Woman shocked to be sent muddy boots after placing an order on Pretty Little Thing
A woman got the shock of her life when she opened up what she thought would be brand new boots from Pretty Little Thing only to find the fast fashion brand had sent worn boots covered in mud.
Emily Carragher, 21, from Glasgow says the order arrived in a battered shoe box that was held together by sellotape with hair stuck to it.
“I have ordered quite a few times from Pretty Little Thing, and in this order I had done a full shop and had ordered some skirts and the pair of boots. The delivery was already delayed 10 days, even though it was meant to be next day delivery,” the make-up artist explains.
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“When it finally arrived I was so happy that it was here and I opened it in the living room and my family were there. When I saw the boots we all thought it was a joke. They were disgusting, they were smelly and looked like they were years old. The metal was all tarnished and they were thick with mud.
"I was so shocked and I couldn’t believe it, they were not what I'd ordered, I just looked at them and thought surely this hasn’t happened.”
Carragher says the boots weren’t the ones she had ordered, but rather a pair of someone else's “dirty old boots”.
“The ones I ordered were higher up with a chunky sole and painted leather, whereas these were low down and didn't have chunky soles or zips. In fact, they don’t look like anything I had ever seen on the website,” she continues.
“I actually don’t even know if they were from Pretty Little Thing, I don’t know where they’ve been. They weren't even my size. I'm a size five and they're a six so definitely not my boots. They just look like they’ve been to a festival and back, I really don’t know what they’ve been through.”
When Carragher sent pictures of the boots to Pretty Little Thing’s customer service, she says that she was offered a 30% discount code and was “told to wash the mud off”.
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“I emailed the customer service photos of what I ordered and what I had received. I told them I was upset and annoyed as I was waiting so long and when it arrived this is what I got,” she says.
"The response was that I was told to wash them and was given a 30% off code for my next order.”
When she pushed back, Carragher says she was offered a 40% discount code, but she explained that the boots weren’t faulty, they were someone else's old boots.
“I just wanted my money back, not to have to wash someone's dirty shoes,” she says, adding that she decided to post a video of the incident to TikTok.
“When I had posted a TikTok video, someone senior then got in touch offering me a full refund. I was grateful that I was finally offered a refund and an apology. They had also said they knew it was unacceptable how it was handled and assured me it won't ever happen again.
"They told me they had been made aware of my videos and wanted to reach out to apologise, but it shouldn’t have come to this. I also got a gift card for the trouble so at least I have some compensation.”
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When TikTok users questioned why Carragher didn’t just return the boots, she explains she was “scared to return them in case I didn’t get the refund and they thought they were my boots”.
Carragher didn’t end up reordering the boots she initially ordered, as she had wanted them the next day to wear on a night out.
“I think I'm over the boots now,” she says. “I'm just happy it was resolved.”
Additional reporting by Caters.
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