M&S busted bra story

TRT

There's a story doing the rounds in the National Press about a woman who tried to return a broken bra to M&S and ended up taking off the bra she was wearing.

The comments section seems firmly decided that the woman was either bonkers or pulling a fast one, but I feel some sympathy with her story and don't believe it's so obvious that, having had and used the set of two bras for a fortnight, when one breaks they'd package them both up and take them back to the store.

I'm of the opinion that, as the store had no stock with which to replace the broken one of the two, they could have offered her vouchers to half the value, knowing that she couldn't then return the other for a full refund either, or agreed to post out a replacement when fresh stock was acquired.

I wondered what other people's opinions on here were.

Torry_Quine

Silly woman. The assistant told her correctly that both needed to be returned but didn't say take it off now! She could easily have gone away and changed before going back for the refund although why anyone wouldn't think you need the complete item is beyond me.

aaroncaz

TRT wrote: »

There's a story doing the rounds in the National Press about a woman who tried to return a broken bra to M&S and ended up taking off the bra she was wearing.

The comments section seems firmly decided that the woman was either bonkers or pulling a fast one, but I feel some sympathy with her story and don't believe it's so obvious that, having had and used the set of two bras for a fortnight, when one breaks they'd package them both up and take them back to the store.

I'm of the opinion that, as the store had no stock with which to replace the broken one of the two, they could have offered her vouchers to half the value, knowing that she couldn't then return the other for a full refund either, or agreed to post out a replacement when fresh stock was acquired.

I wondered what other people's opinions on here were.

The story is more that she was felt forced to take her bra off..... she wasn't forced etc.....she was told the refund policy etc.... more to the point is why she felt the need to contact a daily paper?? She was humiliated? Yeah sure...... she got £50 in vouchers, how much did the Daily Mail pay her? Honestly the stupid stories in the Daily Mail lately how ppl are offended and humiliated, yeah more like how much comp they can get!

TRT

Oh, I agree that she should have come back on another day, but IIRC consumer protection law states that any resolution where goods are faulty should not unduly inconvenience the customer. Where's the dividing line? I don't know. If it was a courtesy return, absolutely, it requires the return of everything you bought in that line item, but if you were expecting just to exchange the faulty one mightn't you think not to bring back both items? I don't think we're getting the full story from the paper for sure.

aaroncaz

TRT wrote: »

Oh, I agree that she should have come back on another day, but IIRC consumer protection law states that any resolution where goods are faulty should not unduly inconvenience the customer. Where's the dividing line? I don't know. If it was a courtesy return, absolutely, it requires the return of everything you bought in that line item, but if you were expecting just to exchange the faulty one mightn't you think not to bring back both items? I don't think we're getting the full story from the paper for sure.

Well she could have had a good moan and then popped in the ladies and took it off.... but no, she felt the need to contact the papers.:cool:

TRT

aaroncaz wrote: »

Well she could have had a good moan and then popped in the ladies and took it off.... but no, she felt the need to contact the papers.:cool:

Yes, that bit *is* utterly ridiculous. I can only imagine that scenario as the result of someone losing it with the sales assistant. SAs, especially those in M&S are usually calm, polite and good mannered. Always exceptions though.

POPPYOSCAR

I think it is ridiculous having to take the other one back as well.


What a waste as they would just bin it.




They should have refunded her the whole amount or half if they were feeling mean.

aaroncaz

She did get a refund plus £50 in vouchers, they wouldn't just bin it they send it back to the manufacturers and get their money back.

belisha-beacon

I'm finding this story amusing because almost the same thing happened to my husband (not with a bra, obviously). And to the people saying they wouldn't have expected her to take the bra off, I do think they would have sat and waited for my husband to take his pants off!

He had two that were faulty and the third pair was fine, and he didn't want a refund but a replacement. The woman said she was not authorised to replace them until he gave her the third pair, as they were a three-pack. She was quite insistent. I chipped in with, "When I worked in retail, we could sometimes replace a multi-pack item by taking enough out of a new pack to replace the faulty ones, rather than handing over a whole pack, is that possible maybe?". She then went off and got a replacement pack and handed over two new pairs, and sent the third pair back with the faulty ones. But she was clearly not going to do that without prompting!

So I'm in two minds about this story. On the one hand, I do think it's conceivable that M+S would humiliate someone in this way, because I've had similar experiences which suggested that it's been drummed into them "It's the whole pack or nothing!" But on the other hand, if it had happened to us there's no way my husband would have gone to the press with graphic descriptions of spending 5 minutes pant-less in the shop :rotfl:Especially if they'd already said sorry, given him some pants to go home in and a £50 voucher!

susancs

TRT wrote: »

There's a story doing the rounds in the National Press about a woman who tried to return a broken bra to M&S and ended up taking off the bra she was wearing.

The comments section seems firmly decided that the woman was either bonkers or pulling a fast one, but I feel some sympathy with her story and don't believe it's so obvious that, having had and used the set of two bras for a fortnight, when one breaks they'd package them both up and take them back to the store.

I'm of the opinion that, as the store had no stock with which to replace the broken one of the two, they could have offered her vouchers to half the value, knowing that she couldn't then return the other for a full refund either, or agreed to post out a replacement when fresh stock was acquired.

I wondered what other people's opinions on here were.

She did very well out of the return of one faulty bra and the bra she took off instore (as it was part of a two pack), if the news article is correct. She got her orginal £18 refunded, a new bra for free at the time and £50 voucher as a goodwill gesture. I don't get why she is complaining as she made the choice to take off her bra when at the customer services desk, with a queue of customers behind her. Anyway to answer your question there is a similar post here on MSE which posters seem to agree that if a multipack item and one item is faulty, both need to be returned.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2731855

lincroft1710

She was so humiliated she decided to share her humiliation with the whole world, and among the 695 comments the on line article attracted are some very unflattering ones