Vitacost Consumer Reviews - Page 2

ERIE, PENNSYLVANIA -- Ordered $120 worth of supplements, I was advised to take for Lyme disease on July 31 2017. 3 items were to be shipped cold. Vitacost shipped it out on Aug 2 and I never heard another word from them or received my package altho, they said I'd receive it on Aug 3rd, it's now Aug 10th. They ignored my inquiries for 5 days as they continued to send me automated messages demanding my 'correct shipping address', 4 times. My correct shipping address is connected to my PayPal account that they took my money from. FedEx site stated that the wrong street address was marked on the package.

Finally, I was contacted by Vitacost who told me, "We've tried repeatedly to contact our shipping company with no reply. We cannot issue a new package or refund until 24-48 hours after the package has been returned to the warehouse." THAT is a: Make it right, guarantee? Make it right for whom? Not the customer, that's for sure! Vitacost entered the wrong street address but refused to take responsibility for their mistake. Just when does Vitacost plan to refund my money?

I see by FedEx tracking that Vitacost has had my package back at their warehouse for 2 days now. I will NEVER buy from Vitacost again & will be sure to let everyone know what sort of company they are. Hearing of many others who're also having problems with Vitacost. I would NEVER give them my credit card numbers after reading reviews. Vitacost's "Make It Right Guarantee" is a LIE. Their customer service is the WORST.

BOCA RATON, FLORIDA -- Three times, I tried to place an order and was asked by the website to re-enter my security code (which was actually correct), then I switched to another card (AMEX), and tried with the correct code on the front of the card, then the 3 digit code on the front. These were also rejected. The first card entries resulted three duplicate bills posted for the order (which remained in my cart), though they were pre-authorizations only and were later removed. The AMEX sent me an alert that Vitacost had submitted an erroneous security code to them, and they had rejected it.

I did a live chat and wrote several emails to their site, asking that the 3 bills to the first card be removed or refunded. I got various answers including "not to worry" twice, but also several requests to submit more information about the cards I used (including photos of the bills) in order for them to "investigate" the problem. After I forwarded the proofs, I got a letter indicating that I was annoying them with all this correspondence. ("We have already told you several times.")

I don't understand how the pre-authorizations were sent to my banks, since the Vitacost website should be catching these malfunction problems before contacting the banks. By submitted a 3 digit code to AMEX, I can see that they have no internal security protection in place. I will never order from them again.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA -- Live in AZ, closet warehouse NV. Site says "FREE SHIPPING OVER $49 | Order by 1 p.m. & receive your order in 1 day!" I order 2 items over $49 before 1 PM, 1 of those items not in stock in NV, only in stock in SC and shipped UPS ground with a 7-day delivery. Total order $52.12, use debit card, $52.12 pending hits acct. and a separate pending charge of $27.99 also hits acct. for the item shipping from SC.

Customer Service says happened because 1 item is shipping from SC, I will only actually be charged $52.12 when order ships, the pending $27.99 will fall off acct. in 3-4 days. Total B.S. A pending amount is not available money on a checking acct. - if a check comes thru this will NSF the acct. Many times I order multiple items, site says "In Stock". 2 days later receive email that it's not in stock and will ship as soon as it is. Always told, "Sorry for the inconvenience". Will no longer do business with Vitacost.

Vitacost has NUMEROUS issues that affect the consumers on a number of levels. I have been a customer for years and because of my busy lifestyle and the low prices on their products, they always seemed the convenient choice for my vitamin purchases. I also have to admit that I have paid quite a heavy price for their low prices in the form of extreme aggravation, lost time and money and I am ceasing my business for them due to this last situation.

They have an awful policy of charging your credit card twice within a 24 -36 hour period. What that does is freezes your account with that amount of money for five business days. It will affect your checks and charges coming in if you are counting on the money that they blocked for five days - TWICE. I've had this problem with them before and forgot about this policy when I ordered this last time around.

Vitacost has a terrible phone service, at least once or twice a week their phone lines go completely down. When you are one of the lucky ones to get through, you are stuck on hold no less than 15 to 20 minutes and the voice of this shrill woman at high octaves comes on every 60 seconds and states in a most annoying Robin Leach-esque voice "never wait on hold again" and proceeds to tell you that your place in line will be held with a call back number and when it is your turn, Vitacost will call you back.

Guess what ? They NEVER call you back. I've tried this service four times like an idiot and all four times - NEVER got a call back.The only other alternative is to wait on hold with that horrible voice they have chosen for their system, 800-739-2601.

This time around they have caused me six overdraft fees as a result of charging my card twice. My account is upside down and after calling four days in a row (Mon-Thurs) and getting the run around, I am still nowhere except highly distressed. My orders through the years have always been in the hundreds of dollars range, some closer to a thousand dollars and they have caused issues with my parents, my grandmother, and two colleagues...what are the odds?

They screw up way too many times, they abuse your credit card in return they do nothing to make it right, other than just sending you in circles. I highly suggest a company J&J Health Foods, their prices compete with Vitacost, and they deliver. Vitacost needs to be investigated for their policies, not to mention their crapshoot service, with them, it's the luck of the draw. If you are going to order from Vitacost.com, order at your own risk!

BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA -- I have made many purchases with Vitacost.com over the past few years. Their products are good and their service is usually good. If you e-mail them about their products and want additional info, then they are very prompt in replying. If you have a problem with them, then forget about e-mailing them. They only want to hear from you if you have something good to say. That is OK, as I could live with that because I enjoyed their products.

Now, here is what I cannot live with. Back in early January this year, I placed some orders and at the end of one of my orders was a statement that read..."do you want free shipping on your next order?" I clicked on that site and it was a gimmick and I saw nothing that I was interested in, so, I clicked off that site and back to Vitacost.com. I did not join any club or give this site any of my personal info or my debit card number.

On 1-30-07, I saw that $14.95 had been charged to my debit card by a company named "shopping essentials plus". Since I had never heard of them, I called my bank and my bank rep called shopping essentials and they told my rep that they got my personal info and debit card number from "Vitacost.com". This was a real shock to me. We cancelled my membership with them and several days later they credited my $14.95 back to my account.

I e-mailed Vitacost.com and told them about this incident and told them I did not appreciate them giving out my personal info and card number to anyone, and if this is what they were doing, I would never order from them again. They did not reply. I have since e-mailed them two more times and they still have not replied to any of my three e-mails. My 2nd and 3rd e-mails I told them if they do not reply, then that pretty well proves they did give out my personal info. Also told them I would file complaints against them if they did not reply. Still no replies. I have now filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the Florida Attorney General's Office.

I just do not understand a company that I have given a lot of my supplement business to would do this. The really hard thing is that they will not even reply to my e-mails. The reason for this e-mail is to warn as many people as I can. Be very careful before you give this company any of your personal info or card numbers.

If there were a mix-up or Vitacost really did not pass this info on to Shopping Essentials, then would you not think they would have certainly have responded to my e-mails? I know that I can no longer trust Vitacost.com, and will NEVER buy anything from this company again, and just want everyone to know about them.

FL -- DO NOT BUY VITACOST products. They sell OUTDATED vitamin supplements. I ordered 6 bottles of their Tart Cherry and it came today, EXPIRES in 13 days!!!!! They are selling health products as "new" but they are outdated and OLD! Don't buy VITACOST products. THEY SAID THAT THEY SELL ALL KINDS OF PRODUCTS THAT MAY EXPIRE IN 35 DAYS! THAT'S THEIR POLICY. OLD. Outdated and no refunds. DO NOT BUY FROM THEM. At 1 TSP per day, I won't be thru the first bottle before it's EXPIRED.
They charged me $118 and won't refund their junk.

If anything goes wrong with an order, Vitacost becomes very adversarial and aggressive toward its customers. They continually say "I'm sorry", then are unwilling to do anything to resolve the problem. Problems I have encountered include short shipments, over billings, and poor customer service.

ONLINE, FLORIDA -- Items arrived broken and leaking because they were just thrown in the box without any care or padding. Customer service stated that this problem (leaked product, peeling labels, etc.) was just "cosmetic" as far as the other items being damaged but still usable (their policy is therefore to NOT replace the damaged, but still "usable" items). The shipping time promised was within 3-4 days, but took over a week (twice). Beware that the low prices you're paying may very likely be for damaged goods/slow shipping and judge accordingly.

ONLINE, FLORIDA -- If I could give negative stars, I would. Their prices and customer service have always been incredible, but I've noticed in the last 6-9 months, they have gone completely downhill. I live in Canada and they started advertising "No surprise tax bill at your door" in their Canada shipping ads. I thought this was too good to be true -- and it was. After my delivery, I emailed them to clarify and their response was: "We guarantee duty free shipping, however, actual tax may differ from duty. I apologize for any inconvenience."

If that's the case, they really need to stop calling it 'no surprise tax bill at your door' and replace it with 'no surprise duty bill at your door'. I think this is false advertising, however, seeing that 99% of the time I am paying duty when ordering from a US merchant, I'm not surprised when these additional costs do come up upon delivery -- in fact, I expect it.

However, what upset me the most is that in my last two orders, I received the shipment in 2 boxes and they pasted the same total invoice to both boxes -- meaning I paid double the duties/taxes. After it happened the first time, I emailed them and they were quick to refund the duplicate charge, but they could not guarantee it wouldn't happen again.

Of course, a mere 2 months later, it happened again on my next shipment and once again, I had to go through the whole process all over again. They claimed they put a refund through on my credit card, but that was nearly a month ago and I called my credit card company who said nothing has gone through yet.

Honestly, it's just not worth the hassle...unfortunately, stay away :( Amazon doesn't deliver most supplements/ vitamins to Canadian customers, so I find luckyvitamin.com to be a great alternative if you're in Canada ordering from the US.

LEXINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA -- I just called your customer service line and explained that I was very unhappy with the way Vitacost uses their promo codes as bait but rarely honors them. I became familiar with Vitacost through a promo for $10 off your first order. I familiarized myself with your website and loaded my cart. Upon checkout, the system would not take the promo code.

I called the customer service line for help only to be told that the coupon could not be combined with any other promo and since the items I chose were on promo, the coupon wouldn't work. They spoke matter-of-fact and they were not sympathetic to the issue and the fact I wasted my time. Nowhere on the coupon did it say that it could not be combined with any other promo. Even though I made that clear to the customer service rep, they did not honor the coupon. At that point I started receiving emails with promos.

A few months later I attempted to use a promo. Again, it wouldn't take it even though I had received the email only 1 day before. Apparently I was 2 hours late. Again, another bait without honoring the promo. You should give your customers a reasonable amount of time to use the promos you advertise to avoid frustration on our end.

Today I tried to take advantage of your BOGO offer on Vitacost products. The banner clearly states in large print "Buy one get one 50% off on Vitacost brand products". So I loaded my cart with two coconut oils and attempted to check out with the promo. It didn't work. I called the customer service line and was told that item was excluded. I'm very frustrated and feel that Vitacost baits us with misleading emails and refuses to honor what they represent to the customer.

As I was speaking to the customer service supervisor, I noticed the fine print at the very bottom in very small letters "exclusions may apply". Again, a very underhanded way to promote your products. I told the CSS that I wanted the promo honored for the Vitacost product I chose because after three poor experiences with your promos, I was feeling misled and I wanted them to honor the promo as it was represented. She checked with her manager who denied my request even though I made it clear they would lose my business.

It's unbelievable that this is how your manager handled this situation after I expressed willingness to be loyal to your business if only I was shown an act of good faith and extended a reasonable offer considering I've been jerked around so much. Vitacost needs a good lesson in customer appreciation and circumstantial exceptions to the hard and fast rule.