Really unhappy with beauty.com / drugstore.com

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Originally Posted by MissLindaJean /img/forum/go_quote.gif

I imagine Sephora shoppers would go in beast mode and tear them a new a#$hole. There'd be a lot of business leaving and going to Ulta or other competitors. Cannot ignore the power of social media and internet lynch mobs!
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This says it all. One person having a terrible experience can change a lot of peoples minds.

@suenotto I am sorry they treated you this way. Hopefully you can find good deals elsewhere and support a more reliable company.

 
I called them this morning to try to get a more concrete reason for their "decision" and like I said, the rep only said that there were "too many contacts" and something about "losing money". I wanted something more than that explanation (not that I'd ever buy from them again even if they did re-instate my account) and this is the email I got from them:

 Discussion Thread
 Response Via Email (Christopher S.)
01/14/2013 12:09 PM Greetings Susan,

Thank you again for contacting drugstore.com regarding the status of your account.

To advise, your account had been closed as our management team has felt that due to the history of the account involved we cannot meet their shopping needs. As a result, the tough decision was made to cease all future business as we felt it was the most beneficial to both us as a business and you as a customer. We greatly apologize, but this decision is final and will not be reversed. We do reserve the right to deny service to anyone without reason or notice and at this time, drugstore.com is choosing to exercise that right.

Sincerely,

Christopher S.
Customer Care Escalation Specialist
http://www.drugstore.com/help
drugstore.comâ„¢ the uncommon drugstoreâ„¢
Beauty.comâ„¢ the world of beauty onlineâ„¢

They just sent me a postcard reminding me that I had $5 in "drugstore dollars" (their rewards program) which expire at the end of this month. I tried to place an order for a brush set and a face toner and they canceled the order. Well people, I don't know what else to say other than to encourage you to shop elsewhere.

Sephora continues to get an A+ when it comes to customer service.

 
My best guess is they have some company policy, or state regulation that would make them have to throw away returned beauty products, thus they felt they were losing too much money due to your returns. I don't know if regulations or policies like that exist, but I can't think of any other reason that a business would do something like that without any more than a vague explanation.

Whatever the reason, it is certainly messed up.

 
Originally Posted by suenotto /img/forum/go_quote.gif

I called them this morning to try to get a more concrete reason for their "decision" and like I said, the rep only said that there were "too many contacts" and something about "losing money". I wanted something more than that explanation (not that I'd ever buy from them again even if they did re-instate my account) and this is the email I got from them:

 Discussion Thread
 Response Via Email (Christopher S.)
01/14/2013 12:09 PM Greetings Susan,

Thank you again for contacting drugstore.com regarding the status of your account.

To advise, your account had been closed as our management team has felt that due to the history of the account involved we cannot meet their shopping needs. As a result, the tough decision was made to cease all future business as we felt it was the most beneficial to both us as a business and you as a customer. We greatly apologize, but this decision is final and will not be reversed. We do reserve the right to deny service to anyone without reason or notice and at this time, drugstore.com is choosing to exercise that right.

Sincerely,

Christopher S.

Customer Care Escalation Specialist

http://www.drugstore.com/help

drugstore.comâ„¢ the uncommon drugstoreâ„¢

Beauty.comâ„¢ the world of beauty onlineâ„¢

They just sent me a postcard reminding me that I had $5 in "drugstore dollars" (their rewards program) which expire at the end of this month. I tried to place an order for a brush set and a face toner and they canceled the order. Well people, I don't know what else to say other than to encourage you to shop elsewhere.

Sephora continues to get an A+ when it comes to customer service.
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Thank you so much for sharing this with us.  I will NEVER order from them again.  Issues like this make me so thankful for Sephora and (almost) Ulta. :)

 
Wow that's messed up after only two returns! From shoes.com they warn you that if you have too many returns, they might not want to do business with you anymore. I ordered three times in the past year and returned two of the orders (pricey items i'm sure they were upset to refund), but they never had a problem with any of it, and that is a site that actually warns you... What they told you is just terrible, bad business. 

 
I hate bullsh** answers like the one they gave "can not meet my shopping needs" and "most beneficial to us both..."

Obviously I can decide for myself if a company is or isn't meeting my shopping needs (and purchase or not purchase as such) and the decision is not "beneficial to us both"

I mean, now I wouldn't want to give them my money, but still, I hate this kind of patronizing bull..

 
Wow I was planning to place my first order from beauty.com with $180.19 in my cart. I'm not going to now. I like to be able to return beauty products if they don't perform as expected or meet my expectations. I've made many returns to Sephora/Ulta/Nordstrom and other stores and never had a problem. Retailers generally have buy back contracts with manufacturers so if a customer returns a product the store doesn't lose money, other than the profit on the sale. On beauty.com there is a banner promising free shipping on $25 and easy returns with 100% satisfaction guaranteed. Shame on beauty.com for treating customers this way.

 
Wow, that is really bad business! I haven't bought from them in awhile and now I won't. In shipping sometimes things go wrong. I never in my life have heard of such a terrible way to treat a customer. They shouldn't state easy returns with 100% satisfaction guaranteed if they can't do that, it's deceptive.
 

 
Thanks for sharing your story. I won't be buying from beauty.com or drugstore.com. The customer has every right to ask questions about missing products or return those that are not as described. Sephora CS IS great! My first purchase was a Josie Maran set at around $50-60. The argan oil in the set arrived half empty. I called CS and they decided to ship me an entire new box! Granted the oil that arrived was also spilt - more of a bottle issue - but I got the equivalent of a full bottle and was really impressed. I would have to say, I have been buying tons of beauty products from them since and have been a VIB for the past two years. CS really matters. People have a choice on where to spend their hard-earned $$$.

 
I am still amazed by this. They will not be getting anymore business from me. Shame, I shopped on their site quite a bit. I am guessing losing money is going to be a bigger problem for them after stunts like this.

Originally Posted by suenotto /img/forum/go_quote.gif

I called them this morning to try to get a more concrete reason for their "decision" and like I said, the rep only said that there were "too many contacts" and something about "losing money". I wanted something more than that explanation (not that I'd ever buy from them again even if they did re-instate my account) and this is the email I got from them:

 Discussion Thread
 Response Via Email (Christopher S.)
01/14/2013 12:09 PM Greetings Susan,

Thank you again for contacting drugstore.com regarding the status of your account.

To advise, your account had been closed as our management team has felt that due to the history of the account involved we cannot meet their shopping needs. As a result, the tough decision was made to cease all future business as we felt it was the most beneficial to both us as a business and you as a customer. We greatly apologize, but this decision is final and will not be reversed. We do reserve the right to deny service to anyone without reason or notice and at this time, drugstore.com is choosing to exercise that right.

Sincerely,

Christopher S.
Customer Care Escalation Specialist
http://www.drugstore.com/help
drugstore.comâ„¢ the uncommon drugstoreâ„¢
Beauty.comâ„¢ the world of beauty onlineâ„¢

They just sent me a postcard reminding me that I had $5 in "drugstore dollars" (their rewards program) which expire at the end of this month. I tried to place an order for a brush set and a face toner and they canceled the order. Well people, I don't know what else to say other than to encourage you to shop elsewhere.

Sephora continues to get an A+ when it comes to customer service.
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Thanks for all your support, it really made me not feel so crazy about this whole thing. I'm really not going to worry about paying a little extra for products from Sephora. Time and time again, they never have given me a hard time about ANYTHING. Customer service really means so much to me as a consumer, and I do consume!

 
Originally Posted by suenotto /img/forum/go_quote.gif

Thanks for all your support, it really made me not feel so crazy about this whole thing. I'm really not going to worry about paying a little extra for products from Sephora. Time and time again, they never have given me a hard time about ANYTHING. Customer service really means so much to me as a consumer, and I do consume!
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That is disappointing, but starting my own business - I can somewhat understand their concerns but I can also see why you're hurt/upset.  While your issues and returns were legit, there are always those few that ruin it for the rest of us.  It sounds like whatever system they use to flag "high-risk" customers flagged you... 

I rarely have to return things - but it's happens  And when it does happen, I swear, it always seems to be goofy.  Like the replacement is FUBARed too. And then you feel bad calling the company about the replacement item because you don't want to think you're sketchy... I had something like that with a Birchbox order before, thank goodness they just dealt with it.

Besides, I think Sephora usually has better sales and has much better perks.  (Except those GWP sample bags that Beauty.com offers at time.  They're nice but usually require a big order so I'm always torn.)

Try not to take it personally.  It's really hard - especially when we know cosmetics have a ridiculous mark-up.  But it isn't personal and now you can become a VIB at Sephora and clean up.   :) /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />

 
Sue, thanks for posting - I certainly won't be taking my business here now that I know they're capable of pulling this!

 
Thank you for sharing your story! I'm so sorry this happened to you. The way this was handled is ridiculous in my opinion. If a customer has questions on the products a company is offering then they should be able to ask whenever even if it means multiple times. I had a problem with a drugstore order once and really didn't like the way it was handled. They shipped me a wrong order from their warehouse that was intended for another person. When I called about it, I was asked to ship it back with no offer to ship the correct item in the mean time which was a supplement that I needed. They weren't going to send out the correct item until I ship back the incorrect item. This was not my doing but theirs and they had me "fix" their issue before they would fix it. In my opinion they should have noted that the order never got to the right person and to do a reshipment of that order and immediately send me my order free of charge since this wasn't my problem that their warehouse messed up. I guess they don't know anything about customer service.

 
I was just looking through their site and now I dont want to buy anything. I mean if they mess up my order of course I will want to return it, glad you shared your experience

 
I really hope they see this discussion and rethink their policies. Word of mouth can be the best/worst form of advertisement, ESPECIALLY in the beauty community. I mean look what word of mouth in the internet age did for Zoya with their new year promo? That's how I was introduced to them last year.

 

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