Sorry to hear about the bad experience getting stripes. I am just finalizing details on cutting a few sets with a few of the members offline, I have a cutter, and have been cutting for about 7 years, but I'm not shipping any until I get it exactly as they should be. I am still trying to find the RIGHT color vinyl, I have been looking at these letters until my eyes go buggy over the last month.
Unless someone has a good reputation for doing this particular stripe, IMO, its ok to ask for a .jpg of the stripe which will be EXACTLY what they are going to look like when they are cut (full sized or close to it (or at least smaller but high resolution so you can zoom in)) that way there are NO surprises, and if you see something that doesn't look right, it can be changed before its cut. Especially when you are spending good money on stripes/graphics and even MORE especially when they are going on YOUR car and you dont want to be pulling them off, also you will want to know what kind of vinyl they are using.
I didnt really mean for this to turn out to be a lecture to buying vinyl, lol, but Im pretty passionate about it and also because I dont like to waste money doing stripes that are wrong so I wont send stripes unless my customer approves them.
I use vinyl from a great German company named Oracal and the vinyl series I use for these stripes is 751 which is pretty much the top of the line from them, the only other brand I would buy is 3M.
The main thing you want to look for when getting stripes (aside from the design being right) is that the vinyl is Cast vinyl not Calendared. While Oracal 651 is a GREAT vinyl, and its great for window decals and a few other jobs, it is calendared and has been known to have tendancy to expand and contract slightly over a number of years and even crack depending on the shape and width and complexity of lines in your design, because the way that the vinyl, itself is made. Orcal 751 is a cast type and is more than double the price of 651 because it tends to stay exactly the way it is cut.
stepping off of the vinyl soapbox