Semi-regular readers, friends and family will not be shocked by this statement: I buy a lot of shirts, almost exclusively from small, online shops.

I have yet to have a bad experience in these dealings. I’ve had one shirt (out of about a hundred, which is not a bad ratio at all) come in a size way too small to fit my fat frame. This, however, engendered no ill will on my part, because the shirt was marked extra large, so it was not the shop’s fault. I sent it back and a new one was in my chubby little hands within a week.

I have never recommended to anyone that they avoid specific brands or vendors. I have always looked upon my shirts with pride, and I’ve been more than willing to promote them to people who inquire about them. In fact, I feel confident in claiming responsibility for a significant number of Threadless sales in the Tidewater area.

Tonight, dear readers, I must come to you in slight outrade, and urge you to avoid Ichabods.

As a Christmas gift to myself, I spent somewhere around $400 on t-shirts. I ordered them all between 12/15 and 12/20, and all except one arrived just before or just after Christmas. That was actually pretty impressive to me. I expected there to be some delay because of the holidays.

The sole exception was one that I looked forward to the most: a shirt with a simple illustration of Edgar Allen Poe. It was ordered on 12/19. On 12/20, the order status changed to “Processing”, and my mind drifted to other, more immediate matters.

Fast forward almost one month, to 1/11. I noticed that my shirt had not yet arrived. I checked their website, which still listed the order as “Processing”. I send an email inquiring as to the status:

from: JR Smith <jrsmith at gmail dot com>
to: sales@ichabods.com
date: Jan 11, 2007 10:51 PM
subject: Stalled order

I placed an order (#34) on 12/19/2006. It’s been “processing” since 12/20/2006. Is there something wrong? I don’t see any comments on my order, and the shirt appears to be listed as “in stock”… So what’s the holdup?

JR Smith

The next day, I received a reply from Chris saying that it would be looked into.

A week later, I had still not heard back. I sent another email, just as a reminder, in case it had been forgotten. This is the reply:

from: “Ichabods.com” <sales at ichabods dot com>
to: JR Smith <jrsmith at gmail dot com>
date: Jan 19, 2007 4:26 PM
subject: Re: Stalled order

Hey,

I am sorry about the delay. I am going to send you a free shirt with your order. American Apparel is out of xxl and they are on backorder. I am hoping to have them on monday or Tuesday. Which shirt would you like for your free one?

Chris

Now, this is an entirely reasonable delay. The thing that irritated me, though, was that I got no email from them after I placed my order letting me know that the size I asked for was out of stock, and their website did not reflect that this shirt was out of stock. If either of those things had happened, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.

But they didn’t happen, and if I hadn’t emailed them, they might have just kept my money and never even sent me the shirt, and I would have never known. After 2 months, this sort of thing is not foremost on my mind.

So I replied back, giving them my free shirt choice. For the next 3 weeks I made sure to check the mail each day, so I’d know for certain when the shirt actually arrived. When it finally got here, they had not included the free shirt.

So I sent another email, asking if they’d shipped the shirts separately.

Now, today is 2/11. I placed the order on 12/19. I am not a cheap person. I do not spend my time looking for ways to get free things. I get embarrassed when using coupons for Christ’s sake. But when this order shows up almost 2 months hence, without the compensation that was VOLUNTEERED, it strikes me as pretty shitty customer service.

Here’s the reply I got:

from: “Ichabods.com” <sales at ichabods dot com>
to: JR Smith <jrsmith at gmail dot com>
date: Feb 11, 2007 8:57 PM
subject: Re: Stalled order

No, someone must have forgotten about the other shirt. You can send it back for a refund if you want. thanks

They forgot. That’s their excuse. They forgot, and now my only recourse is to send back the shirt that I paid for 2 months ago for a refund.

I won’t be doing that, and I won’t be ordering from them again. It’s a shame, too, because they have decent designs, and judging by the low order number (34), they’re a new shop. I don’t see how they can justify poor customer service if they’re such a young company. In this industry, word of mouth can make or break you. Tomorrow, I’ll be forwarding this post to the t-shirt blogs that I frequent to try to get the word out, not to avoid this shop, but just to be wary when ordering from them.