In the summer of 2013, I signed up with Wen to receive their seasonal formula plan. I got the summer scent in my orders (at that time it was Summer Mango Coconut) and I was scheduled to receive Fall Apple Spice in the fall of 2013. When fall rolled around, I instead received a shipment of Sweet Almond Mint. I called to complain, and they said that they “did not receive the new fall scent in time to ship,” so they’d substituted Sweet Almond Mint. This seemed strange to me, because their site was advertising the Fall Apple Spice, as were the print materials I’d received in my summer Wen shipment. They offered to send me a return label and ship a different “regular” scent of my choice instead. I opted for Pomegranate, and shortly after that I found a great Wen deal on QVC and stopped my Wen subscription.
This October (2014), I started hearing from other Wen subscribers and readers who suddenly did not get their Wen seasonal Fall Ginger Pumpkin scent from Wen.com, receiving a different, substituted scent like had happened to me last year.
Over the weekend, I got a too-good-to-be-true Wen offer in my email offering a fantastic deal on Wen if I’d resubscribe. The package price was great considering all of the items inside, and I bit the bullet and subscribed — again, knowing I could cancel again at any time. This package only offered the “regular” Wen scents, so I chose Pomegranate and ordered.
Well, after I placed my order, I was redirected back to Wen.com, where I saw an offer advertising that of your bottles will be Fall Ginger Pumpkin when you place any kit order. I called Wen today to see if I could take advantage of this and have one of my three Pom bottles be swapped out for the Fall Ginger Pumpkin.
The woman on the end of the line had some pretty interesting things to say… things that I think push this into the “bait and switch” area of marketing. She said “We don’t have any Fall Ginger Pumpkin to ship, it’s sold out.”
I said “But it’s showing right now on the homepage of Wen.com. Take a look.”
She took a moment and said she was looking at it, then added “We don’t have it in stock. I can put a note on your account, but you won’t get it.”
I asked what would happen if someone placed a new order, right now, on the page showing the Fall Ginger Pumpkin. You can go there right now too and see this offer on the homepage!
She said, “They’ll get Sweet Almond Mint.” She added that “the month is almost over,” adding that the fall scent was due to stop shipping at the end of the month anyway. (Again, today is November 24th, 2014.)
What? That’s crazy. I don’t think they should be advertising a bottle of Fall Ginger Pumpkin with every new kit order when they have none to ship and willingly tell customers so on the phone..! And what about the people I’ve heard from this year who never got a fall scent at all for 2014 and had a different substitution sent. Did they even actually have any to ship at all?
Just a heads-up for any of you on the seasonal plan. These kinds of product substitutions were what prompted me to drop my Wen subscription in the first place and simply buy from QVC. I love the product, but incidents like this don’t inspire a lot of confidence to customers.
Coupon Maven says
I just did a quick search, and there are quite a few reports online of other people never receiving any Ginger Pumpkin Wen for the fall of 2014 – even going back to October:
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/cosmetics/wen.html
You can scroll to some of these – their site doesn’t appear to have jump links to the individual posts:
Kim of Danvers, MA on Oct. 26, 2014
I was only keeping the infomercial subscription because I was getting the seasonal scents in my order. I was going to cancel after my fall scent came, and I called them to find out what scent they were sending since there were 3. They said that they were not doing a fall scent and I was going to get the original. I cancelled my subscription right then and there. I buy all my Wen from QVC.
Carol of San Juan Capistrano Ca., CA on Oct. 25, 2014
I called in September to make sure I would get the fragrance of Ginger Pumpkin conditioning cleanser shipped in October and was told not to worry, it is on order and it will be sent. When my shipment date passed and I didn’t get anything I called back today, 26th of Oct. to find out why I wasn’t sent anything and was told they didn’t have any Ginger Pumpkin to send. This was after I was told I would get it and it was already on order. Who got my Ginger Pumpkin that was set aside on my order for me? Where did it go? I waited a long time for this because this is my favorite, but can get it only in the Fall. Now they let it go to someone else after promising that it was on my order and it is still Fall – so not past the season either.
iggybrown says
This is all very interesting…because I received the fall ginger pumpkin scent with my new (reactivated) order about two weeks ago! Something is not right with this company. Can that fall scent be found anywhere else online?
kate114 says
I ordered a new subscription about 2 weeks ago for my daughter’s birthday. (Great quick delivery.) After reading about your experiences I’m relieved to say that hers came with the promised pumpkin scent. It seems like that bottle was not as large as the sweet almond mint, but I can’t get hold of her right now to confirm. They don’t say in the sign-up what size bottle you are promised.
I hesitated to enroll as I positively hate auto-renewal type programs and I’m sure if I’d heard about this problem that definitely would have stopped me. Thank you, Jill!