AIBU to have expected more from John Lewis???

[YouAreHavingAGiraffe]

I order a lot from John Lewis on line, & collect from my local Waitrose (no JL dept store near me). All usually with no problems.

However I sent back some items to them 10 days ago via Royal Mail. The parcel has not yet arrived - likely it has been lost. This has only happened to me once before, with a smaller retailer, and when I phoned, they refunded me straightaway - all I had to do was to send them the postage receipt so they could claim back from Royal Mail.

However John Lewis have told me it's not their problem; they won't refund; I have to take it up with Royal Mail. Why should this be my problem, when I have returned stuff to them the way they say I should? At the moment I'm £77 down

I'm seriously pissed off. AIBU to have expected a retailer with John Lewis' reputation to have handled this differently?!?!!

NYANBU.

JL have always been very good. I'm surprised at their response. I'm not sure, however, where you stand legally on this.

But JL didn't loose it royal mail did.

of course you have to take it up with them

Might be that there's a cut off. say anything 20 quid and under they write off but 77 quid is alot I'd be more pissed at the RD for loosing it. up to them to trace it and hopefully reimburse you

RM

YANBU. But John Lewis has gone downhill a lot in the last few years.

Well they can't recoup the loss from royal mail only you can so you need to be chasing it up with the post office.

Which service did you use to post it?

I would chase it with Royal Mail.

Gileswitha I understand that JL didn't lose it. I'm not stupid. And yes, legally it probably is my problem.

My point is, though, that if JL tells me to send things back via Royal Mail, and I follow their instructions to the letter, then I don't think I should be the one out of pocket. If I'd sent it via pigeon post or given it to someone random to drop in on their way past the JL warehouse, and it doesn't arrive, then fine, it's my problem. Other retailers suck up the loss themselves, and so I was just really surprised by JL's attitude - particularly as they are apparently very proud of their customer service

I can claim back £50 from Royal Mail, if it still hasn't arrived in another week's time, but even then I'm still losing out. And so is JL - for the sake of a small (to them) refund, they've just lost a customer who previously spent a LOT of money with them.

But you have the proof of purchase. JL don't.and that can't be claimed for in someone else's name .

Did you request a valid proof of postage from the Post Office?

If not, I'm sorry but I'm with JL on this one. Anyone could say they sent something back, when they just kept it and pester JL for a refund.

ah ok, just read you can claim up to £50 from RM, so you must have PoP as it went recorded. Yes, a bit shoddy from JL :(

YABU. I don't think its shoddy at all. If you sold something on eBay and the buyer sent it back to you for a refund, you wouldn't refund without the item would you? Just because JL is a big company doesn't mean they can afford to swallow this sort of loss, you don't know how many other things go missing with RM so it may well be a new policy they've had to introduce. Tbh if you stop shopping at JL over something that is not their fault that's just cutting your nose off to spite your face - you NEED john Lewis in your life

But if the parcel is multiple items then surely an entire refund is not possible when they have no idea how many items are actually being returned. so a customer could keep the bras then send back the jeans. sending them the Proof only proved there was a parcel sent not what was in it

Proof of postage should be sufficient:
www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-contracts-regulations

YANBU and if I were you I'd be back on the phone asking to speak to a manager or sending an email to their customer care department telling them how disappointed you are and asking when you can expect your refund.

I think this should work on a case by case agreement.
As you say, you are very regular customer, they should absorb the cost.
They only have to check your account, to get a 'profile' as it were.
No, YANBU. They are.

I ordered a dress from JL recently. I looked like a sack of spuds in it so I sent it back via Royal Mail as requested. After two weeks I still hadn't received a refund so I rang JL.

They informed me that I should have phoned them before returning the item (although I couldn't find anything in my paperwork or on their website which stated this) and that it usually takes them three weeks to process returns.

When I checked my returns label it was going to some company which was not JL, so maybe it takes some time for them to receive returns back if everything is sent back to a large warehousing facility.

I got my refund eventually.

I was just about to jump in with the Consumer Contracts Regulations, but see soloula has beaten me to it! Yes, contact them again and remind them that the law changed in June 2013 and they need to comply with it.

I don't shop on eBay because of this sort of issue - you don't know who you're buying from at the end of the day. So if I bought something on eBay, and this happened, I'd probably shrug and never use it again. This is precisely why I buy from companies like JL - to avoid this sort of thing. (Or so I thought).

But I have proof of postage, and the weight of the parcel is also recorded on the receipt, so if they could really be arsed they could work out whether it was likely that I'd actually sent back the returned items that I was claiming.

I guess I could be trying it on, but then again with 10+ years of shopping online with JL and never having tried this before, it would be a pretty long game I was playing out just in order to swindle them out of a whole £77.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable at being surprised at JL's stance. I accept that I am being unreasonable at assuming that they'd handle it differently though, IYSWIM.

Lesson learnt though - I have realised I do not need JL in my life as much as I thought I did

I hope you're not going to let it go though giraffe as they're the ones in the wrong. I had a similar experience with Amazin recently - faulty item broke after their 28 days returns, their call centre insisted tough luck, I insisted they were wrong and quoted the sale of goods act in a strongly worded email to customer services. Got an apology, my refund and a month's extension to my prime membership for the hassle. It's worth persevering as they're in the wrong.

Thank your soloula and muminhants1 - that's very interesting. I wasn't aware of that. I will look into it and email JL to see what they have to say...

Theworkofsatan, I know it goes to a 3rd party warehouse that JL contract their clothing online orders out to, and it can sometimes take a while for them to process the refund once they've received the parcel - but they definitely haven't even had the parcel yet (unless Royal Mail just haven't scanned it when they delivered it). But your story gives me some hope!

Just so pissed off with the whole thing.

I agree that customer service is deteriorating. I ordered some clothes a few weeks ago from JL to pick up in my local Waitrose, something I do quite a lot. Total value was around £300 and the main thing I really wanted was a skirt which was £145 (and that was half price in the sale).

When I picked up the parcel I checked the contents at the desk and found that instead of the skirt there was a jacket. When I pointed this out the lady in Waitrose rang JL. I explained and was told there were no more skirts and they would process the refund straightaway. When I got off he phone I tried to return the jacket to be told that the system showed the refund had been already authorised and I couldn't return the jacket. This had all taken more than 20 minutes and I had to leave.

I later got an email from JL saying that I needed to return the jacket before a refund could be authorised and providing me with a number for this. I took the jacket back the next day but am still waiting for the refund more than 10 days later. I complained because of the disappointment and inconvenience, but got nowhere. I thought they should try to source the skirt somewhere in their stores, but they didn't try.

YANBU in my opinion. John Lewis I assume paid the postage, so I'd have thought they have the arrangement with royal mail rather than you.

A similar thing happened to me. I returned 3 boxes of shoes to Clarks using collect+ as suggested on the returns form. It arrived, but 2 boxes were empty. Clarks tried to say maybe ask collect+, but collect+ said 'no this is definitely for clarks to refund then pursue with collect +, not you'.

I filed a claim against clarks using small claims court and they paid up, incl the claim fee and interest. Quite interesting in the end..

To be honest it did put me off ordering from them again. I frequently order stuff from House of Fraser, Debenhams, Marks and Spencer, etc and have never had any problems receiving refunds when things have been returned. It's usually a couple of days to a week before the money is back in my account.

Either JL's returns policy is a bit slow generally or there is a problem at their warehousing facility. Proof of postage with Royal Mail should be enough to evidence that the items were returned, even if Royal Mail have subsequently lost your parcel.

John lewis are way way overrated imho.

Really disappointed in the in store customer service tbh.

If you receive proof of postage there's nothing else you can do. The regulations are there to protect customers as there's no way once it's been posted for you to know it's been received unless it's sent recorded which few companies ask for or offer to pay for - most just provide prepaid labels. It would be very easy for less scrupulous sellers to say they never received anything and you'd just have to take their word for it, hence the reason that under the regulations proof of postage is sufficient evidence of you having completed your end of the deal.