20 replies to this topic

[UnknownSuitor]

Hello I am doing this as a 'community service'. This community has taught me much, and all of us warn each other about other suppliers, so this is my turn I suppose. I mainly subscribe through RSS nowadays, and only really post on longecity.

On May 10th I along with many others ordered 30G Uridine, after more than 2 years of research into nootropics, but due to my anxiety I have a issue spending money on 'maybes'. I went to purchase it, and saw they accept Paypal..I thought great and went through, and purchased it at roughly 3pm May 10th. It was 5 days and a lot of talking, but I got them to send me a tracking number. I checked the tracking and it said it was Delivered.

I thought GREAT! MFW! I checked all around my house, I checked again, and again, and again and again. I checked the webcam I use as a security camera, and no one came onto my property that day. The carrier drove to my mailbox and left, 1-2 minutes later I could see myself walking slowly to the mailbox, checking it, and bringing in the mail. It is a keyed box, I know for a fact no one could that easily get into that box within ~1 minute. At least not without on hand tools, and being there right as the driver left.

I didn't understand, it said delivered. So I contacted them, and they said they will ship a replacement. They explicitly told me "IT WILL BE 2 DAYS AND YOU WILL HAVE IT". They said they payed for some super shipping, I couldn't care less of what they call it. I was like...eh...okay. I waited 2 days, took a non paid day leave for the day and waited. Looking directly at the camera, along with a book on the other side of the screen. From 8am-5pm nothing came near this house. As soon as the carrier came, I rushed out excited, she drove off, but I checked the box the instant she left. Nothing.

I felt lied to, I remember thinking "They are just fucking with you...Chumping you" (Due to experiences in my life I have extreme anxiety. I live armed, I walk armed, I don't trust anyone, and I bar my entrances to my house as a example of the anxiety I live with...My personality has developed to protect me from other people, which it does excellently. It's like having a courtier who only wants whats best for me) Nevertheless I think "They can't control the mail. It will be here tomorrow" I take tomorrow off of work, and was so certain it would be here. Nothing. Nothing came. As soon as I saw the carrier, I ran out and talked to her. (My parent worked for the USPS, so I know quite a lot) I spoke with her and she called center, and they agreed it would of fit in the mailbox. So if it was sent to me, I would of gotten it in the mailbox. Which if you have been following along class. I always checked within 1-2 minutes of her driving by. So a stolen package theory is near impossible. I ask her if she remembered putting a package in my mailbox, and she says shes not sure, we talk more, and she says she will call center, and hopefully find it there, otherwise it was misdelivered.

NOTE: If you have been following along, Great! Misdelivered means you are ruined in the USPS. It means the carrier gave it to someone else, and...On small packages. They don't record where. Yippeeee!

I look at the time of delivery later that day, 10:30am. Hmm. She absolutely always comes by at 10:25-10:30, She has for years since I moved here. (Very little variation is to be had USPS wise in this area) I go to my neighbors, which although I like having quiet neighbors, I dislike talking to people, so this was a chore to say the least. I smile, and be the perfect charming self that I feign to be. I task him about any packages (This is the type of guy who sell his house to protect a bum...) he says he got his, but he opened it. It was a phone. I leave soon there after.

So, I have been jerked around...a lot. As you have seen. But wait now for the 'Shutter Island' of twists. THIS ENTIRE TIME I HAVE BEEN CONTACTING THEM WITHOUT ANY RESPONSE. Multiple emails, multiple support tickets.... Never once contacted. They have my phone, they have my email. But no. They decided to ignore me. All I ever asked for...Was the tracking number of the package they sent... It was never sent..because..

It didn't exist. It's the only plausible possibility. Two packages not coming, and both of them misdelivered (EXTREMELY RARE TO MISDELIVER AT ALL) all while I have the carrier looking up and down for a package to send to me (They do spend quite some time, although they aren't paid by the hour). No, It never existed to begin with.

I have still attempted contact, but now. I spent a hour writing this. I have avoided doing so because I didn't want to complicate this transaction.

SmartPowders - Your actions has consequences. You sent the first package, but it did not get to me. If you had insured the packaging, you could very simply get your money back on the original shipment, AND send me a replacement. You could of answered my responses, You could of done a lot to prevent this. You could of not lied. I paid for something and due to what ever circumstances. I never got the product.

I lost +4 days of work, Two of which were at the direct comment a representative gave. I lost all the time I spent opening tickets, and emails. Watching the camera, and essentially waiting.

You have lied, I have been stolen from, and you have treated me like starving puppy in a hot bathroom. Ignoring me until the inevitable happens. I will no longer wait. I would wait till you respond to this, but no. It seems you prefer the Tzuan philosophy. Where I must earn a response.

I will open a chargeback through Paypal. I will win it, because simply that is how Paypal works. I will post this in every relevant community that supports you, in hopes of not defaming you, redundant since you are far more capable, and willing. But disillusioning people at the possibility of being treated as I.

TL:DR They sent a package, It got misdelivered, When asked, They lied and said they were sending another, It would be here in 2 days. I waitied, and took the day off on the 15th, 17th, 18th, 20th. Nothing ever came. All my requests for a tracking have been ignored, and I have held off of doing this, but I have to inform people like me so they don't go through the same thing.

P.S: If any mod wants proof of any of this, I can provide tracking numbers, I can provide access to my email, etc.

Edited by UnknownSuitor, 20 May 2013 - 08:06 PM.

[Reformed-Redan]

Thank you for sharing this. I placed an order with them earlier with UPS as the courier. Hope the same deosnt happen to me.

[JohnnyP]

I'm sorry to hear about your experience but I can honestly say I have never had a bad experience with SP before but I have also never tried to order using PayPal.

[Jakare]

Sorry to hear that. I have ordered a few items from them in the past. I have nothing good or bad to say about them (good offers every now and them though) but I can say the orders arrived well, and I was ordering from Europe. What happened to you wont stop me buying from them but I will avoid spending big amounts just in case. Thanks.

[UnknownSuitor]

Many have revealed the same to me. Their problem isn't sending the packages, it's what happens when something goes wrong. Their support's response to this issue has been absent, and outright not repersenative of even a mediocre supplier. I am sincerely glad you have had good responses.

[deeptrance]

I have multiple excellent experiences buying from Smart Powders. I cannot vouch for them having the best quality but they do have very good prices, and I recognize there's often a trade-off between price and quality (not always but often.)

Your report makes it sound like you're living your life under the continuous assumption that everything that happens is happening TO you. A lot of stuff happens all the time for all kinds of reasons. In this instance, there could be problems with the postal delivery, or the address could have been wrong --- did you double-check the address after the first order went missing?

Your comments about watching the video camera waiting for the delivery on a day you took off from work just to receive your order, and losing a total of 4 days of work, are alarming. They should alert you to the fact that the way you're viewing the world and the events in your life is not healthy. This is far more important for you to deal with than any package, regardless of what's in the package. Seriously, uridine will not do much for you when your thinking is so self-destructive and hostile.

The assumption that the company lied is something I see in many comments about missing orders. I've owned a mail-order company before, and I know it can be quite difficult to control all of the factors that combine to make for a smooth delivery process. I agree that they've probably gotten a bit ticked off at you and I've noticed that the owner of SP has a pretty nasty attitude on other forums so it wouldn't surprise me if he is reacting against your reaction, but that game requires two players in order to keep it going. In the future, if you work with people and let them help you then you'll get better results. When you attack people, some of them will attack back out of their own fear and defensiveness. There is no "right" or "wrong" in any of this, so don't go making it about how right you are because you're the customer and how wrong they are because they're a business --- that attitude will keep you stuck in victimhood, failing to get positive outcomes. The way to win this one is to voluntarily lose.

I wish you well and hope for you to find some serenity in the present moment and with each breath, knowing that in any given process we cannot predict or control what happens. Some of it, sure, but most of it, no. And that's OK.

Edited by deeptrance, 02 June 2013 - 06:17 AM.

[pamojja]

I have multiple excellent experiences buying from Smart Powders...

In my case it will not come to a second experience, because the first was such a disappointment.

Last year I made my first order with them, but the parcel never arrived here in Austria. According to their tracking service the shipment made it to New York only. Smart Powder's Ccustomers support was assuring me they would investigate what went wrong - however, that was the last message I got from them. Repeated inquiries about the outcome of their investigations were left unanswered.

Not very smart - considering they lost a potential regular customer with this first order (I spent thousands of buck every year on supplements) - and me losing about 100,-. Which never happened before with many previous orders from the states, ie. LEF, iherb, vitacost, RelentessImprovement, InviteHealth, PureBulk,.. - some even without tracking-service.



PS.: Forgot about my experience with PuritansPride, where I had some questions before placing my first order. But the responses of their customer support seemed like from an automatized responding machine and didn't answered anything. Which, of course made me seriously question their capability to handle situations if anything went wrong. However, PuritansPride's first order arrived without difficulty.

Edited by pamojja, 02 June 2013 - 09:54 AM.

[deeptrance]

Smart Powder's Ccustomers support was assuring me they would investigate what went wrong - however, that was the last message I got from them. Repeated inquiries about the outcome of their investigations were left unanswered.

Between your story, what I've seen authored by the owner of SP on other forums, and the OP in this thread, I'm getting a clearer picture of their business model: They keep things cheap partly by ignoring problems and focusing on repeat sales to customers who haven't had problems. So, through no fault of your own, you experience a problem and they decide it's cheaper for them to lose you as a customer than it is to keep you and address the problem. I'm only speculating, of course. But this appears to be the business model of many vendors of research chemicals as well, where they essentially write off a lot of orders and customers where problems occur because they can make a decent profit by focusing on their non-problematic sales.

To shore up my argument here, assume that they're operating on relatively thin profit margins in order to keep prices low, so they're forced to keep costs minimal too. The cost of product plus other materials and shipping in order to replace a lost, confiscated, or stolen order is potentially equal to the profit they would make on several new orders from you. So their calculation could be fairly rational, if unethical, that it truly is more profitable to write you off. The bad publicity they receive is another calculation --- they can strike a balance between the number of angry and happy customers they have, knowing that they'll get enough positive reviews to keep them going, and most of us are so price-conscious when we shop that we're too tempted by SP's low prices to be bothered by someone else's bad experience with them.

PS.: Forgot about my experience with PuritansPride, where I had some questions before placing my first order. But the responses of their customer support seemed like from an automatized responding machine and didn't answered anything. Which, of course made me seriously question their capability to handle situations if anything went wrong. However, PuritansPride's first order arrived without difficulty.

I've placed about a dozen orders with Puritan over the past 2 years and have always had a perfect experience of each transaction, but they're not in the customer service business. Like SP, they have great prices and they do that partly by having bare-bones customer service. And you should never expect them to provide reliable information about the nature of their products, I doubt you could get anyone on the phone or by e-mail who would be informative. To me, they're a cheap online convenience store for getting fast and reliable delivery of most of the stuff I can't buy in bulk. My only complaint is that they use those annoying and environmentally harmful styrofoam packing peanuts.

Edited by deeptrance, 02 June 2013 - 07:15 PM.

[chemicalambrosia]

I've ordered at least a couple of times from Smart Powders. The first order was perfect. Everything was included, it was shipped timely enough, and all of the products seemed to be as described. The second order was missing a tub of tyrosine and was marked as shipping incomplete, and had close to expired protein bars(they were noticeably stale, but this isn't something I figured was worth pursuing). After waiting for several weeks for them to complete the order, I emailed them several times and never received a reply. I basically just gave up on them completing the order.

With all of this said, they obviously have inconsistent customer service and order fulfillment, at best. However, based on reviews of their products and prices they are still one of the better vendors out there. I would rather roll the dice on getting bad customer service if an order isn't shipped right rather than wonder whether the strange powder I have received is what it is supposed to be. Buying racetams and the like is a little bit of a roll of the dice, and its better to use established vendors.

To the OP, you got yourself way too involved in a simple ordering of a nutritional supplement. Smart powders obviously jerked you around, but you aggravated your own problems many fold by taking days off of work instead of just waiting for the shipment to arrive or writing it off.

[DDarroch]

Guys my name is Dennis Darroch and I manage Smart Powders.com. First off I want you guys to know that we really strive to be tops in customer services. These complaints really trouble me and I am so sorry to hear them. We had went through some changes on the site where we had "Contact Us" emails that were down. We also went thru two huge warehouse moves in the past 12 months. Along the same times as this happened our main warehouse manager quit. He had lots of emails and reships that he didn't complete before he just up and quit. We had a huge storm of issues going thru and trying to figure out what reships and emails got addressed and the ones that didn't. I assure you that we strive hard to give you the best customer service that we can. I don't want this response to come across as an excuse, I want to make the situations right. If you can please give me an order number I will look into these issues right away and make sure they are handled quickly. I can be reached now at Sales@smartpowders.com or you can email me directly at dmdarroch@gmail.com and I promise to make sure we do whatever we have to to fix any issues that come up. Please email me directly as I would love to make sure this is taken care of ASAP.

[Reformed-Redan]

Thank you for sharing this. I placed an order with them earlier with UPS as the courier. Hope the same deosnt happen to me.

Just an FYI, the above came through without a problem. Was all good.

[redline2097]

I have only good yo say for SP. I had made 20 orders and once there was missinh items and they refund me in a day and gave nice big bonus to next order.

[Galantamine]

I have only good yo say for SP. I had made 20 orders and once there was missinh items and they refund me in a day and gave nice big bonus to next order.

x 2

[Terenci Claramunt]

I'm also very disappointed with this company, here's my horrible experience: http://www.longecity...rvice-138-lost/

[platypus]

Horrible customer service is unacceptable so no number of "good experiences" will tip the scales toward positive. I would never order from a company who has repeatedly screwed their customers.

[chemicalambrosia]

I've ordered at least a couple of times from Smart Powders. The first order was perfect. Everything was included, it was shipped timely enough, and all of the products seemed to be as described. The second order was missing a tub of tyrosine and was marked as shipping incomplete, and had close to expired protein bars(they were noticeably stale, but this isn't something I figured was worth pursuing). After waiting for several weeks for them to complete the order, I emailed them several times and never received a reply. I basically just gave up on them completing the order.

With all of this said, they obviously have inconsistent customer service and order fulfillment, at best. However, based on reviews of their products and prices they are still one of the better vendors out there. I would rather roll the dice on getting bad customer service if an order isn't shipped right rather than wonder whether the strange powder I have received is what it is supposed to be. Buying racetams and the like is a little bit of a roll of the dice, and its better to use established vendors.

Dennis from smart powders got in touch with me after reading this and promised to send the missing product. 20 days passed and I didn't get it, so I emailed him telling him that. He replied back and immediately shipped me the product, a free bottle of noopept, and a few free samples of protein products. I'm not super impressed, but as long as customer service replies and tries to rectify mistakes its all good. I have enough confidence in their customer service to order again and don't feel cheated or anything.

[JohnnyP]

Maybe they just need to hire more capable employees, it just seems like you have to talk to someone who is more in charge of whats hapenning.

[DDarroch]

Hey Guys. At Smart Powders we pride ourselves in customer service. If there is anything that was missing on any order or if anyone has any issue please either PM me on here, or you can email me directly at Sales@smartpowders.com. We had a huge issue when we had a Warehouse manager that quit. He was in charge of partial shipments, and return shipments, and any "missing item" shipments. He was forwarded all those emails. He just decided he wasn't going to do them. So we had no idea on what issues had been addressed and which ones haven't. So if you have anything that needs to be done you can message me directly and I will take care of it RIGHT AWAY.

[kai2]

Has anyone had issues with Smartpowders.com since DDarroch posted in July 2013?

Edited by kai2, 05 January 2014 - 07:17 PM.

[deeptrance]

Has anyone had issues with Smartpowders.com since DDarroch posted in July 2013?

I've placed several orders with them and had no problem until my last order in November. I received part of my order, along with a packing list that showed what they had included and what was missing, so they were aware that it was incomplete. I waited for almost a month for the rest of the order, during which time there was no communication from SP. So I sent an e-mail asking about it, and waited a couple days but got no reply. Then I sent another message in which I threatened to post negative comments about them on forums, and that got prompt attention. Not only did they ship what was missing but they sent double what I was waiting for, so I was very happy with their service at that point.

My impression stays the same, I think they're keeping prices low by running a very slimmed-down operation and this means that the customer service isn't going to be hands-on most of the time. But they're a good company, and there's usually no problem with orders, so I continue to recommend them. If you ever do have a problem, just keep pestering them until you get your problem resolved.

[kai2]

Their support's response to this issue has been absent, and outright not repersenative of even a mediocre supplier.

I have multiple excellent experiences buying from Smart Powders...

In my case it will not come to a second experience, because the first was such a disappointment

I've noticed that the owner of SP has a pretty nasty attitude on other forums so it wouldn't surprise me if he is reacting against your reaction, but that game requires two players in order to keep it going.

Smart Powder's Ccustomers support was assuring me they would investigate what went wrong - however, that was the last message I got from them. Repeated inquiries about the outcome of their investigations were left unanswered.

Between your story, what I've seen authored by the owner of SP on other forums, and the OP in this thread, I'm getting a clearer picture of their business model: They keep things cheap partly by ignoring problems and focusing on repeat sales to customers who haven't had problems. So, through no fault of your own, you experience a problem and they decide it's cheaper for them to lose you as a customer than it is to keep you and address the problem. I'm only speculating, of course. But this appears to be the business model of many vendors of research chemicals as well, where they essentially write off a lot of orders and customers where problems occur because they can make a decent profit by focusing on their non-problematic sales.

To shore up my argument here, assume that they're operating on relatively thin profit margins in order to keep prices low, so they're forced to keep costs minimal too. The cost of product plus other materials and shipping in order to replace a lost, confiscated, or stolen order is potentially equal to the profit they would make on several new orders from you. So their calculation could be fairly rational, if unethical, that it truly is more profitable to write you off. The bad publicity they receive is another calculation --- they can strike a balance between the number of angry and happy customers they have, knowing that they'll get enough positive reviews to keep them going, and most of us are so price-conscious when we shop that we're too tempted by SP's low prices to be bothered by someone else's bad experience with them.

PS.: Forgot about my experience with PuritansPride, where I had some questions before placing my first order. But the responses of their customer support seemed like from an automatized responding machine and didn't answered anything. Which, of course made me seriously question their capability to handle situations if anything went wrong. However, PuritansPride's first order arrived without difficulty.

I've placed about a dozen orders with Puritan over the past 2 years and have always had a perfect experience of each transaction, but they're not in the customer service business. Like SP, they have great prices and they do that partly by having bare-bones customer service. And you should never expect them to provide reliable information about the nature of their products, I doubt you could get anyone on the phone or by e-mail who would be informative. To me, they're a cheap online convenience store for getting fast and reliable delivery of most of the stuff I can't buy in bulk. My only complaint is that they use those annoying and environmentally harmful styrofoam packing peanuts.

I'm also very disappointed with this company, here's my horrible experience: http://www.longecity...rvice-138-lost/

Has anyone had issues with Smartpowders.com since DDarroch posted in July 2013?

I've placed several orders with them and had no problem until my last order in November. I received part of my order, along with a packing list that showed what they had included and what was missing, so they were aware that it was incomplete. I waited for almost a month for the rest of the order, during which time there was no communication from SP. So I sent an e-mail asking about it, and waited a couple days but got no reply. Then I sent another message in which I threatened to post negative comments about them on forums, and that got prompt attention. Not only did they ship what was missing but they sent double what I was waiting for, so I was very happy with their service at that point.

My impression stays the same, I think they're keeping prices low by running a very slimmed-down operation and this means that the customer service isn't going to be hands-on most of the time. But they're a good company, and there's usually no problem with orders, so I continue to recommend them. If you ever do have a problem, just keep pestering them until you get your problem resolved.

Like pamojja, I am willing to spend a significant amount of money on supplements, and while I am price-conscious, I am glad to pay a reasonable premium to purchase from a company from whom I can expect to receive a quality, pure product in the amount promised on the timeline promised (and who will be proactive in resolving any issues that arise). What nootropic suppliers could you recommend that fit this criteria? (Please feel free to PM me with this info if you would prefer.)

Thank you in advance to those of you that choose to share your recommendations with a newcomer!

One last thing: deeptrance, I especially appreciate the calm, balanced perspective you've contributed to this thread.

Edited by kai2, 07 January 2014 - 05:54 AM.