Humiliated by John Lewis staff

[FTMaz]

Hi
okay so I know this will seem very trivial to some but it is playing on my mind because I think I am a very reasonable and polite person and feel I was humiliated for absolutely no reason.

so I bought a jumper from a John Lewis store (Sweaty Beaty brand). The jumper was in the sale for £65. I wore it once and washed it according to the instructions. I put it on yesterday and my Mum commented that it had faded, the jumper is beige but I noticed it had a big white patch where the colour had seemingly ran out of it on the front. As I know John Lewis is known for their customer service I decided I would take it to the store to see if they would offer an exchange, I still had the receipt showing it had been purchased recently.

I went to the womenswear till but the queue was massive (I had my 12 week old baby with me) so I went to a till near the shoes. The girl serving must have been about 17/18. I explained to her what had happened and said I wasn’t sure if I could swap it but thought it was worth an ask. The girl was very polite but said she needed to check with a colleague, fine not a problem. She returned with a colleague who didn’t even acknowledge me. At this point there was a now a queue at the till. They both turned away from me and girl number 2 started whispering and inspecting the jumper. This probably went on for about 10 minutes. Girl number 1 then turned back to me and said something to the effect of I’m really sorry but I need to check with a manager…I assumed girl 2 was a manager but again I said okay. She then called someone on the phone. I continued to wait and at this point my baby started to cry, girl number 1 obviously feeling uncomfortable called again and apologised, again fine as not her fault that baby is crying or that manager is taking a long time. So eventually the manager turns up and calls me ‘sweetheart’ okay a term of endearment but I am a 34 year old professional so odd of her to do. Anyway…she inspects the jumper and says she can’t see the white patch, I said to her I couldn’t either until I went into natural light and my Mum pointed it out. At this point I am starting to feel agitated and embarrassed as there is a queue, my baby is crying and I am basically being told I’m making things up so I say ‘don’t worry about it for the sake of £60 I’ll just have the jumper back,’ she then says to go with her outside the store to natural light to show her the patch…seriously? I reply no it’s fine I’m not dragging my baby outside I’ll just have the jumper back. Again she insists I go outside with her and I again say it’s fine I’ll have the jumper back. She then turns to girl number 1 and says ‘you’ll come with me outside to look won’t you’ so they both then walk off and leave me at the till with my now screaming baby. Sometime later they return with ANOTHER member of staff, so now 4 people have looked at this bloody jumper! The manager says they all agree there is nothing wrong with it. Now I am quite frankly pissed off and humiliated and say ‘ I told you I would take the jumper back but instead I have been standing here whilst 4 people inspect it, I didn’t demand a refund I simply asked if it was possible to do anything such as an exchange.’ She replies there’s nothing wrong with it. So I say (probably wrongly so but I’d had enough) ‘if you go on my account you will see how much money I spend in this store, do you seriously think I would make things up to get back £60?’ She replies again there is nothing wrong with it.

for context I worked in retail for years both before starting university, during and after (the irony is I actually also worked in that John Lewis 😂) I get that it can sometimes be shit and people are rude but I was honestly lovely and feel I was humiliated and spoken to like an idiot.

However I am also overly tired from the sleepless nights….so AIBU to wait to complain to the store?

It really makes no difference. If the jumpers faulty, its faulty and you deserve a refund even if that jumper is the only thing you’ve ever bought at JL in your life or if you spent 2k every month in there.

You knew you couldn't see the fault in artificial light and that the store was in a shopping centre, so you were going to have to go right outside to show the staff the fault. And then you didn't want too. Sounds like none of them could see the fault which is why they kept asking for someone else to look, they could have just said initially it's perfectly fine, but were trying to understand what you were complaining about. They did nothing wrong, without you to point out where the patch was in daylight they didn't find it, your problem.

Customer loyalty is not saying to an asst that she should know how much the OP spends as some kind of lever for a refund or forelock tugging.

It's just crass.

Again, ludicrous suggestion, have you babies or had one? So the OP with a very young baby is supposed to do some dizzy dance in and out of shops and time it precisely as the baby drifts off? Is that honestly what you are suggesting, she could literally be in the shopping centre all day hot footing it to JL and praying for peace once in there - that’s not only ridiculous but also hilarious!

Unfortunately when you say things like drag a baby outside then it’s done. At 12 weeks it isn’t being dragged anywhere. Presumably it was in a pram or your arms. If it’s was a 2 year old then I could well imagine some dragging.

OP, why not go to a different JL, find the jumper in-store and when you get to the till you can show how much it's faded after 1 wash and the white patch by comparing it with the new jumper.

The OP explained why she said it so you are being disingenuous, it was to demonstrate that she wasn’t a con artist! Again your opinion on the etiquette and rights or wrongs aren’t relevant.

Oh please! I said the young woman was police and helpful but needed to get a manager
So which part of the event was humiliating?

It used to make a difference to JL, their competitive advantage, their marketing strategy was all about getting customers to be loyal and spend money with them. So yes, spending more money, being a regular customer was very much relevant!

Another person adding parts to the narrative…I say I worked in retail to point out I understand that it can be shit…this is specifically what I say. Not that they didn’t do their job properly. If you want to quote me at least read it properly.

Posters can read.

You called both assts 'girls' which is pretty demeaning. (and your reasoning is you work in a school and call the students 'girls').

You say you assumed one person at the till would be a manager.
Why would you think that?

In JL they have a section manager or a floor manager. It's decades since I worked in retail in a dept store as a student and even then there were no 'managers' at tills.

What you should have done was -

1 Leave your baby at home. TBH with a 12 week old baby I don't know how you could be bothered to do this with a baby in tow - and how you have time now to be on MN in the morning so much!

2 Ask to see a manager as you were returning a faulty item.

3 Been prepared for them to look at it in daylight considering it was 'beige' and shop lighting is crap.

4 Not walked away as it made it look as if you weren't genuine (and maybe you weren't.)

This was obviously supposed to say polite not police! Not her actions they were fine, as my original post says. It what’s comes after.

I don't believe you worked in retail OP. The buy it, wear it once and try and return it with a hard to see fault is a classic tactic by some shoppers.

I think it’s an example of poor customer service. In the end it’s not about the jumper, it’s about creating customer good will. Shops expect to have a certain amount of loss, as in shop lifting, returns that can’t be resold for example and a queue of frustrated customers with a screaming baby at the till for a considerable length of time is not a good look! They should’ve followed the shop policy, whether it’s an exchange, refund etc with good grace then no one would have been inconvenienced and you would’ve gone away feeling that it was a good experience and wanting to continue to shop there in future.

Why are you attributing things to me that I have not said? When have I said that you shouldn't take a baby into a shop, or any of the ridiculous suggestions you made in this post that I am quoting?

Furthermore, which bit of the sentence "Take the baby out of the situation to stop the crying and come back when it isn't crying" are you having difficulty understanding?

I reiterate: apparently having babies seems to rob some women of all their common sense. And their ability to read, and their ability to understand English. It certainly has yours.

Yes I think that might be the point at which you let yourself down, because in fairness if they couldn’t see anything instore that needed to happen before they could do anything. The slowness was frustrating, but were they really rude? Maybe we just can’t hear the tone.

Yes you’re absolutely right new Mother’s have by business taking their babies anywhere. Absolute shame on me. I will no longer be replying to you as quite frankly you’re ridiculous.

I'm just here for the photo "in natural light".

@FTMaz When in a hole, stop digging.

YOU were the one who suggested a few pages back that you should have left your baby at home!

And plenty of posters agreed with you.

I don't believe you work in education (not as a teacher anyway) and if you worked in retail it's not showing in your posts.

Thing is, if the fault can only be seen through natural light it’s never going to show when you’re wearing it. (Not the point of the thread I know).

I think that they were trying to be helpful.
They were actually a bit annoying but I dont see how it was humiliating.
Maybe its the adjustment from Professional to Mum that means you are percieving things differently - I know it was a tricky transition for me

Are you OK?

You seem to have delved into the entire thread in minute detail, and bullied the OP across numerous posts.

And now you are accusing OP of being a troll because she had the courtesy to come back to the thread to answer your random rants.

Yes because it is so rare to work in retail🙄

They were trying to be helpful. Taking something allegedly faulty to a different department to get a refund could be seen as dodgy and then avoiding their attempts to see the fault wouldn't have helped them believe you.

Don't try to patronise me with the 'are you okay ' line.

There are plenty of other posters pulling the OP up on her behaviour and posts.

I'm fine. I am responding to the OP being so rude and lashing out when she doesn't like reading posts that she doesn't agree with.