kip
Poor quality craftsmanship and mediocre customer service
I bought a bag from S&L on clearance -- maybe my first mistake, since apparently clearance items have no warranty. (I didn't even think to check if it would since an item being on clearance almost never voids warranty, just returns.) Bag arrived -- the tan canvas Single briefcase -- and I liked it until after a little over a month one of the prongs of the buckles on one of the handles broke: it appears to be made out of plastic. (Yikes.) Wrote S&L an email and they fortunately agreed that despite the bag being a clearance item (and thus, no warranty) that they would provide a replacement, refurbished bag, and gave me a few options. (The one I'd ordered was sold out.) I was at this point mildly put off since I did in fact pay for a brand-new bag, but I figured refurbished meant it would be reconditioned to at least a 'like-new' condition. I was wrong, as the new bag arrived and the soft felt-like pocket on the front was riddled with holes, and there was also what seemed to be a piece of hard candy rolling around in the lining of the bag that these holes led to. On top of which they had not provided the matching strap for this bag -- when I emailed to question the condition of the bag ("refurbished", my ass, this is pretty clearly just a returned item) and strap they only addressed the mismatched strap by sending out the correct strap. I sent one final email asking if they in fact were asking that I just accept a bag with such an obvious flaw in workmanship and quality, including a picture of said pocket riddled with holes in case they didn't realize the extent of the issue. I've received no response. Maybe the experience is drastically different for customers who don't have the audacity to purchase sale items. But I won't be recommending this company or their products to anyone.
Response from Stuart & LauApr 7, 2023
Hi Kip, We are very sorry that you had a negative experience. As many reviews here confirm, excellent customer service is a point of pride for us. In this case, however, we clearly fell short of your expectations. As you correctly pointed out, items sold during our Winter Clearance Sale are not covered by warranty. This annual event is solely for a small selection of slow moving, retiring products—never our best sellers—and we cut prices aggressively (below cost) to ensure that stock clears quickly. Given the deep discounts and retiring nature of the clearance items, we do ask customers to appreciate that an inevitable trade off exists and that these items cannot be covered by warranty as well. While these policies are stated on our website, we’ve learned that not all customers read them and will make them even more visible next year. With respect to our proposed solution, we are sorry that it was not what you wanted but we did believe it to be fair given the drastic difference in price and features between what you purchased and the refurbished model sent. If you wish to follow up, our team is always standing by to help, cheers. Sincerely, Stuart & Lau \\ [email protected]