Buyer Beware with Soapalooza!

[Saponificarian]

I am opening a dispute with PayPal. I am so disappointed and bewildered by what Kelly Bloom did.

I ordered 6lbs of Blue Chamomile from Soapalooza this morning to a freight forwarder in the US. I got a shipping notification 2 hours later and I was quite happy only to discover that she is only sending 1lb of FO!

Immediately I got the shipping notification and the notes saying she is canceling 5lbs, I immediately emailed back and she ignored. Followed up with calls to the numbers on her site and her Facebook page, directly to voice mail it goes!

I eventually got through to her on Facebook messenger saying she has already shipped. Why send 1lb of FO to me without notifying me when I ordered 6lbs?!

I am just all sort of pissed right now! She then blocked me on Facebook messenger rather than try to work it out!

 

[Babyshoes]

So she hasn't refunded you for the 5lbs?

 

[Saponificarian]

She did refund the 5lbs

My issues are 1. She didn’t have 6lbs in stock but it’s on her website. Okay, mistakes happen - she was suppose to let me know before shipping!

2. She sent a notification of shipping with a note saying she canceled 5lbs. Immediately, within 3 mins in between I told her to cancel my order. She shipped anyways. In the note, she mentioned she still has a lot more of an FO I didn’t even want. If I had said okay to that, I have a feeling the conversation would have been different.

3. She shipped and charged me the $14that I paid for 6lbs to ship 1lb?!

The aggravation to pay a freight forwarder to my address in Canada is not worth the hassle which is why I told her immediately to cancel.

 

[Obsidian]

I hate it when there is a problem with a order and they ship before its all corrected. Absolutely no reason she couldn't have waited to hear back from you and to avoid your attempts at contact, not cool.

Glad you at least got a refund without having to fight for it.

I had a similar issue, much smaller scale but still annoying. I had ordered 2 somethings from etsy and choose the two colors I wanted from the selection offered.
The next day I get a shipped email, I didn't see this right away. 5 minutes later I get a message on etsy from the shop that the colors I wanted weren't available. I asked to cancel the order only to find she already sent 2 random colors.
She was willing to refund if I shipped them back but I needed them and it really wasn't a big deal but it seems like a unprofessional way to run a business.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

IMHO
At all cost keep your customer happy. If unable to ship order in full' communication is key letting your customer know of the situation, so customer can choose to make a choice on what is best for them.

Understandable why your upset. Customer Service Is Everything!!!.

 

[glendam]

Can your forwarder reject the shipment? Return to sender?

 

[Saponificarian]

She said it’s final sale because the FOs are on sale. I don’t want the package. It’s going to cost me $50 to get that 1lb of FO.

It’s actually abuse of power, she already has my money so she decided to do what pays her. She should have told me. And the time difference between her sending me shipping notification and me saying cancel the order was just 3 minutes! You are telling me you quickly dashed to the post office in 3 minutes?

 

[glendam]

She said it’s final sale because the FOs are on sale. I don’t want the package. It’s going to cost me $50 to get that 1lb of FO.

It’s actually abuse of power, she already has my money so she decided to do what pays her. She should have told me. And the time difference between her sending me shipping notification and me saying cancel the order was just 3 minutes! You are telling me you quickly dashed to the post office in 3 minutes?

Agreed. When two wild hares were out of stock on one of my items, after I had paid for it, they emailed me and asked if I would like something else or credit back to my card (shipping was free) and they waited for my reply to do either. Considering you are in Canada, she should have let you cancel. I thought I heard they were closing down, and now I would not be surprised as to one of the reasons why.

 

[AliOop]

@Saponificarian can you give us an update as to what happened with the PayPal dispute? I was thinking of ordering a few items from Soapalooza, but am not interested into getting into a similar situation. Mine won't be as dire, because I won't have the freight forwarding charges, but I still don't want to end up paying big bucks for shipping an order that isn't worth it.

 

[MelissaG]

Glad I decided not to order from her.

 

[AliOop]

I actually could not get through the checkout stage because the site keeps saying I have to enable cookies... and they are all enabled. Divine intervention, I guess.

 

[user 49910]

I am opening a dispute with PayPal. I am so disappointed and bewildered by what Kelly Bloom did.

Did PayPal get your issue resolved?

 

[DeeAnna]

As someone who does a lot of internet commerce, I can't fathom why companies are canceling or reducing quantities ordered and then shipping the changed order without discussing this with the customer.

I believe someone said another soap supply company (WSP???) did something similar to their order recently, so it's not just Soapalooza.

It can be tough for small businesses to maintain an accurate inventory of their stock even in this day and age of computer databases, so I can see why a customer might order a product that's not in stock. When this happens to me (thankfully not often), I call or email the customer with alternatives and see what they want to do.

I would NEVER just alter an order and ship. That isn't an ethical nor responsible way to do business.

 

[Saponificarian]

Did PayPal get your issue resolved?

Sorry @Professor Bernardo, I haven’t been on SMF in a while. PayPal wanted me to ship it back to the US at my expense. I wasn’t going to do that so I didn’t get my money back.

 

[Rsapienza]

Small business owners should all be very aware of the powers of the internet and social media. I have browsed her products several times. After reading this, I certainly will not be doing it again. Shame on her.