Un-be Weaveable! A Weave Got Style Disaster

Yesterday, I tweeted about how I was excited to go for an appointment with the hair weave company Weave Got Style. And I was excited, as my hair is short and fine and I always wish I had long thick hair that I could curl and wave and generally look more girly with.

This frankly went totally tits up. I never normally mention if things like this happen as I just think that everything happens for a reason but I am honestly rather irritated and it's obvious they know this and couldn't give a fig as you will see when you read what happened below.

I saw the stand for Weave Got Style when I was shopping in Bluewater so decided to add them on Twitter. I was initially interested as they had been on Dragon's Den and so I thought they must be quite a good business if they had made it onto the tv.

After I added them on Twitter they added me straight back and I was initially sent a direct message by whoever runs Weave Got Style's Twitter account and asked if I had had their extensions, I replied to let them know that no, I hadn't but had been thinking about getting them done at Bluewater perhaps just before Christmas. I then subsequently went along to the counter again a few days later and booked a consultation at Bluewater, giving them £30 as a deposit, then I could find out if I was suitable for the extensions and if they could match me, what they did etc.. I tweeted in response to Weave got style that I had booked the appt presuming if they responded it would be something like 'oh great let us know how it goes' or something similar.

I was in fact messaged by them with "Can you make it to Oxford Street Selfridges? We want our style director to do your hair x " . Obviously I was excited as I had been thinking I would have to wait until Christmas to have mine done if the consultation proved my hair was thick enough for them so I let them know that yes, I could get there but I had already paid the deposit to Bluewater and asked if that was ok? They simply replied yes. Now Obviously when someone says 'we want our style director to do your hair' with no mention of 'for the same price as the ones at bluewater' or anything like that I had thought they meant gratis in exchange for a blog review of the service.

At no point did they say anything like 'it will be x amount of money', 'you will have to pay for x but we can give you x amount of money off as a discount'. Nothing like that was said at all so, as is fairly normal I would presume for a lot of bloggers not just me, people offer you things via Twitter or email or Facebook or whatever - and if you are interested you agree. If they are expecting you to pay they would say so and to be fair why on earth would I agree to travel, on a precious day off, for an hour and a half each way to Selfridges to get my hair done, when I could have it done at the same place but 15 minutes away from my house? If at this point they had said that I was expected to pay for it and I could afford it to be done straight away I would have I'm just going to get it done near me to stop having to do a 3 hour round trip on the train on my day off. Had they said that I had to pay for it and I couldn't pay for it right now (as is my situation) I would have said thank you but no I can't afford it right now.

After I got to Selfridges as it opened and went along to the appointment it quickly became clear when she was talking about prices that she didn't seem aware I was there for review, I mentioned it and she said I could have the 18 inch extensions for the price of the 16 inch ones, now I had no tweets mentioning anything about money, what I was having done, discounts etc. so I explained I didn't know what she meant and that I was there for review and maybe she could confirm with whoever had booked me in as I only had a twitter contact. She went off on the phone and came back and reiterated that I had to pay for them, she then said 'so what do you want to do'. Now this is where I thought hmmm well clearly I don't have the money to have them done so what do you think I want to do?! I felt that perhaps someone else a bit more timid would feel like they had to have them done as they were embarrassed about being put in that situation. I was definitely embarrassed but mostly quite gobsmacked that they really had mislead me into going all that way for absolutely nothing!

I was told to ring the PR... bit difficult without their phone number so then I just left. As I only had the tweets from the company I dm'd them in response, not having a go I just asked if I could please be reimbursed for the £30 deposit I had left at Bluewater as obviously I hadn't gone to that appointment or had one at Selfridges so I deserved it back, and that I would like my travel costs reimbursed - 2 tubes and 2 buses is hardly an unfair request when they totally wasted my time going all that way there. They responded by blocking me on Twitter which above all else is ridiculously immature.

I really don't quite know what to say about this Company. After tweeting about my experience I was responded to by other bloggers (I don't know if they would want to be named so I won't but you can see my feed if you want to know particularly) and was told that they were contacting others bloggers saying the same thing so it's clearly not just me. If you have been contacted by them it's clear that you can presume they are not offering you anything for a blog review. I sincerely hope this is not how the Company ordinarily conducts itself in the blogging and social media world but it appears that it might well be.

My aim is not to complain per se although I am very frustrated with the mishandling of the situation. I think I am entitled to my £30 back at the very least as obviously I missed my appointment at Bluewater so won't get it back from them, but this post is mostly to highlight the massive confusion that currently goes on between some companies who are using social media platforms and the poor way they actually treat bloggers. I have been contacted many times via Twitter by lovely PR's who have explained what it is they are offering and what that would involve me doing in return and whether or not I was up for that whether I wanted to take them up. Luckily what happened today is not the norm but I did find it rather rude and the fact that they blocked me, well it's just quite pathetic! We aren't 15 after all.

Clearly Weave Got Style as a company do not understand how the blogger/pr relationship works or how social media in general works. Now whether they have a poor pr company or if it is just someone internal who doesn't know what they are doing or is intentionally trying to mislead people I have no idea. So please do take note, if anyone from this Company offers you anything make sure you confirm and double confirm exactly what they are saying before travelling to get somewhere or taking a day off work or putting yourself out in any way. I may just be one of many beauty bloggers to them but I was in fact a potential client before they started getting involved who had planned to pay for the extensions myself as a treat. I find it poor that they have such disregard for anyone, blogger, journalist, non blogger - anyone!

I am sad to write this post as I was genuinely very excited to have new and lovely hair today and am hugely disappointed with how it’s been handled but hey ho. I live to blog another day. If anyone can recommend somewhere else I might be able to get these weave hair extensions but for a white person with rather thin hair then I would appreciate a recommendation as I have been really looking forward to having them done for Christmas.