Fiorella
Buyer Beware!
I had a very bad experience with Geologie. I purchased a trial set from them and was unknowingly signed up for a membership. This company claims that signing up for a membership is "clear," but the entire process is incredibly misleading. One - I've never had a company sign me up for a membership without prompting me to create an account. I was unaware I had one with Geologie. Two - I've never had a company not send a single email with a reminder of an upcoming order to a subscription. This, for almost every other company, is customary in order to allow the subscription owner to make edits to their order prior to confirming an order. Three - usually, once the order is placed there is some sort of confirmation email with an order number, which again, I never received. There is never an indication that you are on a subscription until your credit card is charged. Four - at no point did I even receive a reminder checking to see how this skin care routine was working, therefore if, as in my case, it did not react well, I was given absolutely no chance to be reminded that I had an option to opt out. I tried contacting customer service, which can only be done via email, and they weren't the most helpful. They refused to cancel my order (even though I emailed them prior to it shipping), they do not accept returns (which I said I would gladly take care of), and only offered a 50% refund. I cannot believe they continue these practices when it is clear a number of individuals have faced the same issue.
Response from GeologieJun 12, 2024
Thanks for your review, Fiorella, and sorry to hear about your experience. Our team takes extra care to transparently communicate membership details with any customer who is purchasing with us on a recurring basis. Happy to share additional details with you on where we call out those terms, and how we empower customers to manage their own subscription preferences with us. We first outline how long our membership trial period lasts and its associated ongoing costs in our diagnostic results. Customers typically answer our skin type quiz to find a personalized skincare regimen that fits their needs best before receiving their results and those membership details. Then, we explicitly call out on the checkout page that purchasing a personalized trial order will lead to recurring orders, which customers can update from their account at any point during the course of their trial and longer term subscription. To be clear, customers must give explicit manual consent to these terms if they wish to take advantage of our heavy trial discounts, and purchase of a membership trial cannot be completed unless those terms are acknowledged and agreed to. And finally, in our trial order confirmation email we prompt customers to manage their own subscription details from their account page, where they can postpone an order, adjust the products they’re receiving, or cancel outright. We also offer an opportunity to opt into receiving upcoming order notifications from us at the top of this confirmation email. We have many customers who elect to keep the default 3-month shipping schedule and operate on autopilot, but we encourage customers who wish to exercise more control over their membership preferences to opt into those comms in case any changes might be needed prior to a new order processing. We outline our cancellation, return and refund policies in a few different places along the purchasing journey, too, including in our diagnostic results, on our checkout page, and again in our order confirmation email. Our regularly scheduled regimen orders are prepped in advance to ship out the same day they process as a subscriber perk, which is why we ask customers to make any changes they might need to preferences at least a business day -- if not more -- ahead of time. We are deeply committed to maintaining the highest quality and safety standards for our customers, and once our products have left our facility, in order to preserve the integrity of each item, we are unfortunately unable to accept a return of them. We understand that this policy might be different from what you're used to when ordering from other online retailers and genuinely appreciate your understanding that, as a small personal care business, it’s crucial for us to prioritize our customers’ health and safety. Within our industry, returned goods must always be disposed of because the safety and efficacy of the products can no longer be ensured after they've left our possession. At this time, our team has confirmed that your membership with us has been canceled to prevent further recurring orders, so you will not incur any additional charges for new orders from us moving forward and should have received a separate confirmation email on that for your records. Our support team’s happy to help if you have any other questions for us, Fiorella.