Loft / Ann Taylor review: Getting a refund for products not ordered

My wife bought 11 items from Loft.

- We received "the" shipment on 10/5, which contained NONE of the items she ordered; all items received were different from what she ordered, and was different from the packing list inside the bag.

- My wife spent 1 hour across just two calls to try to get a refund and have the items sent that she actually ordered sent to replace what she got (which were items she did not order). At that time, they said they couldn't do this because there was something wrong with her account. She escalated to the call center manager and after 10 minutes of her providing information that they should have already had, he said nothing was wrong with her account. The call center person then found that all the items she ordered weren't available, and my wife decided to just place another order, separately, since the conversations had taken so long and she'd have to look for other options. We've since received that order.

- The call center rep told her that we'd get something via email about the refund, and that they would send us a label for the package. Because we hadn't received any assurance of the refund, we held onto the package of items that we received. Nothing was received as of 10/19.

- On 10/19, I called on behalf of my wife and went through the process of describing everything over again. The rep said she'd send me a label to use to send the other items back via postal service. However, this was a UPS label that requires me to get in the car and drop it off. She said I could put in my mailbox, but this is not the case. We are still hesitant to send the wrong items back without hearing more about the refunds. We feel like we need to hold this package hostage, since we've received nothing that makes us comfortable with the process they desscribed.

- When we discussed the refund (which was cash + points), the rep said she'd have to send this to the investigations team and after they completed their investigation, they'd get back to us. No ETA... no expectation of when we'd hear back. No way to get someone's email address who I could contact / could contact me. When I asked to talk to a supervisor, because we'd been through this before, she said there were no supervisors there. When pressed harder, there was still no way for me to escalate to anyone. I had to accept their response that didn't provide me any ETA on refunds, and no way to know the status of the investigation.

This is a TERRIBLE customer experience when we made no mistakes... they shipped an order under my wife's name that didn't match what she ordered, or what was on the packing list in the bag. For us to have to wait and not have any timelines is unacceptable. They told her this a week ago and we have heard nothing about it. It was as if my call was brand new... nothing seemed to be documented that she could follow up on and tell me what the status was.

We want someone to contact us and provide us status of the investigation. We are stuck on whether to ship the package back.

THIS HAS BEEN A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE