The Great Customer Service Troll

A great thing about the Internet is that it allows one to quickly and easily come into contact with anyone. I can @-reply Donald Trump on Twitter and tell him that he is made out of 25 polyethylene bags filled with garbage and he can read it and have it in the back of his mind as he fills up his bags. I have also found out that you can email companies anything and they’ll respond to you. I usually choose to write companies in all-caps, intensely misspelled diatribes that make little sense, and the customer service representatives have no choice to respond back in benevolent corporatese. I am mommy’s little bad boy. I once emailed Jelly Belly about the faulty popcorn j-bean flavor, and recently emailed Chipotle in which I got a free burrito for pretending to be a deranged insane person. DiGornio Pizza even follows me on Twitter, and one time I asked them for a free pizza and they gave me two. Seeing as this is a fashion website of some sort, I decided to email various fashion companies something in the same vein as my previous efforts to see how they reacted. Here is the exact same email I wrote to everyone:

"HELLO,

I BELEVE THE YEAR WAS 2013. I WALKED INTO TO YOU'RE STORE, AND WAS IMMEDIAEDTLY AMBUSHED BY YOUR RABIES-INFESTED GANG OF SECRUITY GUARDS. I HATE THEM! ANYWAY, I CALMLY WALKED INTO YOU'R STORE AND WAS TACLKED AND REMOVED FROM YOUR STORE. FOR, LIFE. THEY SAID I WASN'T WEARING "PANTS" AND I WAS "BLEEEDING FROM ALL MY ORFICES" AND WAS CARRYING A "LIGHTED MATCH" AND "THREATENING TO EAT FIRE" LIKE A "CRAZY MAN." UM. THAT SOUND LIKE ME, BUT I AM SURE THAT THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN. ALMOST SURE/ IT IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE THAT THIS DID HAPEN, BUT I DONT THINk SO , MOST LIKELY. ANYWAY I AM DEMADNING 7 OF YOUR PR0DUCT, AND IT SHOULD BE FOR FREE. YOURE EMPLOYEES MADE ASSAULT TO ME. MAKE WITH THE FREE GOODS AND PRODUCTS

THANKS,

BRENDAN"

So that's what I sent. Originally, I had a line in there threatening to sue, but my editor wisely told me that maybe I shouldn’t do that. I sent the email to 14 companies, and 7 got back to me. The following are some of their responses.

Versace

"Dear Mr O'Hare,

Thank you for contacting us.

We will forward your e-mail to the competent office.

Best regards."

I never received a follow-up from them, so I am assuming my email was thrown in whatever shredder they use to get rid of persistent Migos-related inquiries.

Louis Vuitton

"Dear O' Hare,

Thank you for visiting www.louisvuitton.com.

Despite your unfortunate experience, know that we at Louis Vuitton welcome you in our stores and strive to provide all of our clients with sophisticated service that is of equal quality to that of our products. We value you as a customer and welcome your feedback.

Louis Vuitton brings extreme care to each phase of the creation of our products, using noble materials and having skilled craftspeople making each item, which perpetuates and renews our tradition of excellence and refinement. Louis Vuitton does not offer discounts or sale prices on our merchandise for any reason.

If you wish to discuss this or any matter further, please do not hesitate to contact Client Services at 866-VUITTON (866-884-8866).

Best regards"

I definitely got a "you shouldn’t have been in our store" vibe from this email based on the amount of words longer than six letters. Come on Louis, just tell me you don’t want to service a man who claims he entered your store bleeding and threatening to eat fire. I won’t be mad. Not only do you not want to give me a sale, but you don’t want me within 500 feet of a Louis Vuitton.

Nike

"Hello Brendan,

Thank you for sharing your feedback with us about your latest trip to a Nike store.

I need more information about the situation before I can escalate it to the proper team within Nike. Please provide the following information below:

Date:

Time:

Store:

Involved Employees Names:

Have a great holiday season and thank you for writing Nike."

I didn’t go any further with the NIKE team because I feel like they would have caught on to me when I told them that employees named "Gromp" and "FlimFlam" were involved. I also don’t even know where a Nike store is, so that would have also been a problem. Also, you have a great holiday season too, Phil Knight.

Gap

"Dear Brendan,

Thank you for your recent email. We would be happy to speak to you about your store experience. Please reply to this email at your earliest convenience and include the telephone number you wish to be contacted at along with the best time(s) to reach you. We can either have someone call you, or you may contact us at the number below and reference case #1474907.

We look forward to hearing from you.

If you have further questions or concerns, please call us at 1-800-427-7895, and follow the prompts to share your store experience. We are available Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and Saturday 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

Sincerely,

Rachel H"

Gap seemed awful ready for this email, almost as if they are constantly receiving complaints about their stores. Like, they gave me 70 hours in one week where I could have called them about the "experience" I had in their store. Shoutout to the Gap for having such a warm customer service team, but a non-shoutout for being so nonchalant and chill with someone claiming they were mistreated because they weren’t allowed to eat fire on store grounds. So, for those of you keeping score at home, that’s a total of 0 shoutouts.

Saks Fifth Avenue

"Thank you for contacting Saks Fifth Avenue and for sharing the details of your recent experience.

Our goal is to provide excellent service every time we have the privilege of assisting our customers, and I am sorry your experience was anything less than satisfactory.

Once again, thank you for contacting us."

Saks treated my email with pretty strong "Well, that happened, moving on" vibed. I’d be TRULY INSULTED AND UPSET if my email was real. But I'm not because it's not real and, instead, I'm happy because last night I played a game of Boggle with my family and won.

Cartier

"Dear Mr. BRENDAN O'HARE,

Your request has been forwarded to the appropriate department and a representative will contact you as soon as possible regarding your inquiry.
We hope to have the pleasure of welcoming you soon in one of our boutiques or online again at www.cartier.us. You will find the addresses of Cartier boutiques and authorized retailers on our website by clicking here."

Damn, "MISTER Brendan O’Hare?" Cartier is out here treating me like an adult who doesn’t spend his day sending facetious emails to various fashion companies. Also, treating me like a child BECAUSE A REPRESENTATIVE NEVER CONTACTED ME BACK. What, you guys are too busy begging Jay Z to namedrop you in of his rapping songs? I bet you'd have the pleasure of welcoming me soon in one of your boutiques. I bet you would.

Aeropostale

"Dear Brendan,

Thank you for taking the time to contact Aéropostale. Please allow us to apologize that your experience at our store was less than satisfactory. As a company, we are committed to providing a fun and friendly Customer Service experience in all of our stores. We value our reputation and rely on the feedback of customers such as you to ensure we are fulfilling this commitment

Every customer who comes through our doors is important to us. We would like to assure you it is our goal that each visit to our stores results in a positive experience. We are sorry if you feel that we did not achieve that goal.

We would appreciate the opportunity to have you visit our stores again. As a gesture of good will, we would like to send you a coupon for 20% off a entire purchase that can be used on a future purchase at any one of our stores. We simply ask that you reply with your mailing address and we’ll mail it to you.

Thank you for again for bringing this matter to our attention."

Now HERE we go. This is a company that I can get behind because they are giving me coupons. I didn’t give them a mailing address because I haven’t worn Aeropostale since I was 15, but good for them. Thank you for treating me like a human being, Aeropostale, and not like the subhuman I presented myself as in the email. Or as the subhuman that the other companies treated me as. Four Pins readers, I urge you to shop at Aeropostale as a sign of good faith, or, at least, enter their store bleeding and entice their security team to throw you out so you can get a little taste of that discount.