Combatant Gentlemen launched in 2012 promising the holy grail of menswear: a quality suit for as little as $140. Since then the company’s grown quickly: In 2015 it made Forbes’ list of America’s Most Promising Companies after posting $10.1 million in revenue. The brand’s CEO, Vishaal Melwani, tells me, “We didn't expect...last year this year; this growth is the highest growth we've ever seen.” But recently a slew of angry customers have cropped up online, claiming that the company’s failed to deliver on their orders. On Reddit you can find dozens of burnt customers; another unsatisfied buyer on Yelp is threatening a class-action lawsuit; and—most damningly—Combatant Gentlemen currently has a grade of F from the Better Business Bureau. Almost all of complaints stem from orders that were never delivered or delivered long after the promised dates (there are plenty of pissed-off grooms and groomsmen), and many include tales of horrible communication from the company.

What’s Happening?

Scattered complaints about the brand have been swelling for several years across these different platforms, but the wailing crescendoed last week when one disgruntled customer posted to Reddit: “It has been 229 days since my wife ordered me a bag on Combatant Gentlemen.” Chris G. claims he placed an order for the bag in late November and waited almost eight months before finally cancelling his order and demanding a refund—one he claims he still hasn’t received a week later. Quickly the post became a meeting ground for other aggrieved Combatant Gentlemen customers. “The worst shopping experience of my life,” wrote user BCkcmo. Another joked that a suit he ordered for a friend’s wedding was so heavily delayed that “maybe I can wear the suit to the christening of the child yet to be conceived by my recently married friends.” Prince_Uncharming wrote that problems are “so widespread that it’s just a business decision at this point.”

Combatant Gentlemen was founded on the idea that there was “a gaping hole in the affordable menswear market,” according to a post Melwani wrote on Reddit in 2015. The brand touted itself as the “Warby Parker for suiting” and aimed to reduce customer costs by controlling everything from the supply chain to the sale and shipment of its products. At one point, it had its own sheep field in Italy and a cotton field in India. According to a 2015 Inc. article, these strategies allowed Combatant Gentlemen to get production costs down to somewhere between $24 and $37 per suit—with the goal to pass savings on to the customer.

David Phillips tells GQ that he bought two suits in March, which he hoped to wear to a friend’s wedding in late May and to his own ceremony in June. He started to panic in May when he still hadn’t received the suit, and says he reached out to customer service, which he claims told him that his suits would ship soon—certainly in time for his friend’s wedding. Finally, he went with his backup plan before the May wedding and ended up purchasing a Men’s Wearhouse suit he wore to both weddings. He’s still waiting on his Combatant Gentlemen suit to be delivered (a UPS tracking number Phillips showed me says it should arrive Monday, July 17).

Joseph Kelly tells me that he and his friends placed a group order with Combatant Gentlemen in the hopes of wearing the suits to his wedding. Combatant Gentlemen’s wedding deal guaranteed delivery a month in advance of the big day—Kelly was getting married on July 1. Kelly says he endured a lengthy back-and-forth with two separate customer-service reps as well as Melwani. (The aggregated e-mail threads, sent to GQ, make for a 29-page PDF.) “I had to involve my friend who is a lawyer to ensure that all 7 of us in our party got a refund,” Kelly tells me over e-mail. He finally received his suits on June 21.

Combatant Gentlemen Defends Itself

Combatant Gentlemen has faced delivery issues for a while now, and Melwani has tried to maintain some transparency, as this extensive AMA with Redditors from 2015—when issues with service and delays first popped up—shows. And in several of the e-mail correspondences shared with me by ticked-off customers, either Vishaal Melwani or Mo Melwani, Vishaal’s cousin and co-founder, has communicated directly in hopes of helping.