Medifast Exchange Fraud Owings Mills, Maryland
Medifast has shady exchange practices. Their policy is that you can exchange 10 items within 30 days of ordering. I mailed them back 10 items and called last week to inquire about when I would receive the exchanged items. I was promised the items for last Friday or Monday. I did not receive the items and called back to inquire about their whereabouts. My package has magically disappeared in the span of six days. I asked to speak to a manager: none were available. I called corporate and asked for executive customer service or a manager. I was routed back to the customer service line after I specifically told her I had spoken to the regular customer service and did not want to speak to anyone else there.
I spent over $250 on this horrible tasting crap, and make no mistake about it, it is AWFUL. (Which is why I was exchanging the meals to begin with.) Now these people don't want to give me what I've paid for.
Their customer service people are rude--abrasive to be frank. I spent over 20 minutes on hold and was never connected to a supervisor. They tried to pawn me off on a "team leader." I asked for a supervisor again and was placed on hold for a long time again. I think they were hoping I'd hang up and go away. No chance. I was then told that I would receive a call back from a supervisor within the hour. That was over four hours ago.
No one is going to call back. I have filed complaints with the Maryland Attorney's General Office and the BBB where they are accredited.
Their BBB ranking is A+. DON'T FALL FOR IT. This is not an A caliber company. Many unscrupulous companies pay hefty fees to receive high rankings from the BBB and this is one of them.
Do yourself a favor and join Weight Watchers or Curves if you want to drop a few extra pounds. This company is not on the up and up. If you search on the Internet you will see other complaints about them regarding this and other issues.
Anybody telling you that this food tastes great or even okay is a liar.
This company could care less about their customers. They only want your money. Do not fall for their lies. Very unprofessional and shady operation.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Moinoh
USANever Give Up
#2Author of original report
Tue, August 31, 2010
As I stated in my original report Medifast never called me back. I filed a BBB complaint. Medifast never responded to the BBB (but they have an A+ rating with the BBB). After two more weeks I finally ended up filing a complaint with the Maryland Attorney General's office. I had to file four follow up complaints with the Attorney General's office before I got all of my money back. I refused to back down and finally received all of my money back.
After I filed the first AG complaint Medifast mailed me the 9 items they originally lied about not receiving. I did not get a phone call, an email or anything. No apology for the inconvenience or anything. The box just showed up a week after I filed the AG complaint.
I asked the AG's office to mediate a full refund based upon the experience with Medifast refusing to send me my exchange items.
Medifast agreed. They offered to send a return shipping label. I asked them to fax it or email it. They insisted on mailing it. After nearly three weeks no label arrived by mail. The phone number the supervisor Crystal gave me did not work. It went straight to voice mail and no one ever returned the phone messages I left. I filed another complaint with the AG's office and Crystal from Medifast finally called back. Again, this was almost three weeks after she promised to mail me a shipping label.
I went through the items that I had to return with Crystal in detail. She gave me one SRA number to return everything under.
I returned every item. A week later Medifast still had not credited anything back to my account. I attempted to call and no answer. As usual. I filed a third complaint with the AG. Medifast made a partial refund to my account. They shorted me over $100. I tried to call and find out why. No answer at Medifast Corporate. (There is no point in calling the regular customer service line because they cannot answer anything.)
I field another complaint with the AG. This time I got an email from Crystal telling me that the box I sent was missing 9 items and that is why they shorted my refund. BIG LIE. Now you would think after pulling this stunt on me once they would not try it again, but they did. Now that's balls! Crystal said she gave me two SRA (what Medifast calls their return authorization numbers) numbers. She did not. She gave me one. She claims they were expecting two boxes from me and they would not give me my other $100+ until the second box arrived. These were pure lies. Crystal only gave me one SRA number.
I filed another complaint with the AG's office and stated that I was going to sue them if they did not give me my money back. I also mentioned that Medifast employees love to try to scare customers into accepting and believing their lies by saying their calls are being recorded. I asked for a copy of the tape so that we could get to the bottom of the second (false) SRA number Crystal made up.
Bottom line is I finally got all of my money back yesterday after nearly three months of lies, games, wrangling, and complaint filing. Absolutely shameful.
No one from this company has ever apologized for the hassle they put me through. The corporate headquarters does not answer the phones. They obviously have one number they print on their receipts for the public and one that they actually answer that is unpublished.
Please understand that this was not a mix-up on the part of Medifast. Do your due diligence and research them on the web. They are not a good company to do business with. I've never dealt with a company that lies and deceives consumers like this.
I also filed a complaint with the FTC and learned that they were in violation of a Federal law called the Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA). I was advised an investigator was going to look into the company's refund practices and that I could sue them in my own state (instead of small claims in Maryland where they are located) in Federal court because of their violation of the FCBA.
Don't believe the BBB and don't back down from companies like this. Educate yourself about the law and your rights. Most of all don't back down and let them rip you off. Fight back and then tell others.