CONSUMER ADVICE THREAD

yall

so my girlfriend bought an expensive (for her) dress from opening ceremony a couple months back--no real occasions to wear it, so its been completely unworn. during the move it got a small stain on it (possibly from raw denim, or something) so we took it to a dry cleaners--it came back looking slightly worn w/ some pilling and w/ paint having been scratched off some of the snaps on the back.

we took it up with the dry cleaners, who essentially blamed it on the manufacturer, since the dress didnt specify "no dry cleaning" (it didnt on the other hand specify dry-clean safe, either)--we had a bunch of other stuff dry-cleaned at the same time and it all came out perfectly, so i tend to believe they treat the clothes well and didnt do anything out of the ordinary to fuck this dress up. they refunded the price of the cleaning and we left it at that.

gf called opening ceremony and talked to a manager--the girl said that there was nothing she could do because 1) point of sale was too far away (i think it was in june) 2) tags didnt say "dry clean safe" and 3) "after a garment is washed we are no longer responsible for it."

gf argued that she spent a lot of money for a dress that didnt hold up to a single cleaning (and hadnt been worn once), and that indicated nowhere that it wasnt safe for dry cleaning, and that she was frustrated and felt like shed severely overspent on what should have been a much nicer dress (for the sake of full disclosure, she bought it on sale for $200--dunno if this is a lot or a little in the world of dresses but its a lot for her given her budget). she also said shed be willing to replace this dress with the same one (more or less at a loss, since the dress is now on sale for like $90). mgr said that she could offer a 10% discount on her next purchase. not even 10% off the already-purchased dress, but 10% off the next one. that was that, basically.

so basically--are there any more options at this point or is she out $200 and a dress? should we go back to the dry cleaners? the girl said there was no one else gf could speak to, but is there some kind of secret way we could go up the ladder? is this on opening ceremony, or are they being fair?

sorry for long post--want to have full info--emotions riding high on injustice

should've given the manager a real dressing down

oh ho ho

dont u have an africa to go to

hate to say this but i don't see a next step here

do u mind saying who made the dress - they may be the ppl to contact if the dress is really poorly made

dont u have an africa to go to

― max, Monday, August 17, 2009 6:49 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

been there, done that, got a poorly made article of clothing

What was the dress made out of? If it was a material like silk, I could see where the dry cleaner might be at fault because it is one of those materials that is delicate and tricky to clean and should be given more care than a more durable item like a cotton shirt. But otherwise, it might be hard to get the money back.

its a dress made out of very fine stretch cotton from the actual opening ceremony line. elmo i am afraid you are right but there is a lot of frustration right now and it is important we pursue our options to the fullest

I'm of the opinion that there is always someone else you can speak to. Opening Ceremony is a chain of sorts, right? Or they have a manufacturing wing? Basically, the store manager has a boss, and you need to find out who that is and talk to that person. Your gf might not get any satisfaction in the end, but it is pretty cathartic to keep bothering executives. Also try a web search for Opening Ceremony corporate info and write to every C-level person you can find.

Or just give them a terrible Yelp review, whichever.

max, it may indeed help to continue to contact whoever you can at opening ceremony. if it means talking to the same manager again, keep in mind that the 10% discount isn't much but it may be the most she's authorized to offer you. obviously this figure doesn't have anything to do with the actual dress but is probably more of an sort of 'inconvenience discount' that the manager can wield when dealing with customers. if you can plead your case to anybody, i'd keep on the point that the dress didn't come with proper care instructions. as someone who deals with this sort of customer complaint on a fairly regular basis, your tone will have a large part in determining the response you get. something like "i would really appreciate your help, because despite the inconvenience this far, we'd like to be able to recommend you for helping to straighten this situation out. / she really loved that dress and i know she would be a customer again if you made a display of good faith." in my experience, this will get you better results than "if you don't fix this i'll never buy from you again and i'll tell all my friends you are bad. / i am entitled, give me what i want."

anyway, good luck! hope you can resolve this without too much trouble.

thx for the advice elmo--weve been very measured and open so far, and made sure to stress that wed be happy to just accept a replacement dress--and it seemed like the one girl was going to give it to us until she consulted w/ another manager (corny)

i know how fascinated u are with this saga so ill make sure 2 update

btw jenny's idea of writing to corporate level isn't a bad one -- anyone higher up the chain is way more likely to grant your request than somebody dealing with daily operations, if for the simple fact that occupying the time of a regional manager or whatever will cost them more in payroll than the sale of the dress is worth to them

the problem now is finding the corporate masters

did you ever get this sorted? opening ceremony doesnt really have "corporate masters" though, so curious to know what happened

not really, no. Ari sent a letter to the guy who owns the store outlining the situation along the lines Elmo outlined but we never heard back.

It is what it is; I'm not sure we had a strong case for a refund but it was so frustrating that this one girl was abou to replace the dress until another mgr told her not to

yeah, it would have been nice of them to let you exchange it for the one that was on further sale, but i dont think they really were obligated to do anything. wonder which mgr it was. im sorta acquainted with the OC owners/staff (but not well enough to intervene on your behalf, unfortunately...)

the idea that the consumer is a pariah, has no voting power with their dollar, and is forced to endure abysmal service (often for important services) because of endless mergers and mega-corporations who are so rich to not give a fuck...isn't mind-blowing, and quite possibly *tReNcHaNt*.

but when did this begin? Like, I complained about customer service more than a decade ago, but it was better then, at least I could reach people and get problems resolved. Nowadays, you get treated like a nuisance and given few channels to get problems fixed.

like, some of the shit is small-scale, like, I don't give a fuck if someone gives me a quarter pounder instead of a double quarter pounder, but like earlier this year, I had a debit card company inactivate one of my debit cards from my COVID study. reissuing it, which should have been easy, took four months, because they had an old address for me, and claimed only my study could update it, and my study said "we have no idea how to do that", and they sent me in a circle until I contacted the office of the Attorney General of the state they were in.

I had no access to $400 worth of money! It was important, and it wasted probably 50 hours or more of my time.

anyway just curious as to where we think the model shifted to customer triage vs customer service (I know different countries have different experiences, so no need to make this US-centric)

https://inews.co.uk/news/consumer/shein-fast-fashion-workers-paid-3p-18-hour-days-undercover-filming-china-1909073