VitaCost.com

Full review
Vitacost charged us twice for a $45 order. Since we'd had to budget down to the penny, this meant that other debits that should have cleared were overdrafted at $30 each, so far adding up to $90 in overdraft charges at our bank.

When I called Vitacost, the first representative "accidentally" hung up on me. The second told me that the 1st charge (though she would never use the word "charge) was done to "authorize" our credit card and that the second charge is made at the time of shipping and is the actual charge.

She said that the "authorization" (charge) would "fall off" our account within 10 days. And after I made it clear that this doubled charge "falling off within 10 days" would NOT solve the problem of our overdraft that THEY caused, she only repeated that it would "fall of in 10 days."

I continued to argue with her, stating that in all my online shopping, I'd NEVER had a temporary "credit card authorization" fee charged in addition to my order total. And if Vitacost had such a process, that should have been made clear in my order total (there was NO notice of any such thing during my online ordering process).

She had the audacity to tell me that next time I should make sure that there's enough money in the bank to cover my purchase!!! There was!!! There was NOT enough to cover being charged my total TWICE for 10 days, during which other previously written checks are clearing under my bank's overdraft protection at $30 each.

She insisted there was nothing they could do about it and offered NO recourse. My husband called next, spoke to someone else who offered to fax our bank to let them know that charge was supposed to be "pending" only, not debited, and released at the time of shipping. But at first, she only gave us the same runaround till my husband had to get more aggressive about it.

I'm reporting to all the online store review sites as well as to the Better Business Bureau because of this experience in addition to all the other reviews here about how they're cooperating in the "shopping essentials" scam to share our cc numbers and debit unauthorized fees from credit cards.

Obviously, something's very shady about this company. Buyer beware. I'm worried now that the high quality vitamin brand I've ordered may not even be the real deal, and yet it appears from other reviews that it's very problematic to return them and get a proper refund. There are other shops where you can get similar prices without these risks.

I will NEVER shop with Vitacost again.