My wife has suffered for a couple of years from pain in her feet and lower legs. She's been to doctors and specialists and, to date, has received no definitive diagnosis or effective treatment other than pain pills which don't work and offer side effects she'd rather avoid.
I heard about Ideal Feet because they advertise on a radio station I listen to. Their ads say the "guarantee relief in under 7 minutes." Their ads say you have nothing to lose by coming in for a free fitting. When you get to the store, the sales people tell a different story. They tell people that they need to wear the orthotics for a progressively longer time over a period of 10 to 12 days untill they're wearing them all day long.
My wife bought them more out of desperation than out of a feeling that they were addressing her pain right in the store. We spent over $400 for a five minute consultation and 4 pieces of plastic worth about $2. She followed the directions exactly for the first five days increasing the length of usage each day. On the fifth day, in tears from the increased pain the Ideal Feet orthotics caused, she took the inserts out of her shoes.
The next day, I took her back to the store where Ideal Feet agreed to take the orthotics back but only for "store credit." That's over $400 worth of credit which had to be spent in a store whose primary product my wife did not need. She ended up using her credit to buy vastly overpriced Brooks athletic shoes which she can't wear at all because they hurt her feet.
If Ideal Feet really believed in their product, they would offer a no-questions-asked return policy wherein customers who did not get the relief they paid the money for could get all, most, or at least some of their money back. The fact that they offer store credit only speaks volumes about the fact that they know their product is, in my opinion, a sham and works in only the minority of cases.
0 comments