TheNaturalOnline.com False advertising, Attorney General of NY, BBB of NY, FTC Hauppauge New York
On 01/20/2015, I followed at ad on Google to a company called TheNaturalOnline that advertised The Vitamin Code Raw for Women for $50.43 for a two pack of 240 vitamins or 480 vitamins total. Upon receiving the order, I only received one pack of 240 vitamins.
According to Marisa Hanky at TheNaturalOnline, 800-921-4271 ext. 8, Google advertised their product incorrectly, and they refuse to honor Google's advertising because they did not place the ad through them; rather, they placed it with Amazon.com, and Google is pulling their advertising incorrectly. Moreover, they are doing this to almost all the other companies on this ad according to Marisa. Importantly, Marisa not only phoned me to tell me this, but she also placed it in writing via e-mail. Finally, I have experienced this problem with Google in the past, specifically AllStarHealth.com during the month of 08/2014, and they also stated Google was advertising this incorrectly.
AllStarHealth.com refused to send me the additional bottle as advertised on Google, although they did compensate me with a 50% discount. At that time, I filed a BBB report and an Attorney General report against AllStarHealth.com. Marisa at TheNaturalOnline.com stated that they brought this to Google's attention, but they also requested that I bring it to Google's attention. Therefore, I filled a complaint against Google with their State Attorney General’s office and the BBB. I received this response from Google on 02/12/2015:
“I'm sorry to hear that you didn't get both bottles of vitamins. I personally use that formally and especially like that it includes raw enzyme blends, so I can understand why you'd be disappointed not to receive both!
Contrary to what Marisa shared, Google does not promote products. Advertisers like TheNaturalOnline promote their products on Google. Some of our ads appear on Amazon, but again, these are not "Google's" promotions, but rather TNO's promotions on Google's platform. They create the ad text and they control their landing page promotion.
Due to your experience, I have raised their misleading practice to our advertising policies team, who will review their account for possible infractions and take any measures to ensure other users are not misled by the promotion.
Feel free to follow up through this forum if you have any additional questions about this.
Best,
Google BBB Team”
As a result of TheNaturalOnline.com failing to honor their advertising, pushing the blame on Google when it wasn’t their fault, Google putting in writing that they would actively review The NaturalOnline.coms’s account for advertising infractions that mislead the public, and generally wasting my time on writing complaints, I felt like I had no other choice than to file reports against them with the BBB of NY, the FTC, and their state Attorney General. I also plan on contacting my credit card company to dispute the charge. If you have had similiar problems with them, I'd suggest that you do the same.