LL Bean Customer Service Complaints - page 3

I grew up in Maine and have been going to LL Bean since back when they had that really long staircase up to the front door. I'm talking like 40+ years ago. They've always been pretty good but recently I returned 2 Victorinox "signature lite" knives that had been on my key chains for years and were broken.



LL Bean returns dept called me a week or so later and said they no longer offer this knife (probably because it has a light and a battery in it as well as a pen. Eventually ALL of these knives would stop working when the battery dies or the pen runs dry of ink) and they would give me a store credit.



I agreed and they said they'd email the gift card. I assumed it would be for around $60 since the knives were $29 each back when I bought them.



The email gift card arrive in my inbox and I was surprised to find a store credit for only $8.95 x 2!



After at least an hour emailing back and forth with LL Beans customer service, I was unable to convince them that whoever processed this return made a mistake. A blantant and obvious mistake as far as I could see. But no, not obvious to them! They would not admit to a mistake.



They gave me credit for 2 of the "Victorinox Swiss Army Classic Pocket Knife". According to the LL Bean CSR, The original price was $12.50 and the last sale price was $8.95 when the knife was last offered in 2006. I looked it up and found out that the current version of the Victorinox Swiss Army Classic Pocket Knife is item #TA247024 and cost $18! Yet, LL Bean decided it would be OK to give me store credit for just $8.95? What the heck LL Bean?



I am somewhat of a knife buff/collector and own many knives. I happen to have a "Victorinox Swiss Army Classic Pocket Knife" (that they gave me credit for) and a "Victorinox Signature lite" (the knife that I returned to LL Bean) right here on my desk. I took photos and emailed them to the CSR and still I get this reply...



"I have researched the Victorinox Swiss Army Signature Lite Pocket Knife and am sorry to say we have no history of selling this particular knife, either by catalog, online,or in our stores.

The knife that was returned was identified as the Victorinox Swiss Army Classic Pocket Knife. The original price was $12.50 and the last sale price was $8.95 when the knife was last offered in 2006. The current version of the this knife is item #TA247024.

Please let us know if you have any other information on when this knife may have been purchased, if it was in your name or purchased as a gift for you by someone else, or any additional information will be happy to research this further and correct the refund.

Sincerely,

Diane"



The black knife is the knife they currently sell for $18 but gave me $8.95 credit for. The red knife is the knife I paid $29 for & returned 2 of recently. They no longer sell this model but it is still made by Victorinox.













I replied with an old link to the "signature lite" on their own freaking website! It's obvious that they did sell this knife in the past... until someone realized that eventually, all the signature lite knives will qualify for a return when the ink and/or battery run out.



I am left beating my head against the wall, wondering why LL Bean is fighting me when they supposedly have a 100% customer satisfaction guarantee.



LL Bean you suck!



I'm thinking about returning this $135 lawn chair I bought from LL Bean this summer. The reason I paid big bucks for a lawn chair was because I thought if I ever had problems with it, I would be covered under their 100% satisfaction guarantee. But now I am finding out they aren't really very good at honoring that promise. God help me if/when I have any problems with this chair.

I shipped some defective clothes I bought over the years back to LL Bean for a gift card and this is what I got back from them.

Dear Mr. Fredericks,

I am aware of the conversation you had with one of our representatives. After review of your return, I have found no mail order or retail history for your household. I cannot in good faith give you cash for merchandise that we cannot confirm where it was purchased. L.L.Bean Returns reserves the right to make final decisions on any return.

We are reshipping the products you returned to L.L.Bean. Going forward Mr. Fredericks, we will require proof of purchase in the form of an original receipt on all future returns. I will explain our satisfaction guarantee in more detail.

Our satisfaction guarantee ensures all products purchased from L.L.Bean will perform as they were intended. It is also in place to protect our merchandise from defects & premature wear. We do not have a lifetime return or replacement policy. There are instances out of our control that our guarantee cannot support. I will list some examples, normal wear & tear, weight changes, hand me downs, needing money, death of an owner, or change of climate.

I am sorry for the convenience, and I appreciate your cooperation in this matter.


Sincerely,

Karen

Supervisor
L.L.Bean Returns Customer Service
llbean.com


Thanks for all my years of customer loyalty. LL Bean sucks.

it's been a while since I've ordered by mail...was shocked when I saw my order was being sent to Albany New York.....I do business with LL Bean beacuse it is a Maine company and provides Maine jobs...what is this....

I've ordered LL Bean mock turtles and other items for years. I am sorry to say I will order no more. The black has faded terribly after one season. I have a much older one that it still black and not faded gray. You had a good product, but now, especially with the price increases, I will look elsewhere.

The mock turtleneck shirts I bought a long time ago were made in a different country than is now on the label. I'm very disappointed as they are not as large nor are the sleeves as long as they were. I din't return the last 2 I bought, but I think ll Bean's standards have not been honored as we areexpected them to be.
I found the 1/4 zip fleece tops the same way. They are not as roomy.
I'll just not be buying any of these 2 items again.

Very disappointed in the LL Bean image not being kept when a new maker is contracted with to make these items.

Absolutely Disgusted. Having ordered from LL Bean for years I ordered a dress from the signature line which did not fit. returned it the very next day and then heard nothing. To make a long story short:
I contacted customer service 5x about the matter
I received my refund more than a month later than the return
The gift cards that supplemented the purchase were not sent express mail with the refund ck as indicated
The two $25 gift cards are apparently on their way and are in the form of a $50 gift card (I was planning on giving the 2 cards as gifts as I will not be using LL Bean again)

Over all the experience was horrendous. Promised phone calls (which I never received), lots of apologies, completely mishandled and they have lost my business forever.
I am a very patient person, do thousands of $$ in online shopping each year and am VERY aware of return policies etc.. I have absolutely lost my patience and am now stuck with a $50 gift card. At least I finally received my check for $99, an hopefully there isn't a hold put on it at the bank, which would be the icing on the cake

I have been a patron of this store for years and they have just gone down, down, down. The South Windsor, CT store is terrible. No one knows what they are doing or where you can find anything. The maintenance man actually knew where an item was when I couldn't get an answer from any of the service employees. Maneuvering their website is impossible. Error upon error upon error and I cannot ever procure an item. I used to travel from CT to Maine every year for 20 years just to have the LL Bean experience. That stopped 2 years ago. Too bad, but...hello, Cabelas and Eastern Mountain Sports! These are 2 companies that are reliable and offer a much less stressful experience.

My sister ordered gifts for my husband and me from LL Bean and I ordered gifts for her and her husband from LL Bean for Christmas. I asked for theirs to be boxed and shipped on Dec. 15, closer to Christmas. She had our gifts sent and we received them today.
I received a corduroy big shirt that could not be boxed and my husband's shirt came boxed. The box was crushed and the box itself is not attractive. The green ribbon and bow were all twisted and crushed. I paid $6 each to have their gifts boxed, but am now sorry that I did. To add an ugly, crushed brown box with a twisted ribbon to put under their lovely tree for Christmas is certainly not worth $6. I could have had their gifts sent to me, wrapped them myself and sent them to them in the mail for less than $6 each. I realize that the gifts get thrown about in transit (and I'm sure that would be your excuse)so why would you charge $6 for this. Why not, let's say, 10 cents for a box to put the gift in???? Never Again.

Why do returns take so long to process? I ret'd a jacket which was received at the Bean warehouse on a Tuesday, according to delivery confirmation receipt. still no word (i am supposed to get an email when they open my return) and it is friday afternoon. Customer Service person I spoke with said 'we process thousands of returns each day' which I'm sure is true. This begs the question - "why don't you hire more people to process returns?" This is not the post Christmas rush season - it's early fall!

Made a order, system did not recognize a new address and wanted to correct it to something else. I said no use what I entered. System ended up putting what it wanted. I noticed the error contacted them all they had to do was put a different floor on there. The CS was like uh no impossible you have to cancel the order in order to correct it. This means re-order after waiting 3-4 days to process. Really that is just silly, every other company i ordered through could correct it before it shipped. I told them i would go elsewhere and the dude said thank you. Seriously!? Wow, lands end has come through every time for me my fault or not. Going back.

My wife and I were next in line waiting to approach the register. We were the only people in line and then another customer came up to stand beside us. This is Maine, the way life should be they tell me. No way.

When the first customers left the cashier shouted out sir you will have to stand behind that woman (who arrived a few minutes after us). It turned out that I did not see a sign that said the line formed where that woman was.

The clerk could have simply asked who was next but instead ordered me to the back of the line which was now three customers deep. I told her we had been standing there for quite a while and no one was in line. She denied seeing us and was extremly rude.

I was a loyal customer with purchases going back decades. My wife has a disability and I could not believe this was happening. That sign was not visible from the angle I approached the cashier and she had to have seen us standing there. The others admitted I was there before them.

We bought the merchandise, which on second thought I should have just dropped off at the desk.

As I left, I saw her and one of the customers have a good laugh. Well I filed a complaint and am warning you that you too could be the victim of the Cashier from Hell at LL Bean.

yes, I agree...customer service leaves a lot to be desired. NOTE to person at the other end of the customer service number: Please don't tell me "If LLBean does not issue a refund, I personally will" - right. If you ship me defective merchandise, you should issue a recall at your expense not mine. It is not acceptable that I have to reorder and THEN get my shipping costs removed from a new order. If an item is defective, do I want another one? I think not. Actually, I am done with your company. And apparently I am not alone

i returned items with reciept and got a gift card i dont want to shop there again and u give me a gift card

Got a $100 gift card 3 years ago and bought some bedding with it online. Wrote down the balance on the card at the time and haven't used it until today, and it was no longer valid.

Call the balance inquiries which transferred me to a customer rep, who told me she'll transfer me to another customer rep, who said she couldn't find it in her system, that either the 3rd party(CityReward Program) did not process it properly, or if I haven't used it for a while it might have been purged out of their system. She then asked me to wait for another customer rep, whom I assumed would be better equipped to help me, ie. have access to their archive system, but the guy just said no, the balance on the card is zero and thank you for calling. I pressed on and asked, you did find the card in your system then and it shows $0 balance? He then admitted that he basically yielded the same result as the previous 2 reps, but the guy just decided to lie about it to get rid of me. When I told him what the other woman said about the card being possibly purged out of system due to long inactivity, he just said no no no, it was purged because it was all used up.

Right! Way to help your customer!! I had about $20 left on the card, which I'll consider donation to LL Bean for recruiting such incompetent customer reps, and that'd be the last of my money they'll ever see.

LL BEAN has provided us with superb service for many years. I have an excellent xrecord for paying my bills.

I was amazed when their card service charged me a fine of 29.9% for being 2 days late paying off my account. I consider this usury and refused to pay! Drop this charge or cancel the account.They canceled and advised me to destroy the card.Three months later the fine has grown to $125. For what? For late payments on an account that does not exist. Do not deal with the LL BEAN visa. I fear they will send a mafia goon to break my legs next!

On 12/5/10, I placed an order for TC258269, Deep Coffee Snow Sneakers, Size 9 1/2.

After I received the order confirmation for the Snow Sneakers, I forwarded that email to [email protected] with a request to cancel the order.

I did not hear anything back from this emailed cancellation request.

On 12/10/10, I placed a different order, for TC25063, Wildcat II Boots.

I then realized that I wasn't sure whether my first order (for Snow Sneakers) had actually been cancelled. I called customer service and asked for the Snow Sneaker order to be cancelled.

Now, a few weeks later, I realize that the Snow Sneaker order went through, and the Wildcat II order got cancelled (the opposite of what I requested). Unfortunately for me, the Wildcat boots are now out of stock in size 9. I received shipment of the Snow Sneakers, but they do not fit me properly.

I am throughly frustrated and disappointed about this situation. If my emailed cancellation request for the snow sneakers had been honored, this mix-up never would have happened. Further, if the order for the snow sneakers had been cancelled per my phone request (rather than having the Wildcat order erroneously cancelled), I would have received the Wildcat II boots before they went out of stock.

On 12-20-10, I emailed my complaint to the customer service email account; several hours later, I still had heard nothing in reply.

I then did a Live Chat with a customer service rep, who said they never received my order cancellation email (it came across as a little snarky to me, but maybe I'm being too sensitive). She also said she was sorry, and that she could see how the confusion occurred when I called to cancel the Snow Sneaker order.

I was told there was nothing they could do except have me send the Snow Sneakers back for a refund.

I was disappointed that they weren't willing to do ANYTHING to compensate me for the frustration and inconvenience. I also have to wonder how happens that they apparently don't receive emails sent from Gmail.

In the end, the rep agreed (after I suggested it) that LL Bean would cover my return shipping charges. This does appease me somewhat, but I consider it the LEAST they could do.

A horrible experience all around with this company!
LL Bean is a company where the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. First I was given much confusing and contradictory information about the availability of an item. Then I was told equally incorrect information about the shipping date. Finally when I did get the item, a long down coat, I found the quality very inferior and returned it, handing the return package directly to the UPS representative nine days ago. My credit card does not yet reflect the refund due me, $169.89c. less the return shipping charge. I called LL Bean customer service to ask about this and was told it takes approximately four weeks for that company to refund returns. Unacceptable!

I recently ordered a gift certificate which they ship us mail. Still waiting on it, i have made numerous calls to them, come to find out a 3rd party handles fulfillment, LL Bean could care less! They have rested on their laurels too long. No longer the same company. Do Not Order a LL Bean Gift Card unless you could care less if it ever arrives.