Bad customer service advice

I truly hate it when HSN uses third party vendors, where we have to mail returns back ourselves and run the risk of problems. They should warn their clients before they buy. I would have never made the purchase if I had known this was a third party vendor, as returning items is such a pain. I returned an item a month ago and never received my refund. Unfortunately, I lost the postal receipt. I blame but myself for this lapse and take full responsibility for this piece. However, when I approached customer service on how to resolve this problem, they told me to wait a week to check with the third party vendor, who denied receiving a package. Not knowing what else to do, I was advised to go to the post office to see if they could bring up the record via my credit card. I did not know that they can do this. However, I was 7 days too late as they only hold the information for a month. I could have accessed this information immediate on 8/1 when I called customer service, but they told me to wait, thus losing the one chance I had to prove to HSN that I did return this item and I had the tracking to prove it. So, because I followed the poor advice of customer service, I am out almost $100 in the lost item plus shipping. HSN customer service doesn’t know how to handle lost items and their “advice” is worthless. HSN needs to train their people better on this matter, because the customer will lose out. Customers, please know you have one month to get to the post office to access your tracking if you lose the receipt.