Carter Bates — Local services in Lynchburg

Absolutely awful experience in the store today.

I went in with my mother, sister, and brother’s girlfriend. We are returning customers here - my mom and dad frequent this store and have bought many items here. Today we were helping my mom shop, which involved all of us picking items for her, taking them back to her dressing room to try on, and going in the dressing room to provide feedback on the pieces. My mom had a few items she was going to purchase and was finishing trying something on when one of the sales associates came back there to ask that we give her any of the items that we're not planning to purchase. I let her know there is only one pair of pants that my mom had tried on that she was not purchasing, which we already took out of the dressing room. The store attendant proceeded to speak to me in a very rude way, telling me she didn't get the pants back, and was behaving very hostile towards me. I eventually located the pants, which were in the dressing room hallway on the return rack. I then asked the store attendant if there was a problem (based on her tone and body language), and she proceeded to tell me that it was odd that there were four of us going in and out of the dressing room. I asked if this was against store policy and the store attendant walked away from me. At this point, we felt extremely disrespected by the very unprofessional customer service. We left the store without purchasing anything.

We went into a different store next and then realized one of the store attendants followed us in there and went to speak with one of the store staff in the new store to tell them that we just attempted to steal things from their store and warn them against us at the new store... Wow. My family has lived in Lynchburg for over 15 years, they shop at the mall frequently, and are past customer of Carter Bates. Oh, and I should mention we are immigrants, we speak another language, and my mom has an accent when she speaks English - we can't help but feel that there was discrimination at play here due to this.

The disrespectful and vindictive behavior here is truly unbelievable. We will never return back, and are so hurt that they would accuse us of such a thing and also spread these awful accusations to other stores. Please do not support...

One of the few upscale retail fashion stores in Lynchburg. High quality means higher prices and not everybody understands that! Very helpful staff and owner. Always ready to suggest items for you to consider. I love this store! I only wish they had a larger selection of shoes...

Not my happiest Christmas shopping experience. Frosty, stiff sales people and archaic return system for brand-new jewelry with receipt. My hard-earned working girl dollars will not return. I was happy to find my Christmas purchases at...