Behind Belinda’s Desk

DRESS HIRE CONFESSIONS

She Hired Two Dresses. Gave Me Her Business Card. Then Disappeared.

This one goes right back to the early days of Your Secret Closet.

We're talking maybe 12 to 18 months into business.

I was still learning.

Learning how bookings worked. Learning what information I needed from customers. Learning who to trust.

And, apparently, learning that someone will go to extraordinary lengths for a couple of dresses.

Let me explain.

It Started With a Completely Normal Booking

Here in Melbourne, the real estate industry has various awards nights and events throughout the year.

They're big nights.

Everyone gets dressed up.

And for a dress hire business, they're exactly the sort of events we'd expect customers to hire for.

So when a lovely woman came into our Hampton store looking for dresses for a real estate awards night, there was absolutely nothing unusual about it.

She was local.

She chose two dresses.

She paid for the hires.

And she gave me her business card.

Name.

Phone number.

Business details.

Everything looked completely legitimate.

Remember, this was nearly a decade ago.

We were a relatively new little business in Hampton, I was still finding my feet, and our processes weren't anywhere near as tight as they are today.

So off she went with the two dresses.

Nothing to see here.

Until it was time to return them.

Except She Didn't Come Back

Return day came.

No dresses.

Okay.

Customers run late. Things happen.

So I gave her a call.

Nothing.

Tried again.

Nothing.

And eventually I thought:

Fine. I'll call the office.

After all, I had her business card sitting right there.

Name.

Phone number.

Company.

It wasn't as though she'd disappeared into thin air.

So I called the real estate agency.

And that's when things got interesting.

I gave them her name and explained that I was trying to contact her.

Their response?

She didn't work there.

Right.

Maybe she'd recently left?

No.

As far as they were aware, she had never worked there.

Excuse me?

So now I'm standing in my very new dress hire business, holding this very professional-looking business card and thinking:

What the actual fuck?

Who Gets Business Cards Printed For This?!

This is the part that still gets me.

This wasn't someone scribbling a fake phone number on a piece of paper.

She had handed me what appeared to be a proper business card.

For a business where, according to the people I spoke to, they had no record of her working.

She knew about the industry event.

She knew exactly what she needed the dresses for.

She came into the store.

She selected them.

She paid for the hires.

She handed over the card.

And then she and the dresses disappeared.

Honestly?

That's dedication.

Completely unacceptable dedication.

But dedication nonetheless. 😂

And Those Dresses?

Never saw them again.

From memory, they were worth around $600 combined, which might not sound catastrophic compared with some of the designer pieces we stock today.

But when you're barely a year into running a small business?

$600 worth of stock walking out the door hurts.

Those dresses weren't just clothes.

They were inventory that could have been hired again and again.

They were part of a very small business I was desperately trying to build.

And they were gone.

Would That Happen Today?

I'd like to think there's absolutely no chance. 😂

Our processes today are very different from those early days.

But that's what nearly ten years in business does.

You learn.

Sometimes through experience.

Sometimes through mistakes.

And sometimes because a woman walks into your store, hands you what appears to be a business card and disappears with two of your dresses.

Was I too trusting?

Absolutely.

Was I naive?

Yep.

Did I learn from it?

You bet I bloody did.

But there is one thing I still think about all these years later.

Somewhere, at some point, someone apparently went to the effort of having a business card made for details I couldn't verify…

for two hire dresses.

Honestly.

If she'd put that level of preparation into returning them, we wouldn't have had a problem. 😂

So, Did We Ever Find Her?

No.

Did we ever get the dresses back?

No.

Did I ever casually accept a business card as proof of someone's details again?

Also no.

Welcome to small business.

You couldn't make this shit up.

— Belinda x