A New Zealand mother faced an unexpected surprise when a personalized T-shirt she ordered arrived with a significant error. Courtney Couper, who had paid £3.96 for the custom item, was taken aback upon opening the package to find something amiss.

Courtney had originally intended to delight her young son with a T-shirt displaying his name on the front and a plain design on the back. She carefully completed the order form, providing all necessary details for the customization.

However, despite her precise instructions, the printer appeared to misinterpret her request. Instead of producing the desired design, they printed her instructions verbatim on the T-shirt, leading to the unexpected mishap.

When Courtney placed her order, she dutifully filled in the required boxes which would be printed on the T-shirt.

But despite her detailed request, the printer seemingly found Courtney’s request confusing and instead of following her instructions, printed them instead. 

When the mother opened her package and unfolded the new T-shirt she was shocked to find her message printed on the back.

The New Zealander said she couldn’t help but laugh at the situation and had a premonition something like this might happen.

She said: ‘At the time of writing that message to the seller, I actually laughed to myself thinking, imagine if they printed this message on the back.

Courtney Couper bought a personalised T-shirt off Temu for £3.96 with clear instructions but was left in stitches over a blunder

‘I never thought they actually would, I thought my instructions were really obvious.

‘I was a little disappointed at first, but I couldn’t help but be amused. I still have it, more as a joke. My son can wear it around the home’.

Courtney’s specific instruction read: ‘Dear seller, I do not want anything printed on the back. I would like the back of the T-shirt to remain blank. Thank you.’ 

She explained she was forced to write something in the box or her order would not be processed.

She said: ‘Before adding to the card, you are required to write what you want on the front and the back. 

‘There was no option of leaving the back blank, as it wouldn’t let you add it to the cart unless you wrote what you wanted, hence why I left a message to the seller.’

Following the blunder, Temu refunded her the cost of the T-shirt and rather than be put off by the experience, the mother has said she will continue to shop on the site but might avoid personalised items in the future.

She said: ‘I love Temu. I’ve ordered a lot of personalised items in the past and they’ve been great. But I probably would avoid ordering custom items if you want to leave the front or back blank.

‘I don’t think a real person is reading your orders, it must be a machine’.

A spokesperson for Temu said: ‘We want to thank Courtney for placing the order. We understand it didn’t meet her expectations and appreciate the good humour she brought to the situation. She was given a full refund and we hope to have the opportunity to serve her again in the future.

Customers are covered by our 90-day money-back guarantee for items that are not as described. Our customer service team is available 24/7 to help with any post-sale concerns.’

Despite asking the printer not to write anything on the back, Courtney was shocked to find her detailed instructions instead

It comes after a mother was left shocked when she opened a cake box to reveal her 14-year-old daughter’s birthday cake, only to find it read the birthday message wasn’t quite what she had had in mind.

‘The cake we ordered for my daughter’s 14th birthday party…’ the mother wrote in a post shared to Reddit, along with a snap of the cake, which was round with pink and red piped roses around the outside. 

The cake was meant to read: ‘Happy birthday Ana!’, but instead, the point at the bottom of the exclamation point ran into the rest of the punctuation mark, making it look like an L.

That meant the message looked as though it said: ‘Happy birthday Anal’ – much to people’s amusement.  

‘Her name is Ana,’ the exasperated mother wrote, alongside a picture of the baked dessert. 

A mom was shocked when she opened the cake box to reveal her 14-year-old daughter’s birthday cake, only to find it read a little differently to what she had wanted

In the comment section, the mother assured users she wasn’t upset over the accidental blunder, adding that it was an easy fix, as many users laughed over the mistake.

‘It look me so long to understand what was wrong,’ one user assured the mom.

‘You can see the dot at the bottom of the ‘!’ Bbut it looks over-piped and connected to the line above it, just take a sharp knife point and cut it, pushing the dot down a bit, so there is a visible between the line and the dot. Not that big of a deal.

‘And maybe next year for her birthday have ‘Happy Birthday Ana’ with a heart next to it instead of an !’ someone else suggested. 

‘I don’t know why you are being so anal about it, the cake looks delicious!’ joked another.