Rose A La Mode

Have you heard of Just Fabulous? It’s an online boutique that sells shoes and bags. But the way they sell is you have to sign up and answer a few questions. Then, you get a personal stylist that will pick out items for you that suit your stylish needs. If you don’t like the options, just tell them to send you new options and they will! It’s that simple.

I thought this sounded so cool! So, I decided to try it out for a month and then tell you guys about it. It’s $40 a month, but that includes the cost of the shoes or bag that you pick. If you want another pair of shoes or a bag, you just pay an additional $40. Cool, right?

Well, it all sounded so cool, but I have to say I was less than impressed. Here’s why.

I tried to sign up and couldn’t do it in the browser I was using. At first I didn’t realize the browser was the problem, so I tried to call. No answer. Call again, I get put on hold. I try to email them and it won’t go through. Bummer. Finally Bob told me to use a different browser, so I did. It finally worked, but by this point I was already pretty frustrated and almost didn’t continue.

So, I got my first round of options and didn’t like any of them. They sent me options that I had already told them I was not interested in. So, that made me feel like it was not a “personal stylist” that they had promised, but was a computer spitting out options that the business wanted to push that week or something. Not great. So, I skipped a month.

The next month the same thing happened. So I refused the options and then got some more. I finally found a pair of shoes I thought I’d like. When I got them in the mail, they were pretty cute, but definitely didn’t feel like the quality was $40 worth. But I know that some of that cost is for the service, so I overlooked it. I mean, if there are people out there who just need help finding options that are cool and in style, this is a great service and totally worth the price.

The shoes, didn’t fit. No problem. Happens to the best of us. So I sent them back. To send them back, you have to call. You can not talk to someone over their instant chat (my question is why do they even have the instant chat?). So, I called a few times just to finally get through to someone and the informed me that there was a $6 restocking fee. Something that was not advertised. It’s probably in the Terms and Conditions, but let’s get real, no one reads 6 pages of the Terms & Conditions. Just tell me up front. Right?

So, by this point I’m pretty mad because I can never get hold of these people, they’re charging fees that were never brought up beforehand and they’re just making my life more difficult. And, I didn’t even like their options or think they were trying to suit my needs as promised. So, I’m done with these people. I’ll just return my shoes and be done. Not quite.

The next month they sent me options and I didn’t even look at them. Well, apparently you have to tell them that you don’t want anything for that month within 5 days or you’ll get a $40 charge on your credit card. I’m not kidding. Now, I’m really angry and I try again to live chat to get this taken care of. No go. I think the live chat is there to make you feel better, but it’s actually useless. If they answer, they just tell you to call.

So, I try to call another 3 times before I actually get through to a human and I told them to take that fee off my card. Well, whoever I talked to didn’t have the authorization to do that or something. So he tells me someone will call me by the end of the day. The end of the day rolls around and I wasn’t about to let this go on another day, so I call them back and finally whoever I talkled to just took the charge off my account and closed it. Thank goodness. That last interaction was the best I had the entire time.

Not sure if this is everyone’s experience with them, but this was mine. It sucked up my time and made me loose my cool.

Update 3/26/11

I’ve been in touch with a representative from Just Fabulous and I’m happy to say that they’ve seen my review and are looking to make some improvements based on my experience. I had a conference call with them and we discussed the problems I had. They seemed very receptive and are making changes. They’ve asked me to try them out again to monitor their progress. I am hopeful that I will be able to report back to you that the issues I had will be resolved.

Update 6/8/12

I would love to say that this company has fixed the problems I have encountered, but I have not seen that to be true. And seeing the comment response isn’t encouraging either. I do suggest that If you are interested in this service, try Shoe Dazzle (read my review) or Shoe Mint (read my review). I have recently signed up with them and have had a much better time with them.