It appears one my previously favorite companies has gone bad. Dirty Microbe doesn’t seem to be sending out orders or responding to customer service emails, although they remain perfectly happy to charge credit cards and accept orders. A bunch of people are still waiting on shirts, and I’m personally out $75 in affiliate earnings they owe me, so I can only hope they come back and deal with this mess. Unfortunately, I doubt there’s much chance of that happening. As it as now, I strongly recommend you do NOT order anything from Dirty Microbe

Posted by Colin

Colin is a graphic t-shirt enthusiast living in Hanoi, Vietnam. When he's not browsing the latest graphic t-shirts, you can find him freelance writing for clients or sharing his latest travels.

31 Comments

  1. I’m glad I’m not the only one having problems with them. I ordered the Toast shirt as recommended here well over a month ago and have heard nothing. I’ve since canceled the credit card transaction. Shame, I really liked that shirt.

  2. Yes, many of us have been hit by this, I won’t paste a bunch of links as I know WordPress will flag me up as spam then!

    But all I will suggest is Google for “Dirty Microbe” learn the real truth!

    James.

  3. Injured customers against Dirty Microbe, UNITE!

  4. […] seems that Dirty Microbe, a t-shit company, is ripping off both their customers and partners. Troundup, Rangga at T-shirt Island, are reporting that customers are getting ripped off and they are. […]

  5. […] a roundup of related links: Troundup Tshirt Island: This seems to be the place with the most comments and annoyed customers. Indie […]

  6. Last weekend I tried ordering the toast and seppuku t-shirts and it kept saying “Account Restricted” and I couldn’t figure out why. As of now the site won’t load. Does anybody know if theres any way to get the toast shirt back in print through another company because seriously that shirt is amazing. Here’s to hoping they come back online, they had some pretty awesome stuff on that site.

  7. I ordered “there’s no place like ~/” mig august. no dice. WTF hax. I was really looking forward to that shirt. I guess now im fucked.

  8. Same here, it was my first order and it never arrived, neither they answered my emails 🙁

  9. Really glad to know I’m not the only one. I ordered 3 shirts in July and have still yet to recieve them though they happily charged my credit card. Won’t return any of my emails. Sucks. 🙁

  10. i just filed a complaint with my credit card company….we all need to report these people
    cheers

  11. hi,
    i’m an italian guy , i live near Milan.
    i have made an order in dirtymicrobe in may, and today i never riceved nothing. I lost 41 euros.
    sigh..

    PS.excuse me for my bad english..

  12. I spent like 40 Australian dollers on a the stupid HD DVD shirt and never received it. Aww, I really wanted that shirt 🙁

  13. Same problems here. Ordered 2 T-shirts that never got delivered. Initially, I received plenty of feedback about my order inquiries, then they just stopped responding.

    I wonder if they are even actually in Gainesville and actually run by college students…

    Anyhow, definitely don’t recommend buying anything from them right now. I ordered sometime over the summer and the best I can say about it is that they credited me $4 back, but I’m still out $20+.

  14. Same problems here. I bought a shirt from them in May of this year. I received it and the shirt didn’t fit, so I wrote them back. They happily replied with an email saying they would send a return envelope for the t-shirt I needed to return and include the t-shirt I ordered again. I never heard a word back from them. I contacted customer service again and someone told me that they were very sorry and they would get that sent out right away and include a lifetime card of something I can’t remember… and I thought that was funny because I had received that in my ORIGINAL order. I never heard another word back from them. I’ve been trying to contact them for around 6 months right now with no reply. I’ve even tried faxing in my concerns. I think it’s funny they don’t have a telephone number.

    I definitely DO NOT recommend buying from them. At least I got a t-shirt though… even though it IS the wrong size.

  15. […] just got an email with some more information regarding the Dirty Microbe scam. I got permission to post it, so here it is, minus his email and a portion offering proof of who he […]

  16. Same, same. Even tracked the charging company through my bank, and left a message there – nothing back. Am now attempting to get my charge reclaimed through the bank… And I really liked those t-shirts! Guy has a MySpace page, and it seems one person recently got their t-shirt… glad I’m not alone.

  17. Same here, out $50 bucks and some change. Looks like their website has gone down…

  18. I did the same thing, dirty bastards. I even contacted the Flrida Better business Burue, and got nothing! Glad Im not alone.

  19. Very disappointed – I had a couple of shirts bookmarked for when I started my Christmas shopping, and when I went today to get started on my shopping, their site redirected me to some Christian Chat Network. I’m glad I didn’t start my shopping earlier.

  20. There’s no scam, they’ve just completely gone out of business and had to file for bankruptcy. I’m sorry all you guys got hosed, fortunately I got the shirt I order in April. Before s*** hit the fan,I guess. If you go to this thread http://icrontic.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63962&page=3 and read the second to last post, you can get your money back! If you hurry. I’m just bummed this happened. I was cleaning my room earlier had found a coupon I had stashed away and thought it’d be perfect for some x-mas shopping. You get re-directed to a Christian chat site now… 🙁

  21. I think if they had to file for bankruptcy they could have taken the time to at least notify their customers and affiliates as to what was happening, instead of just completely cutting off all communication.

  22. Ugh, I ordered in May, and nothing. It’s so irritating. I never order anything online, either.

    I’ve sent them so many e-mails too. Bastards could have at least issued a refund.

  23. Dang! I was about to order some shirts (had to pay first my semester with my card) thank God I didn’t order anything with ’em! I’ll stick with 80stees, never fail me in the past.

    Man, they got amazing shirts in Dirty Microbe. Do anyone know if someone will buy the inventory that they didn’t sell?

  24. Know anyone payment gate ( account, we all sent money to ) to complaint money back? I left there over 100 USD :/ Please send it someone to my mail.

  25. Recently my no-account nephew, Eric, posted via “Colin”, a completely untrue account of my brother, Christian, and the whole situation with Dirty Microbe. I urge all of you to read my reply. Eric is a complete pathological liar with emotional and behavioral problems. This was the last straw in my attempt to keep from calling him out on his “antics”. Christian’s business Dirty Microbe was in no way a “scam”, I assure you. Please file with your credit card company for a chargeback for any unfulfilled orders. His company going out of business was due, in part, to a company that registered the domain name. The company, Registerfly, has caused similar troubles for literally THOUSANDS of individuals and businesses. For more information, visit:

    http://www.icann.org/announcements/factsheet-registerfly-registrars-26mar07.pdf

    I too had a website completely pulled out from under me by Registerfly, and a friend of mine from Australia had the same thing happen costing him thousands of dollars.

    For what it’s worth (and those of you who have known him can attest), Christian is the most honest and decent person you could ever hope to meet. He did his very best to operate the business and was trying his best to fulfill all orders that were behind. When Registerfly screwed him over, he lost his ability to get in touch with his client base, and had to close down. He tried to let as many people as he could know that they could file a charge back with their credit card companies. Unfortunately he couldn’t contact everyone.

    Dirty Microbe was NEVER a scam. I urge you to visit the thread I mentioned to read my reply to my sick in the head, nephew. You will see comments from others mentioning the fact that he is a known pathological liar. Please do not believe for a second that Christian was anything less than 100% “on the up and up”. He is one of the greatest people you could ever hope to meet. Many of you who might know him personally, already are aware of this.

  26. And now we’re getting a redirect to some Christian site. 😐

    @Austin: I’d like to believe you, but *sigh* honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever end up doing business with DM even if they do come back. It’s not a huge deal to me, though that $25 from my allowance sure seems far gone now…

  27. i ordered the toast shirt a while ago and and there was a problem with shipping or something but i did eventually get the shirt and a lifetime coupon for 15% off. I was trying to get the zombway one now but the sites offline and i guess this coupon is void. pretty disappointing.

  28. i’m out $50 from them since August ’07. is there anything that we can do to get our money back? i’ve emailed them multiple times without any response.

  29. Heh, now you get redirected to a weirdo christian site. I’m wondering, did these guys buy the domain name to try to get some folks to go to their little chat or the old owner redirects there because he’s part of that christian network?

  30. I ordered stuff from Dirty Microbe and had issues with it a while back. My credit card company double processed the order. Christian, the guy who ran the site, contacted me multiple times to make sure everything got taken care of. He was in communication with me right up until I got the issue resolved. The customer service when the site was around was great. Most likely they got the site pulled out from under them, and whoever bought the domain name just kept scamming people to try to make some money.

    Looking up the WHOIS data shows that the last update to the information was “Updated Date: 01-jun-2007” which seems to be right before everyone started having trouble. I’ve no idea if this is what really happened or not, but every dealing I had with the company was great, and it is hard to believe that after a fair amount of good service they would just start screwing people over.

    http://www.whois-search.com/whois/www.dirtymicrobe.com is where I got the whois information.

  31. I figured they were college students in Gainsville, Fl and then when they all graduated or something they just decided to quit the online t-shirt biz.

    It’s a scam that they’ll still take your money and send you robotic customer service emails… I wonder who’s Dirty Microbe Credit Card is getting all our t-shirt money…? It’s probably funding some post-college kids bar tab or coke habit.

    “Knowing is half the battle, the other half is free money!”

    I’ve called, faxed and emailed and I doubt I’ll ever get my 20 something bucks back.

    Oh well!

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