I bought a pair of shoes online, after they had been heavily promoted on Facebook, with advertising including the fact that they do “easy returns within Australia”, and supposedly half price for a limited time (which I suspect is ongoing). I bought them via the website, where at the top it still says “50% off January sale until today * Free shipping and easy returns in Australia”.
I have taken screenshots of their return policy, which includes a section “Refund policy” which mentions nothing about exclusions, beyond the fact that returns need to be instigated within 14 days. (I can supply the URLs, but don’t know whether I should be naming the company here.)
When the shoes arrived, over 3 weeks later, I found that the strap over the top of the foot does not overlap the Velcro fastener enough to stay on - it is just too short (despite my having ordered half a size above my usual size, based on their photos). While I do have a reasonably high instep, it is nothing deformed nor highly unusual.
Their refund process turns out to be not so quick and easy, requiring emailing them first to obtain details of the process. After emailing them the first time, they said that they would send me another pair and I only need pay only the postage. I replied saying that I didn’t think there was much point because the length of the strap is the issue and going up half a size is not going to fix that problem.
Their next email said that they had just checked, and as I bought the shoes on sale, “and we have posted on our website that items that are on sale can’t be returned”, also implying that it was a “preferences” issue rather than a problem with their product. Of course I followed up, pointing out what their website said, and that it was not my preference, but the fact that the item was not fit for use.
Next email says, sorry, only following company policy, with a link to a “terms and conditions page”, completely separate from the Returns and refund policy page, where buried among other text it says “Please take note that we don’t accept returns/exchanges for products bought on sale.”
To me this is misleading and dishonest, as any reasonable person would take their Returns page to be the authoritative source of how to get their returns processed, plus they push the “easy returns” policy as part of their advertising.
It’s not a huge amount of money - $44 - but this does not seem right or fair, so does anyone have any suggestions about what can be done next, if anything?