Review for shoes ordered from Dear Lenore
Image and text heavy review
[Click] Timeline:
Ordered from her shop on Facebook
Feb 8: Ordered 4 pairs of shoes, invoice sent to me
Feb 9-10: Invoice paid, shoe sizes confirmed. Was told that shoes would take 1 week to make, 1 week to ship (total 2 weeks to arrive)
Feb 17: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore on status of shoes; no reply
Feb 20: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore on status of shoes; no reply
Feb 23: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore on status of shoes, received reply that they were finished but “still drying”, stated that she would send pictures when she picked them up and they were ready to ship.
Feb 26: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore on status of shoes; no reply
March 2: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore on status of shoes
March 3: Received reply, shoes were said to be ready and pictures were being sent “ASAP”
March 5: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore for pictures of shoes, no reply
March 7: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore for pictures of shoes, no reply
March 12: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore for pictures of shoes, no reply. Also posted on her page, no reply until March 16
March 16: Contacted by Dear Lenore; She apologized for not replying over the past two weeks and said that they had been having troubles with the post office and workshops. Offered to send an extra pair of shoes in a new design for no additional cost if I was willing to wait a week more, or to send the shoes immediately on the following Tuesday. Since I had no specific time I needed the shoes, I accepted the offer for the extra shoes.
March 17: Confirmed color and size for extra shoes
March 29: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore on status of shoes and for pictures of the original order; no reply
April 2: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore on status of shoes; no reply
April 5: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore on status of shoes; no reply. Posted on her page, still no reply.
April 7: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore on status of shoes; no reply
April 13: Attempted to contact Dear Lenore on status of shoes; no reply. Posted on their wall with a short summary of my grievances (No contact for nearly a month, general lack of communication) with a subtle implication that I felt that I was being scammed, since it was too late to make a paypal claim. Was informed that she had shipped the shoes and that the tracking number was on paypal.
April 21: Shoes “delivered” by postman who did not ring the doorbell or leave any kind of slip whatsoever. Realized they had arrived later in the week when I checked the tracking; had it arranged to be redelivered on April 26
April 26: Receive shoes
❋❋❋
Packaging/Shipping: 5/5
Package is secure, brown paper packaging wrapped around individual shoe boxes. Shipping without the delivery problems took exactly 1 week (from Mexico to USA).
Quality: 2/5
Not exactly sure why one pair has different colored soles than the others; possibly because of the lighter color or different strap style. However, all shoes are of the same style (Marianne). Soles have a flower pattern on them, moderately sturdy but doesn’t feel super thick/quality. Cheaper than Antaina soles. Lighter soles are kind of see through and you can see where things are glued.
Shoes came with multiple defects, most slight, but others more severe.
Light blue shoe 1: Light discoloration and darker scuff marks
Light blue shoe 2: Scuff marks on shoe, weird stub of metal (?) sticking out from the heel. Puckering where heel attaches.
Asked for star buckles on this pair of shoes, but received heart buckles.
Dark red shoes: Glue visible on the suede material where the sole attaches. Straps are not hemmed on the edges (they are not hemmed on any of the shoes) and are badly cut. Only taking note of this because the straps are by far the worst of the lot
Light red shoe 1: Random black mark on the shoe. Not a scuff; I have no idea what it is.
Light red shoe 2: Material starting to come off of the heel. Take note that I have not worn any of these shoes at all, besides placing them on my foot to make sure they fit.
Top/back of the bows on both of the light red shoes have slight nicks on them.
Gold glitter shoe 1: Puckering problem where heel attaches again.
Gold glitter shoe 2: Material starting to split from shoe again; not as severe as the other, but still enough to cause concern.
Please note that I can’t really tell many flaws on the gold glitter shoes because the glitter is kind of blinding. Glitter seems kind of sparser in certain areas, though
One of my main main problems with the shoes is the two different shades of red. When I ordered the shoes, I asked if the suede dark red color came in matte leather. She said it did, and so I ordered it. As you can see, the color that the matte leather shoes is a far cry from the dark red suede on the right. This obviously causes problems, as the light pinkish red shade of the shoes is just completely off.
Sizing: 4/5
All shoes were ordered in US women’s size 8. Shoes seem to be a bit big, compared to others that I have. All shoe boxes had size 25 marked on the box except the light red shoes. These had size 25.5 marked. It also says 25-1/5 on the inside of the shoe as well, instead of the 25 it says on all the others. I can’t tell as of yet how if they are actually bigger or not.
Comfort: 4.5/5
I have not worn these shoes out yet, so I cannot say how they will feel after walking in them. However, from slipping them on they seem to be pretty comfortable; they can accommodate wider feet. However, this might be because the shoes seem to be slightly too big.
Communication: 1/5
As you can tell from the timeline, communication was sporadic and not frequent. She made promises to send pictures of the finished shoes multiple times, but never carried through (I never received photos at all), which made me feel like I was being lied to so she could stall for more time to have the shoes finished. I often had to message her several times before she would reply. However, she was polite and accommodating in her answers. This does not makeup for the terrible communication, though. There were two periods of time that she went missing and had no activity on her page whatever; the first was around two weeks, and the second was around four.
She had promised an extra pair of shoes in apology for going missing the first time (two weeks), but those shoes were never sent.
Though she is polite, the way she makes promises and does not follow through with them makes me feel uncomfortable with trusting her again.
Time: 1/5
She told me that the shoes would be done in a total of 2 weeks. Excluding delivery problems, they took a total of 10 weeks.
Overall: 2/5 NEGATIVE
The difficulty in communicating and time the shoes took was one of the major factors that made me give this a low score. The trouble it took to receive a reply was honestly very stressful, and it left a negative feeling. The lack of her carrying through with her promises made me doubt her trustworthiness as a seller, and the quality issues, as well as the color issues, obviously are not a positive contributing factor.
*EDIT*
I contacted her afterwards about the extra shoes and she said they hadn't been sent out yet because of "comfort issues". However, I kind of doubted this because when she first offered the shoes, she said that I'd have to wait longer to receive all the other shoes, implying that she intended to send the shoes in one package.
Then she saw my review, though, and sent me a very long message that basically said since I had already published a review that was negative, giving any kind of compensation would be "nonsense" because I had already created "panic waves that are a headache to get rid of". About an hour later, though, she messaged me again saying I could send the shoes back for a refund. I refused for all but the light red shoes (seeing as i have no use for them with that color difference) since, well, I didn't go through all that trouble and stress to end up having to go find a new place to buy shoes. To this she offered to give me 10% refund on the ones I was keeping and a full refund for the one I was sending back once it arrived to her. I agreed, and she sent the 10% refund.