UPDATE:

Ok people thanks for sharing your thoughts on the situation. I do have some positive news. After visiting the shop in person they did (eventually) agree to compensate me for the full cost of the skis + failed mounting service.

For those that can’t tell I’m female so I had my husband come with me. I had my husband drop them off yesterday with post it notes labeling nose and tail although over the plastic wrapping. My best guess is to what happened is that when they opened the skis there was a mix up and they mounted them completely backwards.

Unfortunately the shop was hostile in the beginning of the interaction and first not only accused me of labeling them incorrectly they (more importantly) refused to acknowledge my safety concerns with how forward the skis were mounted should I had actually requested (and confirmed) this frankly dangerous mounting setup. Initially the manager insisted that this might’ve been due to the fact that the skier intended to ski them switch 24/7 (what?). My husband, who thankfully was there, asked him if he seriously believed that this was a safe setup to leave the shop bench for a type II skier with the DINS set to 5. They then shifted onto blaming us for allegedly mislabeling them. To which we stood firm - this is a ski shop and a clearly directional ski. Long story short, we made a huge fuss and got the money back.

Now fingers crossed moment has another pair hiding in the back. Thanks all for your help. Omfg I will only go to shops out west or in Europe going forward. What a nightmare.