Dressbarn

I was a loyal customer and have bought many items through the years. Not anymore though. A little back story. A friend gave me a $50.00 gift card for my birthday because she knows I love Dressbarn. On January 11 my husband fell and broke his leg and had to have surgery and be hospitalized for 2 weeks and is now homebound for 2 months On January 14th I took that card to the Greenbriar store (store # 676; manager Sheila **) Greenbriar Town Center 13015 Lee Jackson Memorial Highway, Fairfax, VA 22033 on my way home from the hospital and bought a sweater on sale, and a pair of boots. It's where I have shopped for as long as they have been there. The total was $44 and change. The sales clerk pointed out that socks were on sale for $2/pair so I added 3 pair socks and my total was $50.84. The clerk gave me a Dressbarn Perks card and some honey money which I looked forward to using.

I saw no reason to keep the receipt or shoe box as all fit wonderfully and I had a lot going on. It is winter, we heat with wood, and my husband is in the hospital. So I burned the box and receipt. I wore boots three times and the leather (pleather) cracked where my toes bend while walking and started peeling off. So on Friday, February 10, when I was in the area I went to return or exchange the boots. I assumed that even without a receipt it would be obvious that they were damaged from poor quality, not anything my fault, and that I could at least exchange for a different style or store credit. I was ready with my honey money and reward card to buy more items.

The manager on duty wouldn't even look at them. She offered no apology and only said that without the box and receipt I couldn't expect anything. I gave her my honey money and threw the boots in the trash. I told her I would not be back. Ever. I then had second thoughts and retrieved the boots so I could photograph and send to corporate office. Even with all that's going on in my life I wanted to follow through with this and give them a chance to right the wrong. I hope that this manager is not the typical. I understand there's a no receipt, no return rule, but I also know from years I spent in retail that managers have the ability to bend the rules under certain circumstances. If this is how they treat their loyal customers, don't be surprised when they go elsewhere. I already told my friends of the way I was treated. I am ready willing and able to continue an anti-Dressbarn campaign against this store. I can't begin to tell you how disappointed I am. I am adamant that I will never return to the Greenbriar store again.

After being a dedicated customer for many years and having worked at one of the local stores, I am now officially swearing off Dress Barn. Over the past several years, I have encountered many frustrations with the way the store entices you with coupons and sales propaganda only to find that when you get to the store that the sales person will inform you that the coupons or sales do not apply to your items. What a rip off . I find their tactics misleading and fraudulent. I am done. Please take my name off your mailing list, now!

My 1st complaint is on record with Consumer Affairs. This is my second attempt to get help with this horrible company, Dress Barn in Clearwater, Florida, on Gulf to Bay Blvd. After my 1st complaint, I received a phone call from Karen ****, District Sales Manager for Dress Barn, Sept. 7th. She apologized (I thought) for the terrible service and the slanderous remarks from their employee, Marabeth.

Then she went on to tell me that maybe I should consider shopping at another location so I would not run into Marabeth again. It might be more comfortable for me. I explained to her that the employee needed to be disciplined for her action and this is my hometown now and thought that it was pretty pathetic for her to be telling me that I cannot shop in my own area now because they were not going to do anything about it.

Karen went on to tell me that "Shirley" is the actual store manager of the Clearwater store and I should call her if I wanted to come in to shop, just make sure that Shirley was there that day! Can you believe this! I explained that I should not have to organize my schedule with the store manager's and thought it was very unreasonable for her to even suggest such a thing, instead of just disciplining the employee. She made it very clear through the way she expected me to shop out of town that they had no problem with their employee accusing me of stealing my own clothes, even though I had my full receipt with me and accused me of stealing the money that I was returning them for just because I used a new bank card with a different number on it. She asked me what I wanted her to do.

I told her I wanted the employee to be disciplined and a written letter of apology. (I want to sue this company, but was giving them one more chance to show one ounce of character and professionalism.) Looks like we will be waiting for a while for that. Karen told me that she could not guarantee that any action would be taken toward the employee and again told me that I should shop at another location. I repeated this out loud to my husband who was sitting beside me at the time. He was appalled and could not believe what he was hearing either!

Karen went on to tell me that she would send me a letter and a coupon to Dress Barn for all the trouble that I have been put through. It gets better! In the so called apology letter, she included a gift card to Dress Barn for all of $10.! Yes, you read it right, ten whole dollars for all of my trouble,for being accused of being a thief, for the embarrassment of the slanderous remarks flying out of this ladies mouth toward me in front of people that were shopping in the store, that I will undoubtedly be running into around town. It was only worth a ten dollar gift card.

I told her on the phone on the 7th, that in light of our conversation and her unbelievable expectations that I should be the one to leave town or set my schedule to the store manager's schedule that it was quite clear that nothing was going to be done to the employee and I would never shop at Dress Barn again. I told her that I had $187.17 of clothes that I bought there and would be returning. She assured me that no one would give me a hard time if I returned them. So I sent my husband in to the store with the return. (I figured that since I am thinking of filing a lawsuit against the store, I would have no further contact with them.) He went in and guess who was there that day! Good old Marabeth!

He said, "I have a return." She said...If you have too. So It took him a good 20 minutes to return to the car because she was just that slow with her customer service, and guess what now? My refund of $187.17 is missing! It's been five days now and my bank assures me that no transaction to my account has ever been made or even pending! Now I have two calls into Karen **** who will not return my calls and was transferred to the Regional Manager, Trudy, who let her phone ring 30 times and would not answer!

On Friday, 3rd at 1:39 pm, I tried to take 3 blouses back to the Dress Barn on Gulf to Bay Blvd. in Clearwater Florida, with a full receipt, tags on and everything and asked for a refund. I had to use a different bank card because the old one I purchased them on had been closed out after moving down here from out of state. I had another bank card from a local bank that the employee could put them on.

Marabeth the (store manager,) had a ** fit in front of all the customers and started insulting me. First she said that she would not in any way give me anything but store credit and cash was absolutely out of the question. Then in front of all the customers, she wanted to know why I closed my account and told me that I could have stolen these clothes out of someone else's car and am now trying to steal their money too! I was still holding my tongue at this point and reminded her that I have a full receipt with $257.23 that should prove these are my clothes (not that I should have to), and I would be more than happy to show her my ID. (license).

She just started ranting again, how she was not going to do anything for me and reminding everyone in the store within earshot, that these are probably not even my clothes! For all she knew, I stole them out of someone's car. At that point I told here to call her corporate office and I would handle the matter right then and there. She stomped over to the phone and in a very loud voice said, "I will call someone! " I said, "thank you." Then she put the phone down and said, "Okay, I'll go ahead and return it for you. I just don't want to get into an argument about it." This after all she already said and the insults she was throwing around! After the transaction was over, she looked at me and said, "Next time we will do it the right way!" I calmly explained to her that It was done the right way. I had my receipt, a valid bank card and offered my ID, and all I wanted was a simple refund. She informed me in her insulting tone, "It's not the Dress Barn Way!"

I called Dress Barn customer service, talked to Serena, Saturday, the 4th at 2:32 and filed a complaint against the store manager and was informed that they were very sorry, there is no excuse for any of their manager's to ever act that way but probably nothing will ever come of it. She could only pass the complaint along to the district manager (Karen B. ) for a formal complaint to be filed, but if I don't hear from anyone, I can always call back. She said that Karen would call me at her convenience. I asked why she couldn't call at my convenience after all that I have been put through.

Now the attitude started from Serena, the customer service rep. I finally had to say, "You need to calm down, you are supposed to be resolving conflict, not creating it!" Then more attitude went flying. "I can't make Karen read her e-mails, or call you back, this is a holiday weekend, I can't go to her and say Karen please call this woman back! It might be next week sometime before anyone even looks at their email!"

Maybe the corporate office and store employees of Dress Barn should call (BP) for some (more) outstanding business advice and training skills. I will never shop at your stores ever again. Apparently you can afford to lose customers who spend 2 or 3 hundred dollars per visit. How do you treat the ones who can only afford one blouse? Your company is truly pathetic.

Now, I have over $200 of blouses in my closet and know if I try return them, I will go through all of this over again. The damages are in my finances and trusting the wrong company and my personal reputation as a law abiding, honest citizen who was accused of stealing from someone's car and accused of trying to steal the money from the return! It would be bad enough to have this happen in private, but in front of an entire store of customers and other employees. This is now my hometown; there might be people that were in that store when she accused me of those things, that I will go to church with or do business with someday who will think I am a thief or break into people's cars. This is unacceptable, slanderous and needs to be stopped! I want to see action taken against Dress Barn and the store manager responsible for this.

When purchasing two items in the store, I gave the clerk my bank debit card and said that is how I wanted to pay. The clerk urged me to sign up for a Dress Barn credit card and I said, "no". She said I would get 20% off my purchase, but I refused. I repeated that I just wanted to pay with the debit card and did not want a store credit card. The clerk said I could get 20% off my next purchase, so I said okay, but I still wanted to pay for this purchase by debit card. The clerk said okay, took the credit card and then gave me a receipt after running the card. She also gave me a pink packet that said 20% off next purchase.

Two months later, I started getting calls from a collection company saying I was behind in payments on my Dress Barn account. I told them I did not have an account and had paid for my purchases with a debit card. They argued with me then asked for the number on the top of the receipt, which I gave them. They have continued to call me, almost incessantly and have now put my phone number into an automated calling system, which calls at least 3 times daily at a cost of $.90 each time and increased my last phone bill by $147.00. When they called today and I confronted the caller with the phone charges, her response was, "Well, you are making it more by talking". I said I was returning the items unused and would be suing them for any account charges and the phone charges. She hung up quickly then. I want to sue them for this entire charade, but want to make sure I do it correctly and let the public know about the scam they are pulling.

i went into the store last winter 2006 around the months of Jan. 1 purchased 1 blouse. the sales rep offered me the dress barn card, i only accepted the card for emergency purposes since the did have dress casual attire. the sales rep told me one of the perks they we're offering with the card is that if you signed up for the identity protection plan you would receive a free paper shredder. i never used the card.

In March of this year 2007 i received a bill from dress barn for $9.95 i called to see why i was being charged since i never used the card or requested the identity protection plan. i spoke to rep JP she asked for my basic info: name, address etc.i verified the info then she stated to access your account i would need your Dress Barn account number. i paused & stated if you are offering the identity protection plan thru dress barn & have billed me you should know the account number/she stated they we're a 3rd party biller for dress barn offering the identity protection plan. this made no sense to me i adv her that i was not going to give her may account number this is how fraud happens.

i advised her that i did not want the plan i am definately not giving you the account number. she stated she could submit to cancel the info with the basic info she had. stated since i did not have the info on how the plan worked she could send me the packet and in the future if i wanted the plan i could call back. In March of this year 2007 i received another bill for additional charges. i called again advised the 2nd rep that i did not request identity protection.

I asked for a sup they adv me i had to place my dispute in writing. I wrote a letter explaining as i have here. i even mailed them the info on the plan back which i never opened because i never intended on activating the plan. After this i received 2 additional bills. They responded back after about 4 weeks indicating all charges will be removed. On Tuesday 07/17/07 i received another bill for $62.91 with late fees and past due charges. i do not owe this company any money. this is fraud. i advised them in the letter i have never! received any free paper shredder from them and i adv them in march i did not want the plan. i want these charges removed from this acct.

i have closed the Dress Barn Account due to their neglence and false information. i do not want to pay a bill for the neglence of their representative. if, i had requested the plan and just did not cancel it i would pay for the charges but, i never did nor did i receive any free paper shredder from them.