For those of us who wear very unusual and/or large sizes of clothing, ordering clothes online is a thing of beauty and convenience. Unless you’re Matt, and JC Penney’s online fulfillment people are utterly unable to read the numbers on a pair of pants and put them in the correct box. Through multiple clothing orders, the retailer has been unable to send Matt the sizes that he actually requests–which I always thought was the entire point of ordering clothes online.

I write to you a man at the end of his rope. I have tried multiple times in the last month to get my order correct with JC Penney’s. Here’s a run down of what has happened.

I placed and order for two pairs of Levi Carpenter Jeans in the size of 52×32 on 11/15/10. When I received my order, I was the proud owner of one pair of 52×34 and a pair of 54×32 jeans. Of the correct manufacturer. That’s at least one point in their favor I suppose. Knowing that I needed the jeans in a time frame of now, I made the choice to wear them. Within two weeks, the pair of 54×32 jeans split at the back-right pocket. Another 2 weeks the other pair followed suit. Of course this is a defect in the Levi’s product, not really a concern of JC Penney’s. Not knowing that they had a 90-day return policy, I purchased two more pairs of 52×32 jeans (as the real size I want, 52×30, was out of stock) on 1/1/11 and three St. John’s Bay 5XLT shirts.

After waiting the normal shipping time (package arrived on 1/7/11), I was pleased to have my merchandise. I open the package only to find I now have a pair of 52×30 (the size that I actually wanted and the website said was unavailable) and a pair of 54×30. To add insult, I open the three shirts I also purchased, only to find one was barely a 1XLT and the other was a 4XLT. Even though the three shirts were labeled exactly the same and came from the same product line. So this prompted a phone call to JC Penney’s support line. I requested to speak to a supervisor (and in a classic rookie mistake, I forgot to get her name). After 25 minutes, she advised me I could take the two shirts, the pair of 54×30 jeans and the two damaged pair back to a store, be refunded the amount and should would place a correct order on her end. She even went as far to say that she would set the order to be hand picked so that it was correct.

Fast forward to 1/12/11. I had my supposedly correct merchandise waiting for me after work. When I opened the package I found that I only received one shirt that I should have and two of the three pairs of jeans. I will credit them by getting the jeans size correct this time (52×32 because 52×30 was apparently out…again). Thus, JC Penney customer support round two. This time the supervisor I spoke with acted as though she could care less about my problem. After 10 minutes on the phone, she could only state that I was owed one shirt. I explained the issue 3 times before getting snippy and told her to read the previous issue. Another 10 minutes later, she confirmed the size of jeans that I wanted (for the fourth time) and advised me that the order was taken care of. This time I got her name. I logged into my account on JCP.com and confirmed the order was placed.

Now we get to today’s bundle of joy. When I opened the package I was greeted by a shirt (the correct size) and a pair of 48×34 jeans. I called JC Penney support, for a third time and immediately requested to speak to someone in executive customer relations or the corporate office. I was given the corporate customer relation phone number (972-431-8200) where the phone was answered by another lady. After 5 minutes of discussion, she advised that she would open a corporate issue and let her manager know of the sizing and inventory issue they have at their distribution center. Then the call disconnected (on a land line, not a cell phone). I tried to call back and waited on hold for 25 minutes, two separate times before giving up.

So at this point, JC Penney’s has lost a long-time customer. I not only shop online but also in their brick and mortars. I can say that I am firmly dissatisfied with them and will be looking for another retailer for my clothing and household products.

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