Sephora not allowing online ordering for my account

[opas12]

So it’s the VIB sale season and I go to place an order online because it’s also pandemic season. After 30 minutes I see that the status has  changed to unauthorized transaction which means the order has been cancelled. My CC company isn’t the one that cancelled the order but rather it appears to have been cancelled on Sephora’s end. 

The icing on the cake is that they didn’t even bother to send an email confirming that the order was cancelled because why should Sephora do something courteous like that?!  😄 

Anyways I place a second order and same thing happens....

Logically I call the customer service line and am told they have to raise the issue but I’m not allowed to purchase online! I’m told to go in store... I guess to see if I can catch the novel corona virus while I’m trying to catch the sale at Sephora. (all joking aside though the products I want are “online only” so no go for in store)  

I have asked several times for a reason and they said they don’t know and even after they figure out what went wrong  (if they ever figure out why) they won’t be about to disclose the reasoning. 
Now I guess I’ll never find out why my measly account was targeted for exclusion of online purchasing. They also won’t be honoring the discount for VIB because THEY JUST CAN and also because they say I have the option to go in store to buy a product they only sell exclusively online. 

I totally get that taking my business elsewhere is a joke to the company. My business does mean jack squat and won’t make the slightest different to them. I’m only VIB after all. 

Their bank is probably the size of a some smaller countries but man it has been a seriously upsetting and frustrating experience being a small fish today. 

[keelybt]

Hi @opas12 I will look into this for you and send you a PM. 

[opas12]

@keelybt  thanks for taking the time to investigate and reach out. I got your PM and email but it’s the same non-response I keep getting from other client representatives. 

I completely understand that it is not your fault and I’m not upset at you at all. I am truly thankful you took the time to respond and the below is in no way directed to you but rather Sephora. 

The biggest problem here is that there is no time line when corporate will get back to me and by then I’m positive the sale is over. 

I’ve also noticed a huge trend and countless posts now about blocked accounts! 

In all honesty, I’ve never been this upset to write a post about a company. I don’t think it’s right for Sephora to try to place blame on their clients and say that their credit card companies are making a “hard decline” when they’re not! I mean making false claims is not good for any company reputation? 

Sephora needs much work in providing transparency to its customers. Be honest about the reason. If the “system” is flagging accounts (as the customer representative has stated to me) then that should mean the back end coding has logic built in to track certain things to flag certain activities. These reasoning shouldn’t take days on end to resolve. It should be clear to the client exactly what the reason is and steps for clients to rectify the situation should be made readily available as well.

In addition to , I think the company needs to stop encouraging people go to a store instead of online shopping as personally I think it is a reckless suggestion given the current environment and 2nd wave that is overtaking NA. 

[Emy10]

@opas12  i would call back and talk to another agent.

Then if the same happens, you could ask to be transferred to a manager of some sort, and if you want to go even further, there's corporate or something like that.

Normally when an account has a restriction, there's a reason, or its a glitch in the system. It seems this has happened before to other customers, and theyre issue was resolved.

For you to have been told that they didnt know why etc is not ok.

[opas12]

The call ended up with a supervisor but they repeated the same thing saying sorry, we can’t tell you why over and over again. 

I completely understand it’s not the call centers fault and didn’t want to give them a hard time so I just gave up lol. 

Thank you tho. Maybe I’ll try calling again tmr to see if they can escalate it and get to the reason why.