LuLaRoe Pays Mother $7,000 Months After Refund Offer

WHITMAN (CBS) - It was a side job that wound up costing a Whitman mom more money than she was able to earn.

And when she decided to part ways with the popular retailer LulaRoe it didn't go well.

Months later, and with help from the I-Team's Call 4 Action, there is finally a resolution.

"When I first contacted the I-Team I was having the worst problem getting a hold of LulaRoe to get my money back," Kristin Stafford explained.

We first met Kristin last December. She had been trying since June to get a refund of more than $7,000 from LulaRoe.

"I thought I was out thousands and thousands of dollars and that it was my undoing," she said. "And I was kicking myself constantly for thinking that I was putting good faith into a company that had promised me my money back."

LulaRoe is a direct sales company.  Independent fashion retailers, like Kristin, must first buy thousands of dollars in inventory at wholesale prices from LulaRoe and then they sell the clothing at retail prices to their own customers.

Kristin decided to stop selling LulaRoe clothing when the company offered to buy back her inventory for a full refund.  She sent back the clothes but heard little back from LulaRoe until she finally got an offer in January.

"It was not the $7,000 that I was owed. It was a little over $3,000," she said.

That's when the I-Team's Call 4 Action once again reached out to LulaRoe.

A few weeks later Kristin received a check for $7,764.35.  The company told Kristin that there had been a mix-up at the warehouse resulting in that initial half-price offer.

"I think WBZ got me the full amount back. I think knowing that I had an entire news team behind me to help get me my money back really got all of my money back," she said.

LulaRoe is currently facing a $1 billion lawsuit from former retailers who claim that the company is a pyramid scheme. It's a charge the company denies.