8 replies to this topic

[Terenci Claramunt]

I just want to share with you my horrible experience buying at SmartPowders.com so hopefully you can avoid making the same mistakes I did:

1. I live in Spain, placed an order and a few days later I realized they had not shipped it. I check their website, it says they are moving warehouses so I wait a few more days. Still nothing so I check the status and it's marked as Suspected Fraud. I contact them and they answer quickly saying I ordered from a US ip the the shipping address is in spain (because I use VPN software). After a couple of days they ship the order

- MISTAKE Nº1: They do not contact me when the order is marked as suspected fraud, I am the one who has to contact them to solve it.

2. Two weeks later I'm still waiting. I check the order status in the FedEx website and it's marked 'Undeliverable'. I contact FedEx and they say they won't ship any king of health products to Spain. I contact SmartPowders and we agree that they'll reship it through USPS. I change my mind and ask them to give me a refund instead.

- MISTAKE Nº2: They offer shipping through a company that won't ship their products. Even though they don't apologize for the inconvenience. They are not willing to refund the shipping cost.

3. Three weeks later I'm still waiting for an answer to my last emails so I write a long e-mail explaining my disappointment with their customer service. They just say 'We'll give you a refund when it's returned to us'.

- MISTAKE Nº3: They do not answer my emails and when they do they seem not to care. Probably the order has already been returned to them but they don't care to ask FedEx about the order status.

4. I have sent them a couple more e-mails in the last 2 weeks but they still haven't answered. I just called them today but just got a message saying they are too busy, so I can leave a message and they'll call me back (which I doubt).

After nearly two months waiting I have not received any apology nor any refund and half of my emails haven't been answered.

This is by far the worst experience I've had in the 5 years I've been buying online.

My conclusion: They don't care, if there's a problem with your order, they will not help you. If you can buy from any other vendor even at slightly higher prices, do it.

[DDarroch]

Terenci,

This is Dennis (from Smart Powders), the guy that you have been going back and forth with on email. I have been working with you on email to get this solved as you and I have over 18 email correspondings. I hate that you feel that you are getting cheated by us. There is nothing that we can do with this package until it comes back to us. It was denied in Customs as SPAIN opens EVERYTHING. I had them deny vitamin C the other day. There is nothing I can do about that. With this order being from MAY it really doesn't look like it will be returned to us. In that situation, all I can really do is offer a discount or a voucher on a future order (however you take the chance again that it won't make it through customs).

I hate that you view this as Customer Service on our part. I have no control on what customs does with a package. In this situation it looks like they have destroyed it. Like I had said to you in email, there is nothing that we can do in this situation. I called FedEx and sent them documentation to try to get everything released for you, with no avail. I don't feel it is necessary to post all of our emails back and forth on a message board. I would just appreciate it if you wouldn't throw our "customer Service" under the bus for something that we have no control over.

I have my fingers crossed that this package will still make its was back to us. And if it does I will quickly refund you in full for all the products, no restock fee's or nothing like that. Spain, Russia, Italy, and Mexico are VERY hard to get anything thru customs. I would suggest that if you do wish to try, to use USPS first class mail. Terenci, I wish there was more that I could do for you on this situation...and if you can think of anything I would be more than happy to help you or send you another order for our COST via USPS to make up for it. I know you are out the money for the order and I am so very sorry.

[Terenci Claramunt]

Hi Dennis, I don't feel cheated, I just feel ignored. I know it's not your problem that the package wasn't delivered.

But it's poor customer service that I write you an e-mail expressing my concerns and the only answer you can come up with is literally "We will refund you when the products are returned to us. We do have shipments that go to Spain with no issue.", not even "Sorry for the inconvenience".

Even worse is that to get a decent answer I have to post about this on forums. I think only when your reputation is at stake you seem to care.

And the worst part: I just contacted FedEx and they returned to you the 23 of May. https://www.fedex.co...5&cntry_code=us

Still waiting for my refund, Terenci.

[DDarroch]

Refund has been done. I am glad that we were able to locate this return and get you the refund.

[czGLoRy]

this is my exact experience. I have placed an order in July, I still have not received it. They are not responding to my emails (over 20). Only one response saying they will look into it immediately and get back to me; nothing else of course. I am out ~$180 and I will be contacting the police and reporting on every website to warn users of this extremely poor company and their despicable customer service and business ethics. 

[pamojja]

this is my exact experience. ..They are not responding to my emails (over 20). Only one response saying they will look into it immediately and get back to me; nothing else of course. I am out ~$180 and I will be contacting the police and reporting on every website to warn users of this extremely poor company and their despicable customer service and business ethics.

 
My experience also from 3 years ago described in this thread. Some things never seem to change:
 

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 Customers 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.

 

Contrary to Darroch's assurance for refunds in that old thread, he just continued to ignore my mails. Therefore probably good idea to steep up the heat.

Edited by pamojja, 30 September 2015 - 09:44 AM.

[kurdishfella]

People think buying things online is unsafe but it is safer than buying from a public store. people associate powders with drugs so internet has gotten a bad rep among older folks.

[pamojja]

People think buying things online is unsafe but it is safer than buying from a public store. people associate powders with drugs so internet has gotten a bad rep among older folks.

 

Totally off-topic. In this thread nobody thoght buying online is unsafe or associated it with drugs.

 

Each experienced a financial loss. A seller who ripps customers off this way repeatedly earned his bad reputation only.

 

Nothing to do with online vs. not. But Smart Powders and DDarroch

[adamh]

Its good that he finally gave a refund after fighting it for a long time. I would not buy from that company anymore though I think I have in the past. The refund should have been given as soon as the guy asked for it, vendor is responsible for delivery of product. Blaming it on spain is not reasonable in fact if he knew spain was giving a lot of problems and open everything, as he says, why didn't he warn the customer beforehand? If he had and told the buyer that the shipment is not guaranteed then he would be in the clear but he didn't do that.

 

I agree the problem is poor customer service and SP has lost a lot of potential business from their response, I would guess.

 

I did send a bottle of pills to spain last year, it was a supplement. I guess I was lucky it arrived.