Avoid from making any purchase from American Eagle Outfitters AT ALL COST! Why? It's because they scammed me.

Here's my story: last night, I discovered that American Eagle Outfitters was having a clearance on their website via social media and I decided to reward myself with some brand new clothing. I went on their website and started to browse around and found a nice pair of chino and a flannel shirt. I placed them in my cart and then proceeded to checkout. But then I discovered that I could get 25% off my order if I use their mobile app to checkout (it was on a banner). So, I decided to install the app onto my smartphone and then went to the checkout to only discovered that I needed to shop more to get the discount... Okay... I decided to shop more and add more things to my cart, and the message still persisted for me to shop more to get the discount. What in the world...? I decided that it was not worth the time to decipher the false advertisement and just checkout.

However, I then discovered another advertisement where if I applied for their store credit card, I could get a discount on my order! Woohoo; so being a frugal guy that I am, I applied for their credit card via their website online only to discovered that I had to make a phone call... Uh, okay? So, I called the number that was provided on my screen and I ended up waiting for a LONG time until a person finally picked up and made me go through some nuisance security tests before I could finally get my darn credit card.

But then I found out something terrible. I WON'T GET TO USE THE CREDIT CARD UNTIL IT'S DELIVERED TO ME. Seriously? Really? American Eagle Outfitters pretty much scammed me of my credit score in applying for their store credit to not being able to use it until I get it in 1-2 weeks... A bunch of bull****. You know, they could've like... I don't know, STATED THAT IN THE AD BANNER. Instead of being vague, they should've put that out there in BOLD lettering. Other stores don't do this. Macy's doesn't do this. Best Buy doesn't do this. When you apply for a store credit card, you should have it INSTANTLY. So, thanks for dropping down my credit score and doing a hard check on my credit report.

ANYWAYS, once I got my credit card, I finally went back through the checkout again ONLY to find out that one of my item in my card WENT OUT OF STOCK. Are you serious? Can this night get any worse? SO, I had to find another item that was similar because I really wanted one and added it to my card.

After that whole fiasco was done, I finally tried to checkout again and paid via PayPal and everything went through.

PHEW! It's all over right? I can just wait and get my stuff now, right?! No, not at all. There is no happy ending to this story. The next day, I woke up to an email saying that my order got canceled to a security issue... ARE. YOU. SERIOUS? Let me copy and paste the email that I got:
"Dear Minh,
To enhance security, your order was pulled for additional verification. For your protection, this order was not allowed to process further and has been canceled. You will not be charged."
WHAT? What does that even MEAN?! Is that another way of saying, "Oh, hey. The items you ordered last night went out of stock, sucks for you." Please, somebody tell me what "enhance security" means? I checkout on their official website, using my PayPal account (which I've use numerous time on other websites recently with no issue), and everything was official and went through correctly. And you're telling me you had to cancel my order because for ENHANCED SECURITY? Is this a damn joke?

Oh, it doesn't end there, my friend. I then decided to call them as it was an option stated in the email.

I called and went through a bunch of robot messages and menu options to a waiting room. After waiting and waiting and listening to the dreadful elevator music, I got hung up. What? I WAITED FOR LIKE AN ETERNITY AND GOT HUNG UP. I tried to call back, and then got a robot telling me that the call hours are over. Oh, yeah. In case you don't know, their call center is only open from 8-5pm EST, Monday - Friday. That's basically 4-1pm PST for ME.

Honestly, I was just done at that time. I've tried my damn best as a consumer to buy some stupid clothes from the website and I just had the worst retail experience that I've ever encountered in my whole entire life.

Oh, I also forgot to mention that they haven't even refunded my money. Yeah, I'm looking at my bank account right now and it's just gone.

In final words, American Eagle Outfitters scammed me with false advertisements about their mobile app discount and applying for a credit score; in which wasting my space on my smartphone and using suspicious permissions and dropping my credit score, and blatantly stealing my money and not returning it.

AVOID DOING BUSINESS WITH AMERICAN EAGLE OUTFITTERS AT ALL COST!

I was given a $100 AE gift card for graduation, and decided to spend it online. I have never even been inside an AE store or shopped with them before simply because it's usually out of my budget to buy clothing there. So this was my very first time shopping here and I'd heard bad things before, but figured I'd give it a shot anyway.

I purchase four different items and at checkout entered in the gift card code to redeem it. The system accepted the card and informed me my subtotal was $1.29 because the card didn't cover all of it. So I pull out the good old debit card and fill in the boxes with all the standard info. All goes well and I'm promptly sent a confirmation email. So far so good.

About half an hour later I'm scrolling through my email and another email from AE saying part of my order has been cancelled. Ok, these things happen sometimes. I open the email and it says:

"To enhance your security, your order was pulled for additional verification. For your protection this order was not allowed to process further. You will not be charged."

I was given no actual explanation as to why my order wasn't put through and was simply told to call a 1-888 number if I want to replace my order. As a first time customer, this did not impress me at all. So the first thing I do is to go make sure that the $1.29 had been properly withdrawn so that I could set up a notification for when it was returned. To my absolute horror, I find that the FULL AMOUNT of my purchase including the $100 that was supposed to be off the gift card was taken directly out of my account. Thankfully, when I rechecked the balance on my gift card, it appeared that the $100 was still there. However the words

" Your current balance may not reflect recent purchases if you have used your gift card in the past 3-5 days."

Were not comforting at all as now I have no clue if the balance is accurate or not. Next, I go to track my order to see the details of payment and see that the gift card appears nowhere as a form of payment used. Instead, only my debit card appears. Also, I am told on this page that my order was cancelled because all four items I had purchased had sold out. I find it rather difficult to believe that all four completely different items has been sold out and even if they were, why was I permitted to pay money for them in the first place? And why was I told that it was for security reasons in the cancellation email? Nothing here is adding up and now I have $100 that is tied up in my bank account for upwards of a week. When I did try to contact someone about the issue I was coldly greeted and told it was a system error and I was not charged. My further questions were dismissed and I was hung up on. Very very upset about the poor service.

Hopefully my money really is restored and my gift card funds are still intact in 3-5 days, but even so, I will not be purchasing anything from AE again and will be trading my gift card in for one to a more polite, reputable, and customer friendly store.