Scam Fresh Impressions

Their site says:

“No job is too small and no job is too large. If it has never been done before, we will figure out a way to make your dreams come true.”

What a bunch of nonsense.

you should try to do a review of them through google or yahoo and trash them accordingly… also filing a complaint with the BBB in Florida is also a good idea. You might consider doing a bit of digging and find the name and addresses of the company owners, you can also access publicly property taxes to find the owners. Send a notice to their personal and business address stating reprecutions… If you paid with your credit card, you can call your CC company and have them remove the charges for fraud. A couple of years ago I experienced a similar situation WITH A DIRRERENT COMPANY. I sent and resent the same email over and over and over, hundreds of times. One day all of a sudden, a reply back with an overnight UPS tracking number… Getting your money back or product will cost some time, your goal should be preventing this from happening to other unsuspecting victims!!! …(There is also another press company that frequents Briarpress from Tallahassee. It’s a small enough world and the two cities are kind of close, somebody knows what happened to that company.

You know, I looked around the site some more and it looks like they produce some good work.

They are also active on twitter. These days I seem to get my questions answered quickest on twitter. So you might try sending them a message that way. It’s public so there’s more incentive for them to resolve the problem.

My name is Chris Tipton of Fresh Impression Letterpress. A friend of mine pointed out this post to me today, and I wanted to reply. Natalie is a wonderful person who has been speaking with me on and off for the better part of 2 years. She had finally decided to place an order for some business cards. It’s unfortunate that there were issues causing her order to be late, but the problem has been rectified. I ended up doubling her quantity and expedited the shipment. However, perhaps she’s forgotten about making this post. As Natalie and I have since spoken, and I’m sure she’s happy with the cards.

It’s a shame this post exists, but there’s not much I can do about that. All I can tell you guys is that if something isn’t right, we fix it. If something is delayed or late, we make up for it one way or another. These kinds of things can happen. Especially, when it’s as busy as it was back then.

I’m attaching a photo of the cards I printed for Natalie.

Tmac: It’s not really “nonsense.” I get a lot of unique ideas coming from other designers who might not have a lot of print design experience. I not only have to figure out the production involved to create it, but I also have to make sure it will work, be the best quality it can be, and fall within their budget and expectations. Thanks for checking out the site though! I appreciate the critic. I haven’t been putting up any new work, because I’m working on getting the new website done. Hoping to bring that online soon.

Woweber: Trashing people or businesses online is not the best advice you could give someone. Especially, when you don’t know the situation. For the record, I never received a phone call either. I’m a very small business. Premature and irrational behavior like that in a public forum from a customer, who in the end is happy, can create permanent damage from a temporary feeling. Be that as it may, had I been a real scammer, I suppose your information is actually pretty relevant. It’s just not something I would personally do to a small business. I don’t know who you are, but you seem to offer good advice to people on the forum here. So, I assume you’re not referring to an order you placed with me a couple of years ago. I hope you can clarify that.

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It’s to bad clients do not use the phone anymore…

Atelier Domino,
That is because people have allowed the web and social media to change how they do business. Instant gratification has its consequences and generally it is for the small business.

I have pointed out before that the posts left on these sites are not really taken on board , the importance of the subject matter is in the responses not the first post.
Maybe the first poster was a bit peeved ,we all get in a bit of a pickle at times the good point here is that no one else has made a similar accusation yet many of this mans customers probably would have said something had they experienced the same trouble ! I would have thought it prudent to have said party to ask for the postee to re edit it !

A major problem all business face is informing your customer what going on with their order.

I know I made this mistake many years back with my business. I internet customer placed a order for a few items in large quantities. As a small store I only stocked one or two or theses items at a time.

So, instead of informing the customer it would take a extra week to get more of these items from my supplier, I waited the extra week and shipped his order.

The customer was super upset with me and wanted his money back and trashed me over many emails.

In business, we think the customer understand what going on their order. But, in fact they do not.

As business people we should take the extra time to contact our customer with information about the order if we can ship in the time frame the customer wanted.

Example: The customer places an order on your website or mails it to you. And, at the time the order was placed, you are backed up with work, and their job will be put into production in two weeks.

That way the customer will understand why it taking longer to get their order shipped.

THIS is why I have no automatic estimate calculator and only do jobs on a quote by quote basis.

I agree it’s a shame when customers undeservingly trash businesses. I’ve worked professional retail for many years, retail mamagent, and even consult in retail operations. The Internet has provided a new platform for social media and market place alike. If you can’t handle the required appropriate customer service for the given market, you will continue to have unhappy customers, who rightfully praise your business to reflect their experience.

Perhaps some proprietors need to better understand customer expectations that have become the norm. A customer failing to call a business is no excuse for the company failing to appropiately inform the customer of whatever changed, thus managing through experience with communication.

Obviously the customer wasn’t too impressed with their experience, not that the product isn’t top notch. Customer in this case, perceived the affiliated business as being fraudulent for neglecting email correspondence in an appropriately reasonable time frame. This post never would’ve appeared if the customer service experience was managed appropriately.

to tiptoncp and others

it happens. At newspaper where I worked, we published the wrong phone number for a person lodging small classified advt, you can guess what her profession was; the person whose number was incorrectly substituted was not pleased; then we repeated the advt the next week, clipping it from the newspaper; guess what!
After that we pasted the correct advt on the wall next to the proofreader’s desk.
Govt offers small-business-management courses, avoids many probs (if the small-business man does the course).
One of my fellow-workers ridiculed my ideas about correcting mistakes-of-the-kind-which-should-not-have-happened, till he made two very serious blunders himself.
People in USA are able to “read between the lines”, understand what happened, sympathise.
I have found that if one channel of communication fails, another should be tried. Can all you helpful people add to the list: email, telephone, letter, bunch of flowers, text msg on mobile phone (cell phone in USA); any further ideas?
I get so many scams (in Australia), such as the Nigerian scam and the telephone calls saying they are calling from a computer service centre, that my computer is about to crash and they want me to hand over control to them; I may miss some genuine offers, but so far I have only lost money to legitimate businesses which do not disclose all of their “fine print”. Many other stories, but they are too long for this avenue of chatter.

Alan.

I feel that generally most customers are fine with small delays but dealing with wedding stationery or dated work can be a pain if the designers have no understanding of the tasks involved and decide to change the design after first proof. I see that situation in the original post and i also see how these situations come about . I service to printing companies mostly that have been having trouble with a product and put it to me rather than hold their work up , i charge accordingly and to earn a small wage . I tell all my customers the same thing , if the job is wrong and wont conform to their design requirements, does not suit the task without alteration , or positioning is wrong i will make those adjustments to produce a commercially acceptable or working product with no consultation with either the designer or the customer if i deem the job to be irrecoverable otherwise and no time has been allowed to otherwise perform the task . sounds extremely harsh and dictatorial but actually cheaper in real terms than telling you end user that their invitations arent making the maildrop today because of a crease was too far to one side and half your text is on the offcuts!
If i get trashed for recovering a job like that then what else do i do ?
I was once told that no matter how soon the customer wants job you can bet if they make an error there will always be time for a reprint , sadly that is rarely true of dated work !!

Nice post, tiptoncp.

When I said “nonsense” I was responding to the bombastic sales language of “no job too big, no job too small.”

Surely some jobs are too big, such as a to-scale map of the world.

Anyway, as I said, nice work!

The thing about this thread is I think you come out ahead: it shows some of your personality, the care you have for your work, that your work is good, and that you, as the business owner, handle problems directly. And that type of response is something larger businesses can’t do very well.

This is Natalie Rooney, the one who started this conversation. I am confirming that Chris of Fresh Impressions did not scam me. He was unable to reply for longer than usual but now I have received the lovely cards you saw a photo of.
I wish him good luck with his business have no ill will.

re my comment about trying several channels of communication, I am still looking for another channel for a problem of a very different nature; I hesitate to write to the various levels of upper management of a large company which has given a club organisation a problem.

In a hospital, I spoke to the pastoral-care worker to spread a very simple fix-to-a-problem among the nurses.

Alan.

Hi.

So, we are having the same issues with Fresh Impressions. A client of ours has paid Chris in full for his stationery order and we cannot get in touch with Chris to find out the status of his order. It has been a month and a half since we heard from him. We have emailed him on several occasions. (We cannot find his phone # on any of his materials—which, in hindsight, should’ve been a red flag.)

I am not jumping to conclusions or trashing his business but I am simply offering another customer experience. We started googling him and found this post on Briarpress (we are also Briarpress members). There may have been an understandable hold-up but, as Aaron points out above, it would be nice to know about it.

We are also small business owners, so understand that a shop can get backed up—but we do keep in constant contact with our clients to set expectations.

Well, one thing I’ve learned from the Internet, is that e-mail is NOT reliable. You’re messages could be stuck in a spam filter somewhere.

Have you called him? Have you sent a letter? If money is involved up front, I would assume that you, as a exacting customer, would be performing the due diligence to ensure things are happening.

I don’t know of any customers that would let an order “ride” for a month, unless that is specifically laid out in the original quote or terms of contract.

Still, it does always wind up on the back of the printer to make things right, but as printers, we should be aware that the digital information age is not infallible.

It also points up the need for a printer to be exacting in presenting the details of a job, either as a quote, or the customary terms boilerplate on the back of the proof sheet or what have you.

Sorry Laura L. Didn’t realize that Fresh Impressions doesn’t list any way to reach them aside from the Internet, nor are they listed on Briar Press.

Ok, now I feel like an idiot….. While there are strong statements about putting a phone number on the Web, I see where he didn’t.

With that in mind, if you are worried about having a personal phone number on a website, then by some “by the minute” (Tracfone is one brand) phone.

So I too have been having the same exact problems with Fresh Impressions Letter Press. I don’t think they are a scam because Chris Tipton created some nice designs for us, but it’s now been two months of regular emails and calls any we’ve yet to hear back from him.

Our project is maybe 40% complete and we’ve already paid a significant sum. There was a previous period when he went MIA for over a month.

At this point all we want is a call back and then the completion of our project. This has been a very disappointing experience and I would suggest others use caution before hiring Chris to do a job.

My organization ordered over $500 worth of cards from Chris in April and we have NOT received anything. He is not responding to emails, his website is down, there is no phone # listed to contact him. Does anyone have a number ? At this point, all we want is our money back. We will never use him again for anything. Please contact me directing if you have similar issues and want to join forces to pursue. Or Chris if you’re reading this, please refund us the full amount we paid immediately.

I am having the same exact problem. My sister has purchased business cards from him twice, and although it took a while, she was very pleased with the final product. I wanted to purchase cards with the same exact format, just a change to the name and contact information. I went back and forth with Chris via email for a week or so, but I have not gotten a response via email, phone, or the website, since I paid my invoice on June 18. The phone number I found listed for the company is 850-960-4057. I’ve left a few messages to no avail.

Wow! Perhaps he’s in a hospital, rehab, an institution, or in jail?????? All possibilities. There also the morbid thought that he could be dead, but this doesn’t sound like the first time this has happened.

The Panama City Beach, FL area is probably not near enough to anyone to have them physically check it out. I also note that there is no address for his listing in the Yellow Pages here, so I don’t even know where one would begin to look.

Anyone have an address???????

I recently received my order from Fresh Impressions and I am extremely pleased! I love the finished product and they tripled my original order to make up for the delay.

Wait, Ayinke, you recieved your cards now? 9 months later?! That is beyond excuse, quality or not.