Outfit: Shoeper Challenge #77 and a New Shrug

It’s so windy here today. We also keep getting torrential downpour, which is nice. It’s supposed to pick up later on through, so I might get out for some (dry) fresh air if I’m lucky. I have another eBay sale to post so I need to go to the Post Office at some point.

I almost wore my longer black cardi today, but it was spoiling the twirly-ness of the skirt, and I think it should be some kind of crime to spoil the twirly-ness of a twirly skirt. So I layered a thick knit tank under the dress for warmth and switched to this shrug instead.

There’s a story behind this shrug (isn’t there always with my purchases?!). Having worn my (practically vintage – I’ve had it since 1998) New Look one a couple of weeks back, and seeing that it was hanging off my shoulders as it was so big (2 sizes too big to be precise), I decided a new black shrug was in order. I spied this one on the Long Tall Sally website and then a 10% off email arrived just at the right time so I decided to go ahead and order it. That was the Thursday before the bank holiday. I paid for next day delivery (because I am impatient) but as it was about 5pm I didn’t expect it to arrive the Friday, but thought it would turn up either on the Saturday or Tuesday morning. When it hadn’t arrived by Tuesday lunchtime I phoned customer services, only to be told it was out of stock. When I ordered it was available and I had not received an email to let me know that it was out of stock. (Neither had I received a shipping confirmation email the previous week and had to phone customer services to find out whether that order had dispatched. LTS have order tracking on their website, but they are not using it at present, and all orders just say CREATED as the status, regardless of the stage it is actually at.) I was promised a refund on the delivery charge and that the item would be shipped when it was back in stock. Now in the meantime, I had tweeted about my order not arriving and the Twitter person had been in contact to see if she could help. By this time it was Thursday and no refund had been forthcoming, so I relayed this information to the LTS Twitter and she said she would look into it. On Friday afternoon I got a phone call saying they had located the item in the Nottingham store and would be shipping it out that afternoon, to arrive on Monday. No delivery charge and at the discounted price. The reason my refund hadn’t been processed is because no charge had been made to my card as the item hadn’t been shipped.

I commented on the LTS Facebook page over the weekend about how the online service had gone downhill recently and received a message from them this morning stating that they are upgrading their systems at present and things will be back to normal shortly. I should point out that usually LTS’s service is excellent and so you can imagine my disappointment at having problems with my order. I hope that by the time I order again thing will be back to their usual good standard.

My questions are thus:
1. If you are having a system upgrade, why not just tell me that when I phoned regarding my first order?
2. Why have the online tracking still in place if you’re not using it? Why not just put a message up saying the service is not available at present?
3. If something is out of stock, you need to email and let the customer know there will be a delay straight away. Not wait for her to phone and chase 3 days later.
4. If no refund can be processed because no money has been taken, why not tell me that rather than have me wait on a refund that will never appear?
5. Why not let everyone know on FB or Twitter that you are installing new systems, rather than letting us continue to moan on there?

At least this all had a favourable outcome for me, I got my item minus a delivery charge. And the moral of this story is that complaining on Twitter will get you everywhere.

So, on to my latest shoe (boot) save. You may remember me blogging about these boots a few weeks back when I received them from Spartoo. Well the time has finally come when we have the weather to wear them! I was wondering how I would weatherproof them, as you can’t use the spray I have on patent leather and there are bits of patent on these, but then I spied the tag on the zip that says they are ready-Scotchguarded so problem solved! I love the colour of these and they have my favourite adornments: buttons! I will have to take a walk in them later to see just how comfy they are.

Black shrug – Long Tall Sally
Black dress – George at ASDA
Black tank – 3 Suisses (also practically vintage, bought in 1998)
Blue suede boots – Hush Puppies (c/o Spartoo)
Black Obi belt – ASOS
Blue/black ring – charity shop
Blue beads – gifted
Silver hoops – gifted

Total Est. Cost £62