Prettylittlething - anyone else FUMING?

[sowhatimangry]

My dd shops online. She frequently uses Prettylittlething, boohoo, asos. She got an email last week (along with hundreds of thousands of other people, it would appear) saying that her account was being deactivated because she returns too many items.

While I think there's a whole host of things unfair with that, my main issue is that for birthdays and Christmas, family members buy her vouchers for this clothing brand. Meaning she's got £80 as her account balance that she can't use.

The account won't let her place any orders so she can't spend it, she's gotten in touch with the customer service who haven't replied (presuming they're swamped with complaints!)

Is there anything we can do?! There's no option to cash out, and get the money back. They have essentially stolen £80 from her. So so frustrating. Maybe we just have to cut our losses and be grateful it wasn't more.

Can't you create an account for yourself to order stuff on her behalf to use up the vouchers. This is why I don't like online clothes shopping, I always ned to try more than one size, or often things don't suit me.

Well maybe if women’s clothes sizes were more accurate we wouldn’t need to buy so many sizes to try on. (All shops, not just this one)

Don’t drop the £80! There must be a way of getting it back?

They cant get away with that, if they will not let her use her credit then they need to refund it. I would be escalating, citing consumer law, complaining to newspapers, threatening small claims court etc. At the very least request vouchers you can use in store.

Sadly the vouchers are in her account. We've got in touch with customer service. I'm not sure how else to try and claim it back

I would try involving Martin Lewis and also ask in his forum.

I did see a headline about it somewhere, maybe the BBC news??? So there must be lots of people going through the same thing, some of whom will also have a credit.

This seems really harsh. And very dodgy re the vouchers.

How much did she return? The bbc article didn’t say but I’m intrigued what the threshold is to take such drastic action.

PLT is fast fashion and therefore awful in so many ways, you can't be surprised that you've been screwed over when you know that they already exploit their workers and the environment.

I'd defo get Martin Lewis involved. But also encourage your daughter to think about whether she needs to be buying and sending back so much stuff- it's unsustainable for the planet.

My account has been closed too. Not happy as I have paid for the yearly free delivery pass and use the account to buy clothes for me and my two daughters. Haven't returned an unreasonable amount although I do order 4 or 5 outfits at a time to choose the best one. But as I'm charged £1.99 for each return why would I order one thing at a time and pay multiple return fees? I can use one of my daughters accounts if needed but I'd have to buy another delivery pass and who knows how soon they will shut down their accounts too??

I’ve seen this on tiktok, lots of regular customers have received this email saying their accounts have been suspended.

In one of the videos the woman explained why she had so many returns, she’d ordered the same skirt in the same size but two different colours. On trying them on, one skirt was at least one if not two sizes smaller than the other! They don’t have any quality control but want to blame the customer rather than complying with consumer right laws.

It's an absolute bonkers own goal for a business to make, other similar companies like In The Style are coming out and using it to their advantage. I can't imagine how this was signed off!

ASOS do the same thing, it gets posted about every now and again. Essentially if you’re constantly returning things, they eventually cut you off. Amazon also do it, but with a higher margin.

I suppose from the shops perspective, it’s not great. Like the person above buying 5 outfits and keeping one - that’s an 80% returns rate. I don’t think many online shops would tolerate that. It’s fast fashion with small margins, and a minimal refund fee. You won’t be a profitable customer at that returns level, and they are haemorrhaging money. Molly Mae as creative director and all the LI inspired collections haven’t really hit as they were expected to.

You may find the people who bought the vouchers need to be the ones to legally claim them back, if PLT won’t refund or allow your daughter to use the credit. Be mindful of agreeing any terms that would violate her consumer rights, like being allowed to spend the money but having no right to return. ASOS have been known to allow people to nominate another account for the vouchers to be added to, which might work for you.

I mean, buying five outfits and returning four is a pretty high returns rate 😬

Why should you not order many items at once when you are only in the market for one dress though? Surely it saves them money to just post out one shipment of 5 dresses than 5 different deliveries and then process 4 returns? They have no physical shops to view the items. Sizing can be off. Material can be different than you expected. Surely an exclusively online retailer would expect you to want to actually see and try on before deciding to purchase?

Because of the labour involved in dealing with the return? Each has to be checked for signs of wear/make up stains/perfume/tags, then repackaged for someone else to buy, and put back into the right spot in the warehouse. They’ll likely have automated stock control but someone will still have to tell it that the return was accepted/rejected; and there’s another item now. If the item is rejected, they have to ship it back out to the person.

If you ordered two things and returned one; you’d have a 50% returns rate; which is high but acceptable for most retailers. 80% isn’t.

Next sent out emails a few years ago to anyone with a returns rate above 30% to say their accounts were at risk; for context.

I mean, buying five outfits and returning four is a pretty high returns rate

But customers are just doing the equivalent of what they would do in a shop - taking several items/sizes into a changing room to try them on.

The retailers have created this model and are now surprised by customer behaviour.

I think the likes of Instagram influencers doing massive clothes hauls has not helped the situation.

For example they order 20 outfits, affiliate link them all and then send them back. I’m sure this has upset the apple cart.

Sounds like a Gerald Ratner, moment, TBH.

If you sell cheap crap in unreliable sizes, have an ethically dodgy supply chain and a young customer base, aggressively discouraging returns is suicidal.

Hopefully all the youngsters now boycott them in solidarity and hasten their crash.

That's a ridiculous return rate - you can't be surprised

Why don't they just charge more for returns? So £1.99 per item for example? People could still buy a couple of items to check on sizes but would be less likely to order numerous outfits and return most of them then.

You buy shit clothes from a shit company and get shit service; not a huge surprise is it.
I would use this as an opportunity to talk to your daughter about shopping differently. Perhaps buying from charity shops, get into alterations etc and find her own style.

But customers are just doing the equivalent of what they would do in a shop - taking several items/sizes into a changing room to try them on.

@zzplex - trying on items in store does not require the company to pay warehouse staff, delivery drivers, fuel, re listings them on the website etc. not to mention the impact on the environment. you must understand this.

I avoid PLT now since I ordered a few items in their sale and the order came with one item missing and their customer service were spectacularly unhelpful. It was a cheap item so I let it go, it wasn't worth the hassle to keep chasing it, but made a mental note not to bother with them in future.

The vast majority of online returns for fast fashion go straight into landfill because it costs more to resell them. Not to mention the human cost of producing all that cheap shite in the first place in sweatshops where (usually) women and children working in dangerous conditions get paid a few pence a day.

Maybe this will be a wake up call for your daughter about the effect her wasteful buying habits are having on the environment and other people.

I very rarely return things as have become pretty good over the years at figuring out how something is likely to fit me but I’m really amazed retailers don’t offer some sort of discount or incentive for not returning items. When I have stuff in my wish list I’m gobsmacked by the number of times it goes out of stock and is then returned.