Things have been hectic and off schedule this week. But sometimes that just happens. Usually I put up the link for Fashion Flash on Monday or Tuesday the latest, but here it’s Friday already. Yikes.
The supremely accomplished Barbara Grufferman is our host for Fashion Flash this week. Her current blog, Best of Everything After 50, will soon have a new name in conjunction with the publication of her second book. Woo hoo, Barbara! At any rate, she put together a Halloween edition of our lifestyle, beauty, fashion, travel, exercise, health and wellness posts for women over 40, and you can check it out by clicking here.
The topics of the posts this week have little to do with Halloween (except maybe one). They vary widely from health issues like coping with a diagnosis, which fish oil to buy, and how much sugar consumption is too much, to travel in Portugal’s Algarve, to a great pair of winter tights, to the definition and use of the term “lady”, to a range of beauty posts from skincare to a device to plump your lips from the point of view of two different bloggers. Hop on over, sit back and have a good read!
Sephora Play Snafu
I’ve been a Sephora Play bag subscriber for about two years. Some months the bag is terrific, and others are meh. Last month, I got a very good bag.
Today at 4:30pm, I received an email teaser from Sephora telling me to “take a peek at (my) November bag”. I like to be surprised so I didn’t look. Then at 6:53pm, I received a second email from Sephora Play telling me “my order” had been cancelled because “one or more of the items was out of stock”. The item listed as being cancelled was my November Sephora Play bag.
Because I thought maybe that email was bogus, I decided to call the customer support phone number listed in the email. It was the correct customer support number, so then I thought maybe it is a real email from Sephora. After waiting on hold for a couple of minutes (it was around 9pm EDT), I was connected to a young lady who sounded far away or we had a bad connection. I told her about my two vastly different emails from Sephora, that I originally thought the second email about cancelling my order was a hoax, and I asked her if and then why my Sephora Play bag for November was cancelled. She didn’t seem understand what I was saying. She then looked into my account and asked to put me on hold while she checked on something. After a couple of minutes, she came back and said she was sending me a link to change my account password. I asked her if someone hacked my account, and she said no. Then I asked if I would be receiving my November Sephora Play bag, and she gave me an incomprehensible response. Although she was not a native English speaker, she spoke English well. I asked her if I could speak to her supervisor since she was having a hard time addressing my concern, and she said NO. Then she asked if she could put me on hold again to check something, again. I hung up.
I redialed the customer service number, and was connected to another young lady who sounded far away, like she was in India. I guess “after hours” Sephora relies on a call center overseas. I hung up because I think I’ll be better off calling back customer service during the day.
Because the first woman disabled my password, I had to reset it which I did. As long as I was in my account, I figured I should do my own sleuthing. Sephora does not exactly make it easy. I looked at Subscriptions and though Sephora Play was listed, it only had my credit card info. Finally, I checked Recent Orders – I didn’t expect to see Sephora Play there because it’s a recurring order. Guess I was wrong, because there it was in Recent Orders: two Pending Orders on November 1, 2017 for Sephora Play. When I clicked on the first one, it had been cancelled. The second one for Sephora Play has the status: In Progress. Looks like they made a mistake and ordered two bags to be billed twice and then cancelled one before it was sent out. All fine and dandy, mistakes happen, by why the email saying it was cancelled because “an item or items were out of stock”? Why didn’t they say they made a mistake?
When I called the customer service number the two times I called last night, the first option in the menu that I didn’t quite understand had something to do with “double billing” and “fixing the error as soon as possible”, so I guess I was not the only one to have this problem with my Sephora Play bag. I’m too tired now, but tomorrow I will check my credit card and see if I was double-billed and if so, if my account has been credited.
Just thought I’d let the Sephora Play subscribers out there know about this in case you get a strange email from Sephora too. Let me know if you did!
Something similar happened to me last month. I use gift cards to pay for my Play Box and I knew there wasn’t enough on the one on my account so I went in and updated well before billing time with a new gift card (as I’ve done several times before). But, at billing time, I got an email that my card was declined. I checked the card and it had been charged. I called and was also told to reset my password and the fellow who I talked to could not answer any of my questions, kept giving me vague answers, and never really addressed my concerns. I got frustrated and decided to just try again the next day but in the meantime I got an email that my Play Box had been shipped so I ended up just letting it go.
I’ll probably do the same thing, Tamara, depending on how busy my day gets. When you called customer service, was it during the day or at night? The call center with uninformed people really bothered me because it was a waste of my time. It sounds like you had the exact same experience.
If I remember correctly, it was later in the afternoon…maybe around 4:00 and I’m on EST so maybe it was after their normal hours. I was on the phone with them forever! Probably at least 30 minutes…he kept putting me on hold for long periods. It is bothersome that they led me to believe my account had been compromised. I don’t mind them using an answering service, but they should say that they are just an answering service and offer to have an actual representative who can answer questions and address concerns return the call.
I agree with you 100%, Tamara! That was exactly what happened to me. They should definitely just say that they’re a call center and that they can’t answer any complex questions. Ugh.
Well, that is a strange experience and I hope you figured it out by now, Allison. I know some ladies were having trouble with their MorpheMe subscriptions but that’s a credit card info breach and they had scammers trying to make huge withdrawal using their info. Never heard about this trouble with Sephora Play though. Btw, did you buy anything from the ongoing Sephora sale?
Shireen L. Platt recently posted…THE LUXURY EDITION: EMILE CORDON CASHMERE-ON LIP POTS
It was definitely disappointing that Sephora is using a call center with agents who really either aren’t authorized to help or are too uninformed to help. I’m ticked off about it. My VIB sale starts on Nov. 10. I’m not sure what I’ll be getting. Maybe the silver Glamglow mask in the purple jar, maybe a Huda palette or foundation though I don’t “need” either one. I don’t need any staples really because I bought some Blender Cleanser with the friends/family discount about 10 days ago. What are you or did you get? Nothing from Fenty is calling to me, and they’re always out of what I think would be my foundation shade. I need to spend money at Ulta to keep my Platinum status there, and they have a promo now where if you spend $150 you get two gift/goody bags and one is gigantic.
I restocked some of my favourites with Sephora sale, repurchased IT Cosmetics CC Cream, Sephora LashCraft Major Volume mascara, finally bought Modern Renaissance and a few more skincare stuff. Honestly I wasn’t that interested at all in other things…maybe I’m at the age where I just want to stick with what I know will work for me instead of wasting money on stuff that I am not sure of.
Shireen L. Platt recently posted…THE LUXURY EDITION: EMILE CORDON CASHMERE-ON LIP POTS
Sounds like an impressive haul to me, Shireen!
I had a problem with Sephora too. I ordered a gift card to give for a contest I ran. I got confirmation but no notice of shipping. When I wrote them they said they were out of stock and to wait. This went on for 3 weeks and I never got my gift card. I wasn’t charged for it but I couldn’t figure out at all how they could be out of gift cards.
MarciaF recently posted…The Sunday Scoop is gobbling away at Giveaways
Someone else had a problem with a gift card at Sephora too. I can’t believe that you never received it. That’s just shoddy. Did you ever call them about it? I know that Sephora is such a big operation now that mistakes happen. But I was disappointed to get a call center when I called customer service for help. Thanks, Marcia, for taking the time to comment on this.