Goodbye Macy*s
01.5.2012 Have you ever had such a bad retail experience you swore off an entire chain?. I'm thisclose. I grew up loving Macy*s. It was a staple in Coddingtown Mall in Santa Rosa; you went to Macy*s and Emporium. But the Macy*s of my childhood has slowly degenerated into a cluttered and poorly serviced department store.
People's Exhibit #1: I ordered 13 jewelry gifts for Christmas from macys.com. 10 arrived, with zero explanation for what happened to the missing 3 items. When I called and waited and spent 20 minutes on the phone with customer service, I was told two of the items were sold out, and that one would be re-shipped. But they wouldn't put a rush on the shipping, so the missing item would arrive 2-3 days before Christmas. The item never came at all. I had to call, AFTER Christmas, to get it shipped again. No explanation for why the re-order wasn't processed. Really awesome.
What's more, Macy*s also charged my account for the missing 2 items that were sold out and never shipped. Seriously? I had to spend more time going online to send an email letting them know that they charged me for items they never shipped. What if I never noticed those items were missing? What if I never contacted Macy*s? They would have simply kept nearly $400 of my money. I wonder how many people this has happened to. It's borderline criminal. I have never had a company charge me for something until it was confirmed and shipped. NEVER. And I am a veteran ninja online shopper. Only AFTER two emails to the company did I finally receive a response that said my credit would be issued and it would take 5-7 days to show up. I am simply flabbergasted by the slow and impersonal response. Especially because it was a mistake on Macy*s part 100% and they are completely unapologetic about this enormous error.
People's Exhibit #2: One of the items in the delivery came in a glittered gift box. It was completely smushed and broken. And half the items that arrived were attached to super jankity packaging that was not reflective of the brand of the item. Here's your Betsey Johnson earrings. Nevermind that they're on a random earring backing that says "Be Dazzled" or something cheap and generic looking. #tacky
People's Exhibit #3: An associate at the Valley Fair Macy*s I will call "J."
I spent 45 minutes processing a return that should have taken 2 minutes. I will never get those 43 minutes of my life back. First, J insisted I need a UPS label to return some of my jankity mail order items. I directed her to the CRL label on the receipt that I brought, complete with step by step instructions for how the associate can process the return using that receipt. She then proceeded to process the return. What a miracle!
But she then insisted she couldn't put the refund back on my original credit card. She said I had to have my card with me to process the refund, otherwise she had to give me a store credit. Again, wrong. But by this time, I'm so annoyed and so tired of waiting for her to figure out how to do things that I just shake my head and surrender.
But wait, there's more! Turns out, she only refunded me the correct amount on ONE of the SIX items. The other 5 items were refunded at anywhere from 10-20% less than what I paid.
Cue ensuing nightmare wherein I have to request a manager, only to find out there is no one on duty. Then thankfully, another associate takes me to the Dumbledore of Macy*s associates who has been there since the beginning of time. She is able to not only process my return for the correct amount, but she also put it back on my credit card instead of a store credit! Imagine that! And she took all of 3 minutes to do it.
It would have been easier to handle if J was just an incompetent bumbler. I get it, not everyone was born to work in retail. Or follow simple instructions on a return label. But she was so incredibly rude every step of the way that it simply could not be overlooked.
That combination of experiences this holiday shopping season, in contrast to my experiences with so many other retailers, really made me take a step back and reconsider where I want to spend my hard earned cash. And it won't be Macy*s.
What are your favorite/least favorite stores?
Reader Comments (13)
Next time use the PayPal option!
Next time, tell them you work for NBC News and you personally know a producer who works at Dateline who would love to hear about your experiences at their company.
A couple of things:
People sometimes think that you need the original credit card to process a refund, but this is not actually true unless the retailer POS prohibits it. I have had this problem before at Walgreens when doing a return for my mother-in-law. I gave them a different credit card, and said, "Can we just try it?" The fund were applied without a problem. This is also a way to ring up charges on one credit card to get points.
You can contest charges on credit cards and get the money back immediately from your credit card company. The CC company will almost always side with the consumer. For your macy's 13 gift problem, I would have called the credit card company immediately to dispute the ENTIRE charge. Then the burden is on Macy's to resolve the situation with you (like it should be). This doesn't solve the "no gifts for Christmas" problem, but it solves the "Macys stole my money" problem
I have to say that I had a really great experience this shopping season at the Macy's in downtown San Francisco, what I refer to as the "real" Macy's [in liu of the Macy's in New York City]. However, I think that really nowadays, it seems that Amazon.com and Sportsmansguide.com are my favorite shopping sites online.
Todd: Excellent advice. I thought about calling my credit card company, in fact, they have a very easy online form to dispute charges, but I thought I would try to take of it myself first. That's good to know for next time and you're right, I should just let my credit card company resolve it. I just thought they wouldn't hammer Macys the way I would and that they might just let it go because $400 is a lot to me, but to a big credit card company, it might not be worth the hassle. And then Macys would win.
Keith: I agree--Amazon rocks.
Macy's in San Francisco stole my money once. They rang me up on credit card for an item I never bought! And never credited me back even though I contacted Customer Services... it was a cash register mistake on behalf of the clerk who rang my order. Be careful!
I have been reading your blog and you CRACK me up! I'm totally bookmarking you VickyNguyen ;)
Guest: OMG take a page from what Todd said-- call you credit card company STAT!! They should have your back!
Jennifer: Thanks girl!! Share the love and feel free to send my link around town :) Really appreciate your post!
I've been loving Amazon even more this holiday season. Everything was delivered next day, or two days at the latest, even though I only had regular shipping. Last year, a pair of boots was stolen from my porch and they replaced it right away.
I had a similar experience returning half a dozen pairs of shoes from Target online at the store. I ordered three colors, two styles, and up and down a half size just in case. I kept two, the store would only let me return some, gave me credit instead of a refund for one, and wouldn't give me the last pair as a refund at all. The saleswoman ended her shift and had to tell someone else where we were so she could continue trying to process the transaction. So frustrating.
I've never been charged for something that was never sent though!
WC: I totally agree about Amazon. Primo service and I wrote a blog post about what they did with the tree house we got Emmy. They honored the $50 sale that we missed and that was fabulous. Target can be hit or miss but I do like that they can look up your sales with just a credit card so you don't have to hoard receipts. Even though I do anyway.
Here's the kick to the whole story: somehow she had a receipt to show that I bought the item! which I never bought, quite clever eh? This was how she did it, I bought a pair of sunglasses, then she rang me up and said the charges didn't go through, then she hid the receipt which I never saw. And then she rang me up for the real deal. Nice trick? This was back in the days. I think I signed twice & didn't realize it back then; they could trick you into anything.
I could have pursued it with Macy's department store, but the value wasn't much worth compared to the time or the hassle back then. Yeah, just some caution for next time.
SEARS HOME REPAIR. "Repaired" my fridge for $300 two weeks before Christmas on 3 hours notice - but when repairs failed four days later, said they couldn't come back until a week AFTER Christmas. WHAAAT? Christmas? Three kids? No fridge?
Uh, no more Sears. Grr.