Newly Weds Left Hanging After Rittenhouse Store Closes Abruptly
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A Center City store has shut down without warning, leaving some high and dry.
Many brides say they never got the wedding gifts they registered for.
"Our friends and family spent time picking out these gifts. They wanted us to have these for our lives, I mean it's wedding gifts," said newly wed Victoria Lynch.
She registered at the post Rittenhouse neighborhood store, Manor Home and Gifts and after returning home from her honey moon over the summer, she found that the store had abruptly closed.
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No signs...No gifts...No answers.
"The door is locked. They do not respond to emails," Lynch said, or to calls.
For the past three weeks, Eyewitness News has tried multiple times to call and to visit the store. Each time, Manor Home and Gifts' door was locked despite appearing fully stocked. Neighboring businesses say owners have not been there in weeks and that a nearby storage facility has been cleared out. The Lynch's aren't the only ones.
"What I have heard so far from the 18 couples that we are talking to that there is a range from anywhere from two to three thousand to $12,000 that people are out on the wedding registries right now," Lynch said.
"They were just closed and I walk by there all the time, how the lights were off I guess they are on vacation with no sign," said Jessica Guerrieri. She was married in June of 2015 and did receive the gifts purchased for her at Manor. But when a frame that she paid to have engraved did not show up, due to what she was told was a manufacturing problem, she called the vendor directly.
"They informed me that their machines were never broken and they actually never had an order from me," she said.
This weekend, Lynch finally had to tell her guests that their gifts were paid for, but never handed over. "Trying to make them not feel guilty about it," she said. "It's really a difficult situation."
For now, the store still accepts purchases through its website, but the lights remain off.
"It never was a thought that I may or may not get my gifts from a trusted business in Rittenhouse," Guerrieri said.
