Problem with Burberry shoes

OVincze

Member
Oct 8, 2010
756
5
So, I decide to write on this forum about my situation. I have been a huge fan of Burberry and was seriously hesitating writing about my problem because my local Burberry SA is great and I really hate writing a complaint type of a post. Regardless I am utterly disappointed.

A few weeks ago I bought a pair of gorgeous studded flat gladiator sandals. I never wear flats but was so in love with these particular sandals as I love tastefully studded shoes and the shoes are beautiful, unique and elegant with an edge, the studs are perfect; silver and cone shaped.

As I said service has been wonderful. These are not my first Burberry shoes as I got the Nova espadrilles as well. Their shoes are very comfortable too. Anyhow, after wearing my shoes once the sole started peeling off on one of them. The sandals are all leather with leather soles except for a very thin and small area of rubber glued on the front and back of the sole. This is a great idea because they do not slip and the leather sole itself is stiched on.

So the leather sole will not come off but the rubber may and honestly it looks kind of ugly to me and more importantly I do not expect this problem with a pair of 500 dollar sandals the most expensive ones I ever got. The store manager was not nice to me at all and in fact it came out as she tried to blame me for this problem. After wearing it for 2 hours at the office? She and the central office concluded that I damaged the shoes. I honestly cannot see how glue letting go can be a result of damage. Indeed the one shoe looks different because the rubber sort of hangs off more and I think it has to be a fault in workmanship because I would certainly remember if I had damaged the shoes.

In the end I was offered a free repair, do you think this is normal? I am still wondering if I am overreacting that I feel I was sort of let down? I do shop there and wanted to buy another pair of sandals on their sale but now I am disappointed in Burberry. If your most expensive sandals start falling apart on me after one wear would you feel inclined to buy more? But most importantly if this is the customer service I get I am not sure that I would want to buy luxury items there. My experience with repairs done on a problem like this is that they do not last. Yes the sandals are gorgeous but I now sort of feel like I have just thrown 500 dollars out the window. I live in Europe and in general I feel that customer service here is not good in general and this does matter a lot to me so I would rather spend my hard earned money on things that will last and at stores where service is great.

I look forward to your comments as I would love to know how others feel; if I am overreacting not feeling happy or if this is considered normal by others as well. Thanks in advance.
 
Anyone, plz? If allowed I will crosspost on Glassslipper, unfortunately even though on this forum many people look at posts people rarely respond, I get much more responses there, which is sad, I wish the Burberry people were more active:smile:))
 
It sounds completely unfair to me. They should be offering you a full refund. If you're not getting the proper response in store I suggest you call the Burberry number for Europe - I'm sure you can find it on their website.

I'm in Canada and I had a similar experience - bought a pair of Burberry sandals wore them out of the house for 5 minutes, took them off at a friend's house then wore them for another five minutes when I came home. The leather soles were totally damaged and chipped, one had this weird concentric circle pattern of damage. I had bought them from Neiman Marcus, and they said they would give me a full refund, which they did.

If you pay $500 for a pair of sandals the only way you should be able to damage them is if you decide to either go mountain climbing in them or if you take a pair of pliers to the sole and try to pry the rubber off. Some boutiques totally fail when it comes to returns. Don't stop until you get a refund or a replacement. A repair would be warranted if you had been wearing them for a few weeks and then this happened.

Good luck and I hope this helps!
 
Thank you, that is what I thought should be done, I was used to better customer service than this. I do not think it is right. When I bought a Furla bag and a Furla wallet and after a few months the handle of the bag broke and the PVC coating peeled off on the wallet, they exchanged them no problem. Many other items I got there were fine but the thing is problems can occur but how the store handles them really matters.

My SA at the store is awesome but I was not particularly happy with the store manager, I just felt that it was like she did not care if I stopped shopping there which I do every single month, so if they have this attitude that they do not care then why should I? Thing is I still love the brand and like I said the SA treats me just awesome and feels bad about the whole thing. She said that we could send my sandals to London but then they might still say no and I would be without them for potentially a long time and what can I do with my sandals in September when the weather is usually not nice enough in Hungary for sandals. So the SA suggested they repair it as they have a really good cobbler, we will see but not thrilled about this either way. I do love the sandals though like I am in love with them which is why I did not want a straight return.