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It appears to me that Melaleuca has intentionally set up cancellation requirements which are designed to hinder and slow down their customers' ability to cancel their dreaded automatic "Back-Up" shipments. Let me explain.
Melalueca has a policiy requiring that their customers must submits a request such as this in writing with a signatuere present on the request. In this day and age, e-mail is an extremely well-accepted method of communication which can provide verification of when the communication was sent and that the e-mail originated from the e-mail address listed on the customer account. Melalueca, however, will not accept an e-mail request to cancel these shipmets.
Additionally, a phone request should also be acceptable to any reputable company. But, again, Melalueca's policy is to only accept cancellations via a letter with a signature present. The company claims that they must have a signature to authenticate that the customer REALLY wants to cancel their shipments and that someone else is not pulling a fast one. (Who would care or take the time to cancel someone else's shipments?!) Further, the request must be sent to a special address, directed to the data entry department and to an address which is different than the main company address.
All of these ridiculous requirements are clearly an attempt by Melalueca to slow down the ease with which customers can cancel these unwanted shipments. I recommend that you don't do business with this company to begin with, but if you have fallen prey to their marketing and promises of earning big bucks, send your cancellation letter by certified mail so that you can prove that a letter was sent and verify when it was delivered.
The other horrendous practice of this company is to hinder and slow down their customers' ability to return unwanted packages easily. The most obvious evidence that the company is truly trying to prevent customers from easily returning their products for a refund is the fact that these automatic "Back-Up" shipments contain an invoice which lists the products enclosed, but does not have an actual invoice number, the customer name and address, a return address where the unwanted packages can be sent or a customer service phone number. I know of NO reputable company today that does not include all of these items on the most basic of invoices. (Even most of my purchases from eBay vendors include invoices with this information.) The clear intent of the company is to circumvent these returns.
The company does have a Melalueca address on the invoice, but it is not the correct address to use if you want to return your merchandise for a refund. Not including the customer name or invoice number on the receipt is a tactic designed by Melalueca prevent customers from getting a refund if they do not open the box, but, instead, leave the box unopened and write "Return to Sender" on the outside. If a customer does this, they would get absolutely no money back because with no name and address on the enclosed invoice, the company would claim that they did not know who the package was from. Further, even if a customer does open the box, but is not looking critically at the receipt, they may write on it that they want a refund, but not put their name and address on it so, again, the company can claim they did not know who the package was from and, therefore, cannot offer a refund. Additionally, customers need to be alerted to the fact that they cannot return the package to the address listed on the invoice. The package needs to be returned to a completely different address found on the outside of the box. These guys are devious!
I think the company's behavior is shameful. If they had a great product at a good price, they would have no reason for this ridiculous game-playing. They obiously know that they products and pricing structure do not stand up well on their own and have found it profitable to slow down their customers abiltiy to cancel their unnecessary and unwanted shpments. If Melalueca was a reputable company, they would not have to resort to such tactics. My warning, "STAY AWAY FROM MELALUECA! Their products are way over-priced and the company will do everything they can to confuse and slow-down the process of cancelling their automatic shipments and returning their products!" Buyer BEWARE!
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
their policy stinks, money-hungry. Elephants
Meleleuca now accepts email cancellation requests, however this really makes no difference as they deny receiving the form. I signed up as a preferred customer after hearing the sales pitch about the broad range of cost effective environmentally friendly products. Over the course of four months I tried a broad range of the household cleaning and personal care items. I really should have made more of an effort to read the product labels and customer contract before signing up, my disappointment in the company regarding those two items left me feeling rather neutral about them and ready to part paths while chalking it up to a lesson learned. Once I received the products I was disappointed or underwhelmed with the performance of most of the items, once I started reading the labels and saw that I was not avoiding the long list of chemicals that I had spent years clearing out of my house, I saw no reason to continue using Meleleuca. My feelings for the company quickly went from neutral to anger when I contacted them about cancelling my account. I was directed to the account suspension form, which although it seems unnecessary I understand that is the arrangement I agreed to. I completed the form and emailed it to the address listed on the form. The form was rejected by Meleleuca's spam filter. I once again contacted customer support to ask how I should bypass the filter and was told the filter would only reject emails with blank subject lines. When I told her that the subject line was not blank she gave me another email address to use stating that she can not control the spam filter. When the email was again bounced back I contacted customer service for the 3rd time, I was told that they do not have a spam filter and that the problem is my spam filter...ok, so now were are supposed to believe that my spam filter is filtering my outgoing mail, but only the mail addressed to Meleleuca? I resaved the scanned cancellation form, this time omitting the word "cancellation", I also made a point of not using that word anywhere in the body of the email. I resent the email to both address and blind copied myself, my attorney and our local Meleleuca distributor. This time the email did not bounce back, but I did not receive any confirmation from them. I emailed them to confirm the cancellation, they waited 3 days to respond and denied receiving the cancellation. My attorney now had the cancellation since I copied her on the last email, when she called customer service to ask where to send it they gave her a third email address to use. They now finally confirmed receiving the cancellation but in the mean time had sent my backup order. I thought, no worries, I'll just refuse delivery and we'll be done...right? Wrong, they want me to open the box, fill out a return form and include it with the receipt inside the box. Now I need to pay for the return shipping even though they know exactly what is inside the box because they packed it, charged me (not someone else) for it and shipped it. Well now I'm mad and believe they have a horrific practice of holding customers hostage and truly don't need to do that. So since I need to go to UPS to return the package I may as well take them up on the 100% satisfaction guarantee and return any products I have purchased in the last 60 days, the refund should cover the cost of shipping the back up order back to them. It has now been three weeks and even though I have proof of delivery from UPS Meleleuca is now denying that they received any of the returns and is blaming it on UPS...no refund for me. All they had to do was accept that their products were not a good fit for me, and we could have parted paths on good terms. I've noticed that any post I read from someone saying that they had no trouble cancelling is always from someone who swears that they loved the products but just needed to take some time off for financial reasons, this sounds to me like the brainwashed independent reps who don't know what "green" products mean, feel the need to step up and defend the company. Why are we not seeing anyone who says "I just didn't care for the products" also saying that cancelling and returning products was a piece of cake? If Meleleuca truly believes and stands behind its products, there is no reason for them to practice these tactics, there are plenty of people out there who are happy with them, why not just let those of us who decide its not for us to leave?
I am currently dealing with this exact situation! After last month I was not impressed with the products so I returned them and decided to cancel my membership, they made me print out a cancellation form, sign it, and email or fax back... I have A. Emailed and they said they never got it. And then B. Faxed it and they again said they never got it AND can’t look up faxes unless I have the fax number I sent it from, which I don’t since it was from the library. So now they sent out the back up shipment and charged my card even though I canceled weeks ago! Now they are STILL saying they haven’t received it and that I need to take a screen shot or picture of my original email and email it to another address “for review” and then they will call me about what to do next. But until it’s all verified they will not issue me a refund. I’m so angry
All of these accusations are like a poor game of telephone. When presented out of context and with the attempts at damaging Melaleuca's reputation instead of trying to actually be truthful and honestly assisting other readers, of course it makes Melaleuca look bad.
What NO ONE here will tell you is that when you sign up with Melaleuca it is because you have seen the products, seen the business model and you have decided to convert your home to their product line or use the business side to create an extra stream of income or both. You make a modest monthly commitment on your end (which is part of the different business model that Wal Mart doesnt require) and in exchange you get dozens of free and discounted benefits (non of which Wal Mart provides to anyone no matter how much you spend there).
When you sign up, you are signing up for the products AND the benefits. You agree in a legal and binding contract that if you don't keep up on your end of the agreement and keep converting your home with at least 35 points per month Melaleuca will STILL KEEP ON PROVIDING YOUR BENEFITS! In exchange for this, you agree to let them send you a autoship back up order which can be preselected to contain anything you want for that month that you did not order like you already agreed to do.
This is why every single complaint on here that accuses Melaleuca of sending something unwanted holds absolutely no water at all. There is no trickery either... you have to verbally agree in a recorded phone call to the back up order, you have to select which number of back up order you want on file, they ask you on the phone twice if you have any questions about the back up order... OR you have to fill out legal forms selecting and signing twice for the back up order so for people to post here and suggest the back up order is a surprise of some kind is really quite amazing.
For every person here that claims Melaleuca sent them something they didn't authorize, Melaleuca has recorded or contractual proof that they most certainly did request it and agreed to it in advance.
On invoices, back up orders are prepackaged earlier in the month so it would add an extraordinary amount of work to process them like the normal orders. Remember, every normal order has all of the information on it and then some... and also remember that the back up order is called that for a reason.. its simply a back up. It is not presented, marketed or even suggested that it is a normal invoiced order. Again, it is a BACK UP ORDER not a regular order... You should not be letting one come in the first place as you should instead be focused on converting your home like you agreed to do when you singed up so to try and make a case about the company based on the invoicing policy of the back up order reveals a lot about the people trying to do so.
Lastly, I have had several Amway and Mona Vie people tell me privately that they frequent this board and purposely lie about bad customer service to try and trick new people into believing lies about Melaleuca.
Telling people to contact the BBB for example is ludicrous. Melaleuca has not just an A rating but an A PLUS rating from the BBB, has joined a small group of companies actually inducted into the BBB Hall of Fame and has even been issued the Torch Award for ethics from the BBB. To have someone suggest that they shoudl be reported to them shows just how low some people will stoop to give you a wrong impression.
At the end of the day, its the Internet so you can find people spinning stuff every which way. What you really need to do is not let a bunch of online haters take your choice away and instead try the products for yourself so you can be the judge.
Wow- I have just posted comments on the same topic and have been looking up what exactly MLMs are.
Yes the cancellation process does seem to hinder the cancellation of a membership.
If a website is secure enought to accept your credit card information and accept changes of that information- then it can also securely be trusted to cancel your membership and give you confirmation instantly that it did just that.
Or a phone call with your last 4 digits of your social security number as identifying you.
Also if they accept faxed documents- which isn't your "actual signature"- why don't they take an emailed pdf. with your signature?
If someone were trying to cancel this membership maliciously (I do not know why anyone would want to do that-and I am sure its not hard to reestablish if you really wanted the "permission to buy more stuff") they could just as well forge my signature.
I urge you if you have had this interaction with them- contact the BBB- they have complaints there. They seem compelled to work with the BBB since if they didn't- they would have a bad rating. A rating of A by the BBB is because they worke out customer disargeements, not because they approve of their business tactics. It is good to have them involved if you have any issued with outstanding charges on your credit card.
MY COMMENT IS TOWARDS ALL COMPLAINTS AGAINST COMPANY
Thank you for having THE post that changes my answer to NO. I've been researching company three days, even checking spam reports, MX lookup, scams sites, the definition of MLM in legal terms, you-name-it.
And remained neutral, until this. You have enough details to change mind.
Noted: all complaints are 2010. Very possibly, y'all don't have same contract. So someone who's been with them longing never lied nor omitted fact on purpose; they didn't get or didn't read the new one. It's possible.
IT IS WRONG there's no customer information on invoice. And one of my former banks (went to civil lawsuit) used that "wrong address" crap; the one that showed in the window when you sent your check wasn't it. It was the one four-point at the bottom, so they could hit you with late fees (I busted that story after purposely sending one out 30 days before due and hit late charges anyway, and read the whole damn thing next month to the four-point. No one on phone ever said "wrong address". In fact, the jerk said, "Why don't you try sending it sooner?" So I did).
These are tricks are technically LEGAL, but still tricks.
As for email/phone cancellations, while I get the point it's because someone could be falsifying, there are STILL other ways to prove it's you. I send my taxes to IRS digital signature; like really, the government accepts that. A person falsifying last four SS# (I know required) and other information is an ID thief; company couldn't be sued if they do everything to ensure ID no matter way procured, and it was false. They only have to prove they asked the right questions.
That written signature? I'm an artist, and can forge all of yours, right now. Not that I would; just saying.
I suggest y'all report to BBB and your newspapers, as I did with my bank. This post in particular is STRONG case for civil lawsuit.
PS: I got nothing from mine. As first to break story (I was formerly investigative journalist I do this kind of thing a lot I can't help myself), my case was prior to "window dates". I won't say bank, but huge, and I can't believe they're still in business.
PSS: Those loving the company, the above complaint is still valid, and case for civil lawsuit. I'm sure the real investors at my bank weren't unhappy with their service either.
You must not have used the products if you think they are over priced and did not work. I Have been a happy customer for 6 years and have saved thousands of $$$ because I use all their products. Not because I have to but because they work.If Melaleuca makes it and I need it I buy it from them.My children are amazed that everyone is not a customer because the see and feel the difference.
www.livetotalwellness.com/donel
In over two decades, I have had to halt my shipments twice while a customer. All I had to do was call Customer Service, they told me the wording to send, then to fax with my signature & dated.
And, no, they should not just take anyone's word for it over the phone. Many people are not just customers, they work this as their business (whether part or full-time). There are many vicious people in this world that decide or one reason or another to ruin someone's life. They call utilities and anything else they can think of to ruin them. So, yes, it does make good business sense not to take anyone's word over the phone. They would be sued.
Hi Melaleuca is a good Business to have my business has been good http://getthewealth.net it you have any question about the company. go to my site and email me ...
I am sorry to hear some people have had such rough experiences with this company. I am a customer with them and have been for almost a decade... no interest in making it a business as I only have 2 people signed up under me. The few times an item arrived damaged or was the wrong item I called and was sent the correct replacement free of charge and was told there was no need to return the damagaed/wrong item. So in the case of laundry soap that leaked during shipment I just transferred it to a new container and was still able to use most of it.
As an adult you do have the ability to say no when asked if you wish to become a customer. Most of these complaints could have been avoided if people were able to say no if they did not think it was right for them or if they had done a bit more research on their own first before chosing to sign up or not. I agree that some of the people that 'pitch' Melaleuca go about it wrong which is why as a customer you need to do your own research first. This is not a get rich quick option, there is no such thing! I also agree the need for a signature is a bit outdated for today's times and that every now and again a customer service rep can be 'challenged'... ask for a supervisor next time.
The point is nobody and no company is perfect... we are all flawed in some way... Do your own research first and take responsibility for the fact that you agreed to sign up for something that you had the ability and right to say 'no thank you' to.
the game problem here is that they rush people, you shouldn't be allowed to do an overview without proper training, and clear information like how the points work and back up order . stinky polocy.
To melaleuca: this company is so stupid and is so unnessasary... this company has cohned a lot of people out of money and this company should not be nowhere seen on the internet, magazines, newspapers or any of such unless all the members of this company is going to jail! this company is very fraudulent and I would not recommend my pet dog to be a part of it! it has tooken my daughters child support money and I am not employed at the moment, and I wish I could sue you people out of everything yall own. I can bearly pay light bill and your stupid company is taken money out of my account! and whoever is reading this I hope you are careful and do not be a part of this crime!