Disputing the Charges

When we got home from the Bridal Store I knew what I had to do. It was clear that there was no way I was going to wear the original wedding dress I had purchased. The experience had been ruined and there was too much emotional baggage with this dress. I knew I didn't want to spend my entire wedding day worrying about the dress and how the color would come out in the pictures. I had officially given up on my dress after Bridals By Roma clearly gave up on me.

I spent the next 30 minutes on the phone with American Express to initiate the process of disputing the charge from the bridal store stating that they provided me with defective merchandise. I was instructed to send in a letter of explanation about the description of the product and what was done to rectify the solution. In all my letter came out to be 3 pages long explicitly detailing the situation with names and dates. To prove my claim I then need a second opinion merchant to evaluate the merchandise and provide an evaluation of the dress. In order to do this I need to retrieve the dress from Bridals by Roma, this is the part I am not looking forward to. I have no desire to ever go back to that store but it must be done. Thankfully my Mother-in-Law has agreed to go with me to retrieve the dress. I don't think I could face that awful woman alone taking my dress out of there and whatever rude comments she will make about my dissatisfaction with the dress, not that I think she really cares, but I'm sure she'll give her two cents.

I do have some concerns about doing this. I know it is not a guarantee that I will be able to get my money back from American Express through the dispute. I also need the other Bridal Salon that I bring the original dress to evaluate it in the condition that I believe it to be. I have stated that the color difference is not glaringly obvious and is more subtle, most wedding guests might not have noticed it but as the bride it was clear to me. I hope that another salon agrees with my dissatisfaction with the quality of the dress. Otherwise I will not have any case to go on.

My other concern is that the dress is currently at the original salon, and while I don't have much faith that they would ever have fixed the dress properly there is still a chance that they might make some last ditch attempt. On the other hand if the woman has yet to properly acknowledge my claim or sympathize with my dissatisfaction I am inclined to believe that she will not be jumping through any hoops to make any changes to the dress, so really doesn't have any real pressure on her to do so, because basically in her mind she can only tell me to take the dress or leave it and obviously she doesn't care about her customer ratings since we've read plenty of negative reviews already.

Now I just need to get back and get the dress as soon as possible before anything crazy changes with it and I have no case to get my money back. At least thanks to American Express I have some hope at resource, so thank you to Amex and your consumer protection!