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Why I'll never buy another Ewa Michalak
I didn't make this decision lightly. My favorite bras are EMs but I have to vote with my money to register my objection to their outright greed.
I placed an online order (not my first, BTW) several months ago with EM. I did this knowing full well that I was being charged a non-applicable VAT fee (since I'm in the US) and that shipping would take forever. Including the taxes and delay in my estimate of value, it was worth it.
However.
When I followed up in late May to find out where my goodies were, I was told they were being returned to Poland because I had not included my state in the shipping address. I was informed that I would have to pay shipping AGAIN to get my order because it was my error. Although I am dead certain that I included my state (it's also in my profile), I wasn't about to argue - or pay - again. I told them that a company that ships internationally should be expected to pay close attention to the shipping details before sending packages off to avoid circumstances like this. If they were unwilling to reship at no charge, I asked that they refund the order.
They deducted the shipping from the refund.
I don't shop at Wal-Mart, ChikFilA or Ross because I object - strenuously - to some of their policies. Unfortunately, I'm adding Ewa Michalak to the list.
Filed under Bras ups and downs
5 comments
What happened to you totally sucks, and I would be just as irritated and angry if it happened to me.
But...do you know that most bras of EM quality cost more (at MSRP) than what EM charges, even if you include the shipping and unfair VAT? That many cost twice as much? That most are made in countries with shoddy labor and environmental practices, and don't have explicit commitments to fair labor? That many of those are pretty big companies, while until like last week EM had her surly kid working for her, because she owns a pretty small company actually? That no other lingerie company has remotely showed EM's initiative in featuring truly diverse models or serving the needs of a very small segment of the population (small band, big bust)?
So, like, I feel you but...I guess I think your righteous rage is misplaced.
Lynn I would undoubtedly have done the same thing in your position. I think I'd be more understanding of their side if Ewa and co had only just started doing international, but that's not the case by now - I'd estimate that most of the people on here who buy from Ewa are in the US. It seems like they get a lot of US orders - if someone on their end thought the address looked funny, why not contact you to verify (or, even google the zip code to get the state - I'm Australian and done this before)? If you had left the state off, either of these things would've taken 30 seconds to do.
And if they screwed up the postage, which it sounds like is what happened? Passing on the cost of a mistake to a customer is never okay to do. I used to work as a retail supervisor before I started grad school, and what Ewa's business has done here is just not acceptable. My boss, the owner of our store, was never happy about it when we ended up eating the cost of an incorrect price quote, but he never tried to pass the cost of staff mistakes onto customers.
melifish I'm going to have to disagree with you. I really do get what you're saying about the use of sweatshops in the lingerie industry, and I do think we should support businesses that don't do that. But this is just poor customer service, and they didn't even make an attempt to meet the OP halfway. And the OP is now out the cost of shipping, for an item that wasn't even received. There are companies that do make all their own bras and seem to do a better job at running a business than Ewa does. My own recent experience with Anna Pardal is evidence of this - I contacted Anna after waiting six weeks for a bra to arrive, and she didn't try to accuse me of dishonesty etc. - she explained a courier issue they were having, and said she would ship me another set if I didn't see anything in 2 weeks. The set ended up arriving in the end, and was about the same for bra and panties as one bra from Ewa. I can't personally get behind being more willing to forgive poor service just because a company is making their product ethically.
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