Liz bought a Louis Vuitton bag , then took it into get it repaired, but found the zipper was still screwed up. Without letting her know what they were doing, the CSR took her bag away and sent it off to be fixed, informing her she’d have to shell out $155 if she wanted to get it back in working condition.

Her tale, e-mailed to us on our tipline by her husband-to-be, Ed, and which she’s also sent to her friend’s blog, Always the Planner:

Long story short, the pull to my zipper broke last year. I brought the bag for repair and when it came back the zipper wasn’t closing properly. After months of dealing with the broken zipper, I finally brought the bag for another round of repairs. Frustrated, I was told they would try to repair it in the store, but if they couldn’t do that they would call me in a few days to let me know the bag was being sent out for repair (to add to my frustration I had a bad experience with the staffer that helped me as she couldn’t find me in the system and basically made it seem like I didn’t buy the bag or something…meanwhile they had spelled my name wrong and that’s why she couldn’t find me in the system). Any who, not surprisingly I never got a call to let me know what was going on with the bag and I had to call the store to find out that the bag couldn’t be fixed in their store and that it was being sent back to California for repair. I was then told the bag would be back in 6-8 weeks.

Well I just got a phone call from the store informing me that the bag was out for repair and in order to fix it I would need to pay $155. As you can imagine I was totally shocked and upset as no one mentioned that there would be any cost to fix the bag (the receipt I received was even marked $0). After explaining the situation, I asked to speak to a manager as I was hoping they would do something to make up for the lack of communication. Well he was a total jerk and his answer to me was that I should look at it this way: I could pay $155 for a new zipper or $700 for a new bag. As you can imagine this isn’t the customer service I expected, so I said I wouldn’t pay $155 for a zipper repair and told them to send the bag back. As a result I’ve decided that I will never purchase another Louis Vuitton product ever again and wanted to send a buyer beware to all of you (please pass along to anyone else that you think may find this information useful)…I expected a certain level of quality/customer service when I purchased the bag a few years back and just learned a very expensive lesson…just b/c you spend a pretty penny on something doesn’t mean you are going to get what you pay for.

Ed tried to step in and make things right, but says a CSR told him he was not the customer and he didn’t even have to deal with him. He went the EECB route via business networking site LinkedIn and heard back from attorney Louise Firestone, who told him to contact customer service again. Ed wrote Firestone re-stating his complaints and frustration, and was surprised to get a phone call response:

AND then the amazing happened. My phone rang, and it was Ms. Firestone. My first thought was that this was going to get resolved, but then she spoke and she scolded me! She said using LinkedIn to file a customer service complaint was unacceptable and then explained that she has nothing to do with LV and couldn’t help me. She did offer up the name of the President of LV along with his mailing address. Thanks Ms. Firestone.

THEN 2 days later I got a call from Alexandra Winokur, VP at LV. Again I thought there would be resolution, but she wasn’t able to help at all. She stated that she knows the store manager and that she had not received any complaints before about him. I quickly directed her to YELP.com and suggested she do a search for the Garden State Plaza store and read the two complaints on YELP about the store, and specifically Ken the store manager.

As of today the bag is being shipped back to the Garden State Plaza store where we need to pick it up from. I asked if they could ship it directly to my fiance, but they refused. They said that they do it this way to avoid fraud.

For the record, the way Louis Vuitton handled Liz’s repair was a departure from company policy, spelled out on its site (you’ll have to follow several links), which says customer service will let you know the cost of a potential repair before they send it away.

(Photo: wolfclash)

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