H&M’s refund policy has been questioned by frustrated customers, after they discovered they’d left it too late to take back their Kenzo X H&M items.
The high street store enforced a new policy that only covers the sell-out Kenzo range, which states shoppers have just three days - instead of the usual 28 - to bring the clothing back for an exchange or refund.
At odds with this strict window, H&M has also extended its standard refund policy until the end of January, allowing people to return unwanted Christmas gifts.
So can the high street store enforce this three-day policy for Kenzo collaboration items without infringing on shoppers’ rights?
In a word, yes. Unless you bought the pieces online.
Shops are only obliged to refund items bought in-store if they are faulty, that means any refund or exchange policies for unwanted items are actually just acts of goodwill.
“Due to the increased demand of our designer collaborations, H&M reserves the right to amend our returns policy to three days, not including faulty items that can still be exchanged/refunded within 28 days,” an H&M spokesperson told The Guardian.
“This does not affect our customers’ statutory rights.”
Online shoppers, on the other hand, have up to 28 days from the order date to decide they don’t want an item - and there doesn’t need to be anything wrong with it to get a refund.
When customers buy something without seeing it in person, they automatically get a 14-day ‘cooling-off period’, and the same amount of time to send it back to the retailer.