I ordered a number of products for the umpteenth time on-line from iherb.com (Order no: 4814982-0) at the end of August anddecided to have it shipped directly to South Africa for the first time insteadof having it delivered to a relative in the US who would then usually forwardit to me. I read all the information on the website for international shippingand have copied the most relevant part of it for this complaint, verbatim fromiherbs web site;
You will be refunded the total amount of the order minusthe shipping charge and 20 percent of the value of the order as a re-stockingfee. We will also subtract any other outside charges we have incurred duringshipping, such as warehousing fees, return postage fees, etc.
Refund for return items will be processed only for orders shipped out using DHLor UPS. When I checked out the items it gave two options for theshipping of the items; one by DHL for $65 and the other by UPS for about $85. Ichose to have it shipped via DHL (Tracking number - 1131879910:) due to both the price and the fact that they (unlike UPS) have an office in the city Ireside in. The parcel arrived in South Africa on 2nd Sept and thereafter could not be cleared by customs due to DHLs refusal tofulfil their obligation and promise to their customers; that is acting asbroker between their customers and the Customs officers in the countries theydeliver parcels to.in short, they ought to have applied for PRE-SHIPMENTAUTHORIZATION (as promised on their website) from the MCC or at the very leastasked me to do so BEFORE having the goods shipped, due to the fact that oneapparently had to get authorization from the MCC before importing supplementsfor personal use. I wasnt aware of this fact having imported them in the pastvia USPS without any ado. But surely DHL must or should have been aware of thisfact considering their line of business.instead of DHL to then make up for their mistakes by gettingthe authorization on my behalf, they just called me up to tell me my parcel hadbeen delayed and gave a number to callso as to get the said authorization certificate.in summary, I was given anumber of different phone numbers to call by different DHL staff, all (except amobile phone number) of which were NEVER answered no matter how many times Icalled. The cell phone no was answered by a very grumpy lady who asked me tosend her an e-mail with the names, quantities, and ingredients of thesupplements I wanted to import. I did this immediately, but several days later, I heard nothing from her. So I sent her a reminder via e-mail; still noresponse. So I called her the following day and it turns out that the e-mailaddress she gave me was wrong and that she had even been having problems withthe right e-mail address.
So, I was asked to re-send the information. I didthat only for her to send me another e-mail asking me to contact yet anotherperson at the MCC and provided an e-mail address and phone number. As usual, boththe e-mail address and phone number led absolutely nowhere, and an-e-mail to her asking her to onfirm the info she gave to me, is yet to be responded to till date. Iwas totally fed up at this stage and asked in several e-mails to DHL that theparcel be returned. There was no response to most of my e-mails and theresponses I initially got to my request varied from; it was against DHL policyto send back parcels containing medicines, to; my parcel (which was not cleared by Customs) had incurred taxes andduties which I had to pay for before the parcel could be sent back! I thencontacted the DHL Executive office and after a series of e-mails back and forth, I re - confirmed my request for DHL to send my parcel back to iherb. DHL askedme to ask the shipper ie. Iherb to contact them so they could makearrangements with them about sending the parcel back. This I did; and a fewdays later I asked iherb for an update.
Terri wrote back to say that they werein the process of having the parcel sent back and that it was going to cost$243 to have it sent back. I wrote to DHL and iherb asking how it could be thata parcel that cost $65 to send to South Africa from the US would now cost $243to send back to the same place. I also asked DHL to tell me why I had to pay forthe parcel to be sent back seeing that it was their fault that the parcel couldnot be cleared. DHL till date have not been able to answer any of the abovequestions. I then wrote to iherb and told that I would pay for the cost of thereturn if DHL still insisted on charging for it, provided iherb gives me a copyof the invoice showing how they arrived at the fee they charged. The next thingI heard from DHL was that iherb had asked that the parcel be destroyed.inlight of my last communication with iherb, this came as a total surprise; so Iasked iherb to confirm or deny that assertion. That was the last time I heardfrom iherb, despite 2 more-mails between the 22nd and 24th of Sept to them. So, they are now incommunicado and even though they promiseon their website to return 20% of the valueof my order minus the shipping fees, they are saying absolutely nothing aboutrefunding my money and I am sure they have no intention to, based on theirsilence. So I guess I can say bye bye to the $320 charged from my credit cardfor goods which were never delivered. I will NEVER buy from iherb again.
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