Why I Will Never Work With Eddie Bauer Again
Back in February I held my “Blog-A-Versary” with a series of giveaways by some of the best companies I have worked with over my years of blogging.
The grand prize for my Blog-A-Versary was a travel system donated by Eddie Bauer through the PR agency they work with. It was cut and dry and in February a woman named Kristina won.
She was completely excited, and of course I was excited to get the prize to her ASAP.
Like all my giveaways I immediately forwarded her shipping address to the PR rep handling the prize which is what I always do. Once that e-mail comes in to my inbox it goes right back out so I know it is done. My e-mail box is a hot mess most days so I refuse to take a chance of e-mails getting lost or looked over.
Well, fast forward to the last week of April when I get an e-mail from the prize winner informing me she still has not received the grand prize travel system.
Immediately I went back through my e-mail and found all the correspondence between the PR rep and myself. The e-mail confirming she got the shipping address, etc.
I took a moment to e-mail the same rep inquiring why two plus months later the prize still has not been shipped. Moments later I get an auto-reply from the rep. “I am no longer with unnamed PR company, if you need any assistance contact new contact at the same PR company or call 631-XXX-XXXX.
At that point a little bit made sense, so I e-mailed the e-mail address in the reply.
After a giant game of telephone with two different reps trying to figure out exactly what the ex-employee promised they figured out it was never shipped out. Fine, I pass on the winners e-mail, and shipping addresses and keep my fingers crossed it would finally be resolved.
This all took place on April 27th.
Today is June 21st.
Two days ago I got another e-mail from the same winner. The poor woman still had not received her prize. February to June… five months of trying to chase down someone responsible enough to live up to the deal they made while representing such a large company such as Eddie Bauer.
Moral of the story?
I don’t normally take the time to blog about bad experiences I have with PR reps. If I did my entire blog would be about PR reps and how they don’t know how to do the job they have been hired to do. But after trying to resolve this issue since April I decided people should know this is the kind of business practice for those who may decide to deal with Eddie Bauer’s baby lines in the future.
Thankfully Kristina places the blame on the company as well, and has been an amazing sport about it all.
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Tags: baby, eddie bauer, giveaway, PR Rep, Shady
That is really sad. I’m glad I don’t use their products.
Oh boy, I hope poor Kristina wasn’t waiting on that travel system for a new baby… How disappointing to know that a major expense is covered, and then have to go out and scramble to get another carseat because someone (some company in this case) dropped the ball.
I never use their products as well, and your post gives me the reason never to try the at all. It is really sad that you had to go through all that.
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Hi, I never brought it up before this but I never got the Kegel Excerciser that I won in back December.
@Alejandra – Thanks for letting me know, I will contact the rep that was responsible for that!
I have heard lately of a lot of companies not fulfilling their prize obligations. I’m almost leaning towards not having giveaways because of this unless the company is in charge of the giveaway and I just post about it. It sucks when PR Reps don’t do their jobs!
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