[kil0ran]

Having a dispute with Wiggle at the moment, has anyone else experienced this?

Bought some shoes and as per usual ordered 3 sizes to work out best fit. Total cost around £260. Paid for them partly via credit card and the rest with a £50 voucher.

Kept one pair of shoes, price of these was £85.

Returned other two pairs (value £170). Wiggle have refunded £120 to my credit card and £50 in vouchers and are refusing to apply the voucher to the goods I’ve kept.

Now I can understand that if I returned the whole order, or the retained goods cost less than £50, that I’d need to have a refund in vouchers to the appropriate value, but that isn’t the case here – I’ve kept goods costing £85.

Flat out refusing to refund me entirely to the credit card. Not particularly bothered because I’ll just do a chargeback via Paypal/Amex but surely this policy is incorrect? I’ve effectively ended up paying £85 for a pair of shoes I was expecting to pay £35 for.

Topic

[Joeinpoole]

Wiggle probably applied the

Wiggle probably applied the £50 voucher to one specific pair of shoes in your original order. Their system may be set up so that your original order was actually detailed as 3 seperate orders and the voucher was applied to the first order. When you cancelled that order, by returning the shoes (to which the voucher had been applied), then they refunded the voucher that had been used to purchase them.

That’s the joy of on-line shopping. You say your LBS/Halfords didn’t stock the shoes/sizes you wanted but I’d be very surprised if they wouldn’t order them in for you on a sale or return basis if you were an established customer of theirs. My LBS has ordered non-stocked items for me several times. Shimano are a brand-leader in cycling shoes too so it is not as if you are requesting something obscure or exotic. Your LBS will almost certainly have an account with Shimano or their UK distributor so the shoes would probably have been available for you to try on in the shop within a day or two.

[Anonymous]

(No subject)

[MariaMartinez]

So you paid for three shoes

So you paid for three shoes with cash and a £50 voucher.

You kept one pair and they refunded the other two and gave you your voucher back.

 

I don’t see the problem.

[kil0ran]

pruaga wrote:

pruaga wrote:

I had a similar issue with Wiggle a while ago.  I’d ordered a couple of things in different sizes with an offer something like £10 off a £50 spend on clothing.  For some reason the invoice listed the deduction taken off one item, not off the whole order.  That wasn’t a gift voucher, that was a special offer code on their front page and I was keeping enough things to still qualify for the minimum spend for the offer.  

Of course, the item they deducted it from was one of the things I returned for being the wrong size and it took a long time to get them to give me the full refund.  I came close to just returning everything and making a new order, but they saw sense eventually.  

Looking at the invoice that’s exactly what they’ve done in my case – one of the pairs of shoes is listed as costing £35. Will open another case with customer services seeing as they’ve closed the original one.

[pruaga]

I had a similar issue with

I had a similar issue with Wiggle a while ago.  I’d ordered a couple of things in different sizes with an offer something like £10 off a £50 spend on clothing.  For some reason the invoice listed the deduction taken off one item, not off the whole order.  That wasn’t a gift voucher, that was a special offer code on their front page and I was keeping enough things to still qualify for the minimum spend for the offer.  

Of course, the item they deducted it from was one of the things I returned for being the wrong size and it took a long time to get them to give me the full refund.  I came close to just returning everything and making a new order, but they saw sense eventually.  

[Hirsute]

Jetmans Dad wrote:

Jetmans Dad wrote:

But that model works … they haven’t stopped the return being made. The issue is that the customer feels that having part-paid using a voucher, the voucher should have been applied against the goods that they kept rather than being returned as part of the refund. 

As far as I can see, the only issue is that the OP believes he has been hard done by because he has spent £85 in cash where he believes he should have spent £35 in cash and £50 from the voucher which would leave him more cash to spend in the store of his choice rather than being forced to spend that additional £50 with Wiggle. 

My only question would be … what, if anything, do the T&Cs of the voucher itself say about a situation where the voucher is used as part payment for an order which ends up being part-refunded?

There seem 2 different strands here, one whether it is ok to order 3 sizes and see which fits and two how the voucher should be handled. When I say model I mean the idea that you order more that one item and return one that does not fit.
As to the voucher, I not convinced that just because the outcome is as it is, that this is what should have happened. I’ve used enough systems to know that things don’t always work correctly or work only if you do things in a certain order.
Last interaction with Wiggle was to send a light back that had developed a fault. I had one bloke in one dept telling my to print off a label and send it back to him, so he could get the manufacturer to look at it. Then I get “refunds department” telling me my refund will be issued tomorrow. Then I get the refund on the card and the next day the first bloke telling me they don’t have that light in stock and he will put a credit on my account so I can get another light sent to me! I don’t think that was was Wiggle intended!

[Htc]

hirsute wrote:

Not sure why there is an assumption that the system worked in the way intended…

 

Wiggle are an online retailer, if they can’t recognise in their model that people might need to order more than one item to get a fit, then the model needs revising.

 

When I was looking at new shoes I spoke to Wiggle customer services a number of times and they actively encouraged me to order as many pairs in different sizes as I liked and return all those I didn’t want once I’d tried them on..

[Jetmans Dad]

hirsute wrote:

 Wiggle are an online retailer, if they can’t recognise in their model that people might need to order more than one item to get a fit, then the model needs revising.

But that model works … they haven’t stopped the return being made. The issue is that the customer feels that having part-paid using a voucher, the voucher should have been applied against the goods that they kept rather than being returned as part of the refund. 

As far as I can see, the only issue is that the OP believes he has been hard done by because he has spent £85 in cash where he believes he should have spent £35 in cash and £50 from the voucher which would leave him more cash to spend in the store of his choice rather than being forced to spend that additional £50 with Wiggle. 

My only question would be … what, if anything, do the T&Cs of the voucher itself say about a situation where the voucher is used as part payment for an order which ends up being part-refunded?

[don simon fbpe]

kil0ran wrote:

kil0ran wrote:

Rapha Nadal wrote:

I don’t think that vouchers can be exchanged for cash and any refunds must be issued in the same way they were paid.  A voucher in this case.

Agreed, but the point is I kept goods costing £85, so they should have applied the voucher and charged £35 to my credit card. That’s what they would have done if I’d just ordered the one pair of shoes and not had to do a return. Its sharp practice on their part and means they’re guaranteed a further purchase from me – so they’ll end up selling goods worth £135. I’ve lost my freedom to make my next purchase from the retailer of my choosing. Crazy thing is, if I’d sent back all three pairs and re-ordered one pair I wouldn’t be in this situation. They weren’t even the cheapest for the shoes, the only reason I bought from them was the free delivery and free returns.

Why should they have done that?

It’s not a sharp practice, it might be considered sharper than you practice, but it isn’t sharp practice.

You haven’t lost any freedom, stop being so melodramatic.

You tried to work the system in your favour and got burnt.

It’s put it down to experience time.

[kil0ran]

Rapha Nadal wrote:

Rapha Nadal wrote:

I don’t think that vouchers can be exchanged for cash and any refunds must be issued in the same way they were paid.  A voucher in this case.

Agreed, but the point is I kept goods costing £85, so they should have applied the voucher and charged £35 to my credit card. That’s what they would have done if I’d just ordered the one pair of shoes and not had to do a return. Its sharp practice on their part and means they’re guaranteed a further purchase from me – so they’ll end up selling goods worth £135. I’ve lost my freedom to make my next purchase from the retailer of my choosing. Crazy thing is, if I’d sent back all three pairs and re-ordered one pair I wouldn’t be in this situation. They weren’t even the cheapest for the shoes, the only reason I bought from them was the free delivery and free returns.

[Hirsute]

Not sure why there is an

Not sure why there is an assumption that the system worked in the way intended…

 

Wiggle are an online retailer, if they can’t recognise in their model that people might need to order more than one item to get a fit, then the model needs revising.

[Rapha Nadal]

I don’t think that vouchers

I don’t think that vouchers can be exchanged for cash and any refunds must be issued in the same way they were paid.  A voucher in this case.

[technone]

zero_trooper wrote:

Fifth Gear wrote:

What you have done is create an expensive and time-consuming exercise for Wiggle so I don’t blame them at all. If you are a customer who not only regularly returns items but makes multiple orders with the express intention of returning most of them then it is highly likely the retailer will decide it is not in their interests to serve you any more.

Not Wiggle, or cycling for that matter, but quite a few years ago my daughter phoned in an order for a pair of shoes and wanted advice re sizing. The assistant recommended buying multiple sizes to get the right fit, as returns were free of charge.

It’s a business model.

Depending on what you buy, Wiggle sends return stickers in the box and you can just drop off the items at Asda. It seems weird but I mean, how *are* they supposed to sell items with sizes online without comforting the customer?

As for shoes, buying online is wasting your own time. Bring your phone to a shop, check sizes on the spot and prices online. Rude but practical.

[Anonymous]

Surely at some point in the

Surely at some point in the next four years you will need soemthing else from Wiggle that you can spend the voucher on? If they give you the cash instead and you then spend £50 later on, how are you any worse off? 

[don simon fbpe]

Does that mean you can clear

Does that mean you can clear the shelves the return the ones you don’t want? They should tidy that one up, unless they have got huge levels of stock. But you’re diverting the thread from the real problem of having the voucher returned, which they’re fully justified in doing.

It’s basically a battle between the Sales Teams and Logistics Teams. Free returns increase sales, but increase logistics costs. Everything gets priced accordingly, which is why bigger the better wins in online sales – because they can negotiate the deep discounts with Collect+, DPD, Yodel, etc.

Lower logistical costs, and costs in general have an effect on quality and it’s just a race to the bottom. Ultimately the consumer loses out, as do our fellow human beings.  You should have seen the face on the shoe retailer I was talking to this morning about refusing to buy on-line. We chatted about product ranges, (lack of) quality of brands that do exclusive deals with big retailers and the subsequent drop of in quality, poor service and . He was so pleased that I will support High Street shops (my lbs recently closed toom so that’s 3-4 people out of work).

 

[Author]

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