Raw Deal: What a big problem a little thing like a tag on a hoodie caused

THERE didn’t seem to be any problem at all with the hoodie that Julie Balfour bought as a Christmas present.

It was a Calvin Klein top and Julie reckoned it would be a hit – and it was.

Julie, from Inverness, got a phone call on Christmas morning thanking her for the well-chosen gift.

There was, however, a small problem.

There was a shop security tag attached to the top. Julie hadn’t seen it because it was in the neck area and had been covered by the hood when Julie wrapped it.

But a tag is a big problem.

It obviously had to come off, but that isn’t the easiest thing to do. These tags are designed to be difficult to remove.

Julie had bought the article online from House of Fraser, but had thrown out the delivery note with the wrapping it had been delivered in.

House of Fraser’s first plan to remedy matters was simple. They reckoned Julie should take the hoodie to her nearest House of Fraser store and they would quickly remove it.

But the nearest store is in Glasgow, more than 168 miles away. A 336-mile round trip to have a tag removed clearly wasn’t going to happen.

Julie wondered if they couldn’t contact a shop in Inverness that had apparatus to remove a tag? After all, most clothing shops have tags on their goods these days, it shouldn’t be too difficult to organise having one removed.

But this didn’t seem to be an option.

House of Fraser wanted the hoodie returned to them so they could do the job. But, as Julie kept telling them, she had discarded the documentation for returning the item. She couldn’t send it back using the normal channels.

She did, however, have proof of purchase as the hoodie had been bought using her House of Fraser account.

A compromise would have been for HoF to send a new hoodie (without a security tag!) and Julie would use the documentation it arrived with to send back the tagged one.

It seemed a clever and simple solution.

But HoF wouldn’t do this. They just kept asking for the item to be returned.

Got a consumer problem? The Sunday Post’s Raw Deal team can help

Julie felt she was getting nowhere and wondered if House of Fraser were even reading her emails explaining the problem.

She wrote to Raw Deal.

We had a word with House of Fraser.

One of the things Julie was worried about was the hoodie going out of stock. She was aggrieved that the tag on the one she’d been sent was certainly not her fault but that she was being greatly inconvenienced because of a simple error at the point of distribution.

All the action took place over the Christmas and New Year holiday period, so it took a little while to find someone with the required “clout” inside House of Fraser to solve the problem.

Once we managed that, however, the problem was swiftly resolved.

House of Fraser sent an identical hoodie and decided they didn’t, after all, need the old, tagged, hoodie returned. They advised that Julie should dispose of it.

They also sent her a £20 gift voucher as a gesture of good will.

Julie was grateful for Raw Deal’s intervention.

She said: “Thank you for your help. I genuinely appreciate it as I know this would have dragged on and on otherwise.”

Raw Deal was happy to help Julie – and Santa, of course – get a Christmas gift delivered in usable form.