Gudonya Too – A Review
12 Feb
Watch this space for a rant about how I was incredibly insulted by the owner of this company.
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After placing two successful orders from this company, I went to place my third, hoping to get another bottle of the conditioner as well as a few other things.
However, my accountant had suggested to me that I set up a second Paypal account for personal purposes, since my original, the one I had been using, was set up as a business. After opening the second Paypal account, Paypal chose to place a hold on it, waiting for me to send in some documents. After these issues, I closed the second account and figured I’d stick with my 100% verified and several year old original Paypal account. All that remains is for Paypal to process the account closure, and from what I understand from the other sellers, these issues have been resolved.
Overall it was a small amount and only a couple of transactions, but I explained the situation to the sellers and then went on to make replacement orders with them, paying them from the original Paypal account.
The other sellers were completely fine with this. Most of them understand Paypal and it’s antics and it wasn’t an issue. All of the other companies were ones I was placing first time orders with. Gudonya was the only one I’d purchased from multiple times in the past, and it was a 9$ transaction Paypal was holding, the smallest of all of them. However, looking at that Paypal account now, Gudonya actually refunded that transaction as well as canceled the transaction with Etsy. Although they never replied to my convo like the other companies did, I assumed these actions showed they understood the circumstances as well.
I then went ahead and replaced that order, plus some, with Gudonya, making payment immediately.
For some reason Gudonya waited almost a WEEK after my recent purchase to issue a refund and insult me by telling me they thought they’d somehow lose money. The payment was from a verified account and I went the extra step of making it an eCheck, since those are VERIFIED and CLEARED payments.
They then further insulted me telling me to never order from them again. After I had already placed two rather sizable orders and it was clear with the third I was planning on being a faithful customer.
As you can see with this screanshot, I have well over 150 positive feedbacks, mostly stating I pay fast and am a return customer. None of them are from selling anything. And yes I blurred my name so that companies I might review don’t know ‘who I am’ to be able to alter their normal business practices. The account is also almost three years old at this point, as well.
I then sent them an lengthy email, explaining the issues with Paypal AGAIN and providing information the payment for the recent order was actually made from the original Paypal account and we’d happily done business before. There was no reply. After emailing back, asking for further explanation and indeed asking for an actual apology for the insult, they’ve chosen to ignore me completely.
In the past it would often take a while for them to reply to my convos and in fact, some went unanswered all together. In the few they did reply to they were short, I put it off to them being busy, now looking back I can see it was just rudeness. They overcharged me quite a bit for shipping my first order, and never did issue a refund for that.
In all honesty, while the products are nice, it’s nothing I can’t get elsewhere from a company who is happy to take my money and provide actual customer service. As a matter of princple I’ve thrown all of the stuff I’ve ordered from them in the trash.
I do NOT recommend Gudonya Too.
ETA:
Apparently it’s common practice to ban people willy nilly for such things as leaving questions in positive feedback to saying the product didn’t work for them.
A quick Google finds more instances of their horrible customer service and their approach on negative feedback.
Tags: Gudonya, gudonyatoo
I’m sorry that happened, Grey. What a letdown.
Rest assured I won’t be patronizing that particular Etsy shop.
I have no idea why I let myself be personally offended like I was, but it was like…. wait, what?
I don’t blame you! Their actions are very offensive! And count me in with those who were turned off the company name…
I wish I would have read this before I bothered ordering from them! I just placed one a few days ago. This is also not the first time I’ve heard of this company being outright rude to their paying customers! While looking up reviews for their shampoo, I saw on a forum that a customer left positive marked feedback on Etsy, but remarked on how the product was good, but just didn’t particularly work for them personally. Apparently Gudonya responded with some nasty convos and asked the buyer never to order from them again!
WTF? Are these people HIGH? Why would you go out of your way to ASK a paying customer not to order again?
I’m sure you’ll enjoy your products, but don’t let on otherwise, I see they also leave retaliatory feedback!!
Ugh, colour me disgusted. Stupid name, too. Blaargh.
Took me a while to figure it out, but yeah, sort of odd.
Doesn’t help that I’m from the south and read everything written in a phonetic-type spelling with an obnoxious hillbilly accent.
GUH-DAWN-YUH TEUUU.
Gudonya (the first) was run by such a sweet lady who sold her business to Gudonya 2 to pursue other things – I ordered from the first and after seeing what happened to the business, I never ordered again. Unfortunately, the service and quality of products from Gudonya 2 has been poor. I’m sorry to hear that they treated you in such a bad manner.
That’s basically what I’m reading as I Google.
Thanks
WTF. Talk about terrible business practices.
Apparently they are too successful to sell to me.
Wow. Yeah, count me among the people never ordering from them.
Also, is the icon from the screenshot the one you use on Etsy? I ask because you use that icon elsewhere, and sellers may be able to recognize you from it.
Actually no. I use something else, but I added it in my profile for the screen shot to sort of ‘prove’ it was me and I wasn’t just using some random persons account
Ah, okay. That makes sense.
I’m already “never shopping with them” on the basis that they ignored two of my e-mails. I sent messages about the shipping, as I blogged, and 11 days on, they’ve not bothered to reply.
Not even a simple “No”. Two letters.
Apparently, they consider my business not worth that much time. So, fuck ‘em. I’m sorry for your experience, although am rather glad that it’s just them being fuckers, rather than me smelling bad or something.
They just have HORRIBLE attitudes. Which I guess should mean I should be LESS personally offended. But I’m not.
Whoah.
With this treatment of you and Ana, they’ve lost my business. This is ridiculous!
I just edited my review of them to no longer recommend them. Taking them off my sidebar as well.
Awwww. I luffs you.
I got that refund and the mean notice and was literally in tears about it. How silly is that!?!
I can live with it, it’s not like Fyrinnae, AL, SoBe, Gloi, or anyone I cannot live without hit me with the Ban Hammer.
I totally get it. It’s still a complete slap in the face, even if you can live without them/don’t care for their attitude, etc.
I’d considered buying from them some time ago, but the response to my question regarding a particular ingredient left me unsure. I’m sorry you had the misfortune to run into such a bad attitude — guess their business isn’t in need of new customers! I do wonder how long they’ll be able to maintain that status, though.
The convos I got back from them were so terse. Just not friendly or welcoming, almost condescending.
‘Terse’ is a good word for it, really — like I was bothering them by trying to find out if I could buy their products or not.
Yep, this settles it. I was already on the fence about ordering from them, but this puts me on the opposite side of the fence from them. I can’t abide by awful customer service, so they’ve lost my business.
You’ll have to keep me updated on your scent quests, btw…
Not sure how well it will go. I’m sure you read about my current fragrance company search annoyances on Twitter/Tumblr). Still no response from The Body Perfumery (since they say they accept Paypal, they should bloody well have a button somewhere), and I’m really not digging the fact that Cleanse Your Soul charges ridiculous markups for samples ($4.25 for 5mL when 2 fl. oz. is $5.75 is ridiculous). The search continues for a scent shop that offers samples. Since I’m a student, and most of my pay goes into living expenses, so I don’t have a ton of money left over to go buying full size products that I might hate, hence why finding samples of products is of such importance to me. I have a few more on my list of scent shops to check out, but I’ll keep be posting my short little opinion pieces as I go on Tumblr (because hey, everyone should realize by now that I am definitely not short on opinions), and I’ll put up a post if I find a place to order from.
I just ended up buying scents from Cleanse Your Soul in full size that I thought I’d like. I’m glad that I was happy with them. Over the Moon is my favorite with Come Hither right behind it. Spiced Caramel Crunch was ok. I really liked Vanilla Orchids and Coconut, as well as Blueberry Coconut Cake. But I figured 4 out of 5 being positive was good. She sometimes has sales where you can get 20% off which is what I waited for.
What jerkasses!
I will spend my money elsewhere.
Thank you for the review
You’re welcome.
I wish I could say more about their products, I mean, I wouldn’t have kept ordering if I hadn’t liked them, you know…
Wow. Would they have treated you this way if you had walked in to the store and maybe had one credit card that was on the fritz, but one that was perfectly okay? Would you have had to pull up a history of your good credit, or letters from other stores vouching for you? That’s fucked up. I guess they feel like just because it’s the internet, they can be the jerks that they’ve always wanted to be but don’t have the guts to be in real life. Sad. Well, maybe it’s a good thing. In showing their true colors to you, they’ve outed themselves to other people that were thinking about ordering from them.
I’ll go to a restaurant that may not have the greatest food over and over, if the place is clean and the service is great. If a restaurant has amazeballs food but lazy waitstaff and a jerky chef… no thanks
I have one card, my debit card (I don’t actually have any credit cards, I’m a cash and carry only gal) that refuses to swipe. That doesn’t mean there is no GOOD hard earned money in there.
I don’t blame you for feeling hurt. I totally would have burst into tears . Well looks like I won’t be buying from them ever .
I did. I was out at the time the email came in, I read it in my car and traffic and just cried. I am such a softy.
Add me to the list of people scorned. I was banned from ordering from them as well just for leaving feedback that said I loved the product but it didn’t work well for me. I am still shocked to this day over the fact that some people cannot grasp costumer service.
Shame. It’s just horrible.
that’s horrible! as an etsy seller myself im shocked that anyone could be so rude and unwelcoming of customers. i’d never turn away a customer! bills to pay haha
That was my thought. Apparently my money’s not good enough, and that’s fine, other places are dying to get it.
That is just totally not acceptable. Shame on them!
More people need to base their sales on customer service. This was probably the first time I was all out SHOCKED.
Maybe the should have it in their shop policy that you must love their product in every way. Ya know, just to give everyone a head’s up.
I read through EVERYTHING and didn’t see any ‘right to refuse’ info in their shop, so I did file a complaint with Etsy.
Did you hear back from Etsy yet? I’d love to hear their thoughts.
Ok, wow, that’s just insane! Well count me among he people who had no opinion of them before but now will certainly never buy from them and not recommend them to anyone.
Thank you, Dear
Wow, thats totally messed up. I read through the hair one as well and one girl was banned for saying that something smelled too manly for her!
A small evil part of me wants to buy something and put negative feedback, but I wont XD
LOL. That kind of rocks.
If they have Google Alerts they might come in here and ban all of us before we get a chance.
I honestly just think they don’t care enough to bother with what people are saying about them.
i had ordered from them recently, inspired by phyrra’s review. just wanted to add my solidarity and say that i won’t be ordering from them anymore, either!
Awww, if you like the product, don’t hesitate!
i like lush’s big shampoo better, anyway.
Someone brought up haus of gloi and i just wanted to bring up that they are a model of superior customer service i convoed them about a holiday scent thats no longer available that i was interested in and they were quick and extremely accomodating. my custom order was ready in minutes. i wish THEY made hair products! can’t all be winners i guess… I’d be totally personally insulted too!
I agree. I placed a Gloi order with the money Gudonya wouldn’t take. I got a convo from them within minutes thanking me for coming back to their store.
I wish they DID make hair stuff, too!!
Behold, crappy business owners, the power of the internet.
Too good for Grey’s business? Well, you’re too crappy for ours. Let us know how that works out for ya.
They ignore a LOT of people, so now I’m upset I’m not all that *special*.
I’m sorry you had to go through such horrible customer service, but now I know not to buy from them. How unprofessional and unfriendly.
Reading through the other story makes me think that this owner is bonkers. For one thing, I don’t typically read the feedback on etsy, i look for reviews, so they just shot themselves in the foot with this. I mean come on, their attitude seems to be that if you didn’t like it, there’s something wrong with you.
I’m sorry that you had to go through this, but I’m glad to be informed about the business practices.
That certainly does seem to be the way they operate. I wish I’d have checked myself before I ordered.
This is my face right now: >=| seriously, what the actual fuck
This proves that a customer has to order from any seller more than once to determine whether that company is reliable, professional and on top of all, provides reasonable customer service. Sadly, I’ve learnt that lesson from Archetype. One time, I’ve ordered from an ebayer with 150 USD worth of things and somehow I didn’t know the money in my bank account has already gone – it was a crazy time where I just spent, spent and spent. Then, I did inform the seller if my echeck is gonna rebound, I will send one to her again, she actually said no problem. (Well, my echeck didn’t rebound as I’ve ran to put some money in my bank)
This one, if she doesn’t understand your situation – let alone you’ve ordered from them twice; it’s to let them go. However, to tell you off that you’re not welcome to order from them agian? I think it’s rude, considering you did not do anything offensive. Once I’ve had an ebay seller who, actually flagged me to Ebay because I was sending her/him an echeck. I even stated in a message I sent that this might take several business days. Nowhere in his/her bidding page said that payment is required in 5 days. Eventually, it was called off and my money was refunded after my echeck was cleared. However, I totally stayed away from that seller from then on. Geez…
Off-topic but conversely,
As a seller I once had a ‘buy it now, get it in time for Christmas’ auction up, someone bought it, then paid with an e-cheque. I sent them two messages to tell them that whilst *I* didn’t mind it, it would mean that by the time it cleared, it wouldn’t get there for Christmas.
I got no response, until I got negative feedback and a pissy message a few days later once the final post days had gone, saying that I’d lied and their item wasn’t there in time. Like, wth.
Anyway, I think a lot of buyers/sellers just don’t understand e-cheques.
I’m usually pretty understanding about poor customer service, because I’m cranky and anti-social, but that is ridiculous. It’s not like you were refusing to pay or anything, you just had to use a different account. I think it’s hilarious that they ban EVERYONE, though. They do realize that businesses need CUSTOMERS, right?
*Barf* I got angry on your behalf just reading the review. Sorry you got treated so poorly.
Thank you. I took the money and spent it on something better anyway.
After Phyrra’s glowing review I almost purchased from them. The products seem decent (I am always in search of new/better hair products) but if this is the way they treat people, especially paying customers, then they don’t deserve my money. I can’t believe they have such crappy customer service and are still in business!
I have no idea how they manage. I guess a lot of people don’t care about the way a business is run.
What a “customer service” :-O I’m not going to order from there (international shipping is insane too) but unfortunately (for my wallet
I’m now in Haus of Gloi’s shop…
Haus of Gloi is amazing. Her scents are obviously well thought out. Gudonya probably just used stock scents anyway…
I saw someone leave negative feedback for haus of Gloi, with “didn’t like the scent” as the reason. That would make me angry as a person who runs a business, because scent is personal preference. For instance, I can’t stand Haus of Gloi’s apocathary, and Lindsey loves it and is going to buy a full-size, whereas I’ll probably never use my sample.
It’s personal preference, it’s not THEIR fault if you don’t like the scent they accurately described. If someone did THAT I could understand them getting pissy, but positive feedback, or just someone trying to PAY for an order?
Ugh.
I kinda love the number of responses you’ve got, though. Well done, Gudonya. In deciding you were too good to serve one customer, you’ve lost a great many more.
I was shopping on Etsy for a handmade purse one day and noticed that someone had left the seller a negative because the bag they’d chosen didn’t fit their laptop. On a hunch, I clicked on the listing and sure enough — clear, detailed measurements of the bag’s dimensions were right there to be had! There are loony customers everywhere, but maybe some sellers deserve them. GudonyaToo seems to have no time for sensible customers; perhaps one day they’ll get a few of the loonies and think of all the good would-be customers they rejected!
Well,
I guess you’ll just have to find somewhere else to spend your money! lol Their loss!! (and I hope they see this review, and feel like idiots)
That sucks a lot. I would probably cry or stress over it. When I actually discovered that there were bath and body products on etsy; they were one of the first that I saw, but I’ve never bought from them. Thanks for the warning. I suggest ‘Cozy Moments’ if you’ve never heard of them. I think the smells are delicious and customer service is awesome.