DutyfreedepotReviews of dutyfreedepot.com

Response from DutyfreedepotMay 18, 2017

Hey Lars, I'm sorry to see you have had problems on your 4th order with us to Sweden. European governments love to tax tobacco and we are here to provide relief from these undemocratic and simply absurd taxes. Unfortunately due to these ridiculously high taxes, any company sending Tobacco to Sweden will run in to trouble, this is just a fact of tobacco shipments to Sweden and Europe as a whole. The customs in Sweden are very strict and the slightest issue with package labeling and other things of that nature may (more often then not) lead to the package being seized. If seized, they will ask for a king's ransom to have your package released as they are not interested in being fair, all they want to do is punish tobacco smokers. Now, we do have a good delivery rate to Sweden but, not every shipment will make it. This is simply a fact of doing business in Sweden and in Europe in general. Now, part of your order was missing and you requested a refund. We offered a reshipment which you declined so we issued your refund according to our terms of use. In our terms of use, we clearly state that if a refund is issued for a European customer, we will take $9 per carton sent off the refund for the cost of shipping. When you ordered, you agreed to our terms of use and as such, your refund was issued according to this policy. I encourage all of our customers or potential customers to always read the terms of use of any website they order from or use. It is simply good practice and one we encourage when using our site. Unlike most terms of use, ours is one page and in regular words (not 5,000 pages of crazy legal jargon you get from companies like Apple). As for the email you received, I am sorry to see you got this email. Please forward a copy of the email you received from our company to [email protected] and write attention Daniel in the email subject. I will look out for your email and review it once it is received. I will find out who sent this email to you and take disciplinary action as this is no way for an employee from my department or any department to behave and does not reflect our company or policy in any way shape or form. None of the actions listed in the email you received can or will be taken. You are always more then welcome to write a review and we want people to do so. The more feedback we get, the better our service will get as feedback leads to finding problems we didn't know we had and leads to solutions to these problems which is a win for any company. In any case, I am sorry your order did not work out and I apologize for the email you have received. Thank you for your feedback, we need to hear all feedback whether it's good or bad (as in your case). Best regards, Daniel Customer Support Manager Hey Lars, Regarding the email or emails you received, as I stated before "As for the email you received, I am sorry to see you got this email. Please forward a copy of the email you received from our company to [email protected] and write attention Daniel in the email subject. I will look out for your email and review it once it is received. I will find out who sent this email to you and take disciplinary action as this is no way for an employee from my department or any department to behave and does not reflect our company or policy in any way shape or form. None of the actions listed in the email you received can or will be taken. You are always more then welcome to write a review and we want people to do so. The more feedback we get, the better our service will get as feedback leads to finding problems we didn't know we had and leads to solutions to these problems which is a win for any company." Note if you did receive an email talking about your Trustpilot account, we are not Trustpilot and as such, we cannot do anything to your account here nor would we want to. We are a company that firmly believes in one's right to free speech and you are simply exercising that right, as are we. We feel more speech, not less speech will lead to a better company customer relationship and most importantly, better service. Now, if you really did get an email that stated the things you are saying here, please send it to [email protected] with the subject "Attention Daniel" so I can see what was written and find the person who wrote it so I can take action and stop this non-sense from happening again. If you check other reviews here on our Trustpilot page and if you read our terms of use when you ordered (you checked a box that stated you did before your order was processed), you would have known of our policy regarding refunds. This is why we offered you a reshipment or agreed upon compensation which you refused. Now I can understand your frustration here but, we cannot be held responsible for the fact that you did not read our terms of use. We do not hide anything which is why it is clearly written in our terms of use and again, every time you ordered you had to check a box that stated you read and understand our terms of use. If you did not understand our terms of use or did not read it, why would you check a box stating you did? Our terms of use is short and to the point. It is one page, not thousands of pages and is written in simple English, not in high level legal terms. To anyone who read this review, please read our terms of use before ordering and in general, read the terms of use of a site before using their service. It is simple a good idea and a good habit. As for the cartons being returned, yes the cartons are being returned as you rejected them but what does that have to do with anything here? We ship from several places across the world with the majority being sent from Spain, Cyprus, and Israel. Where an order is sent from depends on items ordered, the delivery location, and our own local rules and regulations regarding the shipment of tobacco. Note you did not complain about the origin of the packages we sent you on your first 3 orders (they were all from the same place) so I do not see why now all of a sudden it is an issue as they were all sent from the same place as your last order which is the one we are talking about. As for sending many packages and only having some go through, as you know your first 3 orders had far fewer problems then this one. Unfortunately, due to the rising problems with terrorism and other not so great things (which is putting it lightly) happening in Europe (you should know about these issues better then I do as you live in Sweden), we have seen more packages being stopped due to security concerns. Our packages are just getting caught up in this which is unfortunate. We are looking in to ways to avoid these problems and I am sorry to see your order got caught up in this issue. Again, I am sorry your order did not work out and I apologize for the email you have received. Thank you for your feedback, we need to hear all feedback whether it's good or bad (as in your case). Best regards, Daniel Customer Support Manager

Response from DutyfreedepotApr 20, 2017

Adam, I guess you may have spoken to me. We are currently not accept new orders for cigarette and tobacco products as you were told. We hope this is temporary but, for now that is the way it is. There are many companies that call themselves DutyFree but only one DutyFreeDepot (though we are confused with many other DutyFree companies). If your friend is able to order from a DutyFree company, you should talk to him and have him order for you. In any case, you were not discriminated against as that would be impossible seeing how we are an online store and we have no idea who you are, what you look like, or anything else related to "discrimination". Anyway, you are more then welcome to create an account and order any of the products we have available. Best regards, Daniel Customer Support Manager

Response from DutyfreedepotApr 19, 2017

Hey Jackie, Sorry for the late response here. I know about the problems you have been having with your most recent order with us and I am sorry to see that after ordering with us for a little over a year now, you feel the way you do.. I don't want to go in to the details of the long email exchange you had with our company (though most of it was positive until recently) but I can see and understand your frustration (I would be frustrated as well) due to the length of time and due to the amount of problems that have plagued your order. I can also see somethings that should have been handled differently in regards to a few of our responses. Now, we have always been upfront regarding your order and at no point refused to refund you for the missing products (note the last reshipment was sent just 2 weeks ago on 4/5/17). We simply asked for the paypal email address you use for your paypal account. You provided a link (not an email) and we informed you that what you provided is not a valid email address (as it was not an email address, it was a link). Also at no point were you blamed for not receiving the final 4 cartons of your order as you are not involved in any part of the shipping process. Unfortunately any company sending Tobacco to the UK will run in to trouble, this is just a fact of tobacco shipments to the UK. The customs in the UK are very strict and the slightest issue with package labeling and other things of that nature may (more often then not) lead to the package being seized. Once seized, it is just about impossible to have the items released (even if you pay the insane undemocratic fee's they levy). We do have a good delivery rate to the UK but, not every shipment will make it. This is simply a fact of doing business in the UK. This is why when you informed us you had not received your complete order, we took action and sent more cartons (as you had agreed to a reshipment), while knowing the cartons you had not received would not return back to us. We were willing to take this loss as you had purchased these products from us and it was our job to ensure you received them or your money back, even if we would take a loss. I will have our warehouse run a comprehensive review of your shipments to see why they kept failing. Even though there are issues with some UK shipments, the overwhelming majority arrive without issue so something really must have gone wrong. I know that is no help but hopefully we will locate the problem and prevent it from happening in the future. In any case, as we have requested before, please let us know the email address you use for your paypal account and we will have your refund sent to you. Please send us an email with this information. Thank you for your feedback. We need to hear all feedback, whether it's good or bad (as in your case). Best regards, Daniel Customer Support Manager

Response from DutyfreedepotApr 9, 2017

Rafael, Firstly, you are saying you waited a month for the products to arrive. Your order was placed on 3\14 and delivered on 4\3 which is more than fairly within our time frame and, even by today it has not been a month yet. We would appreciate if you get the fatcs straight as what you are claiming is completely false. As for the main issue, all of the products we sell are originals. Some products may appear slightly different then the ones you can buy in the US as they are made for European and South American markets and as such, may be slightly different. For instance, the Camels you can buy in the US look different and will taste different then Camels you can buy in the UK and Camels you can buy in Japan. This is how companies target different markets. You are more then welcome to send the cartons you have received to the manufacturer and they will confirm that they are genuine. We have been in business for over 11 years not by selling fakes but, by selling real products for bargain prices. From, Thomas Customer Support Supervisor

Response from DutyfreedepotMar 30, 2017

Caron, I am quite shocked to see the things you write considering this is only your first order with us. While a negative review should tell readers about one's negative experience with any company, your review tells almost the whole story of how wrong was your approach to us on this matter and by that you are only making yourself look bad here to such extent, that I have very little to add here. But I will. The order was placed for 2 cartons only and was never a "large" order despite what you claim. It was sent on 2\28, it was and in fact is still within the time frame of 10 - 28 business days which judging by your words, you are not fully aware of. Until a couple of days ago, and that is something you are not telling here, you never contacted us to inquire about your order, not even once. Now, like many other online companies, we have a responsibility to ship the products and deliver, through our online system you can even see that we have done so, but the customer has a certain responsibility as well to let us know if he is missing the order, as we have many customers and cannot contact each and every one of them for this purpose alone. You conveniently talk about our "Rudeness", while on your very first email to our company, along with asking us to "look in to the order", you immediately informed us you will dispute the charge if your order doesn't arrive which is nothing short of Rude in itself. We are dealing with Alcohol and Tobacco and not Books or DVDs, as such we consider this as a high risk business and cannot under no circumstances have any tolerance towards Charge Backs. We do all we can to give the best service for our customers, we offer compensations and reshipment and solutions to all problems. You however decided to take matters into your own hands without any sort of discussion, and that is something we will not tolerate and will cease immediately. It is okay to inquire about the process of disputing our charge as we would politely ask you not to, but when informing us about this we simply have no other choice. For that reason, and we have absolutely no problem in saying it, you are not welcomed to order with us again as we cannot allow you to place orders, receive products and just dispute our charges whenever you feel like it. No business would allow that. As for the "list of complaints" you are mentioning. It is besides the point of what transpired here that lead you to write this review, but just know that no company is perfect and neither are we, but we have been around for a long time for a reason and that reason has a lot to do with our service and our prices. We would like to be able to work in a cooperative fashion with our customers and we do, which is why we have been around for 11 years and are the leading online store in this field. If you do not wish to cooperate, that is fine as we are perfectly capable of issuing a refund if and when asked. However, you may not eat the cake and leave it full. If you mentioned any complaints towards us in order to receive a proper answer then there you have it, but if you only meant this as a Cheap Shot to try and slander us in attempt to scare away our customers, then I am sorry but this will not do. We stand behind our service and integrity and have many satisfied customers to show for it. Your order is being refunded and your account with us will be closed. Have a nice day. Thomas Customer Support Supervisor Editing: If by "showing your true colors" you mean that we are simply being honest and upfront about not wanting to deal with your threatening and shall we say bullying attitude, then yes, we have indeed shown them. You are entitled to your own opinion, no argument there, but if your opinion is that you are entitled to take any actions against our company but keep ordering with us, then we disagree. Now, seeing the way you chose to respond to our legitimate response, I can see that you do not fully understand what is wrong with your approach and therefore, there is no point taking this conversation further then it has gone as it will go no where and will break down in to further absurd accusations while not taking any responsibility for your words. As a result, we believe these accusations simply do not deserve a response as they are blatantly false and twisted to fit your narrative. Regards, Thomas Customer Support Supervisor

Response from DutyfreedepotMar 19, 2017

Idnc, I am a bit shocked to see what you have written here considering you placed your order with us 2 weeks ago on 3/4/17 and our shipping time frame (which is clearly listed on our site) is 10 - 28 business days (with an average delivery time of 2 - 3 weeks once sent), not one week. One of our sales reps. Jacob called you to confirm your order on 3/5 and your order was charged on 3/6. As a new customer, we needed your confirmation before we process your first order with us to avoid delays in delivery due to an incorrect shipping address and to inform you of a few details like shipping time and things of that nature. Now, as you paid by E-Check, we needed to wait for our banks approval that the funds are valid before we ship out your first order. We sent you an email informing you of this and that it would take a few business days. After a few business days we received approval, we sent you a text message (SMS) and email informing you that your order payment had been approved and informed you of the name of the charge that would appear on your bank statement to avoid confusion as we charge discreetly. Your order was sent in full on 3/15 and all tracking information for your order is available in your DFD account under the order status. Your order is in transit and should arrive in the next week or two. Now I can see you sent us an email on 3/17 stating what you have stated here in your review with nothing new to add other then your order was not sent (which is was) and that you want your money back. That email will receive a response shortly as our email response time frame is up to 72 hours. I just find it shocking you would write "Don't trust them! They are cheating people! Go and find someone else that you can trust! I will do whatever I can to get my money back!!" when your order is just 2 weeks old and is in transit to you with valid tracking information available in your DFD account online and available upon request via email or over the phone. Your accusations are not only false and slanderous, they are simply absurd and do not deserve a response. Anyway, your order is in transit (sent just 4 days ago) so no refund can or will be issued at this time. If your order fails to arrive in our shipping time frame, please let me know and I will have a refund issued for any and all items you have not received. From, Daniel Customer Support Manager

Response from DutyfreedepotMar 27, 2017

Hey Jean, I'm sorry to hear about the problems you had with your order to Canada. I can see that you sent us an email back on 12/29/16 that you had rejected the packages we sent you as you were asked to pay custom duty on them. You also requested a refund. The large majority of our shipments to Canada arrive without issue but, due to the nature of the products we send, this kind of thing may occur. We responded to your email within our 72 hour response time and informed you of our refund policy and offered you a reshipment of your order, agreed upon compensation in store credit, reshipment of alternative items of your choice or, a refund. We did not receive a response back from you until 2/22/17 when you replied and confirmed that you wanted to proceed with the refund. We responded and informed you that your refund will be processed, and it may take up to 15 business days from the day your refund was processed (2/28/17) to appear on your credit card statement depending on how fast your bank post the refund to your account. We also informed you your DFD account would be closed due to our refund policy. In any case, please allow a little more time for the refund to post as it was issued on 2/28/17 and should appear on your statement shortly. If your refund fails to post on your statement within the next several days, double check with your bank and if there are any problems, let me know and I will do what I can to ensure your refund is received. Thank you for your feedback. Best regards, Daniel Customer Support Manager Jean, I cannot see any notes on the order stating we received a call regarding your order in February so I will look at our call records and see what happened. After you responded to our email, we took action and issued your refund on 2/28/17. If we did receive a call from your partner and no action was taken, I will see what went wrong and implement solutions to prevent this kind of issue from happening again. Regardless of what happened, I'm sorry to see your order did not work out. As I stated previously, if your refund fails to post on your statement within the next several days, double check with your bank and if there are any problems, let me know and I will do what I can to ensure your refund is received. Best regards, Daniel Customer Support Manager Hey Jean, I'm sorry to hear it still has not posted on your statement. At this point you should contact your bank / credit card company and ask them if they can see / locate the refund. If they cannot see the refund, you are more then welcome to take any action necessary with your bank to reclaim the funds as we have issued the refund. If you need further information like a refund confirmation number, just let me know and I will do what I can to assist you. Please keep me posted and let me know what happens and if you need my assistance. Best regards, Daniel Customer Support Manager Hey Jean, My billing department will send me the refund confirmation number shortly and I will shoot you an email with the info. If you need anything else after that, let me know and I will do what I can to help. Best regards, Daniel Customer Support Manager