A TikTok user shared her experience after receiving the wrong Yves Saint Laurent bag from Saks Fifth Avenue. It only went downhill from there.
The video featured TikTok user Kelsey Autumn (@kelsey.autumn), who launches into the story about her Saks fiasco. The incident took place five years ago around her mother’s birthday. Her mother had been “hounding” her for a red camera YSL bag. So, she and her brother saved for the $700 bag.
Then, the content creator searched for the bag on Google. Saks was the first store to pop up. Delighted, she placed the order. In addition to the bag, Kelsey would “get two-day expedited shipping for free” and free gift wrapping. “That’s awesome because now it’s gonna be a nice bougie YSL packaging for the bag and Saks packaging. Like, what a nice unwrapping experience,” she said. However, she was wrong.
The first red flag was the delayed shipping. It took over a week for the bag to arrive. But Kelsey brushed it off. That is, until the bag arrived. “The bag was tossed in a box with a piece of brown, like, packing paper smashed up against it,” she explained. To add insult to injury, it was a display bag with “divots” in the leather and “wear on the strap.” After attempting to replace the bag, she learned her local Saks didn’t have it in stock. Kelsey still gave her mother the bag for her birthday. But she was thrown another curve ball: It wasn’t the correct one.
“It was the right color, camera bag family, wrong bag,” she said. “The bag they sent me was, like, a smidgen cheaper. It had wrong dimensions, missing some kind of plaque and it was missing a tassel.”
The final strike was when Kelsey contacted her local Saks again. After explaining the problem, Kelsey said the worker was “clueless.” When Kelsey proposed that YSL send another bag, the worker was still confused, so the content creator called customer service. The next person she spoke to proposed a “price adjustment” that would have Kelsey pay the “restocking fee” for the return. Refusing to pay the fee, Kelsey was told her to send “evidence” of the issues with the bag.
Afterward, Kelsey sent the receipts. However, customer service couldn’t help. Instead, she redirected Kelsey to someone who could help her. A glimmer of hope seemed to arise only for it to get crushed. “‘Okay, great. So, just return the bag to us and we just pay the restocking fee and we will get you the right bag out to you,’” he told her. Again, she refused to pay the restocking fee despite it being company policy.
Two days went by. Kesley called customer service again, but tried to approach it differently. She simply said, “Wrong item. Can I get an exchange?” Yet, the worker echoed about the restocking fee. This made the content creator seethe with anger, stating she was going to call her bank and report the purchase as fraud.
After five months she received a full refund. Plus, she kept the bag. Moral of the story? “When a company does you dirty like that, keep a paper trail a mile long and call your bank because they will likely side with you if you are actually in the right,” she said. Since then, Kelsey hasn’t shopped at Saks Fifth Avenue.
@kelsey.autumn Story time – why I’ll never shop at Saks Fifth Avenue again – and haven’t for 5 years. but I guess I should thank them, since they didn’t wanna waive a fee my mom got a free YSL bag and even thought it wasn’t the bag she wanted she still has it added in the Yves Saint Laurent collection. Moral of the story – keep a paper trail. #storytime #luxuryshopping #ysl #badcustomerservice #retail #retailstories ♬ original sound – Kelsey Autumn
In an interview with The Daily Dot, Kelsey revealed how it took five months for the situation to resolve.
“I’m placing that one on my bank and what I’m assuming was a collaboration of them and Saks internal team?” she shared via email. “To be honest – I don’t know why it took that long. However they told me it could, after about a month they told me (I’m 100% paraphrasing here) if they don’t come to a solution with the vendor, in a certain time frame, I’m awarded the refund.”
Prior to this situation, she had been to Saks but wasn’t a big time shopper. Despite not receiving the right purse, her mother had grown to love the display bag.
“My mom likes the wrong bag. As ridiculous as that is, I fought for her and she said the smaller bag is fine, and she doesn’t even mind it’s a display bag and missing some little ‘plaque’ on it,” Kelsey said. “She has received SEVERAL more YSL bags, and lifestyle items from the YSL Rive Droite collection – nobody needs to stress over her as kind as it is. She is fine, and happy – and no she never received the ‘RIGHT’ bag, but remains loyal to Yves Saint Laurent. Just not to Saks haha.”
The video racked up 338,000 views where viewers shared their Saks horror stories.
“Saks sent me the wrong dress and wouldn’t let me return it or exchange it bc ‘it didn’t match my order’.. like yeah that’s the entire issue,” one viewer shared.
“Saks sent me someone’s worn jeans,” a second wrote.
“Saks once sent me a single gucci loafer (probs the other shoe was a display shoe),” a third recalled.
“I have beef with saks too. I got a pair of chanel shoes & exchanged them 5 times bc every pair was worn, not new as they said. Like I paid $1k???” a fourth commented.