credit where credit is due (m)

As part of my Spring Cleaning and preparation for my trip to Florida, I embarked upon a marathon clean-out of my closet.  While I do a general cleaning twice each year, this one was different. In the past, I would merely rotate the stock from Fall/Winter to Spring/Summer.  This time, I tried on every article of clothing and actually threw away anything that was big, ugly, or out of style.

In the process of cleaning out, I found seven items of clothing I had purchased online from J. Jill.  These clothes were purchased anywhere from last Spring to two years ago.  They were either way too big or the style was just unflattering even when they did fit.

My mother and Lyn are the Queens of Returns.  Between the two of them, I'm hard-pressed to decide which one is better at returning things as their styles are so different.  My mother will return a single orange ("it's not juicy" she'll tell the clerk) or a quart of milk that she didn't use and is now out of date.  Lyn will return the same item more than once (I'll let her explain that to you).  I, on the other hand, give things away or let them languish in my closet for years.

I looked at the seven pieces of clothes...blouses, tank tops, pants.  Dare I return these?  I checked the catalogue online...most aren't even listed anymore.  I printed out all my receipts, circled the items I was returning and packed them in a box with a note explaining I had lost alot of weight and these no longer fit.  To sweeten them up, I told them I was looking forward to buying new clothes from them in a smaller size in the near future.

I packed the receipts up with the clothes and sent them to the Returns Department and crossed my fingers.

Today, I got an email from J.Jill notifying me that they have credited my AMEX for the FULL amount of the original purchase:  $395.00!

Would they have done that for anyone or were they touched by the fact that I had lost the weight?  I envision some overweight representative in Customer Service smiling and saying "You go, girl!" as she acted on her own to issue the credit.

However it happened, I feel validated.

Now let's see if Marshall's will take back the Nicole Miller dress from three years ago...