Yeah… well our dad is Bruce Lee!

Recently we have had an international customer, who we shall refrain from naming, who has attempted to get his purchase from us for a reduced price by threatening to make posts on our social media sites and attempting to ruin our reputation if we did not meet his demands.  Obviously he was not the first and will not be the last and while we always deal with customers with the utmost respect and professionalism, we just had to tell people about this one.

This all started when the customer had not given us his complete delivery address so when we shipped his order it was returned to us undelivered and he then had to pay for the shipping again. He voluntarily agreed to do this and we then shipped his order again with the correct address info.

A few days later we received an email from the customer saying he had received the shoes but they were dirty and damaged and that he was very disappointed, firstly with the address issue and now this. We replied expressing our concern and confusion as we inspect every item before shipping without any exception (as anyone who has ordered from us previously will probably know) and these had passed the inspection. We asked if he could clarify what had happened and if he could send us a few photographs showing the issue he was referring to.  He then sent us photographs showing the shoes which were obviously dirty and could not have passed our inspection unnoticed. He then went on to say that we should send him some new shoes and make them an honest price?

At this stage we started to become suspicious as we knew the shoes did not get shipped in that condition and his request to make the shoes a fair price seemed to suggest that cost was part of the issue at hand. We then explained that the shoes were not shipped in such a state and if he received them as such then they must have been interfered with during delivery and that we would need to contact the couriers involved, to which he replied:

“I have paid more than 200€ for damaged and dirty shoes. And that’s it. There is absolutely no chance that someone wore them during the shipping, come on. Plus, they arrived without box.

 

Here is the deal I suggest you. You refund me 100€ for the 3 shippings, and for the damage, and for the dirt/damage issue, and I keep those shoes, and the pictures stays between me and you. Otherwise I would have to post this pictures on social medias explaining the situation.”

Hmmm, they arrived without a box you say? but what is that in the photo you sent us showing the damage to the shoes?

Why that looks just like the Dr Martens box we shipped your order in? but you say they did not arrive in one, hmmm how very strange?

We then questioned this claim of no box , told him we had nothing to hide regarding his threats of social media exposure and that we were handing this over to the courier company to investigate, to which he replied:

“I agree to help you in this investigation. But, I want you to understand that I can simply not pay that much for those shoes. So I ask you to make a nice commercial gesture about this whole situation. By the way, did you wrap the package in a purple plastic? The package was shipped to my office, the guardian signed it. It was a purple package. Then the brown cardboard package, and then the Dr. Martens bag, with the shoes in it, and in the shoes, wrapping paper.”

Ok, so now they did have a cardboard package, also known as a BOX,  you didn’t actually receive them yourself and after threatening us with social media posts, you now want us to make “a nice commercial gesture” because you “simply not pay that much for those shoes” ?

It was at this stage we realised we were dealing with some kind of mastermind who was playing games so complex that we couldn’t even begin to understand. Despite his threats we decided to offer him a partial refund of his postage as a gesture of goodwill even though he was not entitle to it . The reply we received was laced with expletives which we wont post on here but it did contain the following gem:

“Refund me, or trust me that I’ll make sure that EVERY single of your customers will know that, and I’ll make sure that you don’t sell any SINGLE more of your sh!t !  I am a clothe retailer in france and my sister and my wife are lawyers, we won’t let it end like that”

If we are going to get childish then “our Dad is Bruce Lee”

We have seen he has posted a few comments on various social medias so I guess it comes down to who you believe in this circumstance, us a well-known and trusted retailer who can back up our facts with hard evidence or him,  someone who can’t get his own address right, who makes threats and then asks for nice gestures, and who tries to get a discount by claiming his order arrived without a box but then sent us photos showing the box he claims they didn’t arrive in?

Nice try!

As with all retailers, we do get complaints from time to time and the majority of these are dealt with swiftly and with no bad feelings on both parties. We have safeguards in place to ensure our products are shipped in the condition we state and customers are always made aware of any faults or defects prior to shipping, often receiving a discount on the item. We will never submit to threats of any kind. We would just like to thank all of our customers, old and new, who continue to purchase from us.