Hell hath no fury like a bride scorned, and this morning has seen at least 20 of them protesting outside HSBC’s Canary Wharf headquarters after the bank decided to, excuse the pun but it’s just too delicious to pass up, wrap up online wedding list company Wrapit.
As the credit crunch claims its latest victim in the form of the company’s founder, Pepita Diamand; ‘sources close to the company’ have told The Times the bank has ‘withheld £1m’ of money owed by credit and debit card holders. Not so, argues HSBC – apparently, the company has been making a loss for the past six years.
In fact, internet forums have been abuzz with criticism dating as far back as June. “We closed our list in October 07 and had to wait about six months before we had a delivery,” groaned one beleaguered reviewer, while another bemoaned the company’s apparent policy of misleading its customers.
“Wrapit claim 99% satisfaction for their service,” she said. “This is because the survey is taken before you close your list, and before the problems start. Until that point they are good, I cannot fault the pre-wedding service. But the service afterwards is the worst I have ever encountered.”
So what has this taught us – apart from the fact that the internet is clearly an inadvisable place to make your chocolate fountain/fondue set dreams come true?
Well, Wrapit is just another name on a lengthy list of gift companies which have gone out of business in the last few years – the most recent example being Farepak, the Christmas hamper company which went into administration in 2006.
Red Letter Days is another example. While the business’ founder Rachael Elnaugh blames the company’s failures on being hoodwinked by an unscrupulous finance director, some of her problems may have come from her choice of industry.
Businesses which take money before having a product readily available need to have rigorous checks in place to ensure they can meet their customers’ demands. The customers were, in effect, giving Wrapit credit – and if a piece of the supply chain fell through, one side would be left out of pocket.
Perhaps this isn’t quite the fairy tale ending that Diamand had in mind when she started, but it’s a good lesson to other businesses. She’s going to have to keep an eye out for confetti bombs over the next few months, as injusticed brides find ways to wreak their revenge…