Imax Printing

Good day Unilocalers. I apologize for the lateness of this review (1 year).
I forgot my login for Unilocal and didn’t feel too motivated to log in to write a long, detailed, negative review for this company, but one bad pizza has now inspired me to reset my Unilocal password and begin activity again. So. Let’s start just over a year ago (last January 2012).
I live in Ferndale and enjoy supporting local neighborhood businesses. Not too long before, I had noticed their new sign pop up on woodward ave, just north of where I live off of Marshall. I was welcomed by their receptionist (at the time, she has since been gone for several months). her name was Caitlin K. I believe.
I was introduced to a man named Omar, (I am unaware if he is still with the company). He sat down with me and I briefly discussed with him the parameters of my project (some self-​designed pdf image files for inserts in a musical production /​CD package). I had all the designs done, and went over with him the approximate size, and type of stick that I preferred to use. He was very informative and helpful. Once we decided on a thickness and size that was appropriate, he asked me what type of coating I wanted. I wasn’t sure. He told me that there is one specific coating which is quite glossy (and showed me an example), the he said «or you can go with Aqueous coating, if you want to be able to write on these cards.» I clearly expressed to him that I would like to be able to write on the cards with a common pen, so he said Aqueous is the way to go, and then had me grab a pen, right at his desk and test it out on one of his samples. By the end, he gave me rough estimates, but wasn’t 100% and he explicitly told me that he would e-​mail me «within the hour» with a formal estimate/​quote.
This was in the late afternoon (around 4−5pm). Several hours later (around 9−10pm, I had not heard anything from him/​them. I sent a detailed e-​mail asking for a «formal quote» for their services which I discussed with Omar earlier that day. Also he mentioned in the meeting that there was a size template file which I could stretch my image files on top of which will make printing/​formatting easier for the project. So in my e-​mail I also asked for that file which he said he would send to me earlier.
I soon received an e-​mail reply back from the
. After my detailed e-​mail, the response I received was completely devoid of any text, and just included the image file template that I asked for. No other attachments or quotes. This is a portion of the e-​mail I sent to them:
«Please let me know what steps need to be taken to get this process going. Also include a formal quote for me please :) «
I never received a reply of any kind from anyone at IMAX.
Later in the week, I stopped by and dropped off my thumb drive with files so that Omar could confirm that I stretched the images appropriately and that the formatting was correct.
Next thing I know, a couple of days later I get a call. My printing job is done and ready to be picked up. I owe $ 695 (or something in that range). I was kind of surprised. I mean, I was leaning toward going with them for sure, but I never signed off on anything, I never received any confirmation of this. So when I went to finally pick up my «order,» not only was one of the 14 boxes completely missing, but every single card printed (approx 7,000) were of the incorrect, super high glossy coating.
So let’s recap: since my first productive visit to IMAX, there was no communication (save a blank e-​mail reply with a file attached), then they just put my order through without even quoting me a price even though I directly and repeatedly asked for one. Now the order was completely ruined. They said the one missing box was «left at their facility.» When I returned the next day, the missing box was mysteriously printed with the correct coating and was still warm. So they lied about that.
When I was displeased with 95% of the cards being of incorrect coating, Omar firmly acknowledged that it «should be have been aqueous, I don’t know what happened.» I never heard from Omar ever again. When I called to discuss them replacing my entire order, I was presented with two choices: (1) Pay them $ 150 MORE to reprint the entire order, or (2), take the order as is and they will refund me $ 200.
Unfortunately I took a loan from the credit union to pay for this production and had no more to spare, so because of my situation, I took the $ 200 cash and just called it a day. I was VERY displeased at their LACK of ATTENTION TO DETAIL, POOR COMMUNICATION, POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE and POOR QUALITY OF PRODUCT.
In the end, the blamed ME for sending that one e-​mail ASKING FOR A QUOTE and proclaimed that this e-​mail was the «official green light» for sending a non-​existing order to their production house with no quote. What a joke! Never deal with these people. I would write more but Unilocal has cut me off