Returning shoes to my employer: where do I stand?

InaPickle

Hi all,

I work in a shoe shop. As part of my job I am expected to wear shoes sold on the premises by the company. We have to buy them ourselves, although we are entitled to a discount. I bought a pair in November, with which I had nothing but problems from literally the day I bought them, but I have only really been in a postition to return them to the shop for a refund recently for many reasons. This refund has been denied, and I am trying to figure out where I stand in this situation.

This is quite a difficuly one as I have a very wide foot meaning that I can't just buy any shoe and wear it: I had a very small selection of shoes in an even vaguely suitable width to chose from at my place of work, and even though the one I chose was never a perfect fit on my bigger foot, it was better than the rest and I chose to go with it, given the stipulations about me having to wear shoes sold in the shop. Part of the toe piece of the shoes was patent, and from the first day I wore it, it folded over and looked bad. I have never seen that on any patent shoes I have bought before, and mentioned it to a supervisor, who told me that I could only return it if the patent actually cracked (it since has).

In the meatime, the patent folded a lot more, in January I discovered a hole at the side of one of the soles of the shoe, and the patent had cracked. The shoe has kept rubbing up on my heel and has left a red mark I don't think will ever disappear now, and the final straw was last week when one of my toes started to hurt very badly. Naturally, I have kept trying on shoes which come in to the store to see if I could find a replacement pair, and the only pair that fitted really well were MEGA expensive (and I mean really, horrendously expensive. At the time there was no way I could have afforded to buy that shoe as my hours had been cut back to the bone and by the time I had enough money to buy the shoes, they had been sold, not just in our shop, but every pair in my size had been sold in the company. (This same company makes more than one type of shoe but I the majority of them look like trainers and I am only allowed to wear a shoe which looks like a shoe. They fit in an increadibly specialised way as they don't work like normal shoes and so the fit has to be perfect for a customer to buy them.) I asked if it was possible for the company to order in one pair specially for me so that I could have some comfortable shoes to wear, and my manager said that it wasn't possible as they could only order them in batches of a dozen, which I understood.

Last week a representative of the company came into our store to conduct shoe training with us. As a special deal he offered us a 75% discount on these very expensive shoes (presumably as an enticement for us to wear them on the shop floor and get more customers talking about them/buying them). We have to pay that company directly but order via our boss, and Mr Salesman has said that I can get the shoe which fits me, so I'm naturally delighted. Those other shoes are really unwearable and look an absolute state, so in the meantime I've comandeered a pair of my mum's shoes which I bought at work for her (she's the same size as me), which don't fit perfectly either as the sole is shaped rather than flat, meaning that I am constantly walking on a ridge on one of the sides of my feet, but it's bearable for the next week or two until said shoe arrives at the shop.

This means that, as a result of now having pair of shoes sold in the shop to wear, that I can now bring the other pair back. I took them to my boss today (I tried to do it the other day with the assistant manager when she was off as it was the first real opportunity to do so), and she said that I can't have a refund as they (the company) would not be able to get any credit with the shoe manufacturers for the shoe. I feel that this is very unfair (and quite frankly, whether they can get credit with the manufacturer is not my fault or problem), but I consder that those shoes are and have been defective for quite some time, and that I am being treated somewhat unfairly: I never would have bought those shoes in the first place it I was not obliged by the company to wear something sold by them, and I would have returned them earlier if I could have found something suitable with which to replace them. I want to put the money from the old shoes toward the new shoes, which customer tell me last five years or more.

My manager said that the regional manager is visiting tomorrow and that if I left them in my locker that she would show them to her and see what she said. I said that I didn't think that 5 months was a suitable time for shoes to fall into that state of repair (honestly, they are REALLY horrible), and that I have never had a pair of shoes fall into such a state of repair in my life (honest truth). My manager countered with the fact that she has bought four or five pairs in the past year, but why should I have to part with so much of my meagre earnings to buy sub-standard shoes, which don't even fit me correctly?

I know the SAD FART rule, but what is 'reasonable' for a pair of shoes? I consider it more than five months, particularly given the fact that one of the supervisors gave a refund for a pair of shoes bought in October last week (which tells me that they do, too). Of course, the fact that I'm an employee muddies the waters a bit as it could make my life difficult, but I'm feeling an injustice here, and would like any advice anyone can offer (especially any friendly legal egals! ). Also. if I wanted to take it further (or bluff that I would), what would be the next stage in proceedings?

Thanks in advance.

OlliesDad

Put simply, if your employer refuses to help, you would have to go through the small claims court, which i am sure you won't want to do with your current employer.

If you think of it this way, you would only be entitled to a partial refund (or repair/replacement) if it went that far, so the fact you are now getting 75% off the new shoes would make it about even.

InaPickle

OlliesDad wrote: »

Put simply, if your employer refuses to help, you would have to go through the small claims court, which i am sure you won't want to do with your current employer.

If you think of it this way, you would only be entitled to a partial refund (or repair/replacement) if it went that far, so the fact you are now getting 75% off the new shoes would make it about even.

Thanks for the advice but those other shoes are being bought directly from the manufacturer with no payment being taken or processed by my employers. I think the manufacturers have just asked them to make a list of who wants what to ensure that nobody orders shoes they have no intention of wearing and then sticks them on Ebay to make a personal profit.

Also, they gave a 100% refund to a man this week (not last week as originally thought, upon reflection) for shoes bought before mine and with much less visible damage than mine.

Having said that, I accept the fact that I may be about to not receive as much help as a customer would simply cos I work for them.

Thanks for the advice, though! :T

maninthestreet

"Returning shoes to my employer: where do I stand? " - barefoot??

InaPickle

maninthestreet wrote: »

"Returning shoes to my employer: where do I stand? " - barefoot??

:rotfl: in my socks, more like!

Dizzy_Ditzy

get someone else to take them back for you when there is someone there who doesnt know about your shoe saga?

dmg24

queen_of_cheap wrote: »

get someone else to take them back for you when there is someone there who doesnt know about your shoe saga?

Did you get that from the book 'How to get sacked for gross misconduct'?

missymugwump

Are we talking Ecco here by any chance ?

InaPickle

missymugwump wrote: »

Are we talking Ecco here by any chance ?

No, but I have heard similar stories about them...:(

And alas, Queen of Cheap, I bought them on my card so nobody else could take them back for me, but good thought anyway!

InaPickle

Anyway, my area manager was in today and she and my boss looked over the shoes and said no go. I'm not happy, but there is little else I can do about it, so case closed. Thanks for your advice all. :T

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Just wear them at work, keep stopping to rub the blisters and looking incredibly uncomfortable. I would think that an employee who looks in agony is going to reduce sales, after all?