I find the Americans particularly willing to replace items or make up for errors. I recently ordered two T shirts on the net for Adam and his girlfriend. Because the company couldn’t deliver in time for Christmas as promised, due to production problems, they gave me the shirts for free and an $85 credit for their online store! That would NEVER happen here. I’d have to fight to get my money back. Thankfully the shirts arrived on Christmas eve!

I also take the same approach when I’m complaining, I never get annoyed, never raise my voice, just explain my problem - I rarely get to the end of the explanation before I get a refund, it works every time.

I once ordered a bed for my youngest son from a major department store. Well, it didn’t come and didn’t come and weeks went by and phone call after phone call got me nowhere, so I wrote a letter to the Manager of the store. I told him that I really needed that bed because I had the only 4 year old boy in our neighborhood who went to a psychiatrist so he could lay down for awhile. The store manager called me and we chuckled and the bed was delivered two days later.

The telephone company had my last name spelled wrong for a long time and again I got no where with the gnomes who worked there so I wrote to the President of Bell Telephone Co and told him that we had two choices. (1), they could correct the spelling of my name, or (2), I could go to court and have my name legally changed to their spelling but I would expect the phone company to pay all my legal fees. Again , a fun call from a higher up and a few laughs and the spelling was changed on the next bill….

Nancy I hope I would achieve the same results today. I try not to take the ‘This is bad, I want my money back’ route. Instead I try to point out how satisfied I have been in the past with the products and my disappointment this time, and say how I realise they would want to know when a product is inferior. As I said above we all know accidents can happen on conveyor belts and it gives the company concerned the opportunity to make amends.

I did not set out over the two days to advertise for either company, it was only an explaination of how I dealt with the problems as I saw them. The fact that both were resolved left the companies concerned with their good names.

Loved the story. It’s always a treat to see that a complaint is taken seriously by not one, but two giant corporations, (Boots and Calvin Klein.) They both deserve a round of applause, but mostly, you do, GM, for bringing the problem to their attention so quickly and for sticking with it.

Cheers to you. Here’s a good question.

“Do you think you would have the same result today?”

Calvin Klein knew they’d met their match when they met you. I’m surprised they didn’t offer you a job!

However, it was the romantic gift tag that totally won me over.

Happy memories
Steph