When Heather Downing was searching for some new sports apparel, she did what a lot of people do – turned to the Internet. And she found a link for GameDay Boston.
“I went to their website, I liked their products, their website looked completely legit, so I placed an order,” Heather said.
The website, which is based in Portland, Maine, said her t-shirt and sweatshirt would be shipped out in one to two business days. But the $50 order never came. So Heather e-mailed the company.
Nearly two weeks later, she finally heard from the owner, Tyler Lamoureux. “Big long email apologizing, kind of outlining he was behind, he had some personal issues in his family,” Heather said.
She was also told that she would have her shipment by that following Monday.
Disappointment again. Heather’s order didn’t arrive on Monday or Tuesday or any day.
She went to the company’s Facebook page and saw other customers who also didn’t receive their orders. “I could never imagine taking people’s money and then just never responding to them again,” Heather said.
That’s when Solve It 7 got involved.
We reached Tyler by phone and text message. He told us there were production problems and he was working to get the orders filled.
He offered a refund, but that never came. And the next time we called, Tyler’s phone was disconnected.
We took this case to Undersecretary of the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation Barbara Anthony, who said, “Well, that is against the law to take people’s money and not deliver a service.”
So we asked how these customers should go about getting their money back. Her response: “You really do have to start by contacting local law enforcement. Contact the Portland Attorney General’s Office and report it to them. They’re not going to know this stuff unless people call them and tell them.”
Instead, we got a call from Tyler’s former business partner Craig Solowski, who says he left the online business before the problems started. “I had a big part in building GameDay Boston to where it was successful and seeing it just fall apart was very disappointing,” Craig said.
Since our investigation began, Craig stepped forward and bought the business. He told us, “I made sure that part of the deal was we’re going to make sure that the vendors are paid back, who are owed thousands of dollars because he wasn’t paying them. And we’re going to make sure that all the customers get their orders.”
Including Heather.
Craig said her shirts and dozens of others were already printed and her package was in the mail.
And this time this sports fan finally scored. “When I found it in my mailbox, I was very excited. So thank you to Solve It 7 that I finally got it,” Heather said.
Craig changed the name of the website to 617Apparel.com and says he’s trying his best to have most of the outstanding orders delivered by the holidays.
Are you having a problem? Jump online and send us an email at solveit7@whdh.com or give us a call at 617-367-7777.