James writes that he bought a great laptop bag made by eBags.com in 2008, and it has served him well all of that time. When some of the stitching came loose and the zipper fell apart, he contacted the company about a repair or discounted replacement. eBags went beyond what James expected, instead offering him a refund for the bag’s full purchase price to buy a replacement.

In April 2008, I purchased a Laptop Bag from eBags.com. It’s been a fantastic bag that I’ve used daily for more than 2 years. I call on multiple clients each day, so this bag gets moved around a lot – in and out of the trunk, tossed under desks, etc. It takes a fair amount of abuse and is still in great shape.

Last week, I noticed that the stitching around the main compartment’s zipper was coming loose. A few days later, part of the zipper had separated and it actually broke, resulting in an inability to zip about half of the zipper shut. The zipper goes completely around 3 sides of the bag (so you could lay it completely flat if you wanted) so this makes for lots of things falling out of the bag.

This evening, I was shopping for a replacement bag at eBags – I found a slightly newer version of my old bag and noticed it had a lifetime warranty (“Our Promise – Lifetime Warranty -Exchange, return, whatever it takes”). I called their 1-800 number and a real live person answered the phone. I explained my bag’s status and, knowing it was a couple of years old and the failure was due to normal wear-and-tear, not a manufacturer’s defect, I asked the CSR if I could send it in for repair or get a discount on a new bag. She asked for a couple of details and then told me she would send a replacement. She didn’t ask me to return the bag, send a picture of the damage, or anything of the sort. She only wanted to know which zipper failed.

As it turns out, they no longer carry my old bag in the same colors so she offered a replacement in a different color, or a giftcard for the original purchase price. They do carry a newer version of my bag in the same color so I asked if I could have that one instead. The newer bag was slightly less expensive. She explained that her system would let her do an alternate product replacement, but she would send me the giftcard. For the original purchase price. Which was more than the replacement bag cost.

She verified my email and that was it – a total of 4 minutes on the phone and I’ll have the giftcard within 48 hours. Awesome customer service, above and beyond what I was expecting with no hassle. I will definitely shop eBags.com again and I will recommend them to anyone that will listen.

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