iherb.com $320 CHARGED, NO GOODS DELIVERED!! Irwindale, California

I ordered a number of products for the umpteenth time  on-line from iherb.com (Order no : 4814982-0           ) at the end of August 2010, and decided to have it shipped directly to South Africa for the first time instead of having it delivered to a relative in the US who would then usually forward it to me. I read all the information on the website for international shipping and have copied the most relevant part of it for this complaint, verbatim from iherbs web site;

You will be refunded the total amount of the order minus the shipping charge and 20 percent of the value of the order as a re-stocking fee. We will also subtract any other outside charges we have incurred during shipping, such as warehousing fees, return postage fees, etc.
Refund for return items will be processed only for orders shipped out using DHL or UPS.

When I checked out the items it gave two options for the shipping of the items; one by DHL for $65 and the other by UPS for about $85. I chose to have it shipped via DHL (Tracking number - 1131879910:     ) due to both the price and the fact that  they (unlike UPS) have an office in the city I reside in.

The parcel arrived in South Africa on 2^nd Sept 2010 and thereafter could not be cleared by customs due to DHLs refusal to fulfil their obligation and promise to their customers; that is acting as broker between their customers and the Customs officers in the countries they deliver parcels to. In short, they ought to have applied for PRE-SHIPMENT AUTHORIZATION (as promised on their website) from the MCC or at the very least asked me to do so BEFORE having the goods shipped, due to the fact that one apparently had to get authorization from the MCC before importing supplements for personal use. I wasnt aware of this fact having imported them in the past via USPS without any ado. But surely DHL must or should have been aware of this fact considering their line of business.

Instead of DHL to then make up for their mistakes by getting the authorization on my behalf, they just called me up to tell me my parcel had been delayed and  gave a number to call so as to get the said authorization certificate. In summary, I was given a number of different phone numbers to call by different DHL staff, all (except a mobile phone number) of which were NEVER answered no matter how many times I called. The cell phone no was answered by a very grumpy lady who asked me to send her an e-mail with the names, quantities, and ingredients of the supplements I wanted to import. I did this immediately, but several days later, I heard nothing from her. So I sent her a reminder via e-mail; still no response. So I called her the following day and it turns out that the e-mail address she gave me was wrong and that she had even been having problems with the right e-mail address.

So, I was asked to re-send the information. I did that only for her to send me another e-mail asking me to contact yet another person at the MCC and provided an e-mail address and phone number. As usual, both the e-mail address and phone number led absolutely nowhere, and an-e-mail to  her  asking her to onfirm the info she gave to me, is yet to be responded  to till date. I was totally fed up at this stage and asked in several e-mails to DHL that the parcel be returned. There was no response to most of my e-mails and the responses I initially got to my request varied from; it was against DHL policy to send back parcels containing medicines, to;  my parcel( which was not cleared by Customs) had incurred taxes and duties which I had to pay for before the parcel could be sent back! I then contacted the DHL Executive office and after a series of e-mails back and forth, I re- confirmed my request for DHL to send my parcel back to iherb. DHL asked me to ask the shipper  ie. Iherb  to contact them so they could make arrangements with them about sending the parcel back. This I did; and a few days later I asked iherb for an update.

Terri wrote back to say that they were in the process of having the parcel sent back and that it was going to cost $243 to have it sent back. I wrote to DHL and iherb asking how it could be that a parcel that cost $65 to send to South Africa from the US would now cost $243 to send back to the same place. I also asked DHL to tell me why I had to pay for the parcel to be sent back seeing that it was their fault that the parcel could not be cleared. DHL till date have not been able to answer any of the above questions. I then wrote to iherb and told that I would pay for the cost of the return if DHL still insisted on charging for it, provided iherb gives me a copy of the invoice showing how they arrived at the fee they charged. The next thing I heard from DHL was that iherb had asked that the parcel be destroyed. In light of my last communication with iherb, this came as a total surprise; so I asked iherb to confirm or deny that assertion. That was the last time I heard from iherb, despite 2 more-mails between the 22nd and 24^th of Sept 2010 to them.

So,  they  are now incommunicado and even though they promise on their website to return 20% of the  value of my order minus the shipping fees, they are saying absolutely nothing about refunding my money and I am sure they have no intention to, based on their silence. So I guess I can say bye bye to the $320 charged from my credit card for goods which were never delivered. I will NEVER buy from iherb again .