. Customers can self-design and personalize the products to suit their needs by choosing different layouts, images, backrounds and effects. The company was established in Massachusetts in 1999 and incorporated in Delaware in 1999. The company employs 700 people. Mr. Robert Keane is the President of the company. Ms. Janet Holian is the Chief Marketing Officer and Ms. Michelle Healy is the Director of Customer Care. Any questions or problems should be directed to the attention of Ms. Healy. The company headquarters are located at 22 Victoria Street, Hamilton, Bermuda HM12.
Customer Experience
Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to an unanswered complaint, a pattern of complaints and its failure to substantiate or modify advertising claims.
Based on BBB files this company has a pattern of complaints concerning non-delivery of merchandise. Consumers state that after ordering merchandise from the company, in some instances paying more for faster shipping, the merchandise is not delivered. Consumers would like the orders shipped or a refund of the purchase price. Consumers state that merchandise is being shipped with inaccuracies, or the wrong product is shipped. Consumers state that they would like the inaccuracies changed and the product re-shipped or a refund of the purchase price. Consumers also state that they are experiencing difficulty reaching customer service to report shipping delays, product inaccuracies, or purchase price disputes. Consumers also state that the company has placed unauthorized charges on the consumers credit cards. Consumers are looking for a refund of those charges.
The Better Business Bureau wrote to Vista Print USA, Inc. and asked the company to substantiate the following claims made on the company’s website: 250 Business Cards Free, Free Custom Printed Business Cards, Satisfaction Guaranteed, Best Printing, Best Prices. The company responded to the Bureau’s request for written substantiation on 04/19/04 addressing the free offer claims, however the Bureau determined that the company’s response did not substantiate the claims, and the company has not removed the claims from their website. As of 07/06/04 the company has not responded to the Bureau regarding ther Best Printing and Best Prices claims, and the claims have not been removed from the company’s website.
May 30th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Yes, I am having a problem now. They charged my credit card $14.95. No purchase was made after my intial purchase in April 2007. I called my credit card company that this is fraud.
Now I understand why they claim to give FREE cards. They get yu by making other charges. I noticed now on the web so many other complaints. How can they get away with this. What a waste o my time an energy. I recommend Staples or Officemax or Kinkos. Not worth the hassle.
July 19th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Wow. I just went through the several hours of choosing the design, then choosing a t-shirt design to fulfill the min. $10 necessary to pay by check ( I was sufficiently leary about my credit card info by the time I passed the “free” mag offer )I’m so glad I checked it out before I bothered to send the $18 check- then probably get dissappointed with something I couldn’t use anyway.
Thanks for the oppurtunity to not get screwed !
July 21st, 2007 at 2:05 pm
This company vistaprint should be sued as a class action suit. Their stock is publicly traded. Tell investors what this company does!!!!
August 1st, 2007 at 11:18 am
Thanks for this article. I’m wondering if one of those disposable single transaction credit card numbers MBNA and American Express offers could solve the problem. Maybe it’s worth checking into.
Thanks for the warning about Vista Print!
Good luck with your business (if it isn’t booming already).
August 3rd, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Thanks for the info. I attempted to sign up for an account to save the design I was working on. It seems that someone had already signed up with my email address. Thinking that this was strange I researched the company online and thanks to your letters I will not be a customer of VistaPrint.
August 5th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
VistaPrint is a SCAM ARTIST! Their company executives obviously never took a Business Ethics course.
The same thing happened to me: ordered business cards, paid with credit card, and then unauthorized monthly $14.95 charges begin showing up for some sham “Rewards” program. Repeated calls to VistaPrint did not solve the problem. Had to get credit card company to dispute charges. Credit card company said they get these kinds of complaints about VistaPrint all the time!
September 13th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I hate it when people say bad things about this company. You were charged extra because you failed to read the screen. If you click on anything extra like the “free bonus” or whatever it is the screen says after you order, you will get charged.
A little deceptive yes but they are not scamming you. You clicked on the ad and agreed to the charges. If you order and then close the window after the order is complete then you won’t have any problems.
September 16th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
i totally just reviewed vistaprint. i’ve used them a bunch of times because of their price and good print quality, but every time i do it, i get very angry. i’ve never had this happen to me where i got a fraudulent charge on my card, though, and i’ve used them a lot…maybe i haven’t been obsessive enough to check the bills?
anyway, here’s what i wrote on bizrate.com:
I cannot believe these people. First their website is very sketchy–there are tricks and ‘additional special offers’ at every turn. It is hard to know when you are purchasing something, and with one click, I accidentally added a $50 charge to my order. On top of that, they don’t allow any changes or cancellations in order to save operation costs…go figure how that works out for them. I’ve also had the wrong type of finish on a printed postcard sent to me, and prior to receiving it, I received a letter warning me that it ‘MAY’ happen…How does one know that a mistake may have happened? When I followed directions to call the company and ask for a re-order, the outsourced customer service agent went against what the paper said and made me wait longer, which would have doubled the time it took to get my original order. They are a horrible company, but I keep having to return to them because their printing quality is actually pretty good/acceptable.
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:32 am
I had been using Vista Print for over a year now for printing services for my travel agency. At first the quality was okay — not great, but certainly acceptable. But lately, the quality is absolutely horrible. Shading (color matching) and the darkness of the print varies widely, and with business cards, the cut line has been way off (leaving a swath of white on the top, and cut too close on the bottom). I know this is Vistaprint’s error because the cut line is inconsistent, even within the same order.
I’ve created postcards online, and the last bunch I received looked -scraped- on the last inch or so on the bottom of the postcard. As if the postcard got stuck in a machine, and the printing was scratched and marred. I had to toss about 20 percent of the order (printed lines were not legible), and the other 80 percent is okay enough to use, but not an impressive print job that’s for sure. Next time, I will spend a little more with a better printing company.
December 9th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
I thought I’d post a review of VistaPrint because the experience I had was altogether different that most of what I’ve read online about them. I was pretty worried about what to expect from VistaPrint after reading so much negative press online about them, from extra charges, to poor quality on the manufacture of business cards.
I couldn’t find anyone else online, though, that gave as much control to layout of the card, along with whatever graphics I wanted to add to the base image, so I went ahead and took a chance. I ordered 250 business cards, my wife created her own business card and ordered 500 plus some post it notes.
The cards arrived the same day, several days earlier than expected. Hers looked fine, but on my cards, one of the graphics I had uploaded ended up with a border on 3 of the 4 sides, despite the fact that when I had been designing the card, there was no border at all. It didn’t look *bad*, but it was kind of goofy, and definitely not what I had wanted.
I called Vistaprint to see if there was some way to fix things, and the gentleman I spoke with was amazingly helpful. After taking a look at my design in their system, he directed me to look at the proof of the order. It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be a difference, but the proof shows you exactly what the card will look like. I believe you can order a proof for $1.99 when you place an order, but I didn’t, so I missed the error on my order.
Here’s where it gets good, as it seems like Vistaprint has taken a page from Dell’s customer service woes in recent years, and has started to realize that enough bad press online can start to cut into your profit margins. The customer service rep pulled up my order, used the crop tool in their online business card design program to remove the border, put in another order for 250 more cards on the same 100 lb paper with the same priority shipping, and then gave me a credit for the amount of the order, so the remake of the cards was free for me.
I was on the phone maybe a total of 10 minutes with Vistaprint and they had addressed my problem and gotten the solution already loaded into their system. In checking the next day, the order was already finished and set to ship the next business day via DHL.
Color me impressed. I will continue to use Vistaprint for my business card needs, and HIGHLY recommend them to anyone else.
December 27th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I just noted a charge from “Passport to Fun” on my credit card. Caslle the 800 number and found that it was actually a charge from Vista Print. I told them that I never agreed to sign-up for Passport to Fun. “Tang” told me that just by clicking into the area of special offers I had agreed to join Passport to Fun. Whatever! What a scam. Tang told me that they would credit my account and cancel the membership. I will be watching carefully. When I called my credit card compaany to inquire about maybe getting a new card number they said that it wouldn’t matter and that the charge would follow me even with a new nuber if I had a contract with that company. They advised documenting everything that happened and then if the charges continue they would dipute it with the company on my behalf. I sure hope this takes care of it. Makes me angry!
January 12th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Well, I kind of wish I’d seen this last month. I ordered a custom stamp from them for the library last month. I used a one time use credit card number (doing that pretty much all the time online now), and I haven’t seemed to have encountered any problems as of yet. I guess with the one time use thing, even if they tried to charge something else, they wouldn’t be able to. Very scary stuff. I’ll stay away from them next time.
February 24th, 2008 at 3:37 am
All I can say is thanks for the article as you probably just saved me from a huge headache! I will not ever buy from VistaPrints!
February 28th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I just added a report about your experiences with VistaPrint.com to GNU Consumer Reports here: http://gnuconsumerreports.blogspot.com/2008/02/vistaprint-printing-company.html
Thanks again for posting your issue. If you have issues with companies in the future you are encouraged to write to us. Thanks.
March 26th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Have ordered some 8 different orders from VistaPrint in the last 2 months from their email outs about FREE stuff (all you pay for is the postage). All have arrived within the specified time period and all the products have been excellent quality and all complete. Not bad considering I live in New Zealand and the orders come from somewhere overseas. Never had a problem with charges either. They claim to have 11,000,000 customers. Looks like a small handful have had bad experiences. For myself, very pleased with the free (excl. postage) t-shirts, postcards, business cards, flyers, fridge magnets, etc. … Andrew !!
April 7th, 2008 at 10:28 am
My girlfriend just ordered from them. During the order process shes had to answer yes or no to over 10 different questions about free stuff and other offers.
Stay clear!
April 7th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Hi - just a comment that I had a bad experience with Vistaprint and my business cards NEVER SHOWED UP. I paid the extortionate shipping charges too which annoys me no end. Not only that but they have NO CUSTOMER SERVICE. When I tried their email it came back as it didn’t exist, then I tried contacting them through their webform - to which they replied that they were too busy to reply and to try again!!! If customer service is too busy to reply to your enquiry you have to wonder what problems others are experiencing…
All in all, I wouldn’t recommend ordering anything from Vistaprint!
May 9th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I loved my cards which I received from Vista Print until I saw two charges for $14.95 (Vista Rewards and Passport to Fun) on my bank statement and two NSF charges. Vista happily returned my $29.90. They wanted my complete bank statement,however, in order to refund the charges my bank charged me. The notice of NSF wasn’t good enough for them although it was detailed down to Vista’s phone number. Good ole Felicia (3906) was most emphatic that there was no one to appeal to since she was IN CHARGE. Stay away from Vista Print
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:57 pm
I used them for over 3 years. Never had a problem… until now.
I can’t find a customer service form, emails come back as automated service do not reply. So I phone and can’t understand the person on the other end. I phone again in hopes of getting someone who can understand my English. Again, I can’t understand their accent, they can’t understand my accent.
If anyone has a valid email address for VistaPrint, I would appreicate it.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:46 pm
A group of designer friends got together to make an eBook. Based on the graphics for the eBook, I created a postcard image for people who wanted a print-ready version to send off to be printed using the Vista Print template. The postcard layout was created in Illustrator CS2 (CMYK) and the raster images were done in Photoshop and saved at 300dpi. It was set up the way it was supposed to be done.
Two designers asked to have the backside of their postcard with a close-up image of their design with their name on it. No problem! Easy as pie. I made the backsides for those two images the same way as the front: layout in Illustrator because there were vector graphics and a 300dpi raster photo “placed” into the layout.
When the postcards came back, one person’s was fine, the other said she had three hairlines running through the image (photo taken by her son and a high-res image to boot). She was upset (and so was I). There was nothing wrong with the file I sent them! VistaPrint had screwed up and refused to admit the problem.
The designer got on the phone with someone from VistaPrint and was told that the image wasn’t a 300dpi, high-res image, which was a total fabrication on their part. I was infuriated because now I get to look like a fool because they screwed up the printing. The designer received credit to get another printing (not her money back) and was able to keep the crappy postcards. Whoopie.
Simultaneously, I created a two-sided postcard for a client of mine. The images I came up with were flawless on my calibrated screen. The client put in the order and when they arrived, the front side was great but the back side was all messed up. This was a 100% vector image made in Illustrator. She said there were several problems with it including some white (which looked like it was dribbled) in a spot on the postcard that didn’t have any white on it! And some of the text was messed up too. She called up customer service and they told her there was something wrong with the files she sent. UNBELIEVABLE. They offered no apologies in either situation. She got her money back after a lot of complaining and was able to keep the cards, but at that point, who cares? They looked like crap.
Vista Print sucks. I’ll never send another person to their site again. And just when I thought I was the only one, do a search online for “vistaprint reviews” to find other people who have complained about their bad customer service (which they outsourced to India), poor printing quality, wrong orders, and Vistaprint shady billing practices. All of that lead me to this site where I’m seeing more of the same.
Don’t use Vista Print.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I too just had a horrible experience with Vista Print. I had used them for years and never had any issues and then when I finally had an issue it was horrible.
I have found out how they make the extra money now. Which pay for all the freebies they offer. When you do order, they have so many free offers. If you select them and do not read the fine print, you end up joining the passport club, and every other thing.
Thats how they get people, when you get some kind of 30 day freebie and forget about it, or do not read the fine print to know you will end up being billed for it.
You can see my experience on my blog at http://thewahmblog.com/2008/07/26/vistaprint-complaint-horrible-review/
August 20th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
This article is so true.I went with vista print and was disgusted at the results and even more so by the customer service. I went with a company called mind2print.com and they actually did a really good job on my design and print. They were pretty cheap too. You get what you pay for, and the quality shows that. Avoid vista print, and use the one i recommended if you dont have anywhere else. Hope it helps!
the address is:
http://www.mind2print.com
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:32 pm
I used Vistaprint ALL the time… at least 2-3 times per month. I’ve spent thousands of dollars with them and have had very few problems. I’ve never gotten charged for anything weird. Yeah - they have a lot of offers they try to get you to sign up for - but if you get past that you can get some great deals on printing.
The few times I’ve had problems, they’ve reprinted and shipped at their expense.
Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents.
August 26th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I ordered 2 different business cards printed 1 with 250 cards and the other 500 cards. (Not the free ones, I paid full price). Even though I was very careful to select “no, thanks” on every up-sale offer, I still got signed up for a monthly service, but they did send an email and I was able to cancel that and so far, not credit card charges have occurred.
The order came today, and I got 750 of the same card. No one answers their phone and they do not have an email to reach them at.
I’m going to call my credit card company in the morning and try to get a chargeback.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:01 am
I thik this explains the 20$ charge i had on a card i hadnt used for few monthes and it came up more then twice. I just ordered alot of stuff, 3 seperate orders, all the backs are upsidedown. I have been using them for about 6 years and seems their gettin worse and worse. tried calling their customer service and its closed again for tech stuff
October 6th, 2008 at 8:58 am
I have been through a very frustating experience with Vista Print. The upshot is that I have no no business cards for a conference that I wanted to attend.
They do not seem able to inform you when a payment has not gone through so naturally I did not chase things up until I did not get the order when I expected. I thiought it was a shipping delay. The web service seems to obviate their need to help you - you have to do all the checking yourself.
They go on about valuing feedback , and refer you to a customer survery link but if you try to send it it just goes to a generalised products page. They do not respond to e-mails. It’s also hard to track down a Helpline number - you have to google it!
I amy sound like I’m ranting but this service is so bad I’d like to fire the CS VP!