holiday consequences for army surplus

I finally received my army surplus order yesterday, and was quite disappointed. The BDU pants were the wrong kind and the Danish web pack that I was going to use for caving and hiking came in without any straps. I was already a bit annoyed that it had taken them 12 days to ship my order, and then I receive it and two out of three items are wrong. I guess I should have gone ahead and ordered 5.11 tactical pants directly from a dealer instead of relying on an army surplus outlet during the Halloween rush. I immediately called the store and they were friendly enough. They apologized and promised to make it right. Of course, I need to return the pants first and they say that they will refund me the shipping cost. Why couldn't I just bill it to them, since it is their mistake?

I guess I'm lucky that this wasn't a Halloween costumer order, seeing as today is Halloween. This is an inherent problem with ordering from army surplus stores online, though. They carry so many different styles of clothing, and even within those styles there are subtle variations and degrees of wear and tear. So how can one expect to actually receive what is pictured on their website? It will be interesting to see if they get my replacement order correct. If not, this will definitely be the last time I order from an army surplus store online. As much as I like the idea of recycling clothing and picking up items that have been washed many times over and are now extremely comfortable, I'm thinking that the predictability of buying new has its advantages. I may have to just stick to dealers of new tactical clothing so that I know in advance what I am getting when I place my order.