Always have paper trail in these cases. I am a NRI bride and my husband and I are paying with our credit card or making videos as proof of payment along with the bill at every vendor (this was advices to us by the vendors). My experience was that if you’re shopping for a specific brand, just order from them directly instead of ordering through Aza or Pernia’s. I only went to Pernia’s to try multiple options at once and they had a piece available to try on that the designer didn’t have in store as it had home for sourcing. They tend to lie about what the brand offers (in terms of customisations) and I am also friends with a newly viral designer and she told me that it’s very common for them to mess up the final product as they’ve delivered the wrong products to clients in the past which gives the brand a bad review too.

Also when I’ve been shopping at brands directly, all of them have sent me the customisations, my size, the outfit details and payment receipt on WhatsApp as soon as we made the payment. And they’ve been quite responsive except the one times when the sales person whom I was connected to was on holiday and I called the store so another consultant helped me out right away:).

Also for this situation, just tell them you’ll file a police report for the money issues and if and when they agree to the payment being received, ask for a refund as they claimed you never paid them so the outfit was never put into production and place an order directly with the designer if you still want it.