Susan-michael.com Reputation Check

I strongly recommend that prospective customers DO NOT buy from Susan & Michael. I ordered an FC3 Muse bag in espresso. That is not what I received. What arrived was a completely different, extremely poor-quality bag, labelled in Chinese and carrying a NoroNoro tag inside. I contacted Susan & Michael immediately, explained that they had supplied the wrong product and provided the photographic evidence they requested. Then the games began. After sending the photographs, I waited five days for their “fulfilment team” to investigate. Their eventual solution was extraordinary: I could pay approximately $30–$40 myself to return their wrongly supplied product internationally, with a refund only after it eventually arrived and passed their inspection, or I could keep an item I had never ordered and receive a 10% refund. I refused. The offer then became 15%. I refused again and made it completely clear that this was not buyer's remorse and not a product that merely “didn't meet my expectations”. THEY HAD NOT SENT ME THE PRODUCT I ORDERED. The offer then became 20%. I refused again. Eventually it became 25%. At every stage they continued refusing to provide prepaid return postage. Think about that for a moment. Instead of simply correcting their mistake — refunding me and paying to recover the unwanted item they had supplied — I received a succession of increasingly desperate partial-refund offers apparently designed to persuade me to keep a cheap product I DID NOT ORDER. To me, this felt like a bait-and-switch followed by an attempt to make the customer absorb the cost of putting it right. What makes this particularly galling is that Susan & Michael prominently advertise a “30-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE” on their website. My experience of that supposed peace of mind was very different. I gave them repeated opportunities to resolve this reasonably. I even told them that I was perfectly happy for them to have their bag back — they simply needed to provide the return postage because the incorrect item was their mistake, not mine. They still refused. I have therefore now initiated a chargeback through Barclays and supplied the evidence of what was ordered, what was received and the correspondence with Susan & Michael. The customer service throughout has been infuriating: generic apologies, repeated reframing of the issue as the product “not meeting expectations”, and partial-refund offers increasing from 10% → 15% → 20% → 25%, rather than simply taking responsibility for supplying the wrong goods. This is one of the worst online retail experiences I have had. My advice is very simple: DO NOT BUY FROM SUSAN & MICHAEL WITHOUT FIRST READING THE INDEPENDENT REVIEWS. Ignore the polished photographs and reassuring language on the website and research the company independently before giving them your money. I dearly wish I had.