Orvis

Full review
Ordered: bag. Bag = per Orvis, $175 luxury good; per me, what you'd expect to find in a low-rent mall at one of those weird cart things. Rather different from the picture. Return experience was fine. But... LIARS! LIARS!

Orvis.com now features user reviews. I am a great fan of these little things on company web sites. Some can be a bit weird, but in the aggregate they are invariably correct; the 150+ women blithering on jockey.com about the underpants I wear daily are quite accurate in their assessments.

That is, of course, until the company involved starts to take it upon themselves to censor the bad reviews.

I submitted a polite, factual note about the bag to orvis.com. Many flattering reviews had influenced my purchase, but by the time I returned, one other person had apparently received the same bit of junk I had. Orvis.com was quick to highlight it with a ramble about the great customer service for the return that person had received.

My review didn't show up.

I waited. I waited. I re-submitted. It was brief and factual: the leather was thin and not at all shiny like the picture; the straps were uneven; the lining was not "Orvis plaid" but in fact an unsavoury solid greenish-yellow colour; I was very disappointed, return went fine.

I waited. By this time I was getting a bit "WTF? Those as......," about it, so I mailed them. I received a half-hearted reply about how maybe it was in the queue waiting for approval? But other reviews had shown up since mine, so... Those as......!

Return service was great. Given what garbage this $175 bag was, I demanded they pay for the return shipping, and they did.

But I rather wish they hadn't sent me garbage. And if they had to, I really wish they'd let me note it on their site, amidst all the "Great! Fantastic Orvis quality as usual!" reviews.

The whole deal left such a sour taste in my mouth that, despite the nice service, I don't think I'll be experimenting further with they believe to be [per Wikipedia] "outfitt[ing] for a complete country lifestyle," and what I believe to be "slightly nicer than, but ultimately similar to, Sears." As a retailer of women's clothing, they lean a little too towards the "Nice, but why did they have to use artificial fibres?" and "I can't believe they're selling those matching-casual-pant-suit thingies; surely even the elderly feel those are 'too old' for them?" for me.