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Why Sephora is on my shit list
Jan. 25th, 2016 06:36 amDear Sephora,
Until recently I considered you to be one of the better places to spend my money as we'd never had any issues with any orders over the years. But oh, oh how the mighty have fallen...
The saga begins before Christmas. Cass and I ordered Ari's gifts together using my account because I ponied up for Flash because I was still thinking Sephora was a magical place. What a fool I was. Cass ordered a Frozen Elsa/Anna sisters compact mirror. No product inside, it's all about the mirror. And the engraving on the back, but whatever. It arrives pretty fast (we need to discuss the factual claims of "two days" but it was the holidays and I don't know if Sephora's got the same deal with the devil Amazon does, y'know? ) and I check to make sure there's nothing glaringly wrong with the gift. I don't open the box itself though and check the mirror because it's not my place to do so. Cass picks it up right before Christmas (it was ordered earlier in December) and opens it up to see the engraving on the back. When she opens the compact up, oh no! There's a big o' scratch on the mirror. You know, the entire point of this particular product?
So we panic for a minute because it's December 23 and we live in a place where the only Sephora around is in JC Penny and that's about the size of a postage stamp and holycrap!
Cass calls and gets someone who basically says tough shit, what do you want us to do about it? When pressed, she says well duh, you can just skip on over to your Sephora and swap it out and you'll be fine. Cass points out the lack of a big Sephora and then asks the woman if there's a way she can check to see if ours would even carry the item (not even asking if it was possible to see if it was in stock, just see if it was something that had ever made it there since a lot of stuff is 'real Sephora' exclusives) and the rep goes through the motions of looking and saying duh, they have it, you'll be fine. Again.
Cass calls our store. Nope, we never got it at all, ever, which sucks because the girl on the other end would've loved it. Grr.
Rep #3 is immediately helpful and says that since we're deprived of options, she'll ship out a new one immediately, NO CHARGE, and while it might not get there in time for Christmas (Dec 23, remember) it is on its way and nope, you don't need to return the first because it's our bad and we've already given you the run around. So, so sorry about that, btw.
The replacement shows up the next day. Seriously, lightning fast shipping. Super thrilled, it's perfect, and I was ready to put this down as a total win for the company and trot it out as a Christmas miracle and reason why you should totally go with Sephora if you were fence sitting.
A couple of days after Christmas, I'm paying bills and notice my credit card has a charge for $15 from Sephora. I double check and it's definitely from the compact. Huh. Cass calls and they say "whoops, we'll charge that right back, sorry!"
At the same time, when checking, I found that they'd given me the points for the second compact, but as soon as she called and asked for the charge (that never should have been) to be removed, they swiped those points back (fair) and then took the points from the initial purchase. WTF?
Still... I could sort of see them deciding to do that, I guess. I wasn't happy but if I was getting my $15 back, I'd live. I just wouldn't be using them as a super example of over the top awesome.
Yeah, I checked my card a few times a week and the charge was always there. Hit the third week of this nonsense so I gave up and called.
I was on hold for FOREVER and finally get a super nice rep who listens to the short version (got charged for a replacement I shouldn't have been charged for, promised money back, it's still not been done, pls help) and she looks into it and confirms that the person Cass talked to right after Christmas didn't do shit. So she goes through the motions and asks if I want it charged back to the card ending in ___ and I say yes please, and she gives me the "seven business days" thing and then asks if she can do anything else. I mention the points and she fixes that ASAP so I think hey, maybe this time it was actually done the right way.
I'm all proud of myself and I wait.
And wait.
Yeah. By Friday (as in January 22) it should have at least showed up as pending. Nothing. Are you kidding me?
Soooooooooo... I email them via their site and mention that I've already tried to resolve this over the phone and after having gone through at least five people at this point, I'm ticked and I want my money back.
Yesterday morning I check my spam folder (thanks, Gmail) and there's the reply that says, and I quote:
Dear Marian,
Thank you for contacting Sephora.com. We have been experiencing a large number of email inquiries and apologize for the delay in our response.
In reviewing your account it appears that you spoke with a representative and have now resolved this issue. Should you need any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us at 1-877-SEPHORA.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Yes, you fool. I spoke with a rep, that I mentioned in my complaint email, and it did NOT resolve the issue. You're telling me I have to call, again, even though by now we all know that's just going to do less than nothing? REALLY?
So I tag Cass back in because this takes the rage that she's so carefully honed over years of being on the receiving end of such calls. (Call center survivor she is.)
She calls and they're not open. She calls later, and this is the very short version: gets a rep who doesn't care/won't do anything. She asks to speak to a supervisor, gets put on hold twice, and then the rep hangs up on her.
Btw, if you get Cass on the phone for a customer service issue, don't hang up on her. Just... don't.
She calls back. Gets a dude who asks if he can help and she tells him that she's gonna need a supervisor, nothing against him just... yeah, no. And naturally he has to see if she really does, so she tells him the current state of affairs and he's smart enough to realize he wants no part of this and passes her up the chain of command.
Turns out they'd issued me store credit instead of giving me my money back. How the hell would I know that if I was told otherwise? Also, Cass points out that given how shitty this whole experience has been, why would anyone want to take a chance and go through it all again just to use store credit? Wtf? Just no, give me my money back and while you're at it, go above and beyond because at this point that $15 has morphed into a migraine because of all the runaround given. She's told that the account is being given 250 points immediately (within 30 minutes) and that my credit card will be magically refunded the money by Wednesday.
I'm decently pleased with this because the points, over the holidays anyway, had some good stuff and hey.
Yeah, no. My account is still at the 99 points we started off this debacle with.
Sigh.
Sephora, I should've just called my credit card and told them to go after you with a vengeance. This is insane.
Tl;dr: Sephora charged me when they shouldn't have and after a month of lies have yet to refund my money. They have also failed to give me my apology 'gift' and basically at this point I am beyond rage. We'll see if the money situation is fixed on Wednesday.
Until recently I considered you to be one of the better places to spend my money as we'd never had any issues with any orders over the years. But oh, oh how the mighty have fallen...
The saga begins before Christmas. Cass and I ordered Ari's gifts together using my account because I ponied up for Flash because I was still thinking Sephora was a magical place. What a fool I was. Cass ordered a Frozen Elsa/Anna sisters compact mirror. No product inside, it's all about the mirror. And the engraving on the back, but whatever. It arrives pretty fast (we need to discuss the factual claims of "two days" but it was the holidays and I don't know if Sephora's got the same deal with the devil Amazon does, y'know? ) and I check to make sure there's nothing glaringly wrong with the gift. I don't open the box itself though and check the mirror because it's not my place to do so. Cass picks it up right before Christmas (it was ordered earlier in December) and opens it up to see the engraving on the back. When she opens the compact up, oh no! There's a big o' scratch on the mirror. You know, the entire point of this particular product?
So we panic for a minute because it's December 23 and we live in a place where the only Sephora around is in JC Penny and that's about the size of a postage stamp and holycrap!
Cass calls and gets someone who basically says tough shit, what do you want us to do about it? When pressed, she says well duh, you can just skip on over to your Sephora and swap it out and you'll be fine. Cass points out the lack of a big Sephora and then asks the woman if there's a way she can check to see if ours would even carry the item (not even asking if it was possible to see if it was in stock, just see if it was something that had ever made it there since a lot of stuff is 'real Sephora' exclusives) and the rep goes through the motions of looking and saying duh, they have it, you'll be fine. Again.
Cass calls our store. Nope, we never got it at all, ever, which sucks because the girl on the other end would've loved it. Grr.
Rep #3 is immediately helpful and says that since we're deprived of options, she'll ship out a new one immediately, NO CHARGE, and while it might not get there in time for Christmas (Dec 23, remember) it is on its way and nope, you don't need to return the first because it's our bad and we've already given you the run around. So, so sorry about that, btw.
The replacement shows up the next day. Seriously, lightning fast shipping. Super thrilled, it's perfect, and I was ready to put this down as a total win for the company and trot it out as a Christmas miracle and reason why you should totally go with Sephora if you were fence sitting.
A couple of days after Christmas, I'm paying bills and notice my credit card has a charge for $15 from Sephora. I double check and it's definitely from the compact. Huh. Cass calls and they say "whoops, we'll charge that right back, sorry!"
At the same time, when checking, I found that they'd given me the points for the second compact, but as soon as she called and asked for the charge (that never should have been) to be removed, they swiped those points back (fair) and then took the points from the initial purchase. WTF?
Still... I could sort of see them deciding to do that, I guess. I wasn't happy but if I was getting my $15 back, I'd live. I just wouldn't be using them as a super example of over the top awesome.
Yeah, I checked my card a few times a week and the charge was always there. Hit the third week of this nonsense so I gave up and called.
I was on hold for FOREVER and finally get a super nice rep who listens to the short version (got charged for a replacement I shouldn't have been charged for, promised money back, it's still not been done, pls help) and she looks into it and confirms that the person Cass talked to right after Christmas didn't do shit. So she goes through the motions and asks if I want it charged back to the card ending in ___ and I say yes please, and she gives me the "seven business days" thing and then asks if she can do anything else. I mention the points and she fixes that ASAP so I think hey, maybe this time it was actually done the right way.
I'm all proud of myself and I wait.
And wait.
Yeah. By Friday (as in January 22) it should have at least showed up as pending. Nothing. Are you kidding me?
Soooooooooo... I email them via their site and mention that I've already tried to resolve this over the phone and after having gone through at least five people at this point, I'm ticked and I want my money back.
Yesterday morning I check my spam folder (thanks, Gmail) and there's the reply that says, and I quote:
Dear Marian,
Thank you for contacting Sephora.com. We have been experiencing a large number of email inquiries and apologize for the delay in our response.
In reviewing your account it appears that you spoke with a representative and have now resolved this issue. Should you need any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us at 1-877-SEPHORA.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Yes, you fool. I spoke with a rep, that I mentioned in my complaint email, and it did NOT resolve the issue. You're telling me I have to call, again, even though by now we all know that's just going to do less than nothing? REALLY?
So I tag Cass back in because this takes the rage that she's so carefully honed over years of being on the receiving end of such calls. (Call center survivor she is.)
She calls and they're not open. She calls later, and this is the very short version: gets a rep who doesn't care/won't do anything. She asks to speak to a supervisor, gets put on hold twice, and then the rep hangs up on her.
Btw, if you get Cass on the phone for a customer service issue, don't hang up on her. Just... don't.
She calls back. Gets a dude who asks if he can help and she tells him that she's gonna need a supervisor, nothing against him just... yeah, no. And naturally he has to see if she really does, so she tells him the current state of affairs and he's smart enough to realize he wants no part of this and passes her up the chain of command.
Turns out they'd issued me store credit instead of giving me my money back. How the hell would I know that if I was told otherwise? Also, Cass points out that given how shitty this whole experience has been, why would anyone want to take a chance and go through it all again just to use store credit? Wtf? Just no, give me my money back and while you're at it, go above and beyond because at this point that $15 has morphed into a migraine because of all the runaround given. She's told that the account is being given 250 points immediately (within 30 minutes) and that my credit card will be magically refunded the money by Wednesday.
I'm decently pleased with this because the points, over the holidays anyway, had some good stuff and hey.
Yeah, no. My account is still at the 99 points we started off this debacle with.
Sigh.
Sephora, I should've just called my credit card and told them to go after you with a vengeance. This is insane.
Tl;dr: Sephora charged me when they shouldn't have and after a month of lies have yet to refund my money. They have also failed to give me my apology 'gift' and basically at this point I am beyond rage. We'll see if the money situation is fixed on Wednesday.