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Note for caution GNC (General nutrition center) is stealing money from his customers
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

For the past few years, I have been a regular customer at GNC and despite my status of “Pro member” there, it did not prevent me from getting stolen.
Recently, GNC offered me a reduction on my protein purchases if I subscribed to a regular purchase plan which is without commitment and I free to choose on what delay I want to receive my products. I bought two MassXXX and subscribed to receive the next orders in 90 days.
Surprisingly, less than one month GNC after made a debit on my account. When I contacted by phone to complain, the company made it clear the error surely comes from the store at the time of activation, and can do nothing. In order to find an agreement, I asked GNC to redirect the product to another address because I was on relocation process and I won't be able to receive it. I also promised to take it back to a to any GNC shop, but obsessed with money, the company did not cooperate under the pretext it cannot afford to change the destination of an order, while FedEx said otherwise and was waiting for their authorization. At that moment I understood that GNC was ripped me off.
While I continued to request refund for this product that I neither recovered nor consumed, a customer adviser made me understand in a barely veiled speech that I will not come out a winner given the balance of power which plays in their favor.
I fought with TD Bank, supporting evidence (copies e-mail exchanged with GNC) on the case, but unfortunately I made no match for these two giants.
Thus, I make myself the spokesperson for all these clients abused by GNC and at the same time call others to be cautious about this company which keep stealing money from its clients without any consideration or scruple. The more you trust them, the more you expose yourself.

A word to the wise, however!

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The Word "Ethics" Was Never In GNC's Mission Statement
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

EAGAN, MINNESOTA -- Recently: Had my credit card stolen; the thief went straight to GNC and charged $240 worth of product. Suspect obviously should have been, but wasn't carded for that massive amount because GNC's employees make commissions on certain product sales. The detective working my case was pretty shocked at the lack of assistance provided by the sales assoc.

I shopped here for a short time many years ago when I didn't know better. Once I quickly realized that GNC branded product is cheaply made, yet priced like a premium brand, I left for Vitamin Shoppe. GNC reps often promoted products for their own gain that constantly gave me little to no results. Every time I see someone walk into a GNC, I just think "sucker".

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Never Buy Online From This Company
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

ONLINE -- Ordered item online. Said International Express, said there was tracking. Seemed like a fast way to get what I needed. Turned out they ship Ground and can take up to 30 days, not stated anywhere in the purchase order or checkout. The tracking is pretty much non-existent. It seems more like a marketing gimmick with no substantial tracking ability. They record when it leaves their GNC warehouse, when it reaches DHL and the balance of the tracking consists of it saying "en route" until it gets wherever the final destination is. So for the up to 30 days (or more) it is en route, nobody at GNC or DHL can tell you where it is.

If it never shows up because it's lost with all that non-existent tracking, they'll send you a new package that you can wait another 30 days for. In my case, they actually cancelled the order after 3 weeks, even though I did not ask them to… I just complained they didn't know where it was. And then they only credited me for the product and decided they should keep the shipping. Even though they cancelled the order. Don't waste your time with this company. For a larger company, they have no idea what they are doing and customer service can't tell you anymore than what's on the script in front of them. Worst online company ever.

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Rip-off
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

NAPLES, FLORIDA -- I have never been so disappointed in a purchase from any store as I'm with GNC. On December 9th 2016 I purchased an “ALL-IN ONE BOXING SET” for my son as part of his Christmas gift. The salesmen that was assisting us at the GNC #00534 NAPLES FL, was too busy on his cell phone texting and ringing my items up at the same time. The cash register jammed up after he had ran my credit card, and after he tried to finish the order for at least 30 minutes, he decided to shut down the machine and move to another register.

When I looked on my bank statement a few days later, I noticed the charge came up twice for $54. Between my wife and I, we have tried to resolve this issue several times with their customer service reps and without success. They keep giving us the runaround and here we are at the end of February, and we still haven't received our credit for the double charge they charged me. Does anybody know what else can be done?

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Subtle Online Price Change
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

ONLINE -- I have been a GNC customer for many years, but until the last few months I have always shopped at the retail stores. I now live too far away from any retail store, and must place my orders online. Today I attempted to order multiples of an $8.99 product with the "buy one, get one half off" promotion, as well as the "$10 off any purchase of $50 or more" code 22554 promotion.

My shopping cart appropriately priced the product bottles at a total of $53.92 until I entered the "22554" code, when my new subtotal equaled $56.44. I realized the price of the 1/2 off product bottle had risen from $4.49 to $5.12, and at one point even to $5.33 as I changed quantities in an effort to understand the new numbers. I called customer service hoping that the change in price was a computer glitch and not an attempt to take advantage of any lack of notice on my part.

During a 20 minute discussion, however, customer service could only state and restate that both promotions could not be used simultaneously, without being able to explain why the second bottle did not revert to the original $8.99 price if that were the case. Either the second bottle should be 1/2 off, or it should be full price...not anywhere in between. I ended the conversation with customer service and ordered a similar product from another company for less money.

To my surprise, I received a follow up phone call from the GNC customer service representative who attempted to convince me that the price difference was due to my full purchase amount dropping below the $50 minimum order causing shipping charges to be added. I informed him that my full purchase price of 4 bottles at $8.99 each and 4 bottles at $4.49 equals $53.92 which is in fact more than $50. At no time did the representative offer to credit the $0.63 difference in price for the 4 bottles despite being unable to explain the discrepancy, and notwithstanding my statement that I had found a similar product for less money with another company while on the phone with him.

I have concluded that GNC increased the price of the product in the hopes that I as a consumer would either not notice the price difference or decide the extra money was not worth the effort of rectifying. While I do not mind losing money to an honest mistake on the part of the company or one of their representatives, I will lose money before I will allow myself to be purposely cheated, which is my only conclusion in light of no other possibilities posed by the customer representative after two phone conversations of nearly 25 minutes total.

I will no longer conduct any business with GNC and will be posting this experience for others to be forewarned. I do not wish for any offers or promotions from your company, but am simply providing the information for your company since I will be providing for those outside of your company.

Update: December 27, 2013. I received a response to my email this morning. "Please accept our sincere apologies for the difficulties you experienced placing an order at our promotional pricing. The details of the $10 off promotion state the following: 'Some exclusions apply, Does not combine with any online only promotions.' As our BOGO is an online only promotion it is not combinable." Following were 3 paragraphs of generic response, none of which explained why the price changed from $4.49 to $5.12 instead of reverting to the full price as would be the case if the offers were not combinable.

I requested that the company not contact me again unless the price change could be reasonably explained, and that I was actually insulted and angered by this mathematically illogical response. I still believe this price change is an attempt to cheat the customer, and three contacts with customer service has not changed my opinion.

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Rude Guy and Worst Customer Service
StarStarStarStarStarBy -
Rating: 5/51

MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA -- I would never think GNC would hire someone so rude like this guy. He was mistreating a co worker. Very rude to customers. His level of patience it is definitely a ZERO!!! I have heard someone else complaining about him before and now I've seen it myself. I would never go back to that store. BTW, his name is ** or something like that.

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Do NOT Buy from GNC.com
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

I cannot explain how frustrated I truly am at this moment in time with my attempted order with www.GNC.com (GNC). I placed an order online on March 8th. Here I am on the March 15th and I get a call from them asking if the can verify some information. Verify Information? Based on their stated terms on the website shipping should take 6 - 8 days. That would have already had my order delivered and they are calling me 7 days later to verify my address.

I am doing 99% of all shopping online. I know how to enter my address and I don't need someone to call me and verify anything. I select my products, I review the shopping cart, I enter my payment info and shipping address, and click pay now! Done. Now all I do is sit and wait for the goods to arrive on my door step in 6 - 8 days.

I called today to see what is going on and they informed me that they still have not shipped anything. The customer service person was trained to give only canned response and when I asked for specifics she became rude and hung up. I called back and got to speak to a much more friendly person and she told me that the previous call center person canceled my order 5 min ago!!! CANCELED MY ORDER! So now I have waited 7 days for goods to arrive that never shipped. I called to sort things and get answers only be to spoken to in a rude way and have the order canceled!

The person I ended up speaking to was helpful, polite, generally I felt that she wanted to help to make me happy. THANK YOU TO HER SERIOUSLY! If GNC would train all people to be as kind as this lady they would not have as many unhappy customers. They also need to stop this verifications of online orders! It is inconvenient for the customers. So long as the credit card matches the zip code on the billing address entered the order should be processed! PERIOD!

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Different take
By -

I am a GNC franchisee and I am writing about GNC as a company. Granted, some of the corporation stores set a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE example of customer service and overall treatment of their clientele. On the other hand, if you find a franchise they will be much more inclined to help since someone has their own business at stake, and they will generally be willing to negotiate discounts and suggest products based on individual needs, I know I am.

As far as GNC being 10X more than everyone else, that is just not true. In fact, GNC's amino acids, vitamins, proteins, herbs etc. are cheaper then those OF COMPARABLE QUALITY, especially when store discounts are combined with gold card memberships. Sometimes the discounts are enough alone to come close to internet prices. If REGULAR prices seem higher, remember these stores actually have to make money, they are not online warehouses that have NO OVERHEAD AND NO CUSTOMER SERVICE AND DON'T DO A THING FOR YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.

One issue is that so many people are concerned about price and not quality, when it should be the other way around. Take protein powders and multivitamins, and fish oils for example. Not all are created equal, whether we are talking about the GNC brand or not. A certain protein powder might be double the cost of another, but it might absorb twice as well as another, taste better, and mix better. You get what you pay for.

As for not comparing to other stores prices, that's not true either if you go to the store and tell them to match a price. They do that at GNC and if they don't THEY ARE NOT FOLLOWING THE SYSTEM AND SHOULD BE REPORTED. I will match ANYBODY'S PRICE if I can do it without going under. I hope this puts things into perspective. Let me know what you guys think of this, I'd love to hear it (really!)

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Inexperienced Sales Staff
By -

SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA -- I am writing in regards to a horrendous experience I had at 2 of your Santa Rosa (CA.) stores today. I went to the Santa Rosa Plaza (Mall) store to buy a small container of protein powder for a client. Upon checkout the cashier, a very young guy, tried to up sell me to a larger size. I said "no thank you." Then he tried to sell me a multivitamin. I said "no, I really need to pay for this and be on my way."

He continued to try to sell me just about everything on the counter at random until it became a game for him. I could not pay, he would not let me. And all the while he kept looking up front to see if his co worker was watching or listening. So, I left, angry, without buying anything. On the way out of the store, I passed the co worker and asked who the manager was. He said he was the manager. I told him I consider the cashiers actions harassment.

THEN, I went to the Codingtown GNC in Santa Rosa. As I walked in there was another very young guy with his back towards me. He did not know I was there. He was on the phone with what obviously seemed to be the Plaza Store, telling them "€œwell, if he comes in I'€™ll take care of it and let you know€." He got off the phone and I told him what I was looking for. He proceeded with the same harassment. Instead of showing me the product, he tried selling me something else. He took a very defensive posture towards me.

I briefly told him what had just happened. He said it was their job to sell. I told him "that is not sales, that is harassment when you don'€™t let the customer leave or talk." He then said, and I quote "€œwhether you like it or not, I will be doing the same thing to you here€." I said I was leaving, and he said "€œgood€." I told him "I would be contacting GNC'€™s offices about this." He said "€œfine€."

Now, I am a mature man, and am not off the streets, and do not display a temper or rudeness. I have am a part time fitness trainer, and manage the hospitality division for a large winery full time. I have never, and I say NEVER, seen such immature and horrible customer service. If any of my staff every treated a customer in such a way it would be their very last second employed by us. And I should know as sales is my job.

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Rude Salesman
StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarEmpty StarBy -
Rating: 1/51

GROVE CITY, OHIO -- I started a workout by MusclePharm and wanted to use their products for optimal results. I walked into GNC and the sales guy said "Can I help you?" and you said "I'm just looking around." I went to the MusclePharm section which was really hidden and he immediately jumped in my business. "Oh no no no put that back" and literally pulled it out of my hands. I was like okay. He nudged me towards all the overpriced GNC bs and I fell for it and shelled out $250 for a thing of whey, 2 vitapaks, creatine, and two c4.

I tried these for a while and returned them back to the same location and the same guy was there and he's like "what are you doing here?" Very rudely I might add. I said "I'm returning them." He's like "why?" I said "because they don't make me feel right and I don't want them." He goes "whatever." And rang me up.

I went and got my MusclePharm stuff and I let him talk me out of it again and I got GNC again but diff things and he said "I guarantee you'll be satisfied." I came back again a couple weeks later and tried to return them again and he threw a fit and was like "you're returning ALL these again?" I said yes calmly. He started yelling at my grandma saying "why aren't you talking him out of this?" and actually was in her face. I snapped. I said "listen hear you ** you don't talk to her that way and I'll return them if I feel like it."

He kept arguing and I had enough. I said very loudly so everyone could hear me "BLOW IT OUT YOUR **!" And walked out with my money. I will never go to GNC again ever. I know they have quotas to reach, but you shouldn't have to yell at the customers let alone an elderly woman to sell them.

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GNC Rating:
Star Half star Empty star Empty star Empty star
1.3 out of 5, based on 13 ratings and
25 reviews & complaints.
Contact Information:
GNC
300 Sixth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
1-877-462-4700 (ph)
www.gnc.com
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