UKC

Two weeks ago, I ordered a pair of Arc'Teryx hiking boots online, from the Arc'Teryx site. The delivery service was very quick, with a box arriving the next day, Friday. The actual outer box with the delivery labels appeared to be intact, not that I thoroughly examined it when it was handed to me by the UPS courier. On opening the outer box, I found the Arc'Teryx branded boot box inside, which I opened.  Inside that were the two pieces of paper that would normally wrap each boot, and a plastic dinosaur.  Yes, seriously, a very good quality plastic dinosaur wrapped in something similar to a thick cling film. I immediately emailed Arc'Teryx customer service, but heard nothing back. So the following day, Saturday, I found their online customer service form, completed that with a couple of photos attached, and sent that to them.  On the Monday morning I received a reply, requesting more photgraphs of the packaging, which I responded to, sending photos of all sides of the outer box, and of their own branded box. I was advised that an investigation would take place, likely to take 8-15 days. This wasn't pleasing, given that I had already spent £220, with nothing to show for it. However, less than 24 hours later, a I received another email from Arc'Teryx customer service, stating that the carrier had denied responsibility, therefore claim denied.  End of. Angry doesn't begin to cover how I felt at that time. Even after carefully checking the outer packaging, I couldn't see any signs of compromise on the delivery labels, which says to me that the problem with the boots being swapped for a plastic dinosaur must have occurred at their warehouse (unless UPS are able to duplicate bar coded deliver labels affixed by Arc'Teryx). There is no way that this particular issue has been properly examined and investigated - I've been dismissed as a customer, either as a liar or for exposing auditing and integrity issues. Either way, I've been ripped off for £220, and the feeling is not good.  I would love to hear from anybody else who may have experienced delivery issues with Arc'Teryx, because I can't just simply ignore this.  It's too much money, and it is atrocious customer service.

Did you pay by credit card?

Is there a possibility of a chargeback from your card provider?

(unless UPS are able to duplicate bar coded deliver labels affixed by Arc'Teryx).

They probably can, the labels generated by Arc'teryx are most likely created in a web environment provided by UPS.

There is no way that this particular issue has been properly examined and investigated - I've been dismissed as a customer, either as a liar or for exposing auditing and integrity issues. Either way, I've been ripped off for £220, and the feeling is not good.  I would love to hear from anybody else who may have experienced delivery issues with Arc'Teryx, because I can't just simply ignore this.  It's too much money, and it is atrocious customer service.

Agreed, utterly unacceptable. I'd either check your credit card provided if they can help out or threaten to take this matter further. 

Registered today to post this???? 

I mean, if I were a long time lurker, I have loads of friends that are, and this happened to me, I absolutely would register for this.

Was it the real Arc'teryx website? Or a scam site?

Would a scam site send a dinosaur? Surly they just wouldn't send anything 

It's definitely nothing to smile about

A hundred % you will be getting your money back from this. I went through a very similar thing with CEX and a laptop recently (laptop delivered in perfect packaging with no damage but the laptop inside itself was cracked, and they basically denied responsibility and said they had to do an investigation with Royal Mail). When I did a credit card chargeback and threatened small claims court they partially refunded me.

For me the crux of what this comes down to is consumer confidence in purchasing online. If you buy anything online, and it gets delivered in perfect packaging but is broken - there is no evidence either way for you to prove you didn't do it, or for them to prove you did do it. So in my mind, unless you are an obvious repeat offender that is ripping companies off (which I am sure you are not), then the liability has to sit with the company to sort you out. If that is not the case then no one can ever by anything off the internet with confidence.

I would just send them an email back giving them a deadline to refund you or send another pair and say that if you have not had the money back by X date (10 working days or something) then you will be raising a small claims court and / or doing a credit card charge back/section s75 claim. 100% they will crumble. 

As in my case, no one can evidence either way whether you put the dinosaur in the box or someone else did en route, or in the warehouse. I did have photos from the Royal Mail tracking of the box being in perfect condition but if anything that just made it harder to discuss with CEX.

Try not to stress about it and just send a firm email saying you will be taking it further unless resolved. Ask for it to be escalated to a manager or something, leave a bad review on trust pilot (oh wait you already have!)

Whether you paid by debit or credit card you should be able to file a 'goods not as described' or 'item not received' chargeback in this case. As others suggest I would reply to the merchant again giving them another opportunity to make things right, and if they don't get in contact with your card issuer and explain the situation.

[Possibly what has happened in this case is the merchant is victim of returns fraud. Someone else bought the boots, returned the box with similar weight but lower value item inside and the merchant didn't check the return properly before sending out again.]

Have you contacted them back informing them your next move will be contact your payment card provider? I had an issue recently and got nowhere after 2 emails. The moment I told them I was going to contact my card provider, it lit up their customer services and the matter was resoved straight away.

Please post back with the outcome, many members here will be watching with interest.

I wanna see a picture of the dinosaur.

Is it of a primitive bird, do you think...?

Scam site, happens all the time. 

Why would a scam site send you something? Not like they need to.

Sounds genuine to me.

Plastic dinosaurs are made of real dinosaurs

Why would a scam site send a dinosaur?

I dont know but ive read about similar to this happening a lot more now

Just telling you what ive read to be happening. 

Maybe because of the weight of the package, so it's delivered in good order without the receiver noticing something off. 

But I would imagine that the first thing OP checked is whether or not the site they used was legit, and otherwise Arc'teryx would obviously have told them so. 

Depends if the OP contacted Arc'teryx, or Arc'Teryx (i.e. went back to the same site they bought the item from).

Scams delivering incorrect items do exist; google it.

Oh yeah, for sure. Whether it's counterfeit bad quality stuff or just random stuff, scam sites actually delivering something do exist. 

In reply to leon 1:

There’s a child somewhere who was hoping for a dinosaur and instead has a massive pair of hiking boots. 

Judging by the repeated questions, and their upvotes, it appears plenty of people on this thread think otherwise...

It used to be a common thing with mobile phones, my wife received a box with a pebble instead of a phone.

neatly sliced open phone packaging and neatly repackaged.

she got a new phone it was a common scam at the time and quit organised apparently with some delivery companies not very diligent in their hiring 😏

Could you perhaps share a link from the actual website you purchased from, and maybe the email address your purchase confirmation came from.

It's an Arc'T-rex.

Thread over. You win. 

Because it's an object, probably of vaguely similar weight? that fills the box. Same reason dog food, just as one example (Amazon has many instances of laptops being swapped in warehouse for dog and cat food, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-64296971), is swapped for laptop etc. A disappointingly common scam.

Often the warehouse workers, if some dog food comes up short on the warehouse stock check there is no great panic, if a laptop comes up short on warehouse stock check great interest will be shown. Substituting the two at time of shipping allows warehouse workers to steal one product but come short on stock check of another and make it looks like the couriers did it.

What's so disappointing is that they aren't immediately helping you as it's  such a well known scam. Shame on them, what a **** company!

Apart from the obvious point of anyone admitting to buying Arcteryx stuff, there was a very similar type of posting a month or so ago, in that case someone from Skye  had returned something, and the company involved which IIRC, was Arcteryx, was similarly unhelpful. I think that time it was a person registering specifically to vent their spleen.