Closure to the Ruined Doll Situation

Well, here's a final update to the frustrating situation with American Girl and our six dolls that they ruined. It's closure to the poorly handled mess, anyway. In the end, we were able to get a refund to our credit card of a discounted amount of $740.04. This is not quite the full price of the dolls, but at least it's over.

For anyone trying to figure out the exact numbers, here's the short version:
Our sales tax is 7.5%. The total refund for six dolls should have been $741.75. The manager of the Doll Hospital came up with the total of $741.48, and it didn't seem worth quibbling over twenty-seven cents. The promise was a refund for that amount via a check that would be mailed on Wednesday (Feb. 6).

Come Wednesday, we get a two-line e-mail saying that we're getting $740.04 on a credit card refund that would be posted on Thursday. One more lie. On Friday (Feb. 8) we got an automatic e-mail saying a credit was issued to our AG account and could take a week to arrive. We called the manager and left two messages on her phone saying that an account credit was unacceptable. Never heard back, but this morning a refund for the discounted amount of $740.04 has appeared on the credit card.

The original promised amount of $741.48 is the price of the dolls and tax (minus 27 cents). It means we have to drive 150 miles to replace them at our expense and can't order them online, unless we want to pay shipping charges. In the end, we got $740.04. I know on paper it sounds silly to be upset at being cut out of another $1.44, but it's just one more irritation and example that American Girl (and the people we dealt with there) doesn't honour their word and really didn't want to fix this situation and replace our dolls. In the end, right now (a week and a half after receiving our six ruined dolls), we're out the dolls, we're out gas money or shipping charges to get them back, and we're out a stupid $1.44 as a sort of cherry on the cake. But at least it's over.

This has certainly left a sour taste for all three of us about the company. Had they just replaced the dolls, apologized and dealt with this in an upright and honourable way the day or two after we got the horrible dolls back, we'd have all been thrilled and gotten used to replacement dolls. If they had come, we could have chosen to keep the ones shipped or swap them for our own choices of the same dolls at the store. As it is, after this whole frustrating and disturbing situation, we can barely talk about those dolls. We'll never deal with the Doll Hospital again, and I would tell anyone thinking about it to find another option.

Thank you to everyone who has been encouraging through this whole awful experience, and I hope I can just get back to blogging about our dolls and their activities.