Hope you can post here so sorry if I am in the wrong place !! I was wondering if anyone had had a similar experience. I ordered a limited edition makeup collection from Colourpop (this was a set that included an eye shadow palette, glitter, lip products, etc.). The package arrived but the main element – the pallet was missing from the collection. The package has not been opened so it looks like the mistake was made during the packing process. I contacted Colourpop immediately and sent the photos of what happened along with the delivery slip (they request this on their website). I have had no communication or response from them. I tried to contact them on Twitter, nothing. I then tried contacting them on IG and got a DM saying they were busy. My comment was also quickly deleted. I waited longer and finally decided to open a case with PayPal because at this point I am lost. After opening the case, they contacted me (privately on my email) to tell me that they could offer a one-time courtesy refund, but this can only be done if I close the case, otherwise the refund cannot be processed. I have never opened a PayPal dispute before, but it all seems very risky to me. They did not respond to the dispute over PayPal. I hesitate to shut it down and wondered if anyone could give any advice. This is my first time ordering from Colourpop and it took a while to arrive too so it was a general disappointment. Thank you in advance!!! ——————— UPDATE: Thank you very much for your help and suggestions !! I’m sorry that so many people here went through a similar situation, can’t believe how horrible Colourpop customer service is 😖 I called PayPal and like Colourpop did not respond to the dispute in the resolution center , PayPal suggested that I report it to a claim (I did). PayPal basically said the same thing the majority of reviewers said, once the dispute is closed I can’t open it anymore and judging from the previous experience I didn’t want to risk it. Since I am requesting a partial refund, they should be able to pay it through PayPal. Colourpop has until February 13 to respond to the complaint (nothing yet). A large part of me thinks not. I would have been really happy for them to send the missing pallet. If they offered a credit voucher it would be a nightmare for me as I’m from UK I even considered getting the pallet elsewhere (maybe EBay but I’m worried about fakes) as I am. wanted for my collection. The palette is the Sailor Moon Pretty Guardian. I’m a huge Sailor Moon fan so it hurts, haha. Thanks again for all your help !! I will update once the dispute is over or if I hear anything (or not) from Colourpop. —- Last update !! I received a notification from PayPay (today the 12th, a day earlier than I initially thought) that the matter was under PayPal review. A few minutes later, I received another email saying the case was closed in my favor and I had received a refund. Colourpop never responded to the dispute (which I could see in the resolution center). The only other correspondence I received from Colourpop was an email asking me to rate their customer service. Thanks again for your answers and your help! I am very relieved that this is over.
No, you can’t re-open the dispute once you’ve closed it. First they issue the refund, thus resolving the issue — THEN you close the dispute. It does not go the other way around, ever.
Definitely let PayPal know they’re fucking around, that’s a big violation of their terms of service and PP does not fuck around.
Yeah, don’t listen to them! Once you do that, you won’t see that refund and there won’t be anything you can do about it. Whoever is in charge of your case through PayPal send them copies of those emails.
That’s so sketchy. I’ve personally never had any problems with CP, but stuff like this makes me question if I should keep supporting them.
Do not close it before getting a refund, I fell for this once without thinking after the company told me it was how their system worked or something (like it wasn’t possible to issue a refund without the dispute being closed). Paypal doesn’t give a crap and won’t do anything or reopen it once the dispute is closed, no matter how unethical/unfair the company is being.
Fuck colourpop honestly.
I had to file a dispute against them after they didn’t send me a palette twice (they tried to replace and send it to the wrong state). And my bank denied my dispute because I made the purchase, like no shit that’s not what I’m disputing.
Do not close the PayPal dispute.
As an international customer, this would be my worst nightmare. Can’t imagine spending at least 60 usd for them to mess up my order and getting store credit as a “refund”
why are they saying “courtesy refund”? you didn’t receive your item. do what is suggested above and if it doesn’t work, report to the better business bureau. it is illegal to take someone’s money without providing the promised goods/services.
this is why i cant purchase from colourpop again – i ordered once, they got my order wrong but sent over my product hassle-free but nightmare stories like this where a brand will put in so much extra effort to gaslight their customers instead of doing their job.
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also not just extremely sus, but absolutely WRONG that they said “courtesy refund” …like YOU did something wrong?? sorry my inner karen is jumping out
Definitely don’t close – and as someone who’s made (and won!) PayPal disputes before, if they give you a solution you don’t like, keep pushing!
No. I work in disputes. Don’t close it! All communication should be through the dispute only. You gave them the option to correct it before it got to this point.
They also have the option on their end to just accept it and push your refund through. This really suspect to me that they’d ask you to close it first.
I work for a large game company and I handling finance cases like this. You do not have to close the dispute before they can issue you a refund. They absolutely still can refund you your money even if a dispute is filed.
Do not close that dispute. You keep that open and make sure that all of your messaging is done through the resolution center. They can either send you the missing items or your money. That’s their option.
This is super sus and makes me wanna Karen out lol just don’t close it so that it’s in their hands. As long as that dispute is open, you’re in control of the situation
Yeah I’m having issues with them too. My package was “delivered”, but never made it to my door. I’ve done email, DM, etc with minimal responses/help. Unfortunate that they don’t have an actual number to call. If I don’t hear by the end of the week, I’ll probably dispute it as well.
It shipped the 19th, and was “delivered” three or four days after that. Never showed up in my apt mailbox.
I had the same thing happen with another brand. They only responded because I opened a PayPal case. I tweeted at PayPal to get advice and they said absolutely NEVER close the dispute unless they refund you and the money is in your account! Keep the case open if they are being difficult and let PayPal handle it. Make sure you use the resolution center to message Colourpop back so if they don’t comply then PayPal will take over and see the communication history.
Do not close the dispute. Inform PayPal that they contacted you, since I bet this violates some of PayPal’s terms.
If you paid with a credit card, open a dispute with them too.
It’s so frustrating when companies refer to their actions as “courtesy.” No, you have my money. Fixing your mistake is not a “courtesy.” It’s what you’re supposed to do. Pisses me right off
I wouldn’t do this. A while back I ordered some stuff from them that I never received. They tried to say my address was incorrect but I could see the address I provided was correct. I asked them when I would receive my refund and they said they still hadn’t received my items back to them. And then they said from the time they received them it would take up to an additional 6 weeks to get a refund. I let them know that was unacceptable and I wanted my refund like yesterday. I told them if they couldn’t give me an immediate refund I would go ahead and open a dispute through my bank. All of a sudden they received my stuff and I got my refund the next day.
🙀 oh dang. I didn’t expect that from CP. I stopped ordering from them cuz their shadows bother my eyes and I haven’t been wearing lipstick these days but never had issues when I did order. Veryyy sus. You definitely don’t close the claim until after you’re refunded
This is so grimy. It seems like they’re trying to avoid PayPal “dings” against them because regardless of if you’re a big company, you can lose your PayPal privileges if too many cases are opened against you.
I just ordered from them for the first time, and they left my palette out also. So frustrating. They responded to my initial complaint quickly (though the email did go to my spam folder so took a couple days for me to see it) but haven’t been back in touch to resolve the issue. So disappointing to see that this must be a recurring thing with them. Should have done my research!
Bruh this makes me so fucking sad. I love Colorpop so much because they are affordable but this bs and their stupid “limited” launches are aweful
Do not close the paypal case. Colourpop customer service has a slew of horror stories, but paypal’s is great. Through paypal you will definitely get your refund. If you close the case all you have is the word of a customer service rep who ignored you the first 6 times you tried to reach out. Get your money back!
What the top commenter has said. Report them to Paypal.
PayPal is very pro-consumer. Don’t close the dispute. It’s not your problem that a company with shitty CS has a chargeback issue with a very pro-customer vendor.
What they’re asking doesn’t even make sense. They can refund the order through the opened case which will close the case. The only purpose for the customer closing an open case without a resolution is to be sure they get no resolution. Once the case is closed PayPal is removed from the picture and you’re stuck battling it out with the company. Definitely keep the case open until PayPal closes it themselves through a refund! I hope PayPal can look into this further for you and help resolve it!
Omg I’m so sorry this happened to you! I browsed some of their stuff the other day and now I’m really glad I didn’t buy anything. They don’t deserve business if this is how they treated you.
They have the worst policies and the worst customer service. I ordered about 6 liquid lipsticks and one of the six had obviously been opened. There was product smeared all over the the top of the bottle and the brush was all messed up. I emailed them and explained it and sent them pictures. They responded that some of their brushes are different depending on the distributor and I was not entitled to a refund.
I explained to them that I didn’t want a refund, I wanted the lipstick but I wanted one that I knew for sure had not been opened because that’s not sanitary. After a few emails back and forth they finally granted me a courtesy exchange and sent me the new lippy. Luckily that one came in clean and unopened but I’ll never order from them again.
CP is shady. Don’t have good quality and have horrid customer service.
I can’t get behind their brand. They did something similar to me. I just did PayPal dispute and got my money back. I told them they could send a return label and I would send their product right back…… didn’t hear back. Kept their product and it’s some of the worse quality I’ve ever had….. bye. Next.
Rant over.
Colourpop has terrible customer service.
It’s so messed up that they’re trying to blame u for your mistake by calling it a courtesy refund instead of apologizing and fixing the problem. I’ve been curious about colourpop because of the sheer number of times I’ve seen people mention their products but seeing your post makes me not want to touch their products with a 10ft pole.
Not as bad, but my first experience ordering from Colourpop was not great. At first I didn’t realize I hadn’t transferred enough into my chequing account, so I fixed it after they declined my order. I made the order again and this time they canceled it again. I tried reaching out and they basically told me some version of “we had a potential [fraud suspicion] and unfortunately we can not give further details.” I put it in brackets because I can’t recall what the exact wording they used was.
I called my bank and they suggested it could be that my debit card was due to expire in a month and that some retailers were uneasy about that. So I ordered a new card and made the order again. They canceled the order and when I emailed they told me the same thing!
At the time I got my husband to order it for me because I wanted the products. But I am not a fan of them not even letting me prove it was my card and nothing suspicious.
ColourPop’s customer service is the equivalent of rotting trash in the Arizona summer.
I am sorry they did that to you and I agree with other posters, report them to PayPal.
Oh man all these horrible customer experiences. I ordered from them once and I received my order but I’m never ordering from them again.
Sorry if this is slightly off topic. But does anyone know a quality alternative to colourpop that offers colourful palettes and ships to the UK?
I’ve been a fan of theirs up to this point but reading this and the comments is making me second guess my judgement.
Colourpop has done this crap to me. They lost my order for two weeks, purposely ignoring me after multiple emails, DMs, IG post, etc. they didn’t resolve the issue until I called my bank to cancel my order. It took them another two weeks for them to mail my package. Their customer service is horrible, their products has declined. Almost every palette I’ve gotten from them in 2020 had a ton of fall out, and their liquid lipsticks are weak AF. This is why I won’t drop money off of them. That, and they lost another order of mine, sold out of everything, and refunded me.
This is super weird. Something like that happened to me and they just sent me the missing item. I think someone just isn’t doing their job correctly.
Would it just be easier to let PayPal settle the claim, get your money from them and be done with it?
i ordered from them once and i did like it but not enough to order again lol this was probably back in 2015/2016 colourpop was just starting out / becoming well known. but i’m terribly sorry to hear that your experience was crappy 🙁 after reading a lot of these comments i won’t be ordering from them
I’ve had a similar experience with them and they only take your issue seriously when you threaten to post on social media (or actually do it). It’s more thing to shut you up really, but definitely go through PP bc they don’t tolerate this stuff!!
I ordered from them twice with no issues until now.
I placed an order in december and another one in january. Nothing was coming in, but I was patient couse covid/holidays. Yesterday I received the package O order on January 3d, but no sign of my other order (from december).
I contacted the customer service, but seeing all of the negative experiences here makes me think I’m never gonna see that package lol
Why has CP become such trash, they have always had terrible customer service but damn this company makes a TON of money and now they can’t even take responsibility for their mistakes 🤦🏼♀️
I went through a similar experience as well. One of my palettes a shadow broke when I opened the box and normally I am not that impacted, but I mainly bought the palette for that beautiful green in the midnight masquerade besides the two dark shades and to see it broke made me sad. So I contracted them, they were late and then they gave a coupon. I was like alright, day I went to use the coupon it didn’t work and I had to complain and complain and only then they refunded before taxes just on the palette. I am taking a step back from them even though I love their stick foundation and tinted moisturizer
Hi! Don’t know if anyone mentioned anything similar but I work in the fraud department at a bank! CP is doing this because they don’t want to deal with PayPal. Once you file a dispute with PayPal they contact CP and try to get to the bottom of everything. They can’t give you a refund with the PayPal dispute still open because of a bunch of technical stuff I’m too lazy to explain but basically it could result in them refunding you AND PayPal so they’re doing a whole “let’s not involve the big guy and just handle this ourselves” kind of thing. If CP is too sus for you, there are two good options. One, dispute it with your bank with the reason being that you did authorize the purchase however you did not receive your merchandise and save/screenshot every bit of communication between you and CP as proof. Two, ignore CP and try to reach out to PayPal to get the dispute moving with them! Also…I can only vouch for financial institutions in the US that use Visa but other financial institutions that use like MasterCard do operate almost exactly the same in the fraud process with a few differences in the fine print.
How long did you wait for a response before opening a claim?
I want to like Colourpop, I really do – I like their products, but their customer service horror stories like this scare me so much – I usually try to purchase them from Ulta or find a new/gently used product on Mercari (my favorite way, you can find them for around or below retail, and that way I’m not giving money directly to Colourpop nor am I contributing too much to excess waste because it’s a product that’s already been purchased by someone else)
Ooof that’s unfortunate. My ulta doesn’t have my brow pencil from them and I’ve heard so many horror stories now I refuse to order from them directly. I think I’m done with them now 🙃
In fact that is pretty standard stuff. They cannot issue a refund if a dispute is open. On the other hand you could wait for paypal to resolve the dispute but that would probably take longer.
I have to say…I love the majority of their products, but their customer service leaves SO MUCH to be desired. Their quality control needs a lot of help as well. They’re not very responsive to Twitter in my experience. I’ve only ever gotten in contact through email and it wasn’t exactly quick or very helpful.
I know a lot of sellers on aliexpress try to pull this shit but I didn’t know big brands like Colourpop do this too. To LIE and try to trick a customer into closing a dispute so that they don’t have to pay for THEIR mistake is beyond trifling! Then to act like they’re doing you a favor by calling it a “courtesy refund”? Also, who deletes their customer’s ig comment and then replies that they’re busy? Sorry but this has me pissed FOR you! The way a company treats their customers in public view is very telling of what they do behind closed doors and now knowing how they are I’ll never spend any money on their brand. I honestly wish that others would stop keeping shitty companies like this afloat by continuing to line their pockets even though they obviously don’t gaf about their customers. I hope things work out for you in the end and like others have suggested I would most definitely report them to the BBB. This is a pattern for them and they need to be reminded that they need the customers, not the other way around. Let me drink some chamomile tea and calm my ass down lol. I work in customer service myself so that’s why I’m so triggered. I would NEVER treat a customer like this.
OP please give us an update.
They said they were “busy” !? Umm that’s crazy like wtf..that’s gotta be one of the worst I’ve ever heard. But definitely do not close the dispute until you have been issued your refund ..it’s not the other way around. It sounds like they are just trying to avoid some kind of bad rap on their end, but they screwed up and haven’t even made up for it with any kind of courtesy.