A Little Bit of De-Enabling for a Change

In the past, I've included AMIClubwear.com in my usual Hump Day sales posts. Not any more. I will, in fact, not shop there myself anymore, and after you hear this, you may not either.

One of my big issues is refund and exchange policies. I've seen it done well, and I've seen it done badly. It's rare that it gets THIS bad, though.

Yesterday, a friend of mine, Jenn Mangano, informed a group of us that she had run into a serious problem with them - they won't refund her money and made her pay to send defective shoes back. In her own words:

I need help before I freaking flip out. Remember when AMIclubwear.com was having that 50% sale for New Years Day? I ordered a pair of SM Bevv-L Leopard heels, and after a freaking mountain of problems between ordering to actually receiving the shoes, they turned out to be defective. Shocker, it IS me ordering these shoes, and I apparently have more bad shoe karma in me yet. Bald spots, two-toned coloring between the platform and toebox-- you name it, and it was wrong with these freaking heels. I emailed them requesting permission to return them (wtf?!) describing all the defects in full detail. They approved the return, and as per their policy, were thereby held responsible for shipping fees in returning defective merchandise along with a full refund of the originally paid amount (as opposed to only store credit for returns made for reasons other than defect.) SO I boxed them up and shipped them out that day. Wait for it.....

I received an email a few days ago letting me know that my return was processed and a store credit of $58.49 was added to my account... that's definitely not the $73.04 that I'm supposed to be refunded, nor is it including the additional $11 in shipping to return the freaking things. I shot off a well-worded email letting them know of the error and requesting I be correctly refunded the money I'm due, making sure to directly quote the policies listed on their site. Here's their response:

Hello Jennifer,
Your return has been processed on 1/26/12 and upon inspection of the item, defects were not found as claimed. Our returns department inspected the item as per your stated complaint found on the RMA form, however, the item was found to be in good condition with no signs of a manufacture defect. Since item was not found to be defective, return shipping cost will not be reimbursed and only store credit will be issued.

Store credit has been issued to you for $58.49 and the credit will be used towards your next online purchase.
If you have any further questions at this time, please do not hesitate to let us know. Thank you for your understanding.

-AMIclubwear

WHAT. THE. F*CK. That is COMPLETE bullsh*t, and they know it! Of course I didn't take any pictures-- I didn't think I'd have to argue my case as a customer who was sold defective merchandise. SO, any ideas as to what I should do?? I'm just floored.

Jenn, rightly, is disputing the charges through PayPal. The next step that we came up with is to blast them on their Facebook page, but the cowards don't allow external posts on their page. That is a HUGE indicator of bad customer service and policies. It tells me they fear these blast posts while a respectable company should have nothing to fear. With Jenn's permission, I chose to post this on here so that the few hundred of you that read this regularly will think twice before buying from them again. First of all, I don't agree with anyone having to pay return shipping. I also don't agree with return policies which only offer store credit unless they decide your item was defective. It's a dishonest cop-out and no company that follows this path should remain in business.

My blood is boiling over this on her behalf.  a)No one should basically be called a F&%$*^ liar by a company and b) I view them offering store credit in lieu of a refund as theft. She obviously no longer wants to do business with them, but to get her money's worth, she has to. I'm honestly guessing with all the huge sales they've been running lately that they're trying to correct cash flow problems and probably can't afford to issue refunds. Something shady is going on over there and I don't like it at all.

I'll keep you updated on the outcome. Though, unless PayPal handles the issue, I expect that this trashy company will prevail. Consider yourselves warned.

-A