About three weeks ago I wrote a post about sending my lovely and most excellent seven year old niece a set of Peter Alexander pyjamas as a gift for Australia Day.
She lives in Finland, a very long way from Australia, and I wanted to involve her in the national day. Along with the gift I sent some Australia flag branded things and a kangaroo soft toy. You can see the post here if you like.
On Australia Day I received a video from my brother @tarazkp showing the unboxing and her face was priceless, so cute, and made me miss her so much. I'd give anything to have a chance to hug her right now...anyway, I was really happy until...I saw a look my brother gave to his wife (who was videoing) and I thought something was wrong...
As it turns out there was definitely something wrong, the fucken store had left the security tag on the items joining them together so they were unwearable. Fucking fuckety fucken fuckballs!
This wouldn't be an issue if they were here but they are not and I could hardly expect them to send it back to me so I could have the store remove the security tags and then send it back again. Some could argue that I should have checked but I'd picked up a gift boxed item off a shelf and wouldn't have expect the contents to tagged - It's bonkers.
We spoke on the phone and he said he would try and remove the tag without causing damage which is what he was able to do (he's like a brownish version of fucken MacGyver!)...I got a lovely set of photos of her modelling the items and I felt better about it...but I wasn't leaving it there.
I went to the store and spoke to the manager, calmly, explaining the situation and owning up to the fact I'd not kept the receipt - who would I guess, the item was sent to Finland for fuck sake - and I took along the VISA card statement with the store and purchase noted along with the postage receipt for the $45 it cost to send away as proof. I also had the video footage of the unboxing in case I needed it.
I'm not sure what I expected, but what I got was empathy, understanding and a valid solution. (I did not expect all of that.)
We chatted and she said she'd had the same thing happen previously with the same item, the only difference being the other people could bring the item back in to have the tag removed.
Apparently over the Christmas period they'd employed a heap of shitty young Christmas casual workers who were rather useless. They'd been folding and packing (into the gift boxes) the clothing items without taking the security tags off then putting them right on the shelves. Clueless fuckers. I asked what may be able to be done and to my surprise she said she'd give me a new gift boxed set (which she checked for security tags) and also refund the (not insignificant) purchase price of the other set which would cover the cost of both sets of postage. It was a good result.
I was going to select a different colour but decided to get the same only a size up, eight instead of six, so my niece would be able to use the ones she had and then grow into the new set. She's going to be a tiny little thing so she's likely to be able to use them for years to come.
The first and third images in this post are of the gift boxed size eight item I was given and I'll be sending it in the near future. I'm going to get a slightly larger set also and send with the smaller because my sister in-law loved the pyjamas set I'd sent for my niece so I figure I might as well send two in the same box to save postage - her birthday isn't too far off. It was a reasonable result and could have been much worse - it's instilled a little confidence in me that there's people who are happy to do the right thing in a world full of people who are not.
I was very disappointed my gift didn't work out to plan and it sort of ruined Australia Day for me to some degree; I want my nice to be happy, to feel engaged with me, and the setback of the security tag didn't help. My niece took it in her stride although was sad she couldn't try them on, she loved everything I sent though, played with them and all, and the look on her beautiful little face when she opened the gift will stay with me - so not a total loss. Fortunately my brother got the tag off without causing very much damage, just a little. The good thing is she'll get another set and she'll get to enjoy both gifts for a long time to come.
Have you ever had a problem with an item you've purchased and had difficulty exchanging it or getting a refund? Has a shop assistant ever made an error that ultimately effected your purchase negatively or your enjoyment of it, or have you ever given a gift that went wrong, backfired or wasn't as smooth as you would have liked? Feel free to comment below, I'm keen to hear from you.
Design and create your ideal life, tomorrow isn't promised - galenkp
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Image(s) in this post are my own