Matthew isn’t sure who got his order from Threadless.com, but it wasn’t him. UPS claims they delivered the package to Matthew’s apartment, but the reception desk would’ve been closed during the supposed delivery time, and Matthew doesn’t have his package. Rather than wait for UPS to complete its investigation, Threadless dug up an extra print of their sold-out design and sent it to Matthew, along with a little something extra…

Matthew writes:

I’ve been reading the Consumerist for a while now and thought I should pass along an excellent experience I had with a website called Threadless.com after an order I made was stolen from my doorstep.

Threadless sells t-shirts with original designs and I’ve shopped with them often. I was very busy with work a while back and had forgotten about an order I had made. When I finally remembered I check the tracking number and found that the package had been delivered more than a week previously. I live in an apartment complex and given the timestamp on the delivery the office would have been closed. As the package didn’t require a signature it would have been left on my doorstep while I was working and someone must have walked by and decided to pick it up. I contacted Threadless.com’s support to find out what my options were. They opened an investigation with UPS to try and find out what happened.

While waiting on that I went ahead and reordered the shirts that had been lost. Threadless only prints a limited number of each design and they don’t reprint them unless a particular design receives a lot of positive feedback from the community. One of my shirts had already been sold out, but I was able to replace the others. Eventually I received a call from UPS asking about the package. I explained what happened to the representitive. She asked me about replacing the lost items and I mentioned I had already reordered most of them. Later on I received an email from Threadless letting me know that UPS had closed the case after I informed them that I received the package. I responded that UPS was incorrect and told Threadless’s support what I had told UPS. Threadless wrote back that, during it’s investigations, for some reason UPS equates “I replaced the items” to “I received the package”.

They told me that they would reopen the case with UPS, but didn’t want me to have to wait on that. They told me they would refund the cost of my order plus the shipping, and including an extra $5 for the trouble, and not as a store credit (although that was an option) they were going to just credit the amount back to my visa. In the end I asked for a store credit instead because I knew I’d spend it.

Threadless could have told Matthew that he was only getting a refund and that would have been that, but instead, they gave him a little extra too. Because nobody likes having their shirts stolen, not that we’re bitter or anything.

The $5 refund is especially generous. Stores all too often apologize with a store credit, which is really just an invitation to shop with them again. Excellent service should be enough by itself to ensure repeat business. Great work, Threadless!

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