It’s Just Not App-ening

I’ve heard a lot recently about a clothing buy/sell app that is supposed to have a decent track record and strict rules to protect buyers and sellers. I decide to try it out, mainly because my husband’s favorite style of jeans was discontinued by the manufacturer, and now the only place I can find them is online or occasionally in thrift or second-hand stores. I’ll just call them “Bootcut” jeans for the story.

Almost immediately, I find a good condition pair of Bootcut jeans with the matching [Brand] style number in his size. They’re for sale for only $20.00. With shipping and whatnot, let’s say the total comes to $26.00. This is a steal, considering when they were new these jeans were usually $60 and up.

The package arrives a few days later, but to my surprise, the seller sent the wrong pair of jeans. She did, in fact, have two pairs of [Brand] jeans for sale on her page: the Bootcut pair and a pair of light-washed Dungarees. Not only are these jeans a style my husband doesn’t prefer, but they are two sizes smaller than the ones I ordered. I think to myself that she sent me the wrong pair by accident. These things happen; we can just exchange them. No problem, right? Wrong. So very, very wrong.

This kicks off a two-week long battle to convince this woman she sent me the wrong jeans. I have to get the app support team involved, because she is adamant that she never even had those jeans in her “stock” to start with. She never even addresses the fact that I never received the ones I paid for, and flat-out calls me a liar on the group message window we have to initiate with the support team. It isn’t even about the money at this point; it is the principle of the matter. Also, considering how rambling and odd some of her comments are, I question whether she is totally “all there” or not.

I go to her seller’s page, take a screenshot of both pairs of jeans still side-by-side for sale, with the ones I purchased marked as “SOLD,” and the others still marked as “FOR SALE.” I put this next to a screenshot of my “Purchase History” screen, which includes a photo and description of the item I bought, plus pictures I took of the jeans I received showing they were the wrong ones. I send everything to both her and the support agent helping us.

After that, I will say the app team acts pretty quickly. They give me a refund, and say I can keep the wrong jeans as a “gift,” since the seller doesn’t want them back. By the end of it, my theory is that she was having a hard time selling those Dungarees and sent them to me on purpose to get rid of them. That still doesn’t make that much sense, because the app team took my money back from her, anyway.

I’m sure there are plenty of sellers on the app who aren’t like this woman, but the experience turned me off on the whole thing. The wrong jeans went into a box of clothing I’m taking to a local shelter, so hopefully someone will get some use out of them, and I’m sticking with thrift stores from now on.