DiscountWomensDressShoes.com Review – Horrible

February 6, 2012: Since I first published my post, I have received a full refund for my botched order. However, I still would not recommend shopping at this company as many other customers have come forward with poor experiences in the comments. Don’t give these people your money.  If you are having trouble getting through to them and have not received your order in a timely manner, contact your credit card company or bank, or file a Paypal dispute, as soon as possible.

In short: This company would rather cancel part of your order and risk your dissatisfaction than miss out on making an extra buck.

I’ve been hunting around for a good pair of ripped black skinny jeans for a while that won’t break the bank, so when I caught sight of these at DiscountWomensDressShoes.com I was ecstatic.  Well, that’s not the entire story — I first found these jeans on eBay for $30+ on sale.  Out of curiosity, I Googled the seller, and found that the account is actually linked to DWD. (If you type “nowdiscountshoes.com” into your URL bar, you will arrive at  DiscountWomensDressShoes.com.)  Here I found those same jeans, for $16.99.  Like I said, ecstatic.  I snapped up three pairs of size 3’s, and by the time I was done checking out, there still appeared to be more left.

Fast forward a few days later, and DWD informs me that they’ve shipped out my order — but they’re all out of stock on the jeans, so they’re refunding me.  Normally, this wouldn’t tick me off that much, but: a) I really want a pair in this style; and b) something must be really damn off about your stock-tracking system if you can list more than three quantities of an item which isn’t in-stock.

Then, I remembered some of the feedback comments I read on the eBay account associated with this site.  At least one buyer complained that the seller listed an item that they couldn’t sell for one reason or another.  I started to get the sneaking suspicion that DWD was not actually “out of stock”, and was in fact just trying to get a higher profit margin by relisting the items for a higher price on eBay.  This is something I’ve encountered before with non-clothing, high-demand items: the seller will cancel part of a  customer’s order with the claim that those items are no longer available, and then relist those very same items under a higher price on their website.  Except, DWD is just trying to be less sneaky about it by doing it through eBay. And through a different account (yes, boots2shoes.com also leads to the DWD website).  Which hardly matters, since they’re using the exact same photos, graphics, and copy from their other account.

Behold: those jeans I so wanted, on eBay, at nearly twice the price with shipping.  Granted, one of those listings was created before my order (I ordered on Sunday January 9, 2011), but the fact that they continued to create two new listings after that date is galling.  Either they’re being lazy about maintaining their stock and selling something they don’t have, or they’re placing getting an extra $20 over customer satisfaction.  I’m most likely overreacting, but either way this stinks. EDIT: After posting this, I checked the eBay search again and it appears they just listed another pair of those size 3 jeans, except on their “nowdiscountshoes” account.  Now, I’m convinced of their dishonest practices.

The worst part is, many customers will find these jeans on eBay, not knowing that they are available for much less on the main website.

So, as of now, I’m receiving two items I didn’t really want all that much — I ordered them to meet the $60 minimum for free shipping — and zero pairs of jeans.  The only good thing about this experience is that the customer service rep was timely in responding to my e-mails about shipping.  I’ll be e-mailing her about this situation in a bit and am awfully curious as to how that will end.

Moral of this story: only order here if they have something you really want at an unbeatable price.  And even then they may screw you over on that.

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EDIT, 1-2 HOURS LATER: She replied with the following cookie-cutter e-mail:

We apologize that your transaction didn’t go smoothly with us. We try our best to make every customer happy and we do make mistakes. We are so sorry. We have refunded you money and will be in stock of these jeans shortly. Thank you!

It’s worth noting that I have yet to receive this refund (and Paypal refunds, from my experience, are usually instantaneous).  I’ll continue checking back on this over the next week.  I’ll also keep an eye on the website, and see if her claims about refilling stock are true.  If they are, I’ll try ordering the jeans again to see if this was just a fluke, or a recurring issue.  I can’t lose, right?  I either get my cheap jeans, or they cancel my order again and refund my money.  I hope.

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EDIT, January 18, 2011, NEARLY A WEEK AFTER THIS FIASCO: Still no refund!  I contacted customer service in the hopes they’ll return my damn money.  If not, I’m filing a report with Paypal.  This is simply unbelievable.

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EDIT, May 2, 2011: I haven’t had time to maintain this blog like I wanted, not to mention I haven’t had the funds to spend on new clothes, so I failed to mention that yes, I eventually received my refund. (After filing a Paypal dispute.) However, I decided to make this amendment to the post because I received a call from DWD, who I assume was some sort of higher-up because he mentioned that the customer service rep I spoke got fired, and that the company is making efforts to improve stock management and other parts of their business.  He wanted to make sure that I received my refund, and offered to refund the rest of my order as well while letting me keep the other items I received as “a gift.”   He did ask that I consider taking down the post in exchange, which I of course refused to do.  However I agreed that I would update it with this new information.

In the end I got my refund, even though I did not agree to take down my post.  I was pretty happy with this, even if it is 3-4 months late.  Hopefully this means that DWD is stepping up their game, and will no longer let customers down like me.  Here is the message the rep included:

Once again we sincerely apologize for the past transaction not going as smooth as we can definitely provided. I definitely want to thank you for your time over the phone with me and on top of the full refund I have arranged that to a step further.