Lucky Vitamin

They should call themselves Unlucky Vitamin, because that's what you are if you order anything from them. I needed, and still do, a certain supplement for a debilitating illness I've got that my naturopath recommended I go back to taking. This is not a supplement that you can go into any health food shop and buy. I have always had to order it online, and only certain websites sell it. I was looking for a new supplier for it because the price has gone up anyway but the companies I had bought it from in the past had started charging sales tax even though they're not in the state where I've been living. They said there was one bottle in stock that would be shipped within 24 hours and the others were back ordered and would take 2 or 3 days. They offered a quantity discount, the more you bought the lower the price would be, so I ordered 18 bottles along with 2 bottles of something else they said was in stock. I'd also signed up for autoship because that was supposed to give me a further discount, only 5%, but better than nothing, and I will probably have to cancel that later. I am pretty desperate for the one supplement and could have bought a bottle from elsewhere for a higher price but which I would have got by now because the other company sends smaller orders overnight for no extra charge if I would have known that they weren't really going to ship the bottle in stock when they said they would. Up until now, I've been used to dealing with supplement companies who are reliable and with whom I know where I stand, and one of my mistakes was thinking that Lucky Vitamin would operate in the same way.

Lucky Vitamin have terrible communication when it comes to actual orders, and even their marketing emails are delayed, but they have come, several of the marketing ones I'm talking about. This was on Monday, it's Wednesday now and they still haven't even shipped the supplement I really need, and all I have ever got are auto emails to my messages to them asking about the order. I got a general auto email saying that most back ordered items actually usually take up to 7 days, not 2 - 3. If I wasn't suffering so badly, normally I wouldn't be so upset so soon, but it very much seems like these people are nothing better than liars who don't keep their promises and don't care about their customers. I tried live chat this morning and all I got was a bot that kept me waiting for over 20 minutes whilst I was on the phone to the bank, before I gave up, saying the right person would come on, trying to query why there were 2 pending charges from my bank that more than doubled the cost of the order up to almost $1,000. This was the only message I then sent them that I even have got a reply to, and no apology, either, not that an apology would be enough. Also, when you send a message, an auto email comes that says it can take 72 hours, 3 days, to get a reply from them.

I don't think it is too much to ask to do what you promise as a company nor to keep the customer informed about what is going on with their order. Now, it's too late to order from somebody else today, the earliest I could get the supplement from somebody else now would be Friday, and due to the poor communication from Lucky Vitamin, I might pay all that extra money to buy one elsewhere and then they all might arrive on the same day.

What upsets me the most is the lies and the lack of communication, leaving me wondering and everything up in the air. It almost seems like there is nobody really running this business.

I have never before now bought supplements from a company that was so inefficient and lacking in communication. I would recommend anybody else to keep looking and avoid this company. I wish I had done.

Update - It's now several hours since I wrote this, and I just now got an email from LV saying I had unread messages. It was the so-called live chat. Somebody called Shawn was saying 'It's been a while since I've heard from you,' and went on to say he was going to disconnect. You must be joking. He was never on live chat that entire time when I was.

And I still have yet to get any replies about what is going on with my actual order. Run from these people. It just gets worse and worse. Unprofessional in the extreme.

Update - 19 June - apart from that one message I got, none of my other messages have ever been answered. I did receive one bottle of the item I ordered 18 of on Saturday, the day after I'd received a bottle from another supplier that came overnight, but to date none of those others have been sent to me, despite their claim of it taking 2 - 3 days for out of stock items to be shipped, and all I've got from them since have been marketing emails.

I have just checked their website, and it now says that product is still back ordered but now there is no ship date. When I ordered, it said 2- 3 days. I have sent an email telling them I want to cancel the 17 remaining bottles and that I will be disputing charges with the bank if necessary. I sent it to their email address, not through their website, which now says I have no account there, and I've got an automated reply back acknowledging receipt so they can't say they never received my email.

For a change, I received a reply within a few minutes cancelling my order with an apology, although I'm not sure how sincere it was. They were probably relieved because I don't think they can come up with the product. Now I have to work out how much I should have been charged for the 3 items I did receive, and I hope I don't have to dispute it with the bank. Even though it costs more, I suppose I'll have to stick with the reliable companies like iherb and pureformulas unless I can find somebody else. This has been a horrible experience, and I just want to put it behind me and forget they ever existed.