Back in the 90s each week my favorite Must-See-TV shows on Thursday nights featured at least one fashionable character wearing a chenille robe. The Nanny, Daphne on Frasier, Phoebe on Friends, and then Brad Pitt wore that famous coffee mug robe in Fight Club, forever sealing the deal and making me want one of these robes desperately. Their popularity grew to the point that one year they turned up in our local mall. There were an assortment of adorable robes, but they were rather pricey. I begged; I pleaded. I guess my mom passed the word along to her mother, who was a little more financially well endowed than we were.
On Christmas day, I opened my gift and saw a chenille robe! It was blue, far too large, and covered in a moon and stars. Now, I know how bratty and ungrateful this sounds, but as excited as I was to have this robe, the moon and stars pattern was, out of all the styles available at the mall, the only one that I didn't want. I wanted wedding cakes, coffee cups, cherries, or daisies. Something pink, something girly. I felt guilty for my disappointment. Still, it was pretty, very thoughtful, and very, very cool, so I wore it with pride for nearly 30 years, telling myself that one day I would save up and buy a different style. Unfortunately, right around the time I had enough, the only place I knew of that sold these robes went out of business and it seemed like Canyon Group was just gone.
I kept an eye out for that coffee cups robe or a wedding cake robe, but unfortunately, people tended to ask double or triple what they originally paid and I could never really justify paying up to $1000 for a used ratty bathrobe. A couple of years ago, I did find a peach wedding cake robe for $100 (that post is coming up this week!) and I bought a vintage peacock chenille robe for around that price as well, plus I still have my original Canyon Group robe. Three robes is plenty...but my 90s teenage heart wants what the heart wants.
Last year, while on vacation with my family, I spied my moon and stars robe in-stock in a shop. And there were lots! I peered through the window (the shop was already closed for the day) and spied the name on the tag: Canyon Group! And their website was on the tag! I went home and immediately searched for a robe. After nearly 30 years, my robe was showing its age. The fact that the website had only old, grainy photos seemed like a red flag. But their payment programs seemed legit and I decided to purchase with Affirm/ShopPay so that I could make payments. I got a first time buyer discount of 15% and set up my payment plan and received an email saying that although they were a little behind for the holidays, my order was due to ship in December. No problem, I totally understood.
Exactly one week later Black Friday happened and all the robes went on sale for 40% off. Ashamed at having missed such a great sale by a narrow margin, I told myself it was OK because I was supporting a small business, and didn't try to cancel the order or see if they would give me a partial refund. According to the website, orders take 6-8 weeks for delivery, so I proceeded to wait. At round 6 weeks, I received a letter saying that due to high demand, they were behind on orders, but mine would ship soon and they gave me a coupon for $100 off my next order. I wished they would have just applied it to my current order, but I thought, That's OK, maybe I'll come back and get another later on, perhaps during the next Black Friday sale. So, I waited and waited and waited. My message in February went unanswered until March when I received a message saying my order was due to ship in about a week! Finally!
Ok, they were training more people. I could wait...I guess.
Finally at the end of June, SEVEN MONTHS after I ordered, I asked for a refund.
I was told that because of their "system change," they would not give me a refund and I would have to go through my bank. A small business that is entirely at fault and then decides to hide behind some alleged "system" is not one that I or anyone should do business with. They didn't say what it was that prevented them from giving me my money back after waiting for seven months, while continually promising that my order was on the way when it NEVER was, so that I had to jump through extra hoops in order to get this refund, but I did inform them that because I used ShopPay it might not be so easy to do. They didn't care. I had never asked for a refund from ShopPay, but I didn't want to wait any longer.
I reached out to ShopPay who directed me to Affirm and opened a dispute over the charge. I provided proof of my claim to a refund by attaching screenshots of the original date of the order, and the email where I asked for a refund and was told to take this route. After two weeks, Affirm found in my favor and issued me three payment refunds and the final payment was sent in a paper check to my home! Canyon Group? Rude. Ridiculous. Utterly Dishonest!
On August 2nd, several weeks after I got my refund, I received an apology letter from CG, sent to all customers, saying they had had a warehouse fire and basically were lying about being able to ship orders when everything was in ashes.
A fire? That didn't explain all the months of delay prior to that, and besides, people would have been understanding, so why weren't they honest? Well, maybe because this was just another lie. The video included was again, gritty and vague. If this was recent video, why wasn't the owner or manager talking and walking people through it to explain or apologize? It was questionable at best.
While on my mini-break this year, I saw a couple of CG robes still hanging in that same shop window. I went in to speak to the owner about her experience with the company and she told me that she had known the original owner back in the 90s and since he died, the company had zero integrity. She also stated that she placed an order to restock her robes, that was 14 months ago, and she was still waiting. I mentioned that they'd had a fire and she claimed that the fire had occurred years ago and that this was yet another lie. At this point, I really don't know what to believe except that this company can't be trusted, and you're better off buying a vintage chenille throw, learning to sew, and making it into a robe yourself than waiting on Canyon Group to make good on their promises.
