I bought a nice looking pair of Ecco shoes a couple years ago. Actually, they were probably the nicest shoes I've bought before or since. I don't have a reason to wear dress shoes often, but when I did, they looked nice and I was proud to have them.

About a year ago I noticed that the soles were starting to come apart. I wrote to Ecco to ask for advice, got a short reply along the lines of "we received your message and will get back to you soon", then nothing. As of about a month ago, they finished literally rotting off - the soles were disintegrating in big, soft rubbery chunks - and my mother-in-law did me a favor by having them re-soled. I wrote again to Ecco to tell them what happened but this time I haven't gotten a reply of any kind.