I know it’s right after the holidays and it’s the beginning of the year and I wondered if I should make a posting that is somewhat negative, but what the heck, it’s an interesting story…well, I’ll let you be the judge of that.
We have our yearly appraisals at work in December. I found myself surprised that I was to receive a small bonus (yes, federal workers can get bonuses, but not large ones mind you) and decided that as a special treat to myself I would go ahead and purchase a small EdP version of 24 Faubourg by Hermes. Years ago, my hub bought this as a present for a friend and I have loved it from the first day I smelled it. Yes, it’s very feminine, but damn it… I like it too!
As it is more of a mainstream perfume, I trolled the web perfume site to find the best price. Now, most of the sites only had the EdT versions for sale, but I found a couple that had the 50ml EdP versions as well. I won’t name the site, but in addition to the good price, they had an additional 10% off coupon code and free shipping. Great…I’m in!
Three days later I receive my little treasure. When I open the box, the box the perfume in was a bit worn, but I thought, so what, maybe it just got damaged en route. I then open the box only to find that it was missing almost 1/4 of the juice. I could tell immediately that it had not leaked, because the package nor the bottle were wet. It was just used.
The Offending Bottle
I receive the bottle on Christmas Eve, so I called the company on the day after Christmas and told them of the situation and sent the picture to the right. They nicely apologized and said that I could return the perfume but that they wouldn’t be able to replace it as they didn’t have any more in stock. I asked about possibly getting the bottle for a reduced price thinking that they might give it to me for 50% off which would have been fine.
The customer service representative came back and said they could give me an additional 5% off. I told her that at least 25% of the fragrance is missing, why would they only give me 5% off? She said that I had already received 10% off of the purchase when I ordered it. I explained that 10% off was for the full bottle purchase, so in essence you would only be giving me 5% off a bottle that was 25% missing or 15% off a non-discounted full bottle for 25% missing! I asked to speak to her supervisor. She went away and came back (sans supervisor) and said that all they could offer me was either an additional 5% off or I could return the perfume for a refund. I was flabbergasted. Here they would want me to ship something back (at their cost) that they could not sell instead of giving me a decent price for a used bottle and still make some money!
Really??!!!
I shipped the bottle back and was credited the full amount. I still don’t own 24 Faubourg. Maybe I wasn’t meant to own a bottle?
Oh, what the heck, the company in question is perfumeworldwide.com.
The Scented Hound 