Believe us when we say, we have read some pretty nasty replies to customer complaints. But this latest example of a manager responding to a shopper’s unsatisfactory experience, at a store called GASP in Australia, wins the Consumerist “You Are Deluded And Soulless” award.

The Herald Sun brings us the story of shopper Keara, who went shopping last week to find bridesmaid dresses for her wedding and another outfit for her bachelorette party.

At GASP, Keara says a retail associate named “Chris” was nice at first but then went all Mean Girls on her when he realized she wouldn’t be making a purchase, making fun of her size 12 body and yelling, “Have fun shopping at Supre [a local chain]… I knew you were a joke the minute you walked in.”

Mean, unwarranted, and just not something you do. To top it all off, Keara also works in the retail industry and says she’d never do something like that. A normal human wouldn’t, or at least not expect to get away with it.

But instead of the store apologizing or even being halfway decent when Keara sent in a complaint, a GASP area manager took the whole thing to a new level of despicableness. The manager claimed that their store aims to appeal “to a very fashion forward consumer” and that the sales assistant who treated Keara so terrible was a “retail superstar” who’s “only problem is that he is too good at what he does.”

Read the manager response in full below, but know that you’ll likely be spitting with rage by the end.

Response by GASP area manager:

Having now had the privilege of having both version of events, I am now in a position to respond to your complaint.

From the very outset, one thing that you should be mindful of is; Our product offerings are very, very carefully selected, so to ensure that we do not appeal to a broad customer base. This is something which is always at the forefront of our minds when undertaking buying duties.

The reason for this is to ensure that we only carry products which appeal to a very fashion forward consumer. This by default means that the customer whom is acclimatised to buying from “clothing for the masses” type retailers, is almost frightened by our range, sometimes we have found that this type of customer, almost finds our dresses funny, and on occasion noted comments such as ‘it looks like a dead flamingo’. When we receive comments like this, we like to give ourselves and our buyers, a big pat on the back, because we know we are doing our job right, and modus operandi is being upheld.

Our range is worn by A list celebrities to the likes of Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez and Katy Perry to name only a few. Now, as one might appreciate, the style counsel for these types of celebrities are not ones to pick “run of the mill” type clothing, and they do so on the basis to ensure that the styles are cutting edge, and only worn by a select few. Similarly these items are priced such that they remain inaccessible to the undesirable.

Insofar as our employee goes; Similar to our product offerings, our employees are selected with a similar approach. Chris whom served you is a qualified stylist whom has a sixth sense for fashion, and Chris’s only problem is that he is too good at what he does, and as I am sure you are aware, people whom are talented, generally do not tolerate having their time wasted, which is the reason you were provoked to leave the store.

Whilst I concede that you work for chain retailer, unfortunately that does not make us like for like. It is probably fair to assume, a lot of what I have said in this email, either doesn’t make sense to you, or you totally disagree with it all, which is what I would expect (unless of course I have you totally wrong – which I doubt).

Let me guess, you would never, ever hire Chris in the course of your duty, would you? This is the very reason, why your comment “from one retailer to another” is so disproportionate, it’s almost as though we are in a totally different industries. Chris is a retail superstar, who possess unparalleled ability, and I am sorry you feel upset by him, but he knew you were not going to buy anything before you even left your house.

So if you would like to do us any favours, please do not waste our retail staff’s time, because as you have already seen, they will not tolerate it. I am sure there are plenty of shops that appease your taste, so I respectfully ask that you side step our store during future window shopping expeditions.

Thank you for your enquiry.

We’re about as sure Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry and Selena Gomez will shop or ever shopped at GASP as we’re sure they appreciate their names being used to bash an innocent shopper.

Customer complaint email and response by GASP clothing goes viral [Herald Sun]

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