To never shop at Zara again?

[Avaximitis]

I feel like I've had a terrible customer experience with Zara.
I bought some clothes for my 11 year old DGD for Christmas presents. I bought them online on 9th December and gave them to her Christmas day.
On NYE I was admitted to hospital with pneumonia and stayed in hospital for 2 weeks. I needed oxygen and IV medication and have been very unwell.
I returned home yesterday.
Family visited when I got home and DD gave me 3 of the Zara items back, apologising that they do not fit. Unworn. Tags in place. Simply too small. DD said she couldn't return them to me whilst I was in hospital receiving oxygen, for obvious reasons, so waited until I got home.
I have spent 1 hour today talking on their 'chat' system. They have no customer service telephone number to call, which I much prefer. Anyway I asked for a real person and not an AI bot and was connected to a person. I explained everything and asked if I can return these 3 items. I explained about being in hospital and I explained that whilst I was in hospital I missed the 30 returns date. I explained I got home yesterday evening and am contacting them today at my first opportunity. I explained the items are unworn with tags in place. I have checked, and none of the items are in their January sale. They are all in stock and all full price.
The associate I dealt with point blank refused a return. It is 6 days too late.
Despite them being bought for Christmas present so there was 3 weeks until I actually gave the items to DGD. And despite the fact I have been in hospital.
Not one ounce of sympathy.
No extended Christmas returns period.
No telephone number to call.
No display of understanding of my situation.
A total refusal to accept a return when it is only 6 days late.
I'm staggered beyond belief.
Truly unbelievably poor customer service.
I can't believe it.

I’m with you on this OP, this sort of stuff does bite them in the arse eventually. Just reading this annoyed me enough never to shop there again as I hate this sort of inflexibility. In general I prefer to pay a bit more to have a bit of reliability and decent customer service.

I tried that yesterday. There are none of the items showing in my account. It says "If none of your items are showing it is because 30 days has elapsed since the date you ordered them. This means you cannot return them."
So it's not even 30 days from the date of delivery, it's 30 days from date of order.

That won’t always work as in some stores the barcode will show on the receipt. And each size has a different barcode number. So they’ll see it won’t match.

Because the contract is with the buyer and the shop. Legally Only the person who actually bought the item is allowed to return it.

Agreed. If my daughter has been gifted clothes from my Mum who was terribly ill the last thing I would do is expect my Mum to return them! Also, I would likely have known Zara are difficult to deal with and asked my daughter to stay quiet so as not to upset my Mum. Actually I think I would have already been in Zara and asked for a credit note.

I wouldn’t buy clothes as a gift in future OP unless specifically asked for. They’re so difficult to get right and now everyone probably feels bad about the whole situation. I’m glad you’re feeling better.

It’s awful,you’ve been so unwell, but shopping at Zara in the first place was where things went wrong. As other have pointed out, they sell horrible quality nasty plastic crap shaped into clothes.

Take this as a one off harsh lesson to never buy there again and instead support ethical garment manufacturers who sell better quality items.

If full price return say lost receipt then should get an exchange. Worth a try ivr dine it before.

Vote with your feet !@

If they bend the rules for one person then that means they need to bend the rules for everyone. That just isn’t feasible.
in future you need to buy items and ensure you are fully informed of the returns policy. This is surely even more important when it is a gift for someone else. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I’m sorry it’s happened to the OP. Hopefully others will be more informed after reading this thread.
you are unreasonable though. Sorry. The company we’re following policy

Family member who gave you back the items should not have done so. Rude, especially since you have been so ill. Hand them back again and if they are brave and bright they can go to Zara themselves and 'make up' a little story about gift received, tags still on, no receipt available as relative in hospital...could Zara just swap to correct size, in store. Most likely ok. Good luck.

I vowed never to go to Zara again.
In store, I found the cashiers to be rude, abrupt and unhelpful.
No help to you, unfortunately.
Perhaps trying to contact head office, email, or physical letter, maybe providing a copy of your hospital discharge and plead your case.
I hounded Debenhams for a refund (they have no phone number either) and eventually they returned my money (it was a postage charge for a piece of furniture they never sent)
Hope you are feeling better.

I do wish posters would stop being critical of my lovely DD.
She thought she was doing the right thing by returning them to me as soon as I was home so that I could return them for a refund. She didn't want me to lose money on 3 items that were rather expensive in total. She knew I'd bought them online which meant there was no paper receipt so she knew it required me to log in to my account to process an electronic return. She sat with me to help me do it and said she'd take them to the post office to send them off. What she DIDN'T know is WHEN I ordered them. I never discussed this with her. For all she knew, I could have ordered them on 20th December in which case the returns would still remain in date. She didn't know I'd ordered them over a month ago.
She didn't return them in store whilst I was in hospital as she assumed she'd get nowhere without a receipt.
My DD is a lovely, thoughtful girl and I won't have people on here being so downright critical and quick to judge so negatively without knowing the details.
Why would people even start commenting on this as a totally irrelevant point to my post which was about Zara customer services and was not about my DD!
And as for people saying my actual DGD should have taken them back herself - she's just turned 11!!!!!!!!
To everyone who has posted about my DD, your posts have quite upset me.
To everyone who has replied helpfully and supportively, thank you for your much appreciated posts.
I've decided to leave it now. I tried WhatsApp and asking for a manager and got absolutely nowhere whatsoever. And I'm not well enough to travel into the nearest Zara store 20 miles away and deal with this in person.
Other events have happened since I first posted which I need to now turn my attention to.
I will give the clothes to charity.
Thank you again to the nice posters.xx

@Avaximitis Zara won’t return anything in store without a receipt so your daughter couldn’t return them! And she probably assumed you had extended Christmas returns - I thought all retailers did this!

The issues like slave labour, stealing from indie artists, and anorexic models should be the reason to boycott them tbh.

If you had supplied that info about your dd in your first post - along with all the information that you gave re your medical issues - then the answers would have been different. People aren’t mind readers.

I wrote a post about Zara.
I didn't write a post about my DD.
There was no need for me to include all those details about my DD in my OP. I'm only doing so now in defense because people like you are criticising her.
Most people on this thread just replied about Zara and understood the point of my post.
Unfortunately a few people, including you, went complete off on a tangent and leapt to negative criticisms about my DD's actions, which were irrelevant to what I was complaining about.
And then instead of apologising to me for upset caused, you've now turned your criticism on me, when I have explained in my OP how unwell I have been.

Hi Original poster,

I read this thread the other day and I thought some of the replies was so unkind to yourself and your daughter. Nobody wants to read replies that are aimed at their child and especially as you have been so unwell and I would imagine still not fully recovered.
You will find that a lot of posters on mumsnet thrive on post like yours where they can stir things up and encouraging other posters to do the same with their wicked post.
These posters are probably unhappy in their own lives so get a kick out of making others unhappy with their unhelpful posts.
There is nothing we can do about these certain posters other than feel sorry for them that they stoop so low to feel better about themselves for all of 5 mins.

Going back to your problem with Zara I would save yourself the stress whilst you are recovering and maybe sell the items on vinted to recover some of the money back.
Always remember it doesn’t matter what anybody says about your daughter it is only you who knows her well and that she means the world to you.

Wishing you a speedy recovery and all the best. X

This is for all those posters who have replied to this thread with very upsetting replies about this poor mums daughter who let’s remember is just 11 years old. In future just stop and think before you reply to any posts making comments on their children. Think how you would feel if it was your child that posters were making nasty comments about. Read posts properly to get a better picture and like understanding the age of this mums daughter. Also realising that the poster has been and still is very poorly and your comments will not be helping.

Lastly if you really feel you don’t have it in yourself to be kind with your comments then don’t reply at all, move on and allow yourself to be a better person.

Have you ever visited AIBU before?!.....

I had a similar situation with another retailer. I went to the shop as soon as I was able and a very reasonable assistant gave me a cash refund despite me being technically too late to return the items. It might be worth trying to phone the nearest Zara store and ask to speak to the manager.

Giving the clothes to charity means you do not get a single penny back, at least selling them on Vinted you will get a % back.

ignore the nasty comments. Your daughter had enough going on with her mother in hospital. Mind yourself.

Only just seen this thread, no help to you, @Kingscallops but I noticed this year that retailers weren't being generous at all about returns after Christmas. I waited until almost Christmas to order expensive clothing for my older kids as I'd checked their returns policy (28 days) before ordering.
It's closing the stable door for this Christmas, but would urge everyone to check return policies for next time before clicking 'buy now'.

I did also notice, however, that our supermarkets had very generous return policies, (obviously not talking foodstuffs!) so maybe that could be a thought.
Sorry if this has already been suggested, haven't RTFT.