The ordering process
At the time of ordering, DiplomaMakers.com did not offer a replica service option – only customizable College, High School, and GED templates. We ordered the most expensive option, hoping it would be most realistic.
Compared to their competition, we got the feeling this website is more geared toward individuals who wanted a (relatively) inexpensive joke or gag gift, instead of those interested in the most realistic replacement for their damaged or lost diploma.
How DiplomaMakers.com handled customer support
They offer phone, live chat, and email support (making it more user-friendly than ND-Center or DiplomaXpress).
We sent in our money order, and we must say it was quite a long time before we next heard from them. They did ultimately contact us though, and were helpful and courteous. DiplomaMakers.com sent an email sample for our review before our final product shipped, which we thought was a nice touch. They shipped the package out the very next day after we approved our sample.
The shipping process (including dates and time)
Shipping and processing was much quicker than DiplomaXpress, though we thought it still took a while. We placed our order on 10/13, and our money order arrived at their door on 10/18. We did not receive our sample for more than three weeks, until 11/11. A few days later we told them we approved our email sample, and as we've stated, our package was shipped the next day.
I’d like to note that our order was packaged in very study packaging, allowing it to arrive in good shape.
What my order looked like
In our opinion, the document we got from DiplomaMakers looked the most fake out of the whole bunch. The color state seal looked over-sized and almost looked like something out of a child's cartoon and silly. Their layout had two seals at the top of the diploma, and looked unauthentic and strange. They hand-sign their diplomas, which is actually not the norm for real school-issued diplomas (do you think the President wants to sit down and sign thousand of diplomas per year?)- needless to say we were not happy with this. We love the option of metallic gold foil seals, but were not happy with the quality we received from DiplomaMakers. Flakes of gold were missing, allowing the black ink to show through the missing gold specks. It looked like they tried to emboss the seal after applying with the gold foil, but it actually looked like they missed their target, and therefore the seal looks out of alignment and sloppy. Their redeeming quality was the fact that there were no misspelled words or grammar issues, and all of our information was displayed correctly. The paper and ink used were also satisfactory.
Value
DiplomaMakers.com was the second cheapest website we reviewed. However, when taking into account the quality we received, we thought it actually should have been the very least expensive on the list. DiplomaXpress is cheaper and will produce a product of equal or better quality. Do these guys own each other? Not sure. Maybe.
Summary of overall experience
The quality here was near the bottom of the totem pole, and we would categorize this website as more of a novelty or gag gift product for a less serious crowd. It also took a while to process our money order.
PROS:
- Decent ink quality.
- No misspellings; no grammar issues.
- Study packaging and safe delivery.
- Availability of a metallic gold foil seal (though with some issues, see cons list).
CONS:
- Disclaimer sticker on the back that reads “This is a reproduction…”
- Template option, and not a “replica” option – unrealistic and fake layout.
- Gold foil seal was of low quality, flaking off and showing black ink under foil.
- Embossing was off and sloppy, and made the seal look even worse.
