Known defects shipped, resolution not followed through, eventually plain dismissive.
Ordered a Wilson Duke NFL football as an international customer. Would not recommend.
The tracking notification arrived on 16 February. When UPS showed no record of the package a week later, I emailed to ask what was happening. No reply. A few days after that, I received an automated "are you happy with your order?" review request - for a ball that hadn't been shipped yet.
When Ryan eventually responded, he explained the ball hadn't actually shipped and wouldn't for another few weeks. Fair enough - I was anticipating that timescale from my initial order but the confusing comms and ignored emails were not a good start.
The ball arrived in mid-March. The NFL shield foil logo was peeling at the edges and the lacing had a visible defect. When I raised this, Ryan's stated that the foil logo issue is something he "notices fairly often" and that he had personally repaired five or six balls himself using superglue before selling them. In other words, this is a known, recurring defect that he works around rather than notes upfront. He also confirmed the lacing was "definitely a quality issue."
He offered an exchange with a prepaid return label. I agreed immediately. I had the ball boxed and ready on 20 March. I chased twice - 23 March and again a few days later - with no response. Ten days after the offer, he finally got back to say he couldn't generate an international return label and didn't know how to arrange one. He then offered to send a DIY lace repair kit instead.
I declined, sourced the return shipping myself (£24 from the UK), and he reimbursed the cost via PayPal. The ball was delivered back to him on 4 April. By this point, the original exchange offer had for some unknown reason become a refund and separate repurchase - a change he made without explanation.
I received no confirmation from Ryan or Shop/Shopify that a refund had been processed. On chasing (again), the refund was shown as issued on 8 April. When I explained I had definitely not received email confirmation and asked if he could follow up with his platform if nothing came through after a week (which I felt was reasonable), the response was: "There's no need for me to go on a chase for your payment."
To summarise: the ball arrived with defects the seller already knew about or didn't check. The offered resolution wasn't followed through. I ended up organising the return myself. The deal changed without notice. And the final communication was dismissive.
The product quality issue may partly be on Wilson. The rest of this is entirely on the seller.