angela's blog

If you recall, a few weeks ago I blogged about the dress I wanted to wear to the rehearsal dinner. I didn't want to pay 98 dollars plus shipping for it so I went on the ebay hunt to get it. I found it, described in exactly the right color and size and everything. 60 dollars, free shipping, size 12, embossed beach dress from jcrew, white, new with tags. Perfect. My past experiences with ebay have been great. I got my Ben Roethlisberger jersey from a guy who sells Steelers stuff and it was fantastic. I got my headpiece for my wedding on ebay. I got a cute little rhinestone comb. So I order the dress on Wednesday, 6/22. I PayPal it, because I PayPal everything I get on eBay. Most of the items (my jersey, my headpiece) came within 2 days of payment, which is generally quicker than I would normally expect although I guess these days with the very affordable cost of priority 2-3 day mail it's pretty reasonable to expect that I could get something within 48 hours of payment. My excitement over this dress knew no bounds. It was bee-yoo-tee-ful. Absolutely gorgeous. I was all ready to wear it with my new flipflops to my rehearsal dinner. But it was taking forever to get here! I waited and waited and waited and waited. Finally on 6/29 I emailed the seller asking her if she'd shipped it. No response. So I'm still waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting ... finally on Saturday it gets here. YAY! I tear open the box ... and it was like expecting presents in your stocking on Christmas morning and getting a lump of coal instead. I pulled the dress out and first of all, it was not the exact style/fabric that the woman had described (which was what I was looking for). My belief is that the seller got the next closest thing she could find on jcrew.com and tried to pass it off as that item. It wasn't white (as you can see in this picture it is, in fact, supposed to be white) as much as it was white with beige and gray squares all over it. It was a size 14. Not 12. And as I pulled it out of the box I saw suspiciously what looked like a discolorment of the skirt. A stain. And after I pulled it out of the box all the way, turns out a HUGE stain. I look inside the dress. No tags. None. Well, I was deflated like a hot air balloon that had been struck by lightning. Ka-boom. Crashing to ground. WHAT a bummer. After all I had been waiting for 10 days for the thing. I quickly decided that my next course of action would have to be to demand my money back. As far as I understood it, PayPal is great because it protects you against stuff like this. But JJ suggested, and I agreed, that the right thing to do would be to contact the seller first. So I did: Hi, I just received the JCrew dress that I ordered through ebay, item #5402531857. I was disappointed to find that the item was not as described. Most importantly, it is a size 14 and was listed as a size 12 (and therefore is a size too big for me). Also, it was listed on ebay as "new with tags" however, there were no tags on it and a good sized stain which seems to indicate that it has been worn at least once. Since it was not as described in the auction I would like to request a refund. Thanks, Angela And then again with the waiting. But last night I finally got this in response: Hi there...I am sorry that you are disappointed...but the dress absolutely is NEW...I listed it as a 12 because that's what I bought it as from jcrew outlet...and as I always wear a 12 and this fit me...I know that this was a mismarked size on the dress.... Outrageous! I'm trying to be a less-than-obnoxious buyer and emailed her again: While it may have been marked a 12 at the jcrew outlet, the tag inside the dress reads 14 so I believe that it was misrepresented on the auction site. Also, the skirt is clearly stained. If you had mentioned the stain I would not have bought this item as I intended to wear it for part of the festivities for my wedding. Not only that but I have no evidence that the dress is in fact new since you implied on the site that it came with the original sale tags and those did not come with the dress. While it is possible that all the information you listed on the site you believed to be true it comes down to the fact that I expected to receive a new, in unworn condition, size 12 dress and I received a size 14, stained product. I am still requesting my money back. We'll see how that turns out. I don't have a whole lot of hope that she's actually going to cave. Then again, that's what PayPal is for and I think it will be hard for her to win this one. I bet you anything I'm getting my 60 dollars back.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper on 7.05.2005 at 7/05/2005 04:08:00 PM | Permalink