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:warning

you 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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