Keyherb.com Too Busy Trolling Own Forums To Ship Your Order
Reader Dan writes in to tell us that the incense peddlers over at Keyherb.com are too chill to do business. All he wanted to do was de-stress with some of their lovely, organic aromatherapy products, but instead of shipping his order, they sent him a fake tracking number then ignored him.
Until, that is, he posted negative comment about them on their website.
I've been threatened with legal action by a company for complaining about not getting my order! Hey guys,This story is just too funny not to share, it's a bit long but I'll try to summarize. I placed an order on keyherb.com on Feb 5th using Google checkout. I received a shipping confirmation on Feb 6th with USPS tracking number. Time goes by and nothing shows up so I check the status on USPS and the number provided is not a valid number.
So I contact them on the 18th and ask about the status. I receive no response. I then contacted them again on the 20th and ask for a valid tracking number, and again get no response.
I then contacted Google checkout to ask how to handle the situation. They said to give them 5 days to find out what happened. 5 days goes by and Google follows up to see if I've heard from them or received any goods, which was no to both questions. They then told me they have been trying to contact the company as well and they have not responded to Google either, so they will escalate to one of their specialists and I can expect a refund from Google with 7 days.
Today, I decide to check out the site to see if anyone else has commented on not receiving their order and there was another person commenting they had the same thing happen to them.(they have a comments section to talk about their mysterious products that they don't ship) So I decided to warn any future users and posted the following on their comments section (they've since deleted it so I've copied it here, so everyone can see my "threats")
"Warning! Do not buy from this company! I purchased an item on Feb 5th and received an email on the 6th stating it shipped with a USPS tracking number that is invalid. They ignored my emails and also those of the Google checkout team, Google is currently refunding my money since they refuse to respond even to them."
Within 30 minutes of posting this on their site (let me remind you, I've contacted them numerous times through email and Google checkout and they have never once responded) I received the following email:
KeyHerb Mystic Garden to me
Subject:warningyou have been refunded
stop making threats or we'll take legal actions against you
we have you name address and IP
you have been banned from using our services
Wow is all I can say, your company takes my money and then ignores any inquiry about why they haven't shipped my order both (after sending me a false tracking number) from myself and Google and then they have the nerve to send me an email like this? I'm so concerned about being banned from their services, what, I can't give you guys anymore of my money in exchange for nothing. What a loss! So I responded:
"What threats? Please feel free to take any legal action you want, I am simply commenting on my experience with your company, you may want to consult with your legal department before making ridiculous statements that have no basis in law. This is the first email you have ever sent me after numerous requests about my order. Here let me help you out, here is my name and address,
[Redacted]
By the way, according to both Google Checkout team and my credit card company, I have not been refunded so please provide me with a confirmation of my refund."
About thirty minutes later, I received an email saying they just processed they return through Google checkout. I guess it finally took my "threat" to get them to respond to my inquiries and to get my money back. There response on the cancellation was:
Comments from KeyHerb - Mystic Garden Inc.: "Google's fault...Google messing up this account for 2 weeks causing many orders to be delayed."
Interesting, because Google had been very responsive and followed up with me every step of the process and never once mentioned any issues/delays with this account. I guess Google was stealing my emails to them as well so they couldn't respond to those either!
I'm sure I'm going to get another scary warning from them if you post this, so I'll be sure to follow up and let you know how it goes. Also, I'd be happy to send you copies of all my emails to them and from Google so you can verify that at no time was I making threats, I was polite and asked what the status of my order was. The only thing I can thing of that they could have perceived as a "threat" was the fact I said I would be requesting a charge back on my credit card if I didn't receive my item or a valid tracking number within two days (I stated this in my second email to them after being ignored)
I love your site, keep up the good work!
Dan
(Photo: emilybean)
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Comments:
A place called Keyherb.com has lazy and paranoid workers? Unpossible!
You post a comment on a forum for a company many people have probably never heard of.
They threaten you with legal action.
You send an e-mail to Consumerist.
People who've never heard of keyherb.com now know they suck.
You're missing the "See How That Works" tag.
(I know it's not a real tag...but it would be awesome)
Dude, we got an order
Whoa dude, that is an order, it looks like a Cheeseburger to me. Yeah man, this is like totally out there...in the ether.
I really like [www.sensia.com] for incense and what nots. I've ordered from them many times. They are incredibly fast with order processing, have a huge variety of incense (my favorites are the various japanese kobunboku type of incenses), have good prices, and whenever I've ordered from them they always throw in a bunch of extra stuff to try out. One time I remarked on how awesome the selection is and that I really wanted to try out a fairly expensive type of incense, and they sent me a half stick of it! I think that stick alone probably cost about $2-3.
I'm sure KeyHerb is actually thrilled that their site was even mentioned on a site like Consumerist. Most press they've probably ever received.
That being said, who wants to get stoned?
@trujunglist: Thank you for that site information. It's always good to see a good referral mixed in with the bad. It's easy to find who not to shop with and often harder to find who to shop with.
You think that's bad. Try returning shit you bought to your dealer. Lemme know how that works out for ya.
Here we go people Post on KeyHerbs Feedback:
This is the Feedback line, come on lets tell em what we think about their "Herb"
Consumerist should have a "Sites to Avoid" section.
Terrible service!
Apparently they were sampling too much of their Key "herb."
I don't care who ya are, that there's funny!
Not trying to start a "let's blame the OP" thing here, but don't be so quick to assume that they gave you a false USPS tracking number (unless it was clearly a made-up number).
Many many times I've been sent a USPS tracking number for an online order, and USPS's web site insists that that it's not in their system at all. Then the shipment magically shows up on my doorstep with that number plastered all over it, and USPS still says they didn't know anything about the number. Could be that the shipper never bothered to pay USPS the $0.18 extra to pay for the tracking service in the first place when they brought the packages to the post office.
But for something that was supposed to have shipped out at the beginning of February and you still don't have it, well that's suspicious, but don't obsess over that tracking number stuff. USPS's standard package tracking at best tells you that they received it, and that it was delivered. Not much else in between. Most of the time it just plain sucks.
We don't think anything about their "Herb" because no one here has had any dealings with the company with the exception of the story source. So going to their forums and spamming some "feedback" about their product you never got and only heard of because of some unverified third-person account sounds a little unethical.
KeyHerb? Yeah we all know what Herb they are specializing in...
Don't expect to get anything out of them now. They'll spend the better part of their time cleaning up the feedback forum. You have been warned!
I didn't see any feedback (from today) about their product, only their very poor service. How's letting them know I know they suck unethical?
@DeafChick: Consumerist is a "sites to avoid" section! After reading Consumerist for a few months, I wouldn't enter a Best Buy to get out of a hail storm!
I just googled keyherb. After their own website, this Consumerist post was next on the list.
I guess thats what you get for trying to buy weed on line.
Similar story here. I ordered some incense from these guys on Feb. 2, they sent the fake tracking number on the 4th, but I guess I was a little more patient than Dan. A month and a half later and all I have is the two emails sent to them through Google without response, but I haven't gone any further than that. Now I see that posting on their forum won't do any good.
On the flip side, I recently ordered from World-Incense through Amazon and received an email the same day stating that World-Incense would be refunding me $2 because they felt Amazon's shipping was too high.
It's really not cool to harass them via their website. The OP posted his story, and now we know enough to avoid them. If he wants to take further action that's his right as a (former) customer.
Comment-spamming them is both childish and counterproductive. And it gives Consumerist a bad name, which isn't fair either.
@rjhiggins: I agree. Posting in that fashion will only escalate the situation. Give them a chance to respond if they so desire, but if not, forget about it, don't shop there, and move on.
You know, they could have fixed this, even after the deal had gone south because they were too stoned for a month to process orders.
If I were the KeyHerb Mystic Garden (and I assume that there's just one or two people in the whole company), I would have immediately replied to the first post with:
1. Profuse apologies
2. An excuse involving harassment from The Man
3. An explanation of how they've fixed the system so this can never happen again, including assurances that those responsible have been sacked
4. An announcement that you're getting 50 percent extra stuff, free, in your current order, plus a certificate for 20 percent off your next order, all shipped "express" for free
Note that this costs me very little actual money, since I already have piles of this stinky shit lying around anyway.
There's an excellent chance that Reader Dan would have been posting here about how swell my company is.
See How That Works?
Well they can be sure I won't use their products either. Someone give them my IP and Address so they can ban me too!
The fact that their website is a word press blog with a downloaded free template that has had the original copyright removed didn't tip anyone off?
@FreemanB: Unless it was a keyherb poser someone from the company posted a response on their forum under name keyherb.
I really love the cheesy astroturf comments on their site. I didn't know my ten year old nephew had a job there!
Trolling their boards? HA! They have no idea what TROLLING really is. As one of the former premiere Yahoo! comment trolls, who regulary hangs out with hundreds of other Yahoo! comment trolls online I thinks we just might pay this baord a visit and show them what real trolling looks like.
Wanna know why Consumerist is relatively troll free? Free Speech
For aromatherapy, hydrosols, essential oils, and top quality bulk herbs, my favoritest company in the world is Mountain Rose Herbs www.mountainroseherbs.com These people are serious about quality and their prices are usually quite reasonable.
I'm sorry, but who buys incense these days? Didn't that fad end in 1972? Why would you want some stinky-ass crap stinking up your house?
Might give you lung cancer or burn down your house because you are too stoned to put it out.
it smokes the bowl of resin and remembers to use spell check again.
@greensmurf: I meant respond to the article here, not to the random postings on their feedback site.
Really, really ridiculous behavior on their part. I frequently order incense and prefer to order from Primo (primo-incense.com). The quality of their products is as good as I have ever seen (smelled), and they are a great company to deal with. All their stuff is made in India and they use bamboo or pachouli (sp?) for their sticks-no "burning wood" odor at all and every pack I have received has been fresh. I have placed numerous orders: each one was completely filled and delivered quickly. As a bonus, they usually throw in a lot of free stuff with each order (typically spend $25-50 per order) including burners, sampler packs, fragrances I had never ordered before, and on one occasion a mini-burner and several packs of mini sticks in the same fragrances I had ordered. To top it off, the invoice with every order I received contained a handwritten note thanking me for my order and wishing me peace (not a big deal I know, but this, plus all the free stuff, indicates strongly that this is a company that truly appreciates its customers). I don't know if their products are charged or not (they do not advertise as such) but they definitely bring positive energy into my home. I'm pretty sure this is a fairly large company as I have seen their products in virtually every metaphysical bookstore I have been in, so the personal touches are all the more impressive (IMO).
Peace to all and blessed be!
Hi,
I'm a tool. I just read your e-mails to keyherb.com and Google Checkout regarding a transaction that seemingly went south.
Because I have nothing better to do, I'm going to go ahead and post inflammatory statements about a company that I have had no prior dealings with. I'm just going to assume the facts laid out before me are accurate and require no further thought on my part.
_________________________________________
Really people. The guy had a problem with HIS order, and he took it up the chain appropriately. Nice job, by the way, at getting a refund.
Other than that, what business do any of you have in going to this company's feedback forum and acting like complete and total asses?
What "herb" are you on?
Unrelated question
Why is herb pronounced "erb"
Whereas your uncle Herb is H-erb?
Oh, now I have to put in a word to counteract the impression that those of us who use herbs and aromatherapy are woo-woo types who think fairies inhabit plants, vibrations mean more than what the cylindrical toy produces, and the color of your chakras determines what silk scarves you must drape in your feng shui temple. Meh. Some of us use plants in scientifically defensible medicinal and practical ways. Some of us are even hard headed skeptical atheists.
@chemmy: Probably a British/American thing.
I'm not sure I'd ever trust an e-commerce site that uses a Wordpress template as a storefront.
@chemmy: Why do Canadians pronounce the Letter Z as Zed?
So when they say Zerba do they pronounce it Zedebra?
@cothebadger: regardless of the wordpress, they might want to check to see how one spells 'friend'... !
@speedwell: Some of us are trying to cover up the stinky green shit. Sounds pretty practical to me.
But man, the jokes on this story just write themselves, don't they?
And whoever posted the bunny and the kitten on their forum is, like [giggle] a genius.
And chemmy: That's because "Herb" (the name) comes from "Herbert," while "herb" (cooking and smoking) comes from the French herbe. That's my best guess.
Google Checkout follows up and helps you? Better than PayPal by default. More sites should use Google checkout!
Here is a pretty decent consumerist post, but I don't think that turfing their lawn is going to benefit anyone.
Whatever... their name has been sullied and this story will haunt them in google results for a long time, but trolling their (little used) board is childish.
Can they ban me, too? I wouldn't do business with them after this!