Hello all,
We regret having to make this post, and for needing to make these changes to how much leeway we’re allowing our layaways. Unfortunately, especially of late, our flexibility has been being subject to abuse, and it is no longer viable for us to continue extending the benefit of the doubt to customers who do not pay on their layaways for many months, in some cases years.
Our layaway policy clearly states: “Payments are normally due every month (approximately 30 days apart). We will send an invoice for each payment. We will send a reminder for a one week (7 days) overdue payment. Payments that are overdue by 2 weeks (14 days) will be considered null and void, and the order will be canceled. An abandoned order will forfeit all money that is already paid. In the case of extenuating and unforeseen circumstances, please contact us and we will try to work something out on a case-by-case basis.”
However, the reality has been that we’ve never said no when someone asked for an extension on their payments, and we’ve kept orders for individuals who have not paid for, as mentioned above, many months and in some cases years. In some of these cases, the individuals completely ghost us or fail to give us a time frame for when they will continue paying again.
The exact wording of our layaway policy will remain unchanged, however our conduct with layaways will be affected from now on. We will continue to offer flexibility and understanding for late payments, however from now on, if we are not given a time frame for when payments will continue, we will need to begin considering sooner that the order is abandoned. If no payments are made for 6 months straight AND we have been ghosted, the order will be considered abandoned. Orders that we’ve held for over a year will in general be considered abandoned. We don’t want to do this, but we are a small business with limited space and limited capacity to recover from these sorts of abuses of our consideration.
We will never stop working with individuals on a case by case basis, however we need to take more steps to protect ourselves from individuals who have no compunctions about abusing our efforts.
Thanks as always for your support and understanding.