I had purchased a pair Gucci sunglasses last summer which I immediately found to be of cheap construction; however, I overlooked this at the time as I really liked the styling. It seemed that the case was of better quality than the glasses themselves but I digress.in any case, approximately six months past when I began having issues with the temple locking up and becoming difficult to manipulate which ultimately led to a crack in the plastic. I contacted Safilo USA, the company that manufactures Gucci's sunglasses, in the hopes that they would honor the warranty on my $300 purchase. From the beginning of my experience with their customer service department, I had nothing but trouble. When I called the phone number no one answered the phone and I received an automated response which simply stated that one should send your glasses to them with a $15 processing check. I have purchased a number of products over the years and some have had issues that required me to send them back to their manufacturer, but I have never had a company ask me to send them a fee just to look at them! (They take your $15 regardless of whether they choose to repair/replace them or not)
I ultimately gave in and shipped them the glasses with a check and received a call from one of their support staff who stated that they had somehow determined that it was my fault that the plastic cracked. At this point, I asked to speak to their manager, Lilly Caban, who was extremely unhelpful and what I would call an embarrassment to Safilo. She said she would be willing to extend a courtesy offer to me which would allow me to purchase the sunglasses again from them at half the price - $150. I am not going to elaborate how I felt when I heard that... At that point, I simply asked her to give me the contact info of their president of consumer relations or equivalent and she flat out refused and stated that, You may only talk to me and no one else I am in charge.
Reflecting on this experience, I realized that I made a terrible mistake in purchasing Safilo products. I subsequently donated my other pairs of Safilo glasses to charity as they served as an unpleasant reminder of an experience that I would rather put behind me. My hope is that in writing this I may prevent other individuals from unwittingly falling into their warranty scam.
0 comments