Warning: Don't order from Overstock.com

In the age of on-line clothes shopping, much like it's predecessor, catalog shopping, a decent return policy is key. Otherwise a gal just can't trust what she sees on her computer screen - it might not fit, the color may be wrong. This goes for reputable vendors as well low-overhead clearinghouses like Overstock.

Hypothetical:
law student, let's call her Erin, with no time to shop in the real world visits Overstock.com where she purchases a cocktail dress for the upcoming ball. Erin stupidly paid $20 for expedited delivery, so the total came to $133...a fair price to pay if the dress fits. Alas, it does not fit. So Erin folds the dress back up, the tags are still on, the dress has only seen daylight for 5 minutes, and she mails her disappointment back to Overstock.com.

Erin realizes there will be a shipping cost, she even accepts that there may be some small restocking fee...imagine Erin's surprise when she only received a credit of $42. An e-mail from the offending business explains that she was deducted a $46 "used item" charge. Trusting that a mistake was made, and naively believing in the existence of Overstock's business sense, she calls customer service. Overstock's barely literate teenage representative informs Erin that the warehouse found a hair on the dress. Hence the $46 deduction.

A hair?!! Gasp! How could she have been so thoughtless as to let a piece of her hair fall on the dress?

At this point Erin throws a fit, batters the illiterate spokesperson into submission, and gets her $46.

Let's review the math:
Dress + shiping + tax: $ 133
Return Label Cost: $ -4.50
Total refund after kicking Overstock's butt: $88.50
Erin's lost opportunity cost: Inestimable...Erin could have finished an entire section of her brief with the time she wasted on these undeserving fools.

So buyer beware - unless you live in a hermetically sealed bubble or you are bald - Overstock and it's return policy are not to be trusted.

Courtney - yes, this is another in my series of fruitless letters to offending businesses. On a 1 to 10 scale of consumer-rage I'm giving this one a 15. I wish you could have heard the "fit."