Unable to return an unused horse riding hat bought 24 hrs ago

Wicked_witch

As pinkshoes says, it may well be a safety issue rather than bad service. A riding hat that's been involved in a fall needs to be replaced and the shop can't guarantee that your daughter didn't wear it once and have an accident. They would have to discard a return, I would think.

Naf

Headwear in general often can't be exchanged (e.g. Wigs) just like underwear.

One suggestion, OP; did the shop tell you this size was right and would fit, or did you find the hat and take it to them. You could have an avenue to claim it was not as described if they told you, or picked it out for you.

Moosk

Agree with the above - its a health & safety issue, and very common practice in all tack shops.

You needn't have used the hat at all - but you could have accidently dropped it for example, and damaged it internally. The shop would has no way of knowing whats happened to the hat after leaving them. Visably you can't tell - first anyone whould know about it could be when someone did fall off and the hat failed.

To be honest, I wouldn't just be buying a hat for my child and hoping it will fit anyway. I need the piece of mind that it is correctly fitting and will do the job. Any half decent tack shop will have someone properly trained in fitting riding hats. Like pinkshoes said, I also wouldn't like to think someone else had had mine, or my childs riding hat, potentially misusing it/dropping it (deliberatly or not). After all isn't a fashion statment - for as melodramatic as it sounds, it is potentially life or death.

Whilst there is excuse for staff to be rude, unfortunalty for you, I think you may have learnt the expensive way on this one.