Lily's Bridal in San Fernando CA Lily's Bridal San Fernando Rip Off / Scam - Asks for Upfront Deposits SAN FERNANDO, California

In February of 2012 my fiance, my soon to be mother-in-law and I were shopping for wedding dresses for my fiance.  I had already secured mine at the men's warehouse and had no trouble whatsoever.

Anyhow, my now wife told me there is a street in San Fernando, CA where they have several stores which only sell wedding apparel/favors.  We decided to go and check them out; thinking we were going to save money as our first option was to go to David's Bridal.

After two minutes walking, we came across Lily's Bridal and since the store looked "decent" we decided to get inside and check them out.  

A "nice" lady approached us and offered to help us find and chose the right wedding dress for my fiance.  After a good hour, wife and mother-in-law saw a dress which they thought looked beautiful, little did they know they were going to get a piece of .... !! OK, I am getting ahead of myself.

My wife starting asking questions as far as they things the dress had and the lady quickly suggested that anything the dress "didn't have" could be adapted to it, off course; without mentioning any price increase. She also told my wife the dress would be custom made as they didn't have a dress size appropriate for my wife.  She was also told that the dress has stone designs and was NOT Plain.  We were quoted on a price: $650, all inclusive (tailoring/modifications)

We agreed on the price/details and the lady proceeded to order the dress as they seem to be "drop-shipped" from a wholesaler.  To order the dress we were told we needed to put a down payment or deposit, which made sense to me.  However, what didn't make sense to me was that we were not asked to sign an agreement and the sales lady didn't tell us anything about re-stocking fees should we decide to cancel the whole thing for whatever reason.  I guess we all wrongfully assumed things would go smoothly.

My mother-in-law also decided to pick up a dress at the same store since the sales lady was "quite nice".  She was also asked to put down payment.  The total down payment for my wife's dress was $200 and for my mother-in-law's $50. Two orders with 2 different names were made, one for my wifes and one with my mother-in-law's name.  The lady took my wife's and mother-in-law measurements and we were told to go back in two weeks so that both of them could try out their dress.

A couple of weeks passed and we went back to the store as indicated.  When we got there the lady who sold us the dress wasn't there so the sales girl who was there told us the dress was still in a plastic bag and had to be ironed. That day I also offered to paid off my mother-in-law's dress, which I did. (~$150)

My wife was a bit disappointed as she wanted to try out her dress that day; but it wasn't a big deal.  We still had about 3 weeks to go.

The next week we went back to the store and my wife kept telling me how awesome she would look on her wedding dress.  When she finally saw the dress; she was shocked, disappointed, disgusted.... Yeah I was able to see all those emotions in her face.  The dress she ordered  had tones of red and the one she tried out was black and white. BLACK AND WHITE! WTF?!

My immediate thoughts were, whose funeral are you going to? and most importantly.. this seriously CAN'T be worth $650.  I mean, even tho I don't know much about wedding dresses.  My wife went online and kept showing me dresses which were quite gorgeous (for about $200-$600) however; we didn't order from a website because she didn't know her measurements.

As I said, I don't know much about wedding dresses but even I could tell we got ripped off after seeing the final product.  

Despite of the fact that my wife's measurements were taken the day the sales was made and after waiting all that time, when she finally tired out her dress, the thing looked awful on her.  Her breast area looked very loose and the cups were close to her neck! .. her waist area was very VERY tight and the dress was long.

My wife's disappointment was noticeable and so the second sales lady said that the dress could still be altered and fixed and that we didn't have anything to worry, HOWEVER .. she was going to ask how much more the modifications were going to cost. My wife told her that we were told all modifications were included in the price however; this second sales lady was adamant about the fact that there would be other fees for modifying the dress.

My mother in law tried her dress and hers was "almost OK" .. only a small modification had to be made around her dress-chest area so that it would fit her perfectly.

Seeing all of this I thought.. WHY THE F$CK! did they take my wife's and mother-in-laws measurements if they weren't going to adjust the dresses accordingly in the first place? Yeah, I got pissed.

The second sales girl told us she was going to call us the very next day to see how much more the alterations were going to cost and we left the store pretty upset.

The next day came around and the girl didn't call, one day later we decided to cancel the whole thing since it just wasn't worth the trouble.  My wife's dress was horrible....plain, black and white and didn't have the stone designs the first sales lady said it would have. I thought it wasn't worth the price we were being charged so I agreed to cancel.

My wife told me not to worry since the "receipt" of the order we made didn't have any disclosures, agreement or policy in the back.  We were not given any paper to sign either an so we both thought the only money we would lose would be the deposit we gave since they do have a sign in the store that says "NO REFUNDS"... it didn't make me worry at the time but looking back .. it should have been a red flag.

Anyhow, I called the store and the girl who was supposed to have called back (the second sales girl) picked up the phone and when she heard the news I had to give her; she immediately changed her tone and started yelling at me saying:

"We are not playing around"
"If you don't want to pay we are going to take it from your card"
"If you don't pay we are going to markup the second order you placed and you will have to pay more on that one"

While she was yapping her mouth thoughtlessly, I got pissed and snapped back at her and told her that if she could show me "AN AGREEMENT or CONTRACT" I had signed at the time of the order I would pay the full price of the order.. no questions asked... however; she couldn't find any agreement because they HAVE NO AGREEMENT or POLICY DOCUMENTS.  I mean even Radioshack has an policy form in the back of their receipts but NOT LILY'S BRIDAL.

As a side note: a WRITTEN CONTRACT IS REQUIRED for the sale of goods valued at $500 or more IN ORDER TO BE ENFORCEABLE.  (Google it!) - This is why David's Bridal has agreements!!!

What got me very VERY pissed was that she implied she was going to increase the balance due on my MOTHER-IN-LAW's order if I didn't agree to pay for my wife's wedding dress.  I am no lawyer but I am quite certain this would be ILLEGAL! I mean these are 2 completely different orders with 2 different names and yet she wanted to pull a fast one on me!.

Shen then tells me that her manager will call me.  When her "manager" finally calls she gets in the same argument and tells me she will charge my card, to which I said "charge it and I'll charge it back" ... I mean she wanted to make me pay for something that was NOT delivered as sold and for "additional alterations" which we were told were included in the price!  ... EVEN if this verbal agreement was initially "enforceable" they broke the agreement by not delivering what they PROMISED they would!

The manager then tells me that I would have to pay a 15% restocking fee on top of the deposit I had given... I thought to myself... IS THIS SHT FOR REAL?  I give a $200 deposit and I still have to pay 15% on $650??? u kidding me?

The way I see it, I gave a deposit of $200 .... the restocking fee is 15% .... the should have taken it from there and they still owed me $102.5 since 15% of $650 is $97.5 ..... AND in case you are wondering if they refunded me anything.. NO! They didn't have the decency to refund me those $102.5 they owed me.

THEN COMES MY MOTHER-IN-LAWS ORDER:

After the incident with my wife's dress my mother-in-law goes back and tries to get her dress for the wedding and she is told that the dress is still being altered.  This goes on for 2 weeks and a few days my wife and I got married, my mother-in-law was able to get her dress and she was even charged $30 on top of the price of the dress ... and YES, the first sales lady clearly said that alterations were included in her final price; just like my wife's.

When my mother-in-law tries her dress the thing didn't fit her, it was extremely tight on her body and thats without zipping it up! the dress was even stained!

My mother-in-law did make the mistake of not trying it in the store but given the incident with my wife's dress she just wanted to pick it up and get it all over with.  She doesn't like to argue.

MY WIFE AND I WERE LUCKY that we decided to order a dress from another place which is the one she ended up using and my mother-in-law had to pay for another dress because had she used the one Lily's Bridal sold to her, she would've end up with a BROKEN RIB! 

The bottom line is:  We paid $350 and got NOTHING to show for it and Lily's Bridal's manager STILL wanted me the full price of the dress or 15% more (restocking) .....

I SHOULD HAVE google'd this place before buying anything since there are quite a few reviews in Yahoo which describe the same situation we went through.  This place is a total RIP OFF, absolutely horrible.  The sales people are nice but once things go south you are in for a HORRIBLE SURPRISE!...If you ever do business with them despite reading all of this BEWARE if you are asked to put down "as much as you can" on a dress thats $500 or less... they might end up pulling a fast one on you and enforcing a "verbal agreement".