Let me preface this post by saying when I write about something on my blog, I am gaining nothing from it. No one pays me, no sponsored posts, nada. I’m too lazy to pitch for stuff like that, and too low profile for them to knock on my door. So when I like something and write about it, it’s because I’ve tried and and sincerely love it.
We use BumGenius diapers exclusively. We love them. I cannot say enough about how much I love these diapers. We have been using them since the wee wee days (not the wee wee wee days, but just after those) and I can count the number of leaky mishaps on one hand. And they were generally my fault (either build-up problems or application problems). They are cute, but not obnoxious. They are so easy to use that my daycare (who have never had a clothy in their roster before) agreed to use them. They are so, so easy to care for.
And even though they are the mother of all diapers, we encountered a small problem. We have 12 diapers from the 3.0 generation, and 12 from of the 4.0s, all with hook and loops. There are some people (looking at you MODG) who swear by the snap variety. We tried some with snaps and they would just never fit the way we wanted. So we stick with velcro. (pardon the pun.)
Sadly, our 4.0 hook and loops stopped hooking. The front strip of velcro fuzz became unfuzzy and the tabs wouldn’t stay put anymore. I emailed Cotton Babies, the parent company of BumGenius, to basically ask what else I could possibly do, since they do not sell a refresher kit for this front strip.
They said “send them back, we’ll replace them!” because I had bought them 8 months ago. This was great news! So I shipped them along for them to evaluate, and within two days they shipped me replacement diapers (which took FOREVER to get here because they shipped them standard mail and not super fancy mail).
When the diapers arrived, there was a duty charge of $20. This was strange, because I was under the impression that you didn’t pay duties on items that were exchanges. But I was stuck, because I we had been living with only 15 diapers in our stash for several weeks and OMG small loads of laundry every day is so wasteful. So I paid the duty and promptly went home to email Cotton Babies.
I had two beefs: 1) I paid the shipping charges to get the diapers to them, which cost almost $40, and they hadn’t mentioned any reimbursement and 2) now I had paid duty on items that shouldn’t have duty applied to them.
Their response was that they would gladly send me product equivalent to the duty I had paid, but that customers are responsible for the shipping charges to the company in warranty issues. This seems strange to me. I’ve had several warranty issues with things like HP computers and Apple iPods, and they not only paid the shipping both ways, but they messengered the proper packaging to me to be sure the items arrived in one piece. Dudes, that’s 3 shipping charges on a $200 iPod, which they ended up replacing. While diapers do not require high-tech shipping facilitation, I still spent a pretty penny on them, they didn’t work properly for their full warranty period, and I feel a bit annoyed that I have to pay for any part of getting them replaced.
Am I being a dough-head? Or is my annoyance warranted? I think maybe because I love the product so much I kinda just want to feel like they did me a solid here, but $40 is equivalent TWO WHOLE EXTRA DIAPERS. Or one night of take-out. Or whatever, it’s just not cheap, you know? Anyone else dealt with something like this? If I’m being a tool, please tell me so I can forget about it.
I would be just as pissed off as you are. They should send you two new diapers, and cover the duty themselves. In the big picture, it’s nothing for them and everything for you. My motto is to keep the customer happy. I strive for it every day and if something gets screwed up, I pay for it out of my own pocket, not my client.
My two cents…
I think it was very nice of them to replace them all. And it was nice of them to take care of the duty. I would agree to let the shipping charges be a wash and forget about them. But that is just me. I have dealt with both types of companies before, ones that will and some that won’t pay to ship the defective product back.
Robyn, while I agree they have a good warranty policy, it is there policy, not really goodwill that made them exchange the diapers. If I was two months OUTSIDE of my warranty and they replaced them, then I would feel totally fine about paying shipping fees. But this is within there one year warranty period.
True. Have you asked a manager or owner there about the shipping fees?
I work with defective products. It’s my job dealing first with suppliers and then with the manufacturer if the supplier rejects the RMA request. We have all kinds of companies we deal with and unfortunately some pay the return shipping and some we have to pay even if in warranty.
That’s kind of my question – since all the warranty issues I’ve had the suppliers paid for everything I had no idea if there was also a norm where sometimes they don’t. I’m dealing directly with the supplier, so to send me product as reimbursement basically costs them nothing. They are reimbursing the duty, so I guess we’re meeting halfway?
I can say that I am extremely happy to have our full roster of cloth diapers back!
If they are still under warranty, I feel that they should have paid for the shipping. Its their problem that they didn’t last, not yours. Yet, in the end, you’re paying for it. If you wanted to spend money on it, you could have went out and just gotten new.