VisaPrint drive me up the wall with their emails. Earlier this month I finally unsubscribed… but I *still* received their emails. I ‘unsubscribed’ again, and I received two emails 48 hours later! They seem to have a habit of making mistakes in their first email, and then sending an apology 24 hours later. I swear it’s just a ploy to get their name in your inbox twice.

Here’s to hoping I don’t receive anything else from there!

Jamie, the other question is, what did you order from them and how did it turn out?

I ordered my first business cards from Vistaprint.com and they came out looking great. I did have two logo design clients that had some trouble with their printed cards not looking as nice as they had hoped (color wise), but other clients were very happy with them.

I don’t receive any emails from them any more, but maybe my email program is tossing them before I even see them.

I tried out PrintingForLess.com – http://printingforless.com/ for when I needed more cards and LOVE what they delivered. I didn’t go with vistaprint again because I wanted to test out Printing For Less because of their affiliate program. You can view an image my new cards here:

My new business cards have arrived – http://alove4horses.com/blog/new-business-cards/

If you haven’t tried http://colorprintingpros.com you may not be getting the best bang for your buck when it come to online printers.

This company’s quality is truly state of the art. For the value they deliver they are truly exceptional.

On cards they offer a choice of heavy 14 or extra heavy 16 point card stock both at the same low price. They include free UV coating on all their cards. Other coating are also available.

The price that’s quoted is the price charged. They never try to up charge or over sell. If you opt in they will send you periodic discount offers, but never spam you. If you have a bussiness that exhibits at trade shows they will send you timely discounts Just tell them what you are printing and you will receive an email discount code.

The only surprise is the brilliance of the color and the incredible service. They are not the largest company and that’s a big advantage. Every job is as important to them as it is to you and they won’t let you down.

If you need any kind of sales and marketing literature check out their site.

Fred

I’ve heard a lot of complaints about Vistaprint …
I suggest ooprint.com
They have great quality business cards, including a FREE business card offer. I’ve always been satisfied with their printed products.

There’s a company called superiorlabels.com. They don’t have business cards and are more into address labels and rubber stamps. But one important thing they don’t do is spam you to death. They don’t call you or put you on any lists. They stand by their product in the hopes that it will generate return business.

John P.,

Watch out for mysterious $14.95 monthly charges on your credit card in about a month or so for some bogus “Rewards” program. These will be from VistaPrint. This is an unethical scam that they are foisting on their customers. This happened to us, and when we called repeatedly to complain, it took several months for the charges to cease. My credit card company said they get these kinds of complaints all the time. If you will search on the web, you will find a lot of complaints regarding the bad business practices of VistaPrint.

See this BBB website in Massachusetts, and you will see that VistaPrint is at the top of the list with an Unsatisfactory Reliability Rating.

http://www.bosbbb.org/news/complaints_top_10.asp

I never signed up for vistaprint.com’s affiliate program because of the amount of information they requested in their form. They wanted to know way too much — way beyond any affiliate program I have seen before and I just didn’t feel comfortable with it.

I also quit recommending vistaprint when they didn’t return my
email questions are a timely bases and wouldn’t phone me when I asked them too about a client’s print order. I felt they had customer service problems – and good customer help is big in my book.

But this monthly charge of $14.95 is really bad news. Why is it that so many large companies want to hurt their own customers? I don’t get it.

I wholeheartedly agree with John P’s statement in this post:

The combination of Spamming me, extraordinarily high shipping costs, and marginal quality printing don’t leave me wanting to rush out and order more from them.

I recently tried out vistaprint’s free business cards and was disenchanted with VistaPrint after their 3rd (of 6) attempts to sell me more than I needed. I was surprised and that VistaPrint would spam its customers – especially with that bogus $14.95/month rewards system they’ve cooked up . . .

I had success with GotPrint.com – they are descriptive about the requirements for the business card.

-Bryon

P.S. The issue with the 2 colors of black might be an issue with RBG vs CMYK – you need to have “rich black”; something like 63C, 52M, 51Y, 100K. Not just 100K. Good Luck!

I was very disappointed with my VistaPrint experience. The cards are kind of embarassing — I don’t use them. I find they don’t survive the wallet test.

There’s also been several complaints that they have bad affiliates that do credit card scamming:
http://internetducttape.com/2006/08/02/is-vistaprint-a-scam/

After looking over several reviews of VistaPrint online, I was afraid to use their free business card service. So I did some valuable online research and came across 1to1 Postcards and I highly recommend this website! It’s really easy to look thru, and there were a lot of desings to choose from. The card stock was thick and came out looking great, WITHOUT any other companies logo on the back! I’d suggest taking a look at this website!

Well, I was searching for information about business cards and came across this very interesting blog.
If anyone needs custum print designs, right down to the minute details, then I can do it for you. You can send the high res images for printing whever you please. And I am a single individual working from my home pc, so I dont spam:)

DO NOT use VistaPrint! I am a graphic designer based two towns over from their printhouse. They are horrendous! Horribly incompentant, overpriced and LOW quality product. Want great service and quality product? Go to http://www.jakprints.com or http://www.printingforless.com or http://www.printpelican.com or http://www.printlizard.com. I do not work for any of these companies, but have worked with all of them. A pleasure to deal with and guaranteed happiness everytime you pass out a card with your name on it! Good luck!

I design logos for horse businesses and now I recommend http://www.printingforless.com and http://www.colorprintingpros.com. Both have free file reviews and both answer emails quickly, and both do quality print jobs.

I am a graphics designer and I can’t say enough good things about http://www.colorprintingpros.com. Their quality is the best I’ve seen and the service is fast and personal. They use the heaviest paper stocks and offer free UV and aqueous coating. They also can do spot UV coating and offer 5 color printing using PMS 877 metallic silver ink. If your looking for printing that’s a cut above just good you have to try them.

I had a fraudulent charge for $356.00 dollars show up on my fathers Bank of America Card from Vistaprint.com. They caught it and called, we were trying to find out who this stuff was shipped and they refused the lady I spoke with says they are located in Jamacia.

I’ve used Vista print many times over the past two years. Bussines cards, brochures and even my own picture Christmas cards and envelopes. The key is select the cheapest shipping!! I have never had it take as long as they say it will. My orders always show up in about 5-7 days. I’ve never had any problem with them.

Placing an order for my child’s first birthday and all i got was nothing after 9 days. they can’t even tracj=k the order. wasted hours on emails and ohone for nothing. and thier customer service has not been hepful or compensating. instead they refunded the money without even an apology. they could not offer a next day delievery to save the day.

DO NOT PLACE ORDERS WITH THEM TO AVOID WAISTING TIME AND MONEY.

SHERIF

http://www.myezprinter.com

Higher quality that vistaprint and a little cheaper. Plus no third party billing scams like you get sucked into at VP.

We use very thick card stock and have much higher gloss. Also, you get professional marketing assistance with any layout.

Probably the best thing about it is…Vistaprint has a gajillion customers and you are just a credit card number that buys printing.

The people at MyEZPrinter make it a point to create a business relationship where problems are solved. Great printing is 5% paper and ink…95% content. You can only achieve great printing if you understand your customer.

vista print can’t create 280 blue. they sent me 3,000 purple cards. I called customer service and said ‘pms 280blue’ they didn’t know what i was talking about! My money was refunded but, what a waste of time… and I looked rather silly opening up a box of purple cards infront of my boss! In addition to being the wrong color, the paper was cheap, they cards had press marks on them, and they were cut unevenly. 3,000 usless cards – I was miffed.

John,

I was searching the internet and just happened to run across your blog. I felt compelled to register and be able to add my dis-satisfaction and recommend a great company.

A friend referred me to vistaprint originally, and i made my first order rather quickly. The website was easy to follow, but it did take me over an hour to find a design that i liked. I then elected to have the premium stock and gloss. The cost of the business cards totally $79, plus shipping and handling. I waited three weeks – no cards. Another week, no cards – and finally on the fifth week – i got my cards….needless to say i wasn’t too happy.

Irate – i decided to come online and compare different companies. The company i decided to use i found by chance, actually. They gave me a price up front – the quality was really nice and the order was finished quickly and shipped to me within a matter of days. I was very impressed and am a very happy customer. Please check them out: Full-Color Online Printing

Hope this helps – and please use me as a referral if you decide to use the company – they offer discounts for referring other customers.

Jimmy

If you are in the Springfield Missouri area you might want to check out Traders Printing. I was very pleased with my results from them.

Also in the Springfield area is MWM Dexter. They’re customer service was way better than anything Vista Print came close to, and I really like the postcards and business cards my company got from them!

Sounds like a crap company from the comments here…

At least it seemed like most had no problems getting refunds when the cards were printed up wrong like your card :)

Kim:)

I just received some samples from http://www.colorprintingpros.com of a new printing service they offer called WOW FACTOR COLORED METALLICS. I was blown away! I can add metallic color effects to the cards I design.

I have used them before because they offered full color printing on heavy card stock without adding to the cost. I was very happy with there quality and service. They also offer Spot UV coating and Metallic Silver Ink which helps me offer design services my competitor can’t.

When I saw this new colored metallic effects I thought it might be difficult to use. I checked into what I had to do to create it. I couldn’t believe it, it was really easy to make. I even sent in my files for them for free file review before I made my first order. Their response time was fast. I received an email back from them telling me everything was fine and OK to print. They have great customer service. I placed my order online which was quick and easy also and am now awaiting my new colored metallic cards. I will keep you all informed. But check out this new process for yourself. Another great thing is the process is so new you can be the first one in your area to use it and I bet you’ll get comments back about how great it looks and your cards will really stand out.

We have always ordered from http://www.affordableaddresslabels.com that all the ones listed in comments here, and espcially not vista print, they never sent us labels and never credited our card back, we always get our address labels in as little as 3 days

Hi – just a comment that I had exactly the same experience with Vistaprint (and unsubscribed myself) only my business cards NEVER SHOWED UP. I paid the extortionate shipping charges too which annoys me no end. Not only that but they have NO CUSTOMER SERVICE. When I tried their email it came back as it didn’t exist, then I tried contacting them through their webform – to which they replied that they were too busy to reply and to try again!!! If customer service is too busy to reply to your enquiry you have to wonder what problems others are experiencing…

All in all, don’t order anything from Vistaprint!

I think this falls into the “you get what you pay for” category. Printing is a craft elevated to an art form when performed by the right people. Visit your local print shop and pay what it’s really worth.

1,500 cards for 50bucks! If you can read your name and URL you’ve got nothing to complain about. You probably couldn’t buy the paper yourself for that price.

Support local business AND get a decent job produced. From what I understand VistaPrint produces your cards overseas in the Netherlands. And judging by all the shadiness they engage in to make a profit, they should just charge what the cards are worth instead of undercutting the rest of the industry and making people think that paying $50 for 1500 cards is normal.

Check out this site before you order : http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/vistaprint.html

That seems to be the issue with a lot of these online printers. Here is a company that specializes in printing “quality” business cards and postcards. http://www.premiumcards.net

One thing though, I noticed John said and I quote, “In the screen capture above – which is what I saw when I was proofing the cards – all of the black on the front of the card is clearly the same color dark black. But when I received the cards there is a distinct color differential between the photo area at the top and the rest of the black background”. Now, that wouldn’t be a reason for a reprint. Your screen is projecting light and the cards are reflecting light off of colors printed on paper. Your screen may not be calibrated correctly or you may not have submitted a “cmyk file. Never the less, I have heard too many bad stories about vista anyway. Most were that you get suckered in to junk.

Premiumcards.net uses ULTRA THICK 16pt cardstock. The colors are brilliant and rich. The price is $49 for 1000 and shipping is about $9. Business cards and postcards are all they do. When you sign up for an account with them, they don’t send you anything via email unless you ask them to. Once you sign up, you get a welcome envelope sent out the same day with a couple of nice samples. Anyway, I got some cards with high gloss and round corners for a few bucks more and they got to me in about 8 days including the weekend. I paid $67.51 total with shipping and the price was awesome for what you get. No spam, better card stock, faster service and great customer service. It was worth every penny

I would guess the reason your blacks are not dark deep black is not the printers fault. It’s your file. If you use only 100% black you will get a flat washed out dark gray. My suggestion is that when ever you want a dark solid back you need to make what is called a “rich black” in cymk. To find out how to do this go to: http://www.colorprintingpros.com/faq.php. They have a lot of great tips and tricks the pros know about how to design for print. They also have a Free File Review to make sure your file will print as you hope they will. If they find a problem they will advise you of it and offer suggestions on how to fix it. 16pt Business Cards with free overall glossy UV or Matte/Dull aqueous coating start at $39 for 1,000 and you don’t need to register for an account. The quality of there printing is the best I’ve seen and they offer unique optional WOW FACTOR Effects you can add to your cards to make you standout and get noticed.

This company is a terrific resource for all your advertising, sales and marketing literature.
They have raised the bar for online gang run printing with more options and services other companies can’t or don’t offer. I am a graphics designer and I resell printing so I need a company that make me look good and they always do. No one can print a better job or offer better customer service than Color Printing Pros.

I ordered from VistaPrint and did not notice the extra service checkbox or maybe I did and went back to change something and if flipped back on. They I started getting my credit card hit with a monthly charge from another company. The web says it is a VistaPrint scam. I like the cards, but to have to pay for them over and over again sucks. I contacted my credit card chargeback department. If you buy from VistaPrint use your credit card companies temporary/one-time credit card service to avoid extra charges & work.

We ordered from that site http://www.affordableaddresslabels.com and received our wedding labels that look great in 3 days, no spam emails, no extra charges! got 280 labels for the price of $12.90, we used them for all of our thank you notes

I have been ordering from VistaPrint for YEARS and have ordered 1000’s of cards for myself, family members and friends as well as other items. I have never been nothing but VERY satisfied. I have NEVER been charged incorrectly. One time I actually made a mistake and called them and the took it off my order and gave me credit with no problem. I do get a lot of e-mails, but they are always offering welcomed awesome offers. No company is perfect, but I think this one has gotten a bad name and deserve another look!

Just a thought!

I’ve never been a huge fan of VistaPrint’s business cards. I’ve ordered them before and they’ll use 80# card stock. They’re flimsy and cheap looking.

Among other sites I prefer from are http://www.printerfetch.com, http://www.48hourprint.com, and http://www.uprinting.com. They offer 14 pt. gloss card and produce a higher quality product. Uprinting in particular will send you a sample booklet which has all their paper types, coating types, and offset and digital press examples. Just got it today.

I am having a very frustrating experience with VistaPrint. I ordered my cards 15 days ago and I’m still waiting for them to be delivered, despite ordering with a 7-day delivery. This is an exercise in frustration and VistaPrint’s response to my complaint has not impressed me.

I will not be ordering from them again.

sometimes these big companies make mistakes not only vistaprint.com but also others like overnightprints.com. Sure, they are cheaper so we hope they can have greater services.

Yeah, I have ordered from them before and the print quality is pretty bad. But you get what you pay for. If your not looking for anything spectacular this is probably the place, but if you want your business cards or whatever you get to really impress people, Vista Print is not the place to get it done.

My last order was through a place called printing you can trust…more expensive, but the printing was very nice.

unauthorised charges were found on my credit card from vista print 1 day ago.
all they said was “oops”.
Yeah, right…we didnt order anything but they just chrged our card.
Sounds like a scam

I had the worst experience working with Vista Print. All i wanted was a set of folders to hand out to customers along with some literature on my business. Well, not only did vista print screw up my original order, they somehow managed to lose both the original and a re-order in shipping. so, after they printed a third and i finally received it (almost 3 weekes after placing the first order) and it looks horrible. the quality sucks and it looks like a bunch of teenagers printed the folders in their home inkjet and put a glossy cover on it. on top of that, i could barely understand the people in their custoemr service, because they were all from INDIA!!!!!!!!! this might be the worst company i have dealt with, and i have dealt with some bad ones. i do not reccomend Vist Print and i thinkw e need to band together to make sure no one ever uses this company for printing needs.

I have put in several order of different items with VistaPrint. Mostly, I have been quite happy with what I’ve received from them. There have been two episodes where things didn’t go right. The first time I ordered cards for both my wife and I, each one with a different illustration of our faces, I wasn’t completely happy with the color saturation on one, and the black level on another, and told them so. They re-ran the cards at no cost and shipped them right away, but there wasn’t any real difference in the quality. I ended up with twice as many usable cards for the same price and am not necessarily unhappy, though I will try to improve the images when I re-run them.

The second screw up was a postcard that I ordered shipped in 6 days for an art show I was doing. The cards came in about 5 days late because Fed Ex had them sitting somewhere on the other side of the country on a pallet. VistaPrint immediately removed any and all charges and I got them for free. It took 5 minutes. I question their shipping reliability, but no ethical problem here. The cards themselves were stunningly beautiful—way beyond my expectation. I was wise enough to make them generic, so no real loss there.

As far as the $14.99 automatic billing that people keep complaining about, I so far haven’t found any problems. You have to read things before you sign off. The $10 discount is based on voluntarily signing up for the discount rewards. I have taken advantage of these before and have found them to work, if you’re willing to do the necessary reading and the hoops they put you through. But they do work if your time isn’t that valuable to you. With some practice, you can actually get good at it and save some money as long as you unsubscribe from the offers within 30 days. That’s your responsibility, not theirs. Kind of like buying a sub prime mortgage. Read the fine print. It’s kind of Basic Survival 101 and you can’t be lazy about it. But it does work. Like anything else, you have to learn the system.

i’ve used 48hourprint a few times. their prices are on the higher end of the scale. you’re looking at 75-85 bucks for a thousand business cards. but i’ll tell you what, i’ll fork over a few more dollars for quality of the product and for the credibility of the company. i’ve had to use the customer service once and i found the response to be prompt and helpful. i was able to save 10% by searching for online coupons.

i was tempted to try out a cheaper vendor when i looked at how much you could save by a number of different sources. in my hour of research however, i came to the conclusion that you get what you pay for. and although some of the less expensive options may be reliable it’s not worth the risk for me. i just placed another order with 48 hour print. if i am disappointed with the product in any way i shall return with the specifics.

Vistaprint is terrible. I used their template for a custom designed business card. Three times I went back and forth with their customer service. All three times Vistaprint screwed up the job. Don’t waste your time and money. Vistaprint is absolutely the worst. Although expensive, I have found Kinkos to be the best.

I just ordered from VistaPrint – first time ever using their service and definitely the last. I wish I would have found this blog before I tried them.
Ordered my Christmas cards because they had the design I liked. Yes, there was a 50% savings but paid the 50% savings in shipping costs.
I was HUGELY DISAPPOINTED with the order. I’ve ordered collage photo cards before (not from VistaPrint obviously) – the pictures on the card were worth nothing since it was so small! I will not be using them as my holiday cards.
Called VistaPrint the very next day to put their “Customer Satisfaction” to the test. Got a non-English speaking dude who sent me through the “100 questions” before he agreed to refund me. But no refund on the shipping – just the crappy cards they sent.
Very bad – never experienced anything like this. Next time, I will stick to something I know.
So today, I am scrambling to order my Christmas cards – very sucky!!!

I have used Vista print to get cheap business cards for some of my website clients and haven’t had any issues. Sorry to here about yours. Hopefully Vista Print has turned things around since 2007!

I tried VistaPrint once before and never again. May I suggest using 123Print instead? Much better. More friendly. You get exactly what you order.

I ordered 120 postcards to be sent to my best clients. I also added myself, and two of my other locations, to the mailing list. I received a mangled, damaged, bent and torn postcard, as did my other two locations. The damage to our professional reputation cannot be undone. The layout and print quality were acceptable, but I ordered new postcards, not used toilet paper!

Do NOT ever order postcards from VistaPrint. Local printshops charge more because they do not destroy your postcards, and your business image, before they mail them out.

Never again, and I wish I never did in the first place.

Check out…

BluegrassPrint.com

They are very inexpensive. 1,000 two-sided business cards with uv gloss is only $29.00. With shipping it is definitely less than Vista.

I cannot contact vistaprint by email and the help line is always busy from the UK easy to pay but impossible to get problems resolved beware

Our pricing is not meant to compete with the “no customer service, hidden charge, crappy print quality and leave you dissapointed” online print sources.

We are real people running an honest high quality service – give us a try

1000 full color both sides with uv high gloss printed on premium 14 pt cardstock for $76.00

According to the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050600160_pf.html this negative option selling scam earned Ventura $650 million in revenue in 2006.

I have a huge blog post with all the details of all of the different scamming sites Vistaprint and Adaptive Affinity run and how best to get a refund.

http://www.hubbers.com/index.php/i-got-scammed-by-vistaprint-and-adaptive-marketing-and-adaptive-affinity-ltd-and-amazon/

From someone who used to work at VistaPrint (a.k.a ….’Pro sweatshop”)……I would highly suggest that noone purchase any of their products. I witnessed first hand how sloppy their work was (e.g cutting business cards, tshirts) and also the junk that is shipped out. Many times, profit is more important to them than sending high ONLY high quality products to customers. I have seen very bad quality business cards shipped to a customer (crooked cut, off color, dirt smudges, etc) that to me was completely unacceptable. Also, considering that they treat their employees like they work in a third world sweat shop, noone really says anything about it.

They also have a HUGE problem there with shipping mis-sorts where employees place packages in the wrong boxes (labelled by ’shipping service eg UPS, Canada Post, Fedex) and customers never receive their order and it ends up who knows where. This happened alot and it’s funny to hear Bernard Farrell’s comment from last August. THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME.

Also the products that Vistapritn offers (MAJORITY) are very cheap quality fabrics, paper, items that they purchase from 3rd world countries at the cheapest prices and than sell to a customer as a high end quality product when it is not and I know because I worked there…..especially their business cards!!!

PLAIN AND SIMPLE…….DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM VISTAPRINT!!!!!!! GO ANYWHERE ELSE! Trust me!

I had a really bad experience with Vista Print too! The quality of my cards was horrible and they were supposed to be ‘royal blue’ colored and they arrived ‘purple’!!! On the advise of a designer friend of mine, I tried this company I thought the quality was pretty good! Hope this helps!

Like others, I’ve had bad experiences with a few online printers, but since you asked for suggesting one, please try wymprint.com. I had a few prints of different sorts ordered from them and was very happy with their quality and timeliness. The price is also so much cheaper than others, comparing apples to apples.

I recently ordered my design on a glossy business card with a foil accent and complained about the first batch because they were cut crooked at the top. When I complained I was pleased to notice they very quickly sent out a new batch and appologised – I’m yet to receive that batch yet but hopefully they will be cut better. I am regretting using Vista anyway because the quality of the card isn’t very good – it is quite thin and rough aroound the edges definitely not like any other professional business cards. The foil accent however is absolutely lovely!

I’ve always used Mondo Print. They are really inexpensive and very high quality. Vista is ok, but there are other places out there with lower prices.

Have been backwards and forwards by email many times trying to get a resolution of my order – received cards in black and white instead of colour. Their customer service is appalling. No attempt to resolve. Will probably cancel my Mastercard payment. Strongly recommend NOT using Vistaprintat this time.

Vistaprint are crap. It looks like you’re getting a good deal until you progress further through the checkout after going through the many pages of them trying to sell you hats and mugs.

I paid around £8 to receive some postcards within 7 days (Its about £15 for any kind of normal postage speed). Its been 9 days now and nothing received, I just checked my order status and it says ‘Printing in progress’. Useless!!

There are so many better printing providers out there.