Lowell Burton
1/5
I strongly urge anyone who is considering LD Made In Maui for their manufacturing needs to look elsewhere. I hardly know where to start regarding the disastrous experience that I have had, which has stretched out over almost two years.
From the beginning, there were multiple delays and excuses about why he couldn't start the project yet - he mentioned he was having a hard time finding sewers in Maui but assured me he would have them by the time we started. However, he wasn't able to find anyone by the time we were supposed to start production, so he told me that he was going to outsource it to a factory in LA and that it was going to cost me more money. This should have been where I canceled our contract - my whole business was based on being "made in Hawaii" - but I had already invested the money and had retailers waiting for my products, so I would have been hard-pressed to switch manufacturers that quickly.
I approved the samples that Luis made for me, but when I got my first batch back from the factory in LA (over a month late), they were TERRIBLE. Poor quality, bad sizing, not even the right shape... I had to send back almost all of them, and the ones I did keep, I had to take apart and restitch myself. The factory took three months to re-do the pieces, and the next batch came back without any improvements or changes. Note that this whole time, I was paying for the fabric and having it shipped to the manufacturer, so every time they have to remake them, it wastes the fabric I paid for. I told Luis that either he needed to do them himself or I wanted my money back.
By that point, he said he had sewers in Maui and could do them at his factory instead. It took another 3 months before I saw any sight of my remaining pieces from him, and when they came to me, they were all wrong. It was like he had forgotten what the original pieces looked like! Each back-and-forth would take about 2-3 months. He finally sent me an approved set of samples and then made the full set of pieces... but he made them with my other printed fabric going the wrong direction as well!
At this point, it had been almost two years since our first meeting, and more than a year past the point in our contract that he was supposed to have delivered all my pieces to me. Each back-and-forth was wasting my time, my money, and putting my business at risk. I finally put my foot down and told him I couldn't accept those pieces and that I wanted a refund for the remaining pieces instead of having him re-make them - I think he had proved that he was not capable of delivering the product that I had contracted him for - and he didn't respond to me for almost three weeks. I reached out to him by email and by phone, and it wasn't until I delivered the notice by certified mail that he finally responded to say that I was wasting my time trying to get a refund.
My experience with Luis Diaz was categorically awful - I believe that he is lazy and unscrupulous, and that he took advantage of my youth and my lack of experience in manufacturing. He behaved very unprofessionally, despite the fact that I went out of my way to be patient and kind. Even after he treated me so badly as a client, I was still willing to part ways on professional and amicable terms if he would just give me the refund for the missing pieces (not even for what I spent - JUST the pieces that he didn't make for me), but he refused.
Please do NOT work with this company - you will receive low-quality work that will probably be delivered well after its due date (if at all). I can't emphasize how terrible this experience was!
