Why I'll Never Order From Kylie Cosmetics Again

[sourced from kyliecosmetics.com]

UPDATE: managed to get a reply from Kylie Cosmetics Customer Service Team. Read below.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last few months, you'll probably know that Kylie Jenner released her own brand of highly anticipated lip products: The Kylie Lip Kits. I of course couldn't wait for these products to be released. I love lip products. I love Kylie Jenner's lips. I've had lip fillers. I love anything to do with lips. However, as expected, the lip kits proved extremely popular and each time they restock they sell out again within minutes meaning that if you want to get your hands on one of the beautiful shades, you have to be vigilant. As soon as I got the date and time of the restock at the end of March, I decided that it was my time. I had me on my laptop, my boyfriend Karl on his iPad and I had the website open on my phone and sure enough, when the kits went live the website crashed. I have never been so stressed in all of my life trying to get through those website crashes, with Koko K going out of stock even after I got to the checkout. After battling through, I was triumphant and I came away with an order confirmation - I was getting Posie K! Or so I thought...

A couple of weeks later, I opened the door to my postman who handed me the trademark Kylie Cosmetics box and I couldn't contain my excitement. I opened it up, expecting my (very expensive) lip product to fall out and what did I get? Nothing but a box full of foam. Yep, that is it. All that was in my "Kylie" box was protective foam and my order confirmation. No lip kit. No cute Kylie postcard. Nothing. I'm not going to lie, I was devastated. I'd spent hours waiting up for them to launch, I'd told everyone I'd finally ordered one, I'd said I was going to review it on this blog and all I get is a black box with "Kylie" written on and some foam. After getting over the initial confusion that there was nothing in my parcel, I logged onto my laptop and sent the Kylie Cosmetics an email with my order number, stating what had happened. I've worked in retail, I understand mistakes happen all the time and I've ordered plenty of times from the internet to find the order has been missing something or the wrong thing has been sent and usually, the customer service team sort it out immediately. As a very famous, popular and now well-established business, I expected nothing but the best customer service from Kylie Cosmetics but sadly, I couldn't have been more wrong.

Four emails, almost a week and hundreds of tweets later, I have had no reply. I've been completely ignored by the Kylie Cosmetics Twitter account, Instagram account and "customer service" email, with not so much as an acknowledgement that they've received my email. So far I have paid over £30 for an effing cardboard box and it doesn't look like it's going to be remedied any time soon.

After tweeting and Instagramming about my issue, countless other people got in touch saying they'd had a similar issue. @HeatherWhoa on Twitter was missing a lip kit out of her order and it took her five days and a threat of reporting the company for a response, in which they said they would be back in touch ASAP. That was on Friday and as far as I'm aware, she's still had no luck. @GeorgiaMeramo spent $80 on the lip kits and when they didn't arrive, she was told by "Brian" at customer service that it was not his problem and to contact UPS, who Georgia also can't get a response from, meaning she is $80 and 0 lip kits up. @codywren on Instagram opened her package to find that Candy K was missing the stopper, resulting in the product leaking all over the box and all over her other lip kits. She contacted customer service who, unbelievably, replied and told her there was nothing wrong with her lip kit. Yep despite the fact the product was all over the box and clearly needed replacing, they told her there was nothing wrong with it. @LunarSkies on Twitter had a similar problem and found her lip kit was half full (not the case with the other lip kits she'd ordered) yet customer service told her that this was normal and they do only fill the products half way. Even huge names like Jeffree Star have been noticing the poor quality of the products with others, including @x3_michii, have had botched brushes and, as expected, zero reply from customer service.

Seemingly, customer service are simply ignoring people with complaints as they have done with me or getting back in touch with a few sentences explaining their latest shitty excuse of why they don't have to refund.

A surprising number of people tweeted me and said that their order had never been delivered and the ones that received replies from the customer service team were told that Kylie Cosmetics weren't responsible for international orders. SAY WHAT? So they're telling me that if their team forgets to put a lip kit in an order, puts a wrong one in or as in my case, puts absolutely nothing in the box, that is not their problem because we don't live in the US? Other people have got extremely rude replies for the customer service team which basically have a few lines telling the customer to contact UPS.
This. Is. Not. Okay.

I kind of feel like because it's Kylie Jenner and she can do no wrong, the company thinks that they are above providing great customer service. They are wrong. No matter how famous a company is or how rich, customers are paying for their products and they have a duty, moral or legal, to make sure that the PAYING customer receives the overpriced products they paid for. Things go wrong with orders. It's natural. What isn't natural is screwing those customers over, refusing to give refunds or substitutes for crappy reasons because they don't want to part with any money. I can deal with things going wrong if the company is more than happy to help put it right. I'm a big fan of the Kardashians/Jenners and I've always thought they were great businesswomen. You know what's not great Kylie? Taking the money from your fans and customers and providing them with empty boxes, the wrong products and products that break and not even giving them as much as an apology or a decent response.

LM Entertainment wrote a really great article about why the practices of Kylie Cosmetics will be its downfall and if you don't believe me about hundreds of orders going missing with no customer service, take a look on there. The company is making approximately $1.5million every time these kits go on sale - it isn't like they're a small start up business who are struggling to afford great customer service. Simply saying "its not our problem" to the hundreds of issues is not good enough.

Since I posted by photo on Twitter, the Kylie Cosmetics handle has been tagged in literally hundreds of tweets complaining about them in response and I have no doubt that they have been seen. The Twitter account is active, RTs positive feedback from customers but has absolutely zero interaction, something which is clearly done on purpose to avoid customer complaints. The same goes for the brand's Instagram page and Facebook page - there is zero customer interaction no matter what the comments say.

Quite frankly, I am appalled at Kylie Cosmetics. I've paid £30+ for an empty cardboard box and I know hundreds of others have been ripped off too. It looks like there is a very slim chance of me getting my money back, or better still the lip kit I actually wanted, and I want people to know that if they order from Kylie Cosmetics, they are taking a risk. If something goes wrong with your order, which it quite often does with online companies, you will be lucky to get a rude reply, let alone any kind of refund or replacement. We are paying an absolute fortune for these products and we should be able to rest assured that when problems do arise, they will be addressed quickly. I have no doubt that the products are of great quality which is why I wanted to get my hands on so much but am I willing to pay $$$ for this level of customer service? Definitely not.

I will never be giving my money to this company again. Kylie should be ashamed that she puts her name to such appalling service. I apologise for such a negative post. Usually if I'm not a fan of something I just won't post about it but I just find this completely unacceptable and really feel people should know the risk of ordering from such a badly run and untrustworthy company.

If anyone has any idea of what I can do to get my product or my money back your suggestions would be welcome!

UPDATE:
11th April 2016: After emailing a fifth email to Kylie Cosmetics threatening to report them to the Better Business Bureau, the UK retail ombudsman and my bank, I got a reply telling me that they really care about their customers and that they will be sending me a replacement package out in the next 3-5 days. Let's wait and see if I actually get this one....

18th April 2016: I still didn't get a shipping confirmation after one week of waiting for I emailed Kylie Cosmetics AGAIN who then sent a confirmation within a few hours.

23rd April 2016: My replacement lip kit FINALLY arrived so I now own the lip kit I ordered and paid for. Do I like the lip kit? Yes. Would I order again? NO. After this much hassle, it's simply not worth it.

Amy x