Beware: Fernando Berlin stole $500 from me. As you guys know, I...
Beware: Fernando Berlin stole $500 from me.
As you guys know, I spend tons of my own money on custom bdsm gear, clothes, and fetish wear every year. I like to show off the gear I use in my everyday life and let people know who makes the best stuff so they can have as much fun as we do. I’m not sponsored by anyone, and I rarely even get a discount for promoting anything.
I have a fantastic track record for sending traffic to the sites I talk about (just ask Fancy Steel and Discerning Specialist), so when I run into unpleasant vendors I find that the best revenge is simply to never mention them at all because I don’t want to send even one person there.
The majority of my experiences are positive, but I’ve had some run-ins and disasters in the past. Thankfully, when bad things happen Sir is always able to calm me down and help me deal with my frustration ..he’s definitely a “crazy girl whisperer” and has talked me down more times than I can remember- but thats a whole separate post ..but even he’s not going to be able to calm me down about this one so you guys are going to have to hear me vent.
Let me start off by saying I have 2 other pairs of Fernando Berlin boots, and a pair of custom gloves. I have never had any trouble with them other than having to wait 4 months to get them- which was annoying, but fine because they were custom.
Since I had a reasonable experience with them in the past, I decided last May to order a pair of knee high boots to go with my “slutty casual” look (as Sir calls it, hehe). Apparently, not every outfit looks appropriate with crotch high boots, so something a little more conservative would come in handy.
I also ordered a pair of gloves because I loved the previous pair I bought and they are too big now because I’ve lost about 90 lbs since starting the blog.
Fernando Berlin makes custom boots, but the pair I ordered in May was off the rack. Since they were knee high boots I assumed they would not be as hard to get the fit right, and the measurements were almost exactly the same as mine so I didnt see the need to order custom. The gloves were off the rack as well. Nothing was on sale and I spent over 500 dollars on the order. Making my total investment in this company to be nearly 2k at this point.
I order lots of things from overseas so I know that it can take a month or more for it to get here, and I’m generally pretty patient about it. So, when June came and went, and July came and went I wasn’t tooooooooo worried… Then August got here, and still no boots. I started sending messages to see what happened. I had to send 2 or 3 messages before getting an answer, but they eventually told me they sent the package.
Finally, in September I got my boots and gloves and was disappointed with them because the (off the rack) boots were nowhere near the size listed on the site and the gloves were made with really poor quality leather. I have faux leather thats nicer than these were. They aren’t even in the same universe as the pair of custom gloves I ordered from them.
Needless to say, I immediately emailed them to arrange a return/refund and they agreed. I planned on returning the boots and ordering something custom at a later date. I had to spend almost 100 dollars on shipping because I needed to insure the package and make sure it was tracked, but thats ok because thats the price of admission in these situations.
I sent the items back literally the day after I received them and watched the tracking progress. I saw they were delivered on October 8th, so I contacted Fernando Berlin for confirmation and to prompt them to send my refund.
No response.
After 2 more emails I got short response from someone named “Ina” that told me they have the boots (no mention of the gloves) and wanted to know what else I would like to order.
I kindly explained that I wanted my refund as we agreed on (not an exchange), and sent a copy of my receipt and so they knew how much to send and where to send it. I said I would be ordering new boots soon, but I wanted my money back first (I was getting suspicious that they would not refund me at all at this point).
No response.
After they got the boots and gloves they completely stopped responding to me, so over the last 4 months I’ve tried contacting them via different email addresses, and responding to all previous communications including the weekly “sale” emails they still send me .. I’ve even contacted them on their Facebook page.
So, they took the boots back and kept my money.
Normally, I would just contact my credit card company and explain the situation, and do a charge back but this whole process has taken soooooooo long that they pretty much just laughed at me. So I’m screwed and Fernando Berlin stole over 500 dollars from me not including the 100 bucks it cost to ship the items back.
So to sum it up:
- Off the rack boots are nowhere near the size listed
- Off the rack gloves are made with low quality leather
- Takes 4 months to get your order and likely will have to prompt them with an email to send it
- They rarely respond to emails, and especially wont respond if you are asking about something you already paid for
- Will steal your money when you return an item
- If you have a problem with the order, even your credit card company cant help you because Fernando Berlin takes so long to ship items and process returns that the time frame to file a dispute with the credit card company is long over
Consider yourself warned, and feel free to send them a little hate mail and let them know that KittyDenied said they suck, (and not in a good way like she does hehe).
So, I will continue to wear the boots I have because they are hot, but every time I wear them I’ll be referencing this post and letting everyone know what happened. If by some miracle they refund my order I’ll let you guys know, but I highly doubt they are going to do that.
So now the search for another custom boot company begins.. if you guys know of any boots that would look hot on me, let me know!