NBAStore.com help-nba.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/240/related/1/session/L2F2LzEvdGltZS8xNTMxNjgxMDI5L3NpZC9mVV9RcFRmOHBmRVVQNE82THo2enRiVzMxcks0SGJuZVo2aFU0bkxZb0FpQnk0NmtkS3BvV2lSeGd6a0VfakFYbWozTDJVVWI2cWxHcTNBS1UlN0VjdFduUjFJblJfNWRRR1FTbU0lN0VXMU93NTg3cGp1TzJkTDY2TVl3JTIxJTIx/theme/standard store.nba.com/ Lost and would not honor my return Jacksonville Florida

For Christmas of 2017, my elderly father-in-law went into Boston to the NBA store there and bought us Celtics shirts, really nice ones that cost $95 each.  They were the wrong size (he's old, right?), so since all three shirts had NBA Store.com tags attached to them, I went to nbastore.com and followed their return instructions exactly.  I recognize that my father-in-law purchased these at a brick & morter establishment, but since the shirts all said nbastore.com on them, and since I did not want to hassle my elderly in-law with any return stuff (he was so pleased with himself for getting these nice gifts, I just wanted to get the correct size shirts and be done with it), I went to nbastore.com and followed their return instructions.  

I filled out the required form and made a copy of it before I put it into the package as instructed and mailed it off to the Jacksonville, FL Returns Center.  Via USPS tracking, I have proof that my package was received at the Jacksonville center on January 11, 2018.  When I'd gotten no word from NBAstore.com, I contacted them to see what was going on.  I will now condense nearly 8 months of back and forth, countless emails and long phone calls from me, that lead to my unsatisfactory resolution.  

NBAstore.com claims that since the items were not purchased on-line and therefore had no item# they could trace, they could not help me out; I countered that nowhere on their website or in their return instructions does it say "only for returns of on-line purchases."  Since the shirts say nbastore.com right on them, why wouldn't I use NBAstore.com to handle the return?  In my emails to them, I included scanned copies of the USPS verification of delivery to the Jacksonville Return Center, a copy of my Returns form which included all my contact info, and scanned pictures of the shirts' tags clearly showing they come from NBAstore.com.   They gave me the run-around for months.  

Finally, in a phone call yesterday, a manager got on the line and said the way they work it is if they can't find an order # to correpsond to the returned items - which of course they could not as these were a gift and not purchased online by me - they throw the items "into a pile" and then contact the person who "returned the items in error."  After 25 days, if  no action has been taken on "pile" items, they donate them!  My response to this was two-fold - how could they have strung me along for nearly 8 months when they know that they have a 25 day limit on this stuff? and, since my items had the required Return Form right there with them in the package, why didn't someone just call or email me immediately to straighten things out?  They had no answer for any of this.  I told them I felt cheated, and utterly ripped off here, and that I should not be penalized because of an internal breakdown in their protocols and operations.  

The manager finally agreed to send me a $100 gift certificate.  I told her this was 1/3 of the value of what I returned and that I was not satisfied with this result, but this is all she would do.  I reiterated many times that I was not looking for money, but just equivalent store credit so that I could purchase the same shirts again in the correct sizes, but this did  not good.  

My feeling is that nbastore.com must either correct their systems at the Return Center so that people are not ripped off in this way, or make it clear on their website that the specific instructions provided are for returns of on-line purchases ONLY.  In any event, this whole mess was a depressing customer-service disaster and I came out on the losing end.