Any consumer should be aware that Puritan Pride (vitamins) of puritanpride.com appears to be a company going out of business and with radical decline in reliability and customer service to the degree it is either deliberate pranking or extreme indifference.
We have purchased from Puritan Pride for many years and hundreds of orders. Previously we averaged purchases of thousands of dollars per week. Due to extreme reliability of inventory, that has been reduced to where now it is less than 20% that volume - when it is possible to actually receive an order - which is LESS than 50% of the time.
These are matters you need be aware of:
1. If you place an an order for an item on their catalog, they do run your charge but do not ship it until the inventory arrives - which might not be for weeks. They send no notice more advise of this by phone.
2. Less than 1/2 of orders place are actually processed at all. Nor are customers notified their order will never be shipped. Whether employees just throw orders away not to be bothered or it is a company practice for some reason we do not know.
3. Possibly to avoid any effort, they have their system set up to automatically state on the profile/order history page that your order has been processed - when it has not - and that your order has been shipped - when it has not. This has occurred now in at least half of orders. Again, their system automatically states that orders are processed and shipped - when they have not and never will be shipped.
4. The phone staff apparently also is trained to confirm to customers who phone it that their charge was received, approved, an order processed. This is untrue. Rather, it is just what the automatically tell all phoned-in orders. When pushed to explain, we learned that telephone staff is to advise all orders their charge and order has been approved - calling it "pre-authorization" - which means exactly nothing. Your chances of actually ever receiving your order is now less than 50%.
5. The inventory of Puritan Pride appears to be dramatically falling.
6. They do not process or ship overnight shipments - a 50/50 chance it will ever be shipped - for a least 3 days after you place your order and pay the overnight shipping fee.
Summary:
1. There is no less than a 50% chance that Puritan Pride will ship your order if you place it by our now current ordering history.
2. If what your order is backlogged, they do not advise you in any fashion. You may or may not receive your order many weeks later.
3. Puritan Pride has their computer system set up to state that all orders are processed and shipped automatically, even if the order was declined or just thrown away.
4. Their phone staff is trained to advise anyone phoning in an order that their charge was processed, approved and their order will be shipped. This is an automatic statement that has no relationship to whether the order will be processed, approved or shipped.
5. There is exactly no possible manner by Puritan Pride procedures to know if your order has been shipped except to call or live-chat 4 days after you placed your order inquiring of a tracking number. At that time you are then informed if you order will be shipped or not, and approximately when that might happen.
Puritan Pride is either a company going out of business or with horrific management oversight problems. That is unfortunate as at one it was an excellent resource. None of these problems used to exist, but they are worsening rapidly now. Now it is, at best, a 50/50 crap shoot and don't expect anything to come fast - if ever.
So you know this is not some attempt by a competitor to damage their reputation, we do not include any alternative source recommendations.
However, since some people believe they critically need what they order for health and dietary supplements, we felt it necessary to advise that Puritan Pride is not a reliable source for anything you might need quickly and with certainty. This. Is unfortunate.
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