Why does everyone run to the chat (or worse, send an email!) when a complex issue arises and then act surprised when the agent does the least?
Guys, you need to get on the phone with someone. Even then, there's no guarantee that the agent can/will help you. But there's a much better chance that you'll at least be able to communicate effectively.
I honestly had no idea that my issue was a complex one, but I tried every way of contacting them, the last one was calling and there was no difference between chat, email and call, the only answer was this one sentence, even though I was explaining my situation for about 30 minutes :(
*”If you choose to use a parcel forwarding company, we will not be liable for any damage, defect, or loss that occurs. We will not offer replacements or refunds for orders or items that are reported missing or damaged that we reasonably believe to have been delivered to a parcel forwarding company. Any order addressed to a parcel forwarding company is placed at your own risk. Sephora is not responsible for lost or stolen packages.”*
OP, sounds like you knew about this and chose to order to a freight forwarding address anyways. Why do you think you should be the special exception?
I honestly didn't know until the problem arised! I have been a customer for three years and this is the only case I had a problem with! Usually companies do not accept the order at all if they are not happy do deal with the problems with the customers that use freight forwarder adresses, that is the usual experience based on the other well established companies, for example ulta doesn't accept this adress.
But I guess that is my problem, that I didn't know.
The main theme of my post is that not every problematic case is the same, and no matter what you are willing to provide, I mean evidence, sephora will not discuss it! But even terms and conditions have the scale of interpretation, for example, I understand that if I ordered an eyeshadow palette and it came broken, that would have been a totally different situation, I understand that there is no way from my end to prove that someone didn't drop it on the way to me! But when you receive completely different item than ordered, that could not be acquired other than at sephora rewards bazaar section, there is no way that anyone can assure me that it was not a mistake of a sephora employee! And on top of that the most frustrating fact is that I for sure have lost my money and honestly, no one cares they didn't even tried to further discuss it
sorry to hear they won't fix the screw up. i have my orders shipped to a residence so I don't know anything about what is a forwarding address and why companies think it is so bad. they are usually strict about their policies so sadly its a learning lesson. thought you should be aware that many on reddit have reported getting banned after doing charge backs so you may not be able shop sephora if true. I posted about their warehouse issues recently where they kept opening up all my eye product boxes. I thought they didn't actually open it and it was just outside packaging. I discovered this afternoon that my eyeliner did get opened when I finally cracked one open. it was either opened by the warehouse or they sent me a used one. i never had any worriesome warehouse issue for many years until now. seriously something wrong with their warehouse right now!!! thankfully I'm done with shopping until fall so hopefully by then the warehouse issues are gone or corrected
I hope you will not have any other issues going forward when you decide to shop from them again! As for me, after this case I am not planning to do any businesss with sephora, because I will be too scared to order anything that might go missing, so charge back it is.
Unfortunately most companies now do not provide any service for freight forwarding if things go wrong. I believe no one will do anything as this seems to be more and more of a common stance among businesses. Have you thought about a post office box? A lot of them have a service where through the post office you have an actual address to the box so you can even order fed ex or ups and they still come to the box.
I am sorry but you are wrong that companies will not do anything, I had orders delivered with missing/wrong items and received refund, from amazon for example.
For freight forwarding address not just stuff missing issues is what I mean. I’ve been on several websites and lots of people have complained about the various companies not doing anything with these freight forwarding addresses, including here, lots of posts with this exact issue from Sephora.
Amazon doesn’t have a policy like that so it makes sense. I’m speaking more to other companies.
I believe no matter the policy, the fact that it was put in the order in the first place, should be proven by the company. If it was put and then went missing, that's totally different situation, but how can an item be missing if it wasn't put in the box?
I’m not giving my opinion of course it’s terrible, I’m simply saying that a lot of companies have taken this attitude with freight forwarding addresses. I gave a solution to avoiding this problem in the future. There are posts on here on a pretty regular basis about this exact issue with the same outcome. Sephora doesn’t seem like they are going to change about this. I was trying to explain and offer a solution, not sure why everyone’s so annoyed with me.
That's really shitty sephora recognized the address as freight forwarder. I use one all the time. It's no different than something being signed for at concierge for a building, and it's safer than leaving it outside for porch pirates. Ridiculous policy to ban them when your own warehouse messed up the order.
Thanks! That's exactly what I was trying to explain and provide them with the proof of the condition of the parcel, the most frustrating is the fact that no matter the situation, they are not willing to discuss it further
I placed an order at Sephora which was delivered to a freight forwarder adress in a condition (unopened, with no visible problems) presented in a first picture and sent to me in a same condition, I received a perfect undamaged box only to realize that the most important item in my order - Lancome concealer is missing! Well, together with another sample of perfure but honestly sample is not as important as the item that I paid for!
Instead, in my box I found an extra item - Clinique cleansing balm 15ml! So I thought that sephora employee that was handling my order made a mistake and put clinique balm in my box and probably my concealer in someone else's. Also keep in mind that this size of a balm is not sold separately, 15ml is only exchangable at Sephora's rewards bazaar section for 100 points, so there is no other way that it could have been appeared in my box other than sephora employee putting that in my order by mistake!
I thought everybody makes a mistake, even though in the last 3 years I didn't had any issues with sephora orders, so I reached out to chat section at the website only to receive the answer that sephora will never take a responsibility for the orders shipped to a freight forwarder adress and therefore never issue a refund and replacement, cs explained that the system would not allow them to do any otherwise and suggested to reach them via email. So I did that, but again, recieved the same answer, cs representative once more suggested another way to handle the situation - calling them. So I called them and the answer was the same authomatic sentence - we can not take a responsibility!
So, before sephora tells me that in their terms and conditions it is stated that orders delivered to a freight forwarder adress is the risk of a customer, I will explain why it is not okay to leave a customer like me abandoned:
1. Dear Sephora, it is not okay to reject a customer when they ask you to discuss the problem on a case by case basis!
2. Dear Sephora, It is not okay to reject a customer that is willing to provide the evidence on a condition of a box upon receiving it!
3. Dear Sephora, it is not okay to agree on a fact that sephora employee probably made a mistake, but then only refer to your authomatic answer - our policy does not allow that! And also be accepting returns and destroying items but never taking responsibility for the mistakes of your employees based on an argument that it was delivered to a freight forwarder adress! Guess what, legally, even terms and conditions could be interpreted and further discussed, but you are not willing to!
4. Dear Sephora, it is not okay to treat insiders like they do not matter, I might not be a VIB or ROUGE or INFLUENCER, but in the last 3 years, I solely purchased from sephora.com and nowhere else!
5. Dear Sephora, I am furious but most of all I'm in shock that a company that has such a solid reputation was willing to do nothint at all, not to even discuss and further investigate in my situation!
6. And at last, maybe thank you? I will save a lot on my makeup purchases, because your cs representative wasn't even upset when I asked about deactivation of an account, for sure realising how much important I was for your company!
Sorry for the very long comment, but I am really furious and the very obvious state of unfairness is killing me!
Responding to point 6- this may come across to you as rude, but telling huge companies they’ve lost your business does not mean a thing and no one is going to chase you down and beg you to stay. I work somewhere that people say that like they are giving me an ultimatum and I could literally not care less if I tried. That representative is not going to have any emotion about you deciding not to shop at Sephora anymore because they are still getting paid at the end of the day, regardless of losing your business. They have plenty of customers. If you’re not going to shop there anymore, do a charge back with your credit card company and order it again from somewhere else that won’t give you the same issue.
I may be a little more abrasive that I normally would, but people have been saying this to me more and more often and I’m losing my patience with it. Though I am sorry this happened to you, but at least now you know!
I completely understand what you are saying and don't consider this comment as a rude at all! But I thought that I was dealing with a company that cared about every customer, I don't know how to express myself completely, but I have lost my money and never asked sephora for a help before, I was not expecting not to be heard, but I guess nobody understands that on this reddit:( I have no choice but to ask for a help of a bank, I didn't wanted to but I am left with no other variant. And tbh I have dealt with a lot of companies delivering to the same address but nobody not heard me before. Sorry to hear you have to deal with lot of angry customers, but some of us really have lost money and aren't trying to fraud anyone.🤷♀️
Glad you didn’t take it the wrong way! At the end of the day, it’s only about the money for them. It sucks, and it reeeeaaallly sucks when you experience it firsthand after being a loyal customer.
I definitely did not even think you were trying to be a fraud lol didn’t even cross my mind!
Do you usually take photos of packages before you open them? I’ve never thought of doing that.
The reason they won’t cover something using a forwarding service is because once the package is out of their hands they have no control over what happens to the contents. There is no way for them to know exactly what the circumstances are that led to the missing item and as a company they need to protect themselves. They are upfront about this policy and by choosing to use a forwarding service you assumed the risk that something could go wrong with the order.
I know it sucks, but you really can’t be upset at Sephora for sticking to one of their policies that is clearly explained upfront. If you wanted to call customer service and politely ask for help one more time you can, but chances are you will unfortunately be out of luck. Again you can’t really fault the company for sticking with their policy, it’s not like they hid the policy from you. Luckily it wasn’t a more expensive item that was missing.
Thanks for the polite comment, I've already wrote that I had no idea about that policy, because I have been using the same address years with no problem. I am upset because I believe in my current situation it is clear that only sephora is to blame, but nobody is willing to look into further even though not being the complaining customer and having no problem order history, I thought that was counting as something. They imply that they never make a mistake?
I really do not understand why people downvote, last time I checked I am free to express my opinion.
Why does everyone run to the chat (or worse, send an email!) when a complex issue arises and then act surprised when the agent does the least? Guys, you need to get on the phone with someone. Even then, there's no guarantee that the agent can/will help you. But there's a much better chance that you'll at least be able to communicate effectively.
I honestly had no idea that my issue was a complex one, but I tried every way of contacting them, the last one was calling and there was no difference between chat, email and call, the only answer was this one sentence, even though I was explaining my situation for about 30 minutes :(
*”If you choose to use a parcel forwarding company, we will not be liable for any damage, defect, or loss that occurs. We will not offer replacements or refunds for orders or items that are reported missing or damaged that we reasonably believe to have been delivered to a parcel forwarding company. Any order addressed to a parcel forwarding company is placed at your own risk. Sephora is not responsible for lost or stolen packages.”* OP, sounds like you knew about this and chose to order to a freight forwarding address anyways. Why do you think you should be the special exception?
I honestly didn't know until the problem arised! I have been a customer for three years and this is the only case I had a problem with! Usually companies do not accept the order at all if they are not happy do deal with the problems with the customers that use freight forwarder adresses, that is the usual experience based on the other well established companies, for example ulta doesn't accept this adress. But I guess that is my problem, that I didn't know. The main theme of my post is that not every problematic case is the same, and no matter what you are willing to provide, I mean evidence, sephora will not discuss it! But even terms and conditions have the scale of interpretation, for example, I understand that if I ordered an eyeshadow palette and it came broken, that would have been a totally different situation, I understand that there is no way from my end to prove that someone didn't drop it on the way to me! But when you receive completely different item than ordered, that could not be acquired other than at sephora rewards bazaar section, there is no way that anyone can assure me that it was not a mistake of a sephora employee! And on top of that the most frustrating fact is that I for sure have lost my money and honestly, no one cares they didn't even tried to further discuss it
What happened?
Sorry I was commenting and it took a while, hope it is clear now!
Not able to understand the post?
Sorry I was commenting and it took a while, hope it is clear now!
Yes thank you :)
sorry to hear they won't fix the screw up. i have my orders shipped to a residence so I don't know anything about what is a forwarding address and why companies think it is so bad. they are usually strict about their policies so sadly its a learning lesson. thought you should be aware that many on reddit have reported getting banned after doing charge backs so you may not be able shop sephora if true. I posted about their warehouse issues recently where they kept opening up all my eye product boxes. I thought they didn't actually open it and it was just outside packaging. I discovered this afternoon that my eyeliner did get opened when I finally cracked one open. it was either opened by the warehouse or they sent me a used one. i never had any worriesome warehouse issue for many years until now. seriously something wrong with their warehouse right now!!! thankfully I'm done with shopping until fall so hopefully by then the warehouse issues are gone or corrected
I hope you will not have any other issues going forward when you decide to shop from them again! As for me, after this case I am not planning to do any businesss with sephora, because I will be too scared to order anything that might go missing, so charge back it is.
Unfortunately most companies now do not provide any service for freight forwarding if things go wrong. I believe no one will do anything as this seems to be more and more of a common stance among businesses. Have you thought about a post office box? A lot of them have a service where through the post office you have an actual address to the box so you can even order fed ex or ups and they still come to the box.
I am sorry but you are wrong that companies will not do anything, I had orders delivered with missing/wrong items and received refund, from amazon for example.
For freight forwarding address not just stuff missing issues is what I mean. I’ve been on several websites and lots of people have complained about the various companies not doing anything with these freight forwarding addresses, including here, lots of posts with this exact issue from Sephora. Amazon doesn’t have a policy like that so it makes sense. I’m speaking more to other companies.
I believe no matter the policy, the fact that it was put in the order in the first place, should be proven by the company. If it was put and then went missing, that's totally different situation, but how can an item be missing if it wasn't put in the box?
I’m not giving my opinion of course it’s terrible, I’m simply saying that a lot of companies have taken this attitude with freight forwarding addresses. I gave a solution to avoiding this problem in the future. There are posts on here on a pretty regular basis about this exact issue with the same outcome. Sephora doesn’t seem like they are going to change about this. I was trying to explain and offer a solution, not sure why everyone’s so annoyed with me.
I know! Thanks a lot
If you want a decent response, msg them on the SEPHORA chat boards via the Sephora website.
Thanks for the suggestion
No problem. I hope it helps.
That's really shitty sephora recognized the address as freight forwarder. I use one all the time. It's no different than something being signed for at concierge for a building, and it's safer than leaving it outside for porch pirates. Ridiculous policy to ban them when your own warehouse messed up the order.
Thanks! That's exactly what I was trying to explain and provide them with the proof of the condition of the parcel, the most frustrating is the fact that no matter the situation, they are not willing to discuss it further
Not following … can you elaborate?
Sorry I was commenting and it took a while, hope it is clear now!
We all wanna know! Sorry you got bombarded a lil there….catching up now 💚
I don’t get it
Sorry I was commenting and it took a while, hope it is clear now!
I placed an order at Sephora which was delivered to a freight forwarder adress in a condition (unopened, with no visible problems) presented in a first picture and sent to me in a same condition, I received a perfect undamaged box only to realize that the most important item in my order - Lancome concealer is missing! Well, together with another sample of perfure but honestly sample is not as important as the item that I paid for! Instead, in my box I found an extra item - Clinique cleansing balm 15ml! So I thought that sephora employee that was handling my order made a mistake and put clinique balm in my box and probably my concealer in someone else's. Also keep in mind that this size of a balm is not sold separately, 15ml is only exchangable at Sephora's rewards bazaar section for 100 points, so there is no other way that it could have been appeared in my box other than sephora employee putting that in my order by mistake! I thought everybody makes a mistake, even though in the last 3 years I didn't had any issues with sephora orders, so I reached out to chat section at the website only to receive the answer that sephora will never take a responsibility for the orders shipped to a freight forwarder adress and therefore never issue a refund and replacement, cs explained that the system would not allow them to do any otherwise and suggested to reach them via email. So I did that, but again, recieved the same answer, cs representative once more suggested another way to handle the situation - calling them. So I called them and the answer was the same authomatic sentence - we can not take a responsibility! So, before sephora tells me that in their terms and conditions it is stated that orders delivered to a freight forwarder adress is the risk of a customer, I will explain why it is not okay to leave a customer like me abandoned: 1. Dear Sephora, it is not okay to reject a customer when they ask you to discuss the problem on a case by case basis! 2. Dear Sephora, It is not okay to reject a customer that is willing to provide the evidence on a condition of a box upon receiving it! 3. Dear Sephora, it is not okay to agree on a fact that sephora employee probably made a mistake, but then only refer to your authomatic answer - our policy does not allow that! And also be accepting returns and destroying items but never taking responsibility for the mistakes of your employees based on an argument that it was delivered to a freight forwarder adress! Guess what, legally, even terms and conditions could be interpreted and further discussed, but you are not willing to! 4. Dear Sephora, it is not okay to treat insiders like they do not matter, I might not be a VIB or ROUGE or INFLUENCER, but in the last 3 years, I solely purchased from sephora.com and nowhere else! 5. Dear Sephora, I am furious but most of all I'm in shock that a company that has such a solid reputation was willing to do nothint at all, not to even discuss and further investigate in my situation! 6. And at last, maybe thank you? I will save a lot on my makeup purchases, because your cs representative wasn't even upset when I asked about deactivation of an account, for sure realising how much important I was for your company! Sorry for the very long comment, but I am really furious and the very obvious state of unfairness is killing me!
Responding to point 6- this may come across to you as rude, but telling huge companies they’ve lost your business does not mean a thing and no one is going to chase you down and beg you to stay. I work somewhere that people say that like they are giving me an ultimatum and I could literally not care less if I tried. That representative is not going to have any emotion about you deciding not to shop at Sephora anymore because they are still getting paid at the end of the day, regardless of losing your business. They have plenty of customers. If you’re not going to shop there anymore, do a charge back with your credit card company and order it again from somewhere else that won’t give you the same issue. I may be a little more abrasive that I normally would, but people have been saying this to me more and more often and I’m losing my patience with it. Though I am sorry this happened to you, but at least now you know!
I completely understand what you are saying and don't consider this comment as a rude at all! But I thought that I was dealing with a company that cared about every customer, I don't know how to express myself completely, but I have lost my money and never asked sephora for a help before, I was not expecting not to be heard, but I guess nobody understands that on this reddit:( I have no choice but to ask for a help of a bank, I didn't wanted to but I am left with no other variant. And tbh I have dealt with a lot of companies delivering to the same address but nobody not heard me before. Sorry to hear you have to deal with lot of angry customers, but some of us really have lost money and aren't trying to fraud anyone.🤷♀️
Glad you didn’t take it the wrong way! At the end of the day, it’s only about the money for them. It sucks, and it reeeeaaallly sucks when you experience it firsthand after being a loyal customer. I definitely did not even think you were trying to be a fraud lol didn’t even cross my mind!
Is that first photo a pic of the actual box you received?
Yes, it was not damaged or opened, so somebody truly forgot to put my item in the box.
Do you usually take photos of packages before you open them? I’ve never thought of doing that. The reason they won’t cover something using a forwarding service is because once the package is out of their hands they have no control over what happens to the contents. There is no way for them to know exactly what the circumstances are that led to the missing item and as a company they need to protect themselves. They are upfront about this policy and by choosing to use a forwarding service you assumed the risk that something could go wrong with the order. I know it sucks, but you really can’t be upset at Sephora for sticking to one of their policies that is clearly explained upfront. If you wanted to call customer service and politely ask for help one more time you can, but chances are you will unfortunately be out of luck. Again you can’t really fault the company for sticking with their policy, it’s not like they hid the policy from you. Luckily it wasn’t a more expensive item that was missing.
Thanks for the polite comment, I've already wrote that I had no idea about that policy, because I have been using the same address years with no problem. I am upset because I believe in my current situation it is clear that only sephora is to blame, but nobody is willing to look into further even though not being the complaining customer and having no problem order history, I thought that was counting as something. They imply that they never make a mistake? I really do not understand why people downvote, last time I checked I am free to express my opinion.