It started with a bag.

I complimented a friend on her Anello-inspired backpack and asked her where she got it from.

She said Club Factory, and I wasted no time downloading the app.

In retrospect, I don’t remember her recommending the app at all.

She simply stated it as a matter of fact, an answer to a question, so I don’t blame her for the madness that ensued.

Before I go any further, let me just say that I am not a “fussy” online shopper.

More than half the time, I don’t get what I pay for, but that hasn’t stopped me from shopping online anyway.

Even if the item looks nothing like the photos online, so long as it’s functional, I don’t make a big deal out of it.

But my experience with Club Factory was so awful from start to finish, they merit a blog for their “service.”

My total bill was AED 173.88.

Not an exceptionally high amount but AED 23.88 more than enough to qualify for free shipping to the UAE.

For the payment option, I chose to pay by credit card, because I was too cheap to pay the additional AED 11+ for cash on delivery charge.

That proved to be a mistake.

I placed my order on June 11, and the expected delivery date was June 26.

The latest tracking updates were available on the app, but as the delivery date drew nearer, the updates froze.

“Unexpected delays” and “We apologize for the inconvenience” soon replaced the regular updates.

Anybody in my place would be alarmed.

The second strike was when they finally updated the name of the local courier and the tracking number.

When I looked up the local courier’s website, tracking information was unavailable and so was their landline number (if they even have a landline number at all).

Instead, they had a mobile number listed, which isn’t even an active number (the first 10 times I checked).

The expected delivery date of June 26 came and went.

I started messaging Club Factory’s “customer service,” also available on the app in the form of an online chat with responses ranging from 2 hours to 2 days.

By then, I was fed up with the default responses of “Kindly wait a moment” and “We will get back to you.”

It was like talking to bots instead of humans, and it was nearly impossible, let alone frustrating, to talk some sense into them.

I pointed out that the least they could have done was to get a legitimate local courier company like Aramex or even Fetchr.

Instead, they chose an obscure and shady company with no proper landline number.

Never mind that my items were supposed to have already arrived in the UAE (as per their “tracking information”).

The third strike was when I got the following response from Club Factory’s “customer service”:

“Dear Customer, We cannot commit you exact date of delivery. It depends on courier service that how much time it will take.”

Cannot. Commit.

When you pay good money up front, you don’t expect non-committal BS like this 5 days after your items were supposed to have been already delivered.

I finally threatened to cancel my order and demanded a full refund.

It took them a full week after that to deliver.

The items I received were mediocre at best, but the missing pants were the icing on the cake.

I ordered a 2-piece set, which was supposed to come with a white crop top and wide leg pants.

Once again, I took my case to Club Factory’s sorry excuse for a customer service, who offered to compensate me a measly 20% of the total amount.

I decided to return the favor of the headache they’d caused me for 2 weeks by demanding to have the lost pants shipped (regardless of shipping delays, of course).

They responded with a full refund, which has yet to be credited into my bank account at the time of writing this blog.

And that is why I dub them “CLUB UnsatisFACTORY.”

To be fair, the app does have some dirt-cheap deals on clothes, accessories and lifestyle items.

They also offer COH, so if you don’t mind rotten customer service, by all means, Club Factory is the place for you!