Two fashion brands, Ronid Ventures and Mandystitchez, are at loggerheads with a fashion show promoter, Al-Ameen Babatunde, over the payment of N240,000 for participating in a fashion event which was never held as scheduled.
The fashion brands disclosed this to According Metro in separate interviews on Wednesday.
According to the brands, Babatunde had organised a fashion event named Lagos Fashion Fair, to which they subscribed.
They alleged that things went sour when they were informed by the organisers that the event had been postponed to a later date. Some days before the new date, they received another notification that the event had been rescheduled for the second time.
The brands told According Metro that due to the incessant postponements of the event, they grew tired of the process and requested a refund of their registration fee, which Babatunde refused to pay. Instead, he resorted to threatening them with legal action.
Speaking with our correspondent, the brand owner of Mandystitchez, Chimamada Chukwuma, said that after she had made payment and the show was postponed twice, efforts made to receive her N135,000 proved abortive as the show promoter resorted to threatening her rather than addressing the issue of the refund.
Chukwuma narrated, “Sometime in October last year, I came across a show on Instagram scheduled for November. The show was a fashion show which I felt was an opportunity to showcase my business. I sent a message to request the process of participation and I got a reply that I had been selected to participate. I was scheduled for an interview in their office where I was told the package fee, and I was asked to pay immediately, but I insisted on getting back to my team.
“After getting back, I made the payment to the account provided and started preparations for the exhibition, but a few days before the event, I received a message that the event had been postponed, which I obliged to. But to my surprise, some days before the postponed date, I received another message that the event had been rescheduled again.
“It was at this point that I requested a refund of my registration fee, which has not been refunded to me after several back and forths.
“I made several efforts since November up till today, but no refund has been made, not even when I reported the matter to Area F police station. Instead of getting my money, the show promoter resorted to threats.”
Sharing her experience, the brand promoter of Ronid Ventures, Veronica Obende, said that she was able to get N65,000 refunded from the N170,000 she paid after several back and forths, but efforts made to get the balance were futile.
Obende said, “After all the back and forth, I only received N65,000 from them. I spoke with my lawyer who reached out to them, but they insisted on not paying, and the whole thing became messy.”
When contacted, Babatunde disclosed that there were plans in place to ensure the payment of all the persons who subscribed to the show but insisted that Ronid Venture and Mandystitchez were on the blacklist due to their activities on social media, which, he claimed, had brought disrepute to his brand.
“Some of the vendors said they were not interested in the new venue and requested refunds (about 30 per cent of total vendors). We promised to refund them, but we couldn’t use the money from the last edition for refunds in order to keep our new vendors safe and not repeat the last errors.
“Some of these people have now become enemies of progress and decided to ruin our company without doing anything wrong other than the refund issues.
“We have been communicating with all the vendors to date and promised to pay as soon as possible. Those who violated the refund terms defamed us online; we paused their refund process as they had unlawfully done something wrong to us,” Babatunde said.
When asked if there was a legal agreement that vendors should not post the details of their contracts online, Babatunde said there was no legal agreement.
“These two people are on our list of blacklists. We have proof to show you that they posted defamatory words against us on Instagram and Facebook with lies and false accusations that we are a scam, we are fraudulent, and nobody should patronise us.
“We have reported some cases to the police station and the point is if we refund them now; who will pay for the damages they have caused us online?” he added.
