24 July 2006
Why NOT to buy from KnitPicks!
(Warning: this post contains quite a lot of vitriol, but I hope you will agree with me that it has been well "earned" by KnitPicks.)
Anyone wondering why I haven't posted any more pictures of the Doctor Who scarf? I was making such good progress, so why haven't I at least made more progress, and maybe even posted pictures?
It's all KnitPicks fault, and I'm really not exaggerating here.
You see, I bought 16 balls of KnitPicks Andean Silk; I placed the order on July 6th. The yarn came on July 12th. So far so good.
Then, though, I was looking through the yarn when I realized that one of the balls of yarn was a different gauge. It turns out it was the same color, but a completely different type of yarn. So, I immediately called KnitPicks, the night of the 12th, and explained what had happened. The woman I spoke to was very nice and said they would ship two balls of that color (that's how many I had originally, and that would make certain they were in the same dye lot) the next day.
Not so bad. KnitPicks and I were still on good terms.
Here's the problem though: over the last several weeks as I have been knitting with the Andean Silk, I have found THREE knots in different balls of yarn. To put this in perspective, I have only started 7 of the 16 balls of yarn so far, and because of the pattern of varying length stripes, have only gotten more than halfway through about 3 of those balls. Three. Remember that number? Yeah, that would be the number of knots.
So I was already unhappy. And now, it's the 24th (quick count= 11 days after KnitPicks claims they shipped the order), and no yarn. I wanted to check where it was, but lo and behold, they use even cheaper shipping for shipping out their replacement yarn than they did for the original, and I can't even track it.
Does this seem backwards to anyone? Shouldn't they be using FASTER shipping to get the replacement yarn into people's hands before they start fuming like I am right now? Shouldn't they eat the difference in cost when it is THEIR mistake? Just a thought...
So, the "closing" piece of this story is the 7 minute phone call I just had with a KnitPicks representative. She told me, essentially, "Shipments take 5 to 14 days to arrive. Your yarn should be there by the 27th." Great, the 27th! Oh yeah, and I explained to her my "theory" about shipping yarn faster, and she said that sometimes, if people ask, they will ship it faster.. but usually on the orders of a couple hundred dollars, so that they can track it!!!
Isn't that reassuring? If it's worth enough that they care about whether it gets to your house or not, then they will track it. Otherwise, they will send it as slowly as possible, and leave you wondering about your yarn. The yarn that they messed up on.
So yeah. KnitPicks may have some cool looking yarn at cheap prices, but for me, it's not cheap enough to deal with knots and lack of quality customer service. I'll be shopping at Elann.com or another discount yarn store in the future. Any suggestions?
Anyone wondering why I haven't posted any more pictures of the Doctor Who scarf? I was making such good progress, so why haven't I at least made more progress, and maybe even posted pictures?
It's all KnitPicks fault, and I'm really not exaggerating here.
You see, I bought 16 balls of KnitPicks Andean Silk; I placed the order on July 6th. The yarn came on July 12th. So far so good.
Then, though, I was looking through the yarn when I realized that one of the balls of yarn was a different gauge. It turns out it was the same color, but a completely different type of yarn. So, I immediately called KnitPicks, the night of the 12th, and explained what had happened. The woman I spoke to was very nice and said they would ship two balls of that color (that's how many I had originally, and that would make certain they were in the same dye lot) the next day.
Not so bad. KnitPicks and I were still on good terms.
Here's the problem though: over the last several weeks as I have been knitting with the Andean Silk, I have found THREE knots in different balls of yarn. To put this in perspective, I have only started 7 of the 16 balls of yarn so far, and because of the pattern of varying length stripes, have only gotten more than halfway through about 3 of those balls. Three. Remember that number? Yeah, that would be the number of knots.
So I was already unhappy. And now, it's the 24th (quick count= 11 days after KnitPicks claims they shipped the order), and no yarn. I wanted to check where it was, but lo and behold, they use even cheaper shipping for shipping out their replacement yarn than they did for the original, and I can't even track it.
Does this seem backwards to anyone? Shouldn't they be using FASTER shipping to get the replacement yarn into people's hands before they start fuming like I am right now? Shouldn't they eat the difference in cost when it is THEIR mistake? Just a thought...
So, the "closing" piece of this story is the 7 minute phone call I just had with a KnitPicks representative. She told me, essentially, "Shipments take 5 to 14 days to arrive. Your yarn should be there by the 27th." Great, the 27th! Oh yeah, and I explained to her my "theory" about shipping yarn faster, and she said that sometimes, if people ask, they will ship it faster.. but usually on the orders of a couple hundred dollars, so that they can track it!!!
Isn't that reassuring? If it's worth enough that they care about whether it gets to your house or not, then they will track it. Otherwise, they will send it as slowly as possible, and leave you wondering about your yarn. The yarn that they messed up on.
So yeah. KnitPicks may have some cool looking yarn at cheap prices, but for me, it's not cheap enough to deal with knots and lack of quality customer service. I'll be shopping at Elann.com or another discount yarn store in the future. Any suggestions?
