Another Work at Home opportunity that I have signed up for is tinydetails.com. I first signed up and paid for priority shipping on November 8th. I have contacted Tiny Details a few times since then. They did not respond to the 2 voice mails I left them. I spoke to someone on November 23rd and was told that my order would be shipped that very day. Today, December 3rd, I called and got through to a live body. I was told that my order was shipped, Priority Mail, on Saturday, December 1st. The woman told me “You’ll get it this week for sure, Hon.”
Not the best of starts, but I’ll stay optimistic just to make people who know me wonder what pod person has taken my likeness. 
Well, I received the package from Tiny Details yesterday, December 10th, priority mail. The postal date on it was December 7th. So, i was lied to on the phone on the 3rd when they said it was mailed to me on the 1st. Bad sign, I’d say.
The project that they sent to me was the Tinsel Box project. When I had signed up and gave them my deposit WAAAAAY back on November 8th, I had chosen the option of letting them pick a project for me. The project looks pretty straight forward, but there was no example included in the kit they sent me, as there is supposed to be. The tinsel in the box is not as described. The instructions say there should be 6 sheets of gold or silver tinsel, but instead there are a few dozen strands of gold tinsel. This means that the instructions are kinda hard to follow as I don’t know how small I need to slice the tinsel in order to have it the size they want it. I put together a sample already to send back to them. They say that I need an approved sample before they will accept shipments of completed kits from me. And yet, I have 60 days from the time they sent me the kit to complete a set… with as slow as they have been in sending me things, this is going to be interesting to see if this is even possible. I called them and left them a message today asking for clarification about how small to cut the tinsel. They have never called me back any other time I have called though, so I’m not expecting much.
So far, not the best experience.
OMG I got a phone call back from Tiny Details just now. They apologized for not returning my calls. They indicated that they had no record of speaking to me on the 3rd, and the lady told me that I must have spoken to “Beth”. Poor Beth getting the blame, lol.
The woman I spoke to today said that she would mail me the tinsel box sample today, and the correct tinsel as well.
It will be interesting to see how soon that gets here.
Today I got the sample and the tinsel in the mail. The sample seems to have the tinsel cut thinner than I had guessed, and the tinsel is the same exact stuff I got in the first batch. I have already sent a sample in, they probably crossed in the mail. I am betting that they will reject my sample because the tinsel isn’t cut thinly enough. I am please that it didn’t take a month to get the sample and tinsel in the mail though.
I got the sample back from Tiny Details on Thursday, December 20th. They included a note that stated that the sample looked like it was assembled correctly and that all I should be careful about is trimming the paper around the opening where the tinsel shows through. I spent about 2 hours on Friday cutting out all the pieces of paper for the tinsel boxes. I haven’t touched them since due to the holidays. I expect to get to work on them again tomorrow and see how long it takes me to finish them up. I need to assemble 100 boxes to be paid $75.
I have been taking my time with this project. As of now, I have 60 completed boxes, and the 40 left are all cut out with the tinsel glued on, but need to be folded into boxes and glues together. This is NOT a difficult project for me, but the time it takes to complete them seems worth a LOT more than $75 to me.
I hope to be sending them in by Friday. Here’s hoping they are good enough to be paid for. I think they are.
The boxes are completed and in the mail. I sent them priority mail with a delivery confirmation. This cost me $5.25. Tiny details is supposed to reimburse for up to $4 for shipping.
My expenses for this Project:
$55 refundable deposit.
$5.85 for priority Mail to have the kit shipped to me
$5.25 shipping to send the finished kit to them
So, if I get the refund back and am paid the $75 for the kit I completed, I should end up with $67.90.
I bought myself a pair of small bladed scissors and a cutting mat as well, which ran about $20 total. They were probably things I would have bought anyway for use on personal crafting items, but were invaluable to me with this kit.
If I add up all the hours I spent to complete the kit, understanding that I got faster the more boxes I put together, I would estimate that to complete this project at the final speed I was going, would take about 16 hours to complete it. I expect that I would get even faster if I did this kit several times. So lets say that if I got ‘really good’ at it, and I completed a kit in 10 or 11 hours, I would be earning roughly $6 an hour.
Of course, that is assuming that I’ll actually get paid for the kit I sent in today, which remains to be seen.
Nothing back from Tiny details yet, they received the package on the 16th according to the USPS.
Still nothing. I will call them tomorrow and ask if the kit was accepted. If it was, I’ll ask when I get paid. If it wasn’t, well, I’ll pitch a fit.
Called today and left them a voicemail.
Called today and got a live person. She said that they had received my message from last week and were looking in to it. She said they were very backed up. She assured me that if they rejected any of my kit, this would not affect the 60 day limit they have for completing a kit, but wouldn’t really clarify that for me in any detail. She said to approve my kit they would randomly take out three of the tinsel boxes I made, and if they passed inspection, the whole kit would. She asked me to call back on Thursday. I said I’d try to get through, but I’ve had really bad luck with that. At this, she said that she would put me on her list to call back herself. Unfortunately, i didn’t get her name.
So, received kit: 12/7/07
Completed kit, had sample approved, and sent kit back by 1/11/08
They received kit on 1/18/08
As of today, 2/27/08, I still haven’t been paid or informed if my kit has passed inspection.
I called Thursday. The woman I spoke with said “You kit is on a workers desk to be inspected right now. Why don’t you call me back about mid next week and I’ll tell you if it’s been approved or not?”
omg
Originally posted on 3/28 but I accidentally deleted it, oops!
I finally got through to a person again today, her name was Dixie. They just recently sent my kit back to me. It was not approved. The windows on the boxes were not cut out consistently, and the boxes don’t lay flat enough. They have extended my deadline to complete the kit until May 20th. I asked if it is going to take them 3 months to process the next kit I sent in. Dixie said no, and that if I put “attn: Dixie” on everything i send in from now on, that she would make sure it was expedited. Dixie said that normally i would have to submit a form to request extra materials, but that she would send new printed sheets of the tinsel boxes for me right away. I have enough left over tinsel to complete a whole kit, if need be.
At this point, I’m really unsure if I will re-submit anything. Making the windows more consistent, I can probably do. But making the boxes flatter? How the hell do you do that with what is basically a piece of paper covered in elmers glue??? Ugh.
I called and left a message for Dixie today. I never received the extra materials needed to redo the boxes.
I looked carefully through the 100 boxes they returned to me as being unacceptable. I find perhaps 15 of them that I could improve on. But, I have not yet received the materials to redo them.
I’m fairly comfortable at this point with recommending that people not deal with this company, unless they enjoy being completely frustrated and ignored. At the worst, they are a complete fraud, at best they are about as unprofessional as you can be. I am thinking it is time to return the materials I do have and see how difficult the process of getting a refund on my deposit is going to be.
I just got the additional material I needed to re-do the tinsel boxes in the mail today. Postmarked 4/28.
I have gotten a ‘real’ job and don’t imagine that I’ll attempt to re-submit – also it’s past their extended deadline of May 20th. So, by their rules I probably couldn’t resubmit anyway.
Personally, I think this program is NOT a viable way to make money at home. Mainly, because it is SO time consuming that it’s not worth it. If you are crafty and want to make money online and have a lot of time on your hands, why not start your own ebay store and sell stuff you make yourself?
The BBB about Tiny Details:
http://search.buffalo.bbb.org/codbrep.html?ID=17001857
Summary:
The company’s size, volume of business and number of transactions may have a bearing on the number of complaints received by the BBB. The complaints filed against a company may not be as important as the type of complaints, and how the company has handled them. The BBB generally does not pass judgment on the validity of complaints filed.
Number of complaints processed by the BBB
in the last 36 months: 58
in the last 12 months: 33
A conversation from 2004 with various people who tried Tiny Details, and someone from Tiny Details itself: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/084/RipOff0084707.htm#54918