Ray-Ban’s ‘Free Overnight Shipping’

It’s your nephew’s birthday in two days and you have no gift and now that you think of it, he’s your godson too. Luckily, Ray-Ban offers “free overnight shipping” on U.S. orders, guaranteeing that your nephew’s gift arrives on time.

Actually, maybe guarantee isn’t the right word, even though it’s the one Ray-Ban uses on its site to describe its overnight shipping promotion, which has its own semantic shortfalls.

This is all due to the fact that, despite representations on Ray-Ban’s site that it guarantees free overnight shipping in the U.S., (1) certain if not all customized orders aren’t eligible for the promotion; (2) there’s no guarantee that your order will arrive on the estimated delivery date given; and (3) so-called overnight deliveries can take two or more business days.

No. 1 and No. 3 on this list of limitations appear on a shipping information page to which visitors are directed upon clicking on the free shipping banner on Ray-Ban’s homepage (see above). No. 2 comes from the site’s terms of sale, the relevant section of which states:

[P]lease note that all tracking information is provided to Us by our delivery service provider and are estimates of delivery only …

TINA.org reader Isaiah W. found out just how unreliable these estimated delivery dates can be when, two business days after ordering a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses on the site on March 7, the package had yet to arrive. It was Isaiah’s story that inspired this ad alert (though we made up the nephew/godson). He said:

This item is a birthday gift and will now not arrive until AFTER the birthday, due to not being shipped overnight as promised (let alone that the website indicated the estimated delivery date would be 03/09/2018).

Shady stuff indeed.

TINA.org reached out to Ray-Ban for comment. Check back for updates.

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