When the American Apology Shirt took off in 2003, I got some fairly good customer support. They contacted me and upgraded me to a premium storefront at no charge. Of course, they kept 90% of over $100,000 in revenue, so the $7/mo probably isn't killing them. But just now I had a very bad experience. Since part of the bad experience is that they aren't returning phone calls, I am sharing this with the world instead.

I wanted to print some custom shirts for my consulting business. I opened a new store to keep it separate from americanapology.com. I wanted to print about a dozen t-shirts, each slightly different. I had to make the new store premium in order to do that. This, I thought, was not a problem, because new premium stores are free for 30 days.

• Problem #1: The same day I opened my new premium shop, I was charged $6.95.
• Problem #2: When I called customer support, the person I talked to couldn't help me. They promised I would be called back, but I never was.
• Problem #3: In my order, for a dozen different shirts, one shirt was a duplicate. So I got 11 different shirts and an extra. I thought perhaps I had mis-ordered, and I didn't check closely until after the 30-day return period. Turns out I ordered correctly.
• Problem #4: About a month later, I called again just to follow up. The person I talked to said there was no record of my earlier call, but that there would certainly be a followup call this time. There was not.
• Problem #5: The shirts were very popular, so I ordered three more, plus a replacement for the one that was never shipped. That's four different shirts. When they showed up, there were three different shirts and a duplicate.

So, rather than waste time waiting for a callback that never happens, I'm posting here. Please continue buying my shirts from AmericanApologyShirt.com, since I don't have the inclination to change to a different provider, but please reconsider using Cafe Press for anything else. And if you find something similar to Cafe Press, let me know and I'll consider changing as well.

Addendum: Cafepress called and left a message, asking me to call back. This is wrong. The problem report I filed detailed everything wrong with the orders. The message should have said, "We've sent a new shirt to replace the one you ordered and paid for but didn't get; it's in the mail already, at no further charge. We also reversed the charge for your free trial month. There's no need to return the two duplicates that we sent you; we apologize for the problems." Anything else is a continued waste of my time. Maybe they'll do better tomorrow.

Addendum #2: Cafepress will send one replacement t-shirt.

Addendum #3: The replacement t-shirt was received. The Premium shop payment that was deducted the same day I signed up for a "Free Trial" was not credited.