The Needle And I

My business partner, Tahereh Dehghan, and I have a small business making scarves using a serger. We participate in maybe 4 shows a year, and make an average of 60-70 scarves per year. Tahereh started doing this by attending a serging class which used a Bernina serger model 800DL. She learned a lot of serging techniques from a very good instructor and really liked the machine a lot. So in July 2009 we decided to buy a Bernina 800DL from a dealer online. When Tahereh started using it it was not working very well. So we took it to a Bernina dealer, Needle and I, in Everett WA to find out what’s wrong. Tahereh spoke with the proprietor, Georgia, and told her upfront why she bought the serger and what she used it for. Her tech assessed that it had the wrong foot (a serger part). She convinced Tahereh that if she were to return the serger to the online dealer and purchase the 800DL from her instead, it would come with a year’s warranty and free classes. Based on that, we returned the serger to the online dealer. However, Georgia did not have a new serger in her store, but she offered Tahereh a floor model instead at slightly lower price than a new one, which cost us a total of $872.51. From the very beginning, we noticed that when Tahereh was serging the fabric was not moving smoothly. Sometimes the fabric would not move even as the thread moved so a lot of thread was wasted when that happened. We also noticed that the hem did not have a good finish like the ones she made using the same model serger she trained on. Throughout 2010, we made many trips to Georgia’s store, trying to find out why the sewing was so difficult. Each time we went there, she would try to adjust the tension on the serger. During one of those trips, she asked Tahereh why the serger was making such a loud noise, and Tahereh replied that it was loud from the day she bought it. By that time it was about year and she said that since the serger was still under warranty it could receive a free tune up. However, after the tune up the problem still existed, noise was still there, serging was still a problem. Then she told Tahereh that she had to attend the classes to learn how to set the tension. Tahereh attended the classes and applied the techniques but still the serger was not working as the way she felt it should. She continued to experience the same problem with the serger – fabric not moving, thread getting wasted, and the loud noise that Georgia mentioned persisted. So, after taking the classes, adjusting the tension, and doing the tune-up, and the problem was still there, Georgia now suggested Tahereh needed to serge one stitch slowly at a time when starting to do each side of the scarf, which was ridiculous. It was ridiculous because Tahereh never had to do that with the same model serger she trained on, which she used to sew many scarves with ease and perfect hems and edges. We were convinced by this time that there was really something wrong with the serger Georgia sold us, and that the problem existed from the day Tahereh bought it even though she didn’t know it then. The noise which was there from the very beginning, which we heard it but didn’t know there shouldn’t be a noise, until Georgia heard it and questioned why was there a noise, indicated to us that the noise was a sign of something wrong with the serger, and if the noise was there from the beginning, that means there was a problem with the serger at the time it was sold to us. In fact, the number of scarves Tahereh made became a lot less because so many could not be completed due to the serger not being able to do the hem properly. Tahereh would be able to complete 2 sides of each scarf, and then the other 2 would not be completed. After all the repeated trips, Georgia finally said her tech, Dave, assessed that the problem was something he could not repair because he didn’t have the special tools to do it with, and that we should have the serger shipped to the Bernina corporate office in Aurora, IL, where their techs would have the necessary tools to repair the machine. However the shipping cost of approximately $80 would be at our expense. We were both extremely unhappy when we heard that because first, we realized that if Georgia acknowledged that the noise was due to a problem they couldn’t fix here, and that noise was there from the beginning, that means that she sold us a unit which had a defect. Second, we had to bring the serger many times to her store because it wasn’t working properly, and by not addressing what we know now there to be a real problem with the serger (not with Tahereh’s techniques), one she never addresssed it’s caused us loss of time and income from not being able to produce the scarves we needed to, and the shipping cost which she insisted would be our responsibility. The repairs would also now fall outside of the 1-year warranty period. Instead of addressing the problem from the beginning, she would instead blame it on Tahereh not knowing the right techniques, or on the chiffon fabrics she sewed with, even though on the Bernina website it states you can use the 800DL to sew “everything from fine silks and satin to denim, fleece and stretchy fabrics with the greatest of ease.” When Tahereh told Georgia based on these reasons, she should be responsible for the repairs and shipping cost, she started yelling at Tahereh, at which point Tahereh left her store for the last time ever. This was when we contacted the Bernina corporate office in Aurora, IL, to complain that Georgia sold us a defective serger and that our business suffered as a result, and to our shock was informed, for the first time ever, that the Bernina warranty does not cover “commercial” use of the serger. We say we were shocked because Georgia never once, not even on that last day Tahereh was at her store, informed her that the serger was not warrantied for commercial use, in spite of her knowing we used it for business, because had Tahereh known she would not have purchased it. Georgia knew Tahereh was using it for business because Tahereh told her so from the first day she met her, she also mentioned several times to Georgia about business being slow, sales at the art shows being slow, Georgia even suggested some websites where Tahereh could do commissioned sewing work, because that’s how she used to generate income by doing commissioned quiltwork. Our purpose in submitting this complaint is to ask for the following remediation: Georgia be responsible for the cost of repairing the serger (shipping, labor, parts) because : (1) Georgia sold Tahereh/our business a defective serger - the serger was defective from the beginning because the noise which was there from the beginning was the indication and Georgia acknowledged that the noise should not be there, and the serging problems persisted even after a tune up and correct serging techniques were used; (2) Georgia deceived Tahereh into purchasing a serger that she knew would not be covered by warranty if used commercially, and yet all along she knew Tahereh was using it to make scarves for resale purposes – she knew that had Tahereh known the 800DL would not be covered for business use, she would not have bought it from her, or anyone else, but Georgia wanted to make that sale and withheld that fact from Tahereh at the time of trying to make the sales pitch; (3) Georgia wasted a lot of our time and resources by not addressing the true cause of the problem with the serger - until this day, this serger is not fixed and it would cost shipping, cost for parts and labor, all of which we believe Georgia should be responsible for because her delay in proper action caused these repairs to now fall outside the warranty period. We took this serger subsequently to another authorized Bernina dealer, Quiltworks Northwest in Bellevue, WA, and 2 technicians looked at it and estimated it could cost up to hundreds of dollars, or almost the price of a new serger, to get it fixed. So we would like Georgia to take the machine back and refund us, or else bear the cost of getting the serger fixed to the point that we don’t have the serging problem anymore and we don’t need to return to another dealer for more repairs. We would also like to seek damages for loss of material (fabric, thread) and income because the scarves we made were ruined and could not be sold. We also have some art shows scheduled that we have been unable to do any sewing right now because we don’t have a machine !!! By the way, Tahereh emailed Georgia on 11/3/2011, to give her opportunity to resolve this by paying for the repair and shipping cost, but she declined.