Fox E.
Yelp
Hey, Sencha. I should've Sencha the bill in the mail for the shoes of Barbie's that you threw in the trash a couple of days after we left one there. In fact I should've Sencha a lawsuit over it. Especially when you lied to me for days about what happened to them. Read on below.
Bear in mind that throwing out our shoe is not reason for a 1 star review although it sucks and is horrendous customer service. But lying to me about it - 1 star.
So.
This Sencha location is my least favourite because Barbie gave me her shoe to use in the bathroom photograph and I left it in there. 2 days later I realized where I had left it and called them and the guy said that he thinks he saw it and I should call back and speak to the manager, next morning. I made it clear it was worth nearly $100. He assured me they had it - he thinks somebody took it home - but he'd find it. Hmmmmmm.
I know, right. Already worrying.
So, I tried for the manager every day for the next 5 days until I finally got a hold of her (1 week after I left it, 5 days after the kid said he'd seen the shoe in their lost and found), and she told me that they hadn't seen it. I pressed the issue and said that one of the others had seen it, and she said that they "probably threw it out" because they have a policy of throwing out everything that they find within a few days. Really? I mean, really? "We just get so much lost property here we can only hold on for a couple of days."
Liar.
I pressed her further and asked her to find out who threw away this $100 shoe and after 20 minutes of lying and going back and forth (not exaggerating... I actually started being accusatory, because I was very sure she was lying... and I was right), she admitted that she, herself, the manager, had thrown away the shoe. After blaming it on "some other employee" for 20 mins and changing her story 5 times.
She had no idea how much it was worth blah blah blah. They only keep things for 2 days blah blah blah. But this all after lying to me for at least 20 minutes on the phone which was by far the most frustrating and infuriating part of all of this mess.
So this company owes me a $100 pair of shoes, which are honestly probably only worth about 60 because they were heavily used on strip club stages and in Boba shops around the country - but still.
Next, she offered to send me some coupons and apologized profusely and I think she even started crying on the phone. I don't want your tears! Just send me the shoe, or if you threw it out, pay for it! $20 in Sencha coupons is not going to do it... it'll be years before I'm back in Minnesota, most likely. And Sencha isn't even that great. Why not just send me a dollar bill in the mail... it's worth more to me than $20 of coupons.
The problem is that she's a liar and and if I wasn't such a perceptive personality, persistent, determined, and good at reading people, I would have never known what happened to Barbie's shoe and she would have gotten away with it.
Then she gave me her personal number to "discuss it further." I did not contact her, and did not save the number. How unprofessional are you, really? I mean really.
So, I contacted the corporate office and they asked me what was wrong. I was very tempted to tell them the full story. I knew the manager's name and I'm confident I could have gotten her fired, if I'd wanted. Maybe even gotten my money back. But I stopped. I didn't bother telling corporate. I left them hanging.
Truth is, I didn't have the heart to try and get her fired. I mean, someone once broke my nose at work (I worked with him), and I didn't even try to get *that* dude fired. It's not my style. It wasn't worth the money to me to cost someone her job. No matter how insanely unprofessional and dishonest she is.
This is the same reason why I'm not naming her by name. But if this particular manager wants this review to be amended or if the owners want this review to be off of here then they should probably pay me what they owe me. $60 for the shoe would be great.
On the good side the drinks are not bad - Taro Milk Tea was average, and my Fruit Black Tea was slightly better - but not as good as a couple of the other Sencha locations (University one is best, Madison one is decent, Mall Of America one is meh, but none of them owe me $60-$100 so they're all better than this one), and the atmosphere is much more like a Bohemian coffee shop than a bubble tea shop. And there's a huge mural of Prince on the rear wall in the parking lot.
I was going to give them 4 stars for the drinks and nice atmosphere and great murals, but it's 1 star until they resolve this. And I don't mean with twenty f***ing dollars of f***ing coupons either.
Having said allllll that. Despite my all out honesty and full disclosure, it has to be said. There are bigger things going wrong in the world than a damn lost shoe. It's just money. Don't avoid Sencha just because of what they did to me. Go there if you love it there. I'm sure you will anyway.