Reader j. sent us the above scan of a page from an L.L. Bean catalog. j. says:
Look where L L Bean advises you to keep your phones and gadgets!
They’re such trusting souls, storing their gadgets outside their backpacks for the whole world to steal. No wonder this is probably the worst complaint we’ve ever gotten about L.L. Bean. They’re obviously just too nice. Good for them.
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@JerBearHtL42: I live in Maine, too. Lock my car and house… And just in case some would-be thieves think that Maine is easy pickins, most locals have at least one type of gun in their house (if they live north of Portland).
LL Bean is the awesomest of the most awesome. If you have a problem, call their number, it rings maybe once, you talk to a person, who then proceeds to fix your problem in about two minutes flat.
um, that would be a problem with LL Bean stuff. Don’t call LL Bean if you have general life issues
I’m so glad they don’t make “concealed-carry” holsters and fanny packs.
@Marshfield: I remember camping once as a kid. Once. I went to go do my ‘business’ in the bushes and ending up not squatting/positioning myself right (I’m a girl) and proceeded to pee down my leg and soak my slouch sock. Thank god they were orange…
@Shannon: Somebody already asked if you have been to Maine.
I used to live next to an LL Bean outlet. They had a big clearance sale, on some items. I noticed a nice GoreTex XCR jacket that usually sold for $345 had been marked down to like $68. I went to the register, it rang up at like $200. Manager looks at the tag, and the rack of jackets, and says, oh, those are in the wrong place, but gives me the jacket at 68. And then helps me snag 6 others, at the same price, that I ebayed.
People “down East” are just unbelievably trusting. I wanted to buy a bunch of local pottery from a store on North Haven Island during one visit, but I didn’t have my checkbook with me and the ATM wouldn’t be open before the ferry left. The store’s owner just said, “Oh, mail us a check when you get back home.” And no, she didn’t write down my bank or driver’s license number or anything. Just let me walk out of her store with $150 worth of stuff on a wink and a promise.
Of course, I mailed her the check. I also sent her note asking her to please NEVER visit Philadelphia (where I live), because I would hate to see what would happen when such a trusting soul met people living in the urban world.
Maine’s great as long as you’re on the coast. Everything else in that state is a straight-up hellhole. The presence of L.L. Bean does not mitigate this.
@Superawesomerad: & as an expatriate, i think i can speak for (most) maniacs by saying, “thanks for visiting our coast, not straying west of the turnpike, nor north of bar harbor & feel free to leave the way you came, twice as fast as you got here.”
I love llbean: Great quality, good customer service and basic products. I have their credit card which gets you free shipping and free returns.
My linegar bag’s an L.L. Bean. When i was back east not long ago, my mom and i made the pilgrimage to Freeport, and i enjoyed showing off my 12-year-old bag to the Customer Service desk, replete with my name embroidered on it. They enjoyed it too.
If you know what happens to a gear bag in the telecom world, on top of it serving me through undergrad, grad, and 2 years in the real world, you know what an awesome product they make.
@brandyk: That why I will never have OnStar because when I had a rental car with OnStar, the temptation to push the button and go “I’m lonely — Tell me a story!” was almost overwhelming.
LL Bean will give refunds for anything at anytime. EXCEPT (coincidentally to this article) BACKPACKS. It seems people in the colleges in Maine would steal other students’ backpacks and take them back to the store for cash. So they started requiring receipts for refunds because of this ‘trend’!
Oh, and another wacky thing about LL Bean. As I said, you can return anything at any time. However they offer a service where you send your old, worn out, stinky Bean Boots back to them and pay to have either the tops replaced or the bottoms. So now you have a pair of 10 year old tops with new soles, or destroyed old rubber bottoms with shiny new leather tops.
Hey, either return them for free if they are defective, or buy a shiny new pair, but don’t replace HALF of your boot!
Actually, L.L. Bean backpacks can be very secure. Their pockets have double zippers that easily accomodate padlocks even heavier than the ones that come with your luggage!
…Yes, I have done this. I was in Honduras. …Yes, people made fun of me. …You’re going to make fun of me now too, aren’t you?
@17-A
What’s your street address?
@Snakeophelia: I dunno. Most people are decent enough that if you show them kindness it’ll be returned. I’d venture that even in any major city, if you asked a random person to mail you a check for some merchandise you sold them, they’d do it. It’s like what you tell your kid if they get lost: walk up to the first nice looking (lady) person you see…don’t wait for someone to notice you look lost and offer to help.
Now, if if you advertise the fact that people can leave with merchandise and ‘just mail in a check’ you’ll get thieves no matter where you are.
L.L. Bean is awesome and stands by their stuff. FWIW, Lands End has the same sort of no-questions-asked-return-it-anytime policy and is great to deal with.