Sephora PayPal refund fraud alert...

[pivance]

On March 27, 2019 at Sephora's Woodlands TX Mall store , I was informed of a 'year old' Sephora policy of not processing refunds back to PayPal by a store cashier. When I pointed out to her that she just processed another return to my PayPal account 3 weeks ago, she stated again it was at least a year-old policy. I asked to speak with the manager.

After questioning her, telling her I’d made many returns to her store never bering advised of any 'year-old policy' because cashier's always asked if I "wanted it back to my PayPal account" and pointing out many places where Sephora states it processes refunds back to 'the original source', she admitted she only was made aware of the policy a few weeks earlier when a customer came in with a return receipt to PayPal that hadn't appeared on her credit card/bank statement. The Manager then suggested I CHECK MY BANK/CREDIT CARD STATEMENTS FOR REFUNDS because refunds somehow were being 'bounced back' (her term) and not processed. No one could tell me the start date for the 'year-old' policy and it took the mamnager several mi utes to find the policy's 1-2 sentence wording buried deep in the website, not clearly stated in the purchasing pages. 

After several hours reviewing my 2017-2019 Sephora purchases trying to remember what I’d returned (big purchases were easier than little ones) then comparing that list to my PayPal account, I discovered NO SEPHORA STORE REFUNDS EVER WERE MADE THRU PAYPAL equaling THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS retained by Sephora. 

I tried contactIng Sephora Corporate in San Francisco and Marketing in New York as it is a corporate issue beyond the scope of a Customer Service 'beauty advisor' or store/regional 'director' -  employees not informed of policy, client funds kept without notice, etc. however, I’m stuck with voice message mailboxes 'full' at every contact.

i suggest ALL SEPHORA CUSTOMERS IMMEDIATELY REVIEW THEIR ACCOUNTS TO VERIFY IF YOU RECEIVED PAYPAL CREDIT FOR YOUR RETURNS!  If this turns out to be a known corporate systemic issue, a class action may result. 

[yuline]

@pivance OMG this is horrifying!!!  Thanks so much for this alert!!!  I cut down use of PayPal in past 6 months when I discovered a merchant had wrongly charged me for a service that was NOT provided and was not replying to my requests to resolve the issue.  PayPal was absolutely ATROCIOUS horrifying to deal with. Can’t get through forever when you call and when you do it’s a person with a bad accent who was NO HELP at all/useless, the emails I finally did get showed me PayPal didn’t even read what I was complaining about because the emails were basically scripted junk and irrevelant.  It was SO PAINFUL and confusing trying to navigate paypal’s dispute channel.  Sephora and PayPal BOTH should have notified you the transaction was invalid. Companies like this when something goes wrong, it’s basically impossible to fix. I’ve been VERY badly burned by Sephora before so now I make sure I am careful with anything to do with purchases at Sephora.  PayPal is fine as a long as nothing goes wrong. Once something goes wrong PayPal is a horror show.  A few years ago I placed 2 orders online during the rouge sale and 1 got weirdly cancelled even though I hardly order online. This was during the time Sephora was allegedly cracking down on overseas illegal resellers buying bulk.  Seriously ridiculous that they did that to me considering it is SO obviously not given the 20 years I had been with Sephora (even the items which were ciate stuff are not of high resell value in demand). I later more than a year later read stories on social media of multiple customers alleging Sephora cancelled their online order but never refunded them.  I’ve always wondered if that happened to me but it was too difficult to go back and I’m so busy with my career I just gave up but I always had a question mark that maybe I lost ~ $100 unknowingly.  

[keelybt]

Hi @pivance I'm so sorry to hear about your experience! Our stores should be aware how to process returns for orders placed using PayPal. I will send you a PM for more information.