Jessica W.

Hello,

We have been in business for over 6 years with thousands of satisfied customers through our website www.lilyboutique.com. We rarely have to reject a customer's return and we try very hard to accept all returns, but unfortunately were not able to do so in this case.

This customer's order was shipped to her brand new in the packaging with tags on it. It was a white dress with beading at the top. Her return was rejected by our returns department because it was sent back to us with stains all over it. It had what appeared to be bronzer/makeup stains at the neckline near the bust and all on the inside of the dress. There was also a red stain on the front of the dress. Additionally, the hanging straps inside the dress had been cut off. The returns department noted that it appeared to have been worn due to the stains and the hanging straps inside the dress being cut out. We had to ship the dress back to the customer.

When we spoke to the customer over the phone, we let her know that we had to ship it back to her and it was in the mail. She admitted that she cut the straps off and said that she does that with all of her dresses. We had photographed the stains and e-mailed those photos to her. The stains were hard to see in the photos due to the flash, but they are very noticeable in person. She has received the dress now, so she would clearly be able to see the stains.

She admitted there were "a few" small stains on the dress, but said we were making a big deal over nothing. She said that either she could have done it or it could have happened at our warehouse. We do not do anything at our warehouse other than open the return and immediately hold the dress up to inspect it. Our employees wear protective gloves when handling returns. We do not have bronzer/makeup in the warehouse or anything that would have stained the front of the dress red.

The customer listed on her returns form that beading falling off was the reason for her return. The returns department inspected the dress and there was no beading falling off of it. All of the beading was intact.

We did tell the customer that if she felt she had received a defective item, she would have needed to notify us when she received it and then we could have arranged for a replacement to be sent out. Once she stained the dress and cut out the hanging straps, it is damaged and no longer salable and we cannot accept it. All returns have to be received in their original condition, as stated in our Return Policy and the Terms and Conditions the customer agreed to when she placed her order:

"Returns and exchanges are accepted on items that are in original condition with any original tags, and have not been altered, worn, washed, or damaged."

"We inspect all returned items and items returned to us worn or with stains on them cannot be accepted. Please be careful when trying on merchandise from Lily Boutique."

Our quality control standards would not allow us to ship this dress to another customer with the stains or the straps cut out. We let the customer know that the dress is unsalable. The customer e-mailed and said that if we didn't want to try to sell the dress to someone else, then we would need to give her a partial refund to have the dress fixed. The returns department had looked at the dress very carefully and found nothing defective. The beading was all still intact. She threatened to write negative reviews, but the damage to the dress was through no fault of ours.