We at Team Lemonbrat work hard to give each customer a good custom fursuit and good customer service. It is unfortunate that Camaro feels their experience with us has been bad. We are sad to have to make a public statement on this matter, but in light of a number of erroneous statements of hers we feel we should clarify some things.
Her statements about our TOS are inaccurate. Our refund policy has always stated that customers getting customized items do not qualify for refunds. We recently adjusted our TOS concerning turn around time and % of payment due to begin work, as is within our rights. Camaro’s suit was processed in accordance with the TOS at the time of her purchase.
To summarize her experience; she ordered her fursuit from us which was paid-off by mid-March. We started work on May 5th by emailing fur samples, and officially began in earnest in mid-May. We had a series of questions to clarify her preferences; there were many elements she requested which were not depicted on her provided reference. We could have begun much earlier had we been provided a DTD, but the bodysuit process was delayed when she asked on April 1st if she could provide measurements instead. On April 2nd we told her that we could, with the caveat that we could not guarantee a perfect fit without a DTD. Her claims that we refused to take her DTD are false. She only ever offered to send us a DTD “in pieces” which we cannot make use of.
Further delays occurred as she was dissatisfied with a number of WIPs. Each time she wrote, we responded in a timely manner telling her we would fix each problem. We are committed to do our best to achieve every customer’s vision of their character, within reason, and this was no exception. We made fixes despite the fact that some of these changes were not in the main reference provided.
There were several instances where production was halted when she emailed requesting changes. On May 28th she sent a new eye color reference, and on July 19th she changed her mind on how she wanted the bust on the suit to look; we then had to halt production of the bodysuit in order to redesign the bust. To be clear, these changes were not in response to WIPs, but were last minute mind-changing that interrupted the work-flow.
We provided her pictures of the completed suit on July 31st. She responded saying, "The suit is s***! What the h***? Do you see how bad that body suit looks? The zipper is painfully obvious at the back, the tail attachment [sic] is horrid.”(Edited for Profanity)
The zippers are installed as per our standards in such a way as to avoid snagging. We feel this is a good safety feature, to ensure an overheating wearer can get out of suit faster. However, if she would like the zipper and tail installed with a different technique to make the seam less noticeable then we will gladly do so. We said as much in our same-day response to her.
Her other complaints about the suit were that it was wrinkly in the arms and legs. We told her when we sent the pictures that the model was 3.5 inches shorter than her which accounts for the wrinkles. Furthermore, even if it doesn’t fit exactly, she had already been told that we could not guarantee a perfect fit because she would not supply a DTD.
In summation, we have worked very hard to comply with every change she wished for the suit, even when she made last minute changes, and even when she wanted elements that were not in her main reference. We feel the suit is up to our standards, and was made by team members who have been designing and sewing for us for 4 years. Her claims to the contrary are incorrect.
It can be a frustrating experience as a maker to have a customer “go off reference”, and to hold you to a standard that is their mental image of what they want without providing up-front refs and descriptions that accurately depict that vision. That being said, we feel it’s our duty to try to make our customers happy. Even in her case, when that meant remaking whole elements (re-carve of head, new ears, new tail, re-making bodysuit bust, etc) at absolutely no charge to her.
We hope she will allow us to adjust the zipper and tail attachment to her liking. If there are any fit issues she would have to seek another tailor or maker for adjustments as we specified we could not achieve a perfect fit without a DTD.
We have been professional in our discourse with her. We have never “withheld” the suit from her as she claims. We have not been ignoring her email; she sent it at 8pm local time, and by morning was claiming we weren’t responding. Her Go Fund Me plea claiming she “was scammed” is inaccurate as we have emailed her consistently trying to work with her.
We have provided our recent email response to her in this statement. As well as some screencaps of our quick responses, and our efforts to fix things for her. We are trying to be transparent here because she has chosen to take all of this into the public, making statements that are incorrect and misleading, and omitting our efforts to work with her.
-Team Lemonbrat
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