Victoria's Secret Hunts Nationwide To Find Your Panties
In this latest Above and Beyond story, Victoria's Secret conducts a nationwide search to find the Chris and Becka's panties.
Chris writes:
I'd like to share my above and beyond story with you all. It all started when we had a horrible experience at our local Victoria's Secret (VS from here on) store and VS as a whole at that point in time. My wife, an avid VS fan, saw a flyer for their Valentine's Day Collection.We have been hit fairly hard by the current economy and as a direct result, have had to tighten our belts considerably. Needless to say, shopping at VS is a real treat for her right now. She has been in kind of a slump lately and I've noticed that she just wasn't "feeling" as sexy as usual.
As soon as my wife saw the flyer, her eyes lit up. I figured it was the perfect opportunity to do something special for her and make her feel sexy. I said, "Hey, why not go out and pick that up, take your time, have some fun and call it your Valentine's Day present?". Can you say, Victoria's Secret to the rescue?...Or so I thought.
Now fast forward to her experience. Granted, it had been quite some time since she has had the opportunity to grace the presence of a VS Store, this was a very special treat to her. She REALLY fell in love with their Vintage Victoria Bra, Panties and Garter in the Wineberry color. We set it up for her to get pampered by first getting her hair done, then her nails/toes and finally, like a cherry on top, her visit to the local VS store.
Upon arrival, she quickly located their Vintage Victoria push-up bra in the Wineberry color. However, she was unable to find the accompanying panties and garter. Eventually she went and asked an associate at the counter who brushed her off, but finally found aid from another associate sorting items.
When she asked for help in locating the matching garments to the Valentine's Day collection, she was told that the store had received NONE of the matching items. Disappointed, but not broken, she asked if it would be possible to get a rain check on them (due to the ongoing sale) and possibly receive a call when stock arrives.
At this point it was further explained to her that this was a limited collection and that the store will NOT be receiving more stock or even getting them at all. Basically, she was out of luck, while empathetic, the associate offered no further assistance on the matter, nor offered to do anything to try and make it right.
Can you see her aforementioned lit up eyes dwindle in disappointment? I can and did.
I initially assumed the associate was most likely in error. I mean, this is VS right? There's no way! So considering she purchased the Wineberry bra, I thought I could once again "save the day", be her hero and get them straight off VS.com.
However, to my dismay they are not available. Not even the Vintage Victoria Wineberry push-up bra she was able to purchase in store was available. I searched high and low, even hitting up eBay in an attempt to find them...Nothing.
I used my fancy Consumerist skills and shot off an email to what I thought might be Ms. Victoria's Secret (CEO) herself. Depicting the same story above. I honestly didn't expect it to arrive anywhere, much less get anything more than a canned response.
However, to my surprise, she did receive it, forwarded it to the necessary party, who in turn replied to me. They wanted to speak to me and my wife. So, we did what anyone would do...Fired off our number in (morbid?) curiosity.
It didn't take long at all for them to contact us. Not only did they profusely apologize that absolutely zero stock had been delivered to the store. They were tremendously grateful that we notified them of the fact. It turns out there was an issue and we were able to bring it to their attention.
As one would expect, they offered to ship off the missing two items to us free of charge and include an extremely gracious gift card. Personally, I felt the gift card was just too much and tried to decline it, completing her collection was more than generous. Nope, they insisted, they wouldn't allow us to turn it down. We were utterly amazed at the treatment we received.
We soon found out there was some bad news. The matching panties were completely gone, sold out, no stock anywhere. Ohh well, they already made us feel like royalty, we were still very pleased with our experience.
But wait...There's more! I received an email from them earlier today. Apparently, they shot off an email to every store in the states in search of this ever elusive pair of underwear...And they found them!!! They literally conducted a nationwide search to get my wife her panties.
If this isn't above and beyond...I don't know what is.
Sincerely,
Chris & Becka
Now that's customer service!
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Comments:
Yay, Vikki's!
Land's End just did this for me ... only it was for a discontinued diaper bag my husband really wanted. With sailboats on it. Does this mean the honeymoon's over?
I recently got a Vintage Victoria set in black. It's perhaps the nicest set of underwear I have ever had. Definitely worth a nationwide search.
In my warped imagination, it sounds like a great film idea.
National Treasure 3: Hunt for the Missing Panties
I've had excellent service from VS for some time. In my experience, women's clothing companies that do serious mail-order business seem to invest a lot in customer service, even if you're shopping on their brick and mortar side. (I don't generally shop at J. Crew, which sounds like it might be the exception.) Mail order to store returns, computer hunts across other locations to find an item in my size, getting stuff shipped to my home from a distant brick and mortar shop--that all seems pretty common in the industry.
Gosh, apparently I'm a satisfied consumer in an area. Who knew?
@Eyebrows McGee: I dunno, I think you're extremely lucky if *your husband* is the one asking for the diaper bag.
This would be awesome... if I could find something that fit regular people in their store.
VS can look all it wants. It will never find my panties.
Any chance Chris and Bekah can share the email for VS's CEO? I've got a beef of my own that's been waiting for a couple weeks to get resolution...
It's times like this I remember something that happened to me when I was younger. Once I stole a pair of red underwear from the department store. My mom wouldn't buy them for me - she said they were Satan's panties!
any pictures so i can see if it was worth the effort.
The gift that keeps on giving all year round!
@Oranges w/ Cheese: Yep. Did you know that a 36D was morbidly obese, shouldn't even be out in public, and has no right to wear sexy underwear? I didn't, until I went into a VS store.
Post pics or it didn't happen.
@TheRedSeven: They were highly surprised I was able to reach her actually. However, I did promise not to reveal the address.
I would like to mention that if you use Google to find the format and Consumerist's email finding advise it's fairly simple to figure it out.
@Liam Kinkaid: Opposite experience here: my mom bought me a red thong for christmas when I was sixteen (red = festive I guess). I'd never seen a thong before and only knew that the bigger bit of underwear usually went in the back... which led to a very interesting wearing experience. Not recommended really.
@h3llc4t: I wear a 36D and seldom have a problem finding things at VS. And I find that the other items there are pretty generously sized - I wear a M or L there, and other places I'm pretty definitely in a L or sometimes XL.
"Everything is small there" seems to be a common misconception among people who don't shop there.
(I don't shop there much myself, b/c I think it's overpriced and the bras are badly constructed.)
And the panty gods are smiling.
My wife used to love VS but unfortunately they seem to be catering to teens now more often than not. Our local VS is staffed by very young women and the shoppers are the same demographic. The sales associates seem mostly interested in helping the 16-year-old with Daddy's credit card over the 34-year-old.
@fonzette: Every time I have tried to find a bra, corset, or other top from there that goes by bra sizing, I've been told that they rarely get that size, or get one or two.
Maybe it's just the midwest, but VS B&M stores are notorious here. I've given the chain several tries (the most recent just a few months ago) to be told that their receiving D cups was unusual.
@chumia40: Haha, I just watched that episode today. "You are a gentleman and a scholar. Oh. Sorry. That was a woman."
@Liam Kinkaid: Hah, I have my own red underwear experience! When I went to summer camp, we would have our laundry collected, sent away, and returned nice and clean. One week, my laundry bag came back with a pair of silky red panties... OBVIOUSLY these were not mine, but it didn't keep the whole cabin from laughing at me hysterically from then on.
@h3llc4t: That's why I hate shopping there. Their 42C is ridiculously small and also hard to find (not in stores; had to order online the one time I bought one).
I'm impressed with the persistence. I would have given up and just gotten something else. That store is filled with tons of great overpriced stuff.
And I give credit to those who work at VS. It sounds cute: "Oh, I work at VS", but you have to deal with arranging everything perfectly all day while other mess it up all the time and witness less-than-desirable people purchasing things that you do not want to image on them.
I wonder if this husband would have been so generous if she really, really wanted the granny panties from Macys instead. I can just see him tracking them down on the internets...
That is awesome service!
...now if only VS stores could carry a size above a C cup so I could actually shop there. -_-
@JohnDeere: Hehehe, I doubt we could post them if we wanted to...LOL However, take my word for it...It was MORE than worth the effort! ;)
@Eyebrows McGee: Oh, I can only dream that my boyfriend would be that excited. He cringes everytime I mention going to register for baby items.
@h3llc4t: Weird. I'm in the midwest and I've had no trouble. (And I've bra-shopped a lot lately for my suddenly-gigantic pregnancy boobs.)
Honestly I had more trouble shopping there when my boobs were at the small end of the scale. They don't do a lot for the A-endowed ladies.
Hurray for good customer service in the land of 1000% markups!
Now see, this is the part where I come in saying they can afford to do this. Where as companies making 10 or 20% on big ticket items wouldn't necessarily want to do this.
But it's still a victory!
What's Victoria's Secret?
*in Austin Powers voice*
"She's a man, baby!"
I once had a mail order mix up with VS. I didn't get one item I paid for and it took a while to get it sorted out. They sent me a $50 gift card to apologize.
@Eyebrows McGee: You guys are going to have to post photos somewhere after the kid comes. Maybe have it be the Consumerist baby?
@Oranges w/ Cheese: My friends riffed me once because I said that if I wanted free fap material that the Lane Bryant Catalog was sexier than the VS ones.
Give me curvy women over skinny ones any day. :)
Anyone else slightly disturbed that the OP thought it was necessary for us to know that his wife wasn't feeling sexy?
I mean, I know this is a post about a nationwide search for the right pair of panties but still.
@Oranges w/ Cheese: I'm a 38DD and I've never had a problem finding bras at VS. I usually get fitted in the store and then buy online.
Buying a sports bra is another story. Grr.
@Liam Kinkaid: And my mom used to put silk panties in my Christmas stocking each year, starting when I was about 16 or so. Too funny. I'm sure she was just trying to embarass me.
@Oranges w/ Cheese: Hah, indeed. It drives me crazy that 34 is the smallest size they carry. And, for that matter, that DD is the highest cup size they go. They have bras only for a small range of boobie sizes.
@Carolyn Gabriel: I agree! VS is only the place to go for people with small to medium sized boobs. =(
@Rectilinear Propagation: I'm more disturbed by the fact she wasn't "feeling" sexy, with the quotation marks.
That is great customer service!!! and you sir... are a Gentleman and a Scholar!!!