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A Very Disappointed Little Princess
By -

EL SEGUNDO, CALIFORNIA -- Several weeks ago my five-year-old daughter and I found cute, little, green gummi frogs on candywarehouse.com. These candies were perfect for her Princess and the Frog birthday party. We ordered them for the loot bags. The package arrived and upon opening it, I immediately noticed that one of the two bags was torn open. I phoned the company on the spot to tell them. The man was polite and did issue me a refund for that open bag. Saturday morning arrives and my daughter and I sit down to fill the party bags with frogs.

My daughter popped one in her mouth and immediately made a yucky face as she clearly struggled to chew the frog candy. I then put one in my mouth and noticed right away that this gummy frog was like no gummy candy, bears or worms, that we have ever had before. We both threw the candy out into the trash. These gummy frogs are terribly difficult to chew and I honestly don't see how a young child would even be able to swallow one. It is certainly a food that as a mother, I would be concerned about as a choking hazard for small children.

I phoned the company back on the spot. It was a Saturday and they were closed. We clearly could not give these candies to children so we were off to plan B. My daughter and I were off to the party store to shop for items to fill loot bags for her guest. I phoned today, Monday morning to ask for a refund. I'd be happy to return the bag so they know that we absolutely did not use the product. The man needed to call me back and when he did, he told me that I could not have a refund.

I am a customer that bought a product that is not edible but the company does not care that you paid for something that you cannot eat. If you are thinking about purchasing a candy product from this company, please know, from my bad experience, that customer satisfaction may not be the end result. It is a chance that I would not be willing to take. Their website states that "A friendly candy elf will return your telephone call..." The elf that called me said "No REFUND."

Company Response 10/18/2010:

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to respond to this complaint. CandyWarehouse.com takes pride in the quality of our products and that is why our company has been growing from the first day it started business back in 1998. Just take a look at our thousands of reviews by customers:

http://shopping.yahoo.com/merchantrating/?mid=3694

http://www.bizrate.com/ratings_guide/cust_reviews__mid--28058.html

When we receive any calls from customers complaining about a product, we immediately quarantine the entire lot from which the product in question was pulled and check for expiration dates and quality. We will actually open a brand new package and have several employees inspect and sample the product to confirm quality, freshness and taste. Only when we determine that the product in question is in good condition will we then continue to sell it to our other many happy customers. If a product is determined to be in poor quality, we will refund a customer's costs completely, pay for all related shipping fees and pull all products in question off our shelves.

When this particular individual called us about the Haribo Gummi Frogs, we proceeded to do exactly what we do with every product complaint. After our inspection and review process, we determined the candy the customer complained about was perfectly fine (in fact the expiration date was quite some time in the future). We explained to the customer if she did not like the texture of the candy that she may return the candy but that our return policy would apply. We also told the customer that Haribo brand gummies tend to have the hardest texture of gummies on the market and it is actually this harder texture that many customers prefer. The product is not bad or stale but just made differently than other brands.

Our return policy is clearly stated on our website http://www.candywarehouse.com/returns.html and our 20% restocking fee is quite generous considering many of our counterparts do not take returns at all. We of course value our customer's satisfaction but also need business policies in place to address situations when a product is in good condition but simply does not suit a customer's tastes. We deeply regret this customer was unhappy with her CandyWarehouse.com experience but stand behind our fair and reasonable policies and inspection processes.

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Horrible Customer Service
By -

IRWINVILLE, CALIFORNIA -- I love candy hearts very much and when both my local stores ran out of them at least 6 days before valentine's day I resorted to ordering them online. I can't get to too many places because I am physically disabled with severe arthritis. I recently did just that and got the package yesterday from Candy Warehouse and the candy hearts tasted absolutely horrible and were substandard. They looked fine but all tasted the same and had no different flavors.

On the advertising on the site it said they were from Brach's but the ones I had last year from Brach's never tasted anything like the ones that I got in this order. They were all this fake kind of fruit flavor that tasted HORRIBLE and substandard/bad. So today I called the company on my only day off to find their Customer Service unable to do NOTHING for me. Then I called my credit card company and they told me the same thing that Candy Warehouse told me. They said many companies are doing this to consumers today.

When I called today they told me that since the package was opened that they could not give me a replacement product or give me something else that I wanted. I have taken things back to my local grocery store that were bad sometimes and never did they tell me this that these jerks did. They ALWAYS give me my money back. It cost $10.00 to have them shipped to me and the hearts cost almost $20.00 for a 5 pound bag. Grocery stores do not tell you this ever when you bring back substandard products. I feel RIPPED off by Candy Warehouse and want people on this site to know about them. I plan to tell 10 people what happened to me. I work in a huge call center.

How customer service works is that those people will tell 10 others and so on. With the economy being bad I guess this is what some companies have resorted to keep business. After what happened to me I plan to never order from them ever again. I want people to know from this site too and that is why I posted this story for people to read.

Replies
Bad Company
By -

EL SEGUNDO, CALIFORNIA -- The candy was old and had been affected by moisture is what they told me. It was very chewy not crisp and crunchy like seafoam candy should be. When I complained they replied I was stuck with it since I opened it. BEWARE OF THEIR RETURN POLICY... If you get a defective product they will refuse a return because you opened the box. How would you know it is bad if you do not try it? I will report to BBB, FDA, Attorney General and more. God Bless, I will keep them in my prayers.

Company does reply to the complaint with a bald face lie. They never offer to accept a return or I would have sent it back immediately. They say they requested I send it back but you can see here they do not. Shady company indeed.

Company Response 02/23/2011:

Dear Mr. Davis:
We have reviewed your complaint and are extremely sorry you were not happy with your experience at CandyWarehouse.com. Please be assured we take every customer's complaint seriously and in your case our purchasing manager personally called the manufacturer of this product directly inquiring about your complaint. What they told us is that the manufacturing process is not always perfect and that certain isolated pieces contained in the 7lb box (which has over 100 pieces of candy) may have not have been completed coated with chocolate and that even a pin-sized-hole in the chocolate coating can cause the seafoam to be chewy. We then also opened up a new box in-house from the same shipment (which we recently received) to confirm the candy was fresh. Moreover, we have not had any prior complaints about the Seafoam Honeycomb Chocolates and have actually had numerous reviews that were both recent and positive: http://store.candywarehouse.com/seafoamcandy.html#ReviewHeader

After explaining to you our entire exercise of calling the manufacturer and examining the product in-house, our customer service representative, Luz, gave you the option to still return the product for inspection. She explained that if we did find the product to be bad/stale, we would refund all of your money, including shipping. Unfortunately, you did not want to send the product back to us for inspection and therefore there was nothing we could do for you.

We hope you understand that as a business, we need to have certain policies in place to handle these situations. Take for example if you were to purchase something at the grocery store, then called the store and said you wanted them to credit back your money because the product was stale. If the grocery store then checked its own inventory and did not find anything wrong and you were unwilling to show the grocery store why the product was bad, it would be unreasonable to expect the store to credit your money back.

Please note that our policies are standard in the industry:

“Candy Direct, Inc. will refund the cost of your candy less restocking and shipping charges when the return is pre-approved and it's received in an unopened and new (saleable) condition.” http://www.candydirect.com/shipping

“For simple health reasons we cannot accept any candy for a refund; unless it is damaged in transit.” http://www.blaircandy.com/upsshiptimta.html

“Due to candy being a perishable item and in compliance with The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) policies, Candy.com does not accept any return on candy products.” http://www.candy.com/Returns_ep_39-1.html

Please note we have thought long and hard about our return policies and established rules that we felt were fair and reasonable.

CandyWarehouse.com has been in business for over 12 years and our growth and longevity are largely due in part to the high quality of our products and great customer service. See our almost 2,000 reviews - http://shopping.yahoo.com/merchantrating/?mid=3694

We deeply regret you were unhappy with your CandyWarehouse.com experience but stand behind our fair and reasonable policies and inspection processes.

CandyWarehouse.com Management

Company Response 03/18/2011:

Dear Mr. Davis:
We have reviewed your complaint and are extremely sorry you were not happy with your experience at CandyWarehouse.com. Please be assured we take every customer's complaint seriously and in your case our purchasing manager personally called the manufacturer of this product directly inquiring about your complaint. What they told us is that the manufacturing process is not always perfect and that certain isolated pieces contained in the 7lb box (which has over 100 pieces of candy) may have not have been completed coated with chocolate and that even a pin-sized-hole in the chocolate coating can cause the seafoam to be chewy. We then also opened up a new box in-house from the same shipment (which we recently received) to confirm the candy was fresh. Moreover, we have not had any prior complaints about the Seafoam Honeycomb Chocolates and have actually had numerous reviews that were both recent and positive: http://store.candywarehouse.com/seafoamcandy.html#ReviewHeader

After explaining to you our entire exercise of calling the manufacturer and examining the product in-house, our customer service representative, Luz, gave you the option to still return the product for inspection. She explained that if we did find the product to be bad/stale, we would refund all of your money, including shipping. Unfortunately, you did not want to send the product back to us for inspection and therefore there was nothing we could do for you.

We hope you understand that as a business, we need to have certain policies in place to handle these situations. Take for example if you were to purchase something at the grocery store, then called the store and said you wanted them to credit back your money because the product was stale. If the grocery store then checked its own inventory and did not find anything wrong and you were unwilling to show the grocery store why the product was bad, it would be unreasonable to expect the store to credit your money back.

Please note that our policies are standard in the industry:

“Candy Direct, Inc. will refund the cost of your candy less restocking and shipping charges when the return is pre-approved and it's received in an unopened and new (saleable) condition.” http://www.candydirect.com/shipping

“For simple health reasons we cannot accept any candy for a refund; unless it is damaged in transit.” http://www.blaircandy.com/upsshiptimta.html

“Due to candy being a perishable item and in compliance with The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) policies, Candy.com does not accept any return on candy products.” http://www.candy.com/Returns_ep_39-1.html

Please note we have thought long and hard about our return policies and established rules that we felt were fair and reasonable.

CandyWarehouse.com has been in business for over 12 years and our growth and longevity are largely due in part to the high quality of our products and great customer service. See our almost 2,000 reviews - http://shopping.yahoo.com/merchantrating/?mid=3694

We deeply regret you were unhappy with your CandyWarehouse.com experience but stand behind our fair and reasonable policies and inspection processes.

CandyWarehouse.com Management

**** Additional Response ****

Dear My3Cents Community:

As noted at the end of the customer's complaint, our customer service representative included in her email the CandyWarehouse return policy link: http://www.candywarehouse.com/returns.html.
The link clearly states the following: “We will refund the cost of all merchandise returns that are received in unopened and undamaged condition, subject to a 20% restocking fee; however, we will not refund the cost of shipping. Sorry, no returns are accepted without prior approval.”

As explained in our prior response, all of our inspections into the product and our in-house inventory raised no issue regarding its quality and condition. In such cases, being that our product is food, we are unable to accept returns when a package as been opened (due to health concerns).

As stated in Luz's email, she invited the customer to contact her if he had any further questions. The customer never once tried to call our offices and instead replied to Luz's email with the following email:
“I filed a complaint with Buy Safe and my credit card company.”

The customer did indeed file complaints with both entities and filed a chargeback with his credit card company for the full amount of his purchase (which included 4 other products that were not at issue). Although we are doing our best to find a fair and reasonable resolution to this issue, it is quite disheartening to see that this customer would try to get the whole amount of his order refunded when only 1 out of 5 products are at issue. Additionally, Buy Safe communicated to the customer that they could not address his case if he already filed a chargeback with his credit card company. The customer assured Buy Safe via email on March 11, 2011 that he cancelled the chargeback when in fact he did not (which was confirmed to us by the credit card company today March 18, 2011).

In the meantime, the customer did return and we did receive the Seafoam Honeycomb Chocolates (Dark Chocolate). We inspected the product (which entailed slicing open 20 random pieces) and noticed that a small percentage of the product had a chewy center . . . exactly what the manufacturer told us and what we told the customer.

In an effort bring resolution to this situation, we have contacted our Merchant Services provider to allow a credit to the customer's credit card in the amount of the product in question. What we will not do is approve a credit for this customer's entire purchase which includes 4 other products that the customer neither complained about nor returned to us. Although the product was fresh, of high quality, recently received from the manufacturer and we have had no other complaints about it (actually, it is one of our best reviewed products - http://www.candywarehouse.com/seafoamcandy.html#ReviewHeader), we do not want to draw out this debate any longer.

We all work very hard here at CandyWarehouse.com and it is extremely hurtful when someone who does not even try to reach out to us is accusing us of being “shady” and threatening to report us to “BBB, FDA, Attorney General and more” . Perhaps if he had just picked up the phone and tried to talk to us, rather than making threats and insults all over the web, we could have worked out this issue much more amicably.

Sincerely,
CandyWarehouse.com Management

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Candy Warehouse Rating:
3 reviews & complaints.
Contact Information:
Candy Warehouse
215 S. Douglas Street
El Segundo, CA 90245
310-343-4099 (ph)
www.candywarehouse.com
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