| doTERRA International |
| doTERRA International LLC essential oils MLM scam harrassing product consultants Orem, Utah |
| 2nd of May, 2011 by User286517 |
Were the following events caused by a lack of us doing our due diligence? We don't really think so. A friend of ours at the States had been using essential oils for a bit. His various stories were quite
interesting, and being a fan of anything alternative medicine, we decided to check them out. We had always been skeptical of MLMs, but part of the sales pitch is how this company was founded by splitting
off from another company so they could set up their own ethical company that would operate with integrity. Based on the high praise for the product, we decided to go ahead and check it out. When we discovered that doterra.ca was available, we decided to get it and go forward.
The start-up was relatively inexpensive, and as far as we know, has actually been lowered since then.
The first spot of difficulty we ran into was never receiving an order. One of the items was identified as being on backorder, so we waited about a month to check on it. Still no order. We basically went into it with the attitude that maybe it was growing pains, as companies can often experience during times of
expansion. When we contacted doTERRA, we asked for the tracking number for the order. No tracking number available. Would a reasonable person find that if there is no tracking number, an order most likely had not been shipped? doTERRA did ship a replacement order, but we feel like we were basically
treated as if we were trying to scam them out of a free order. It was not an enjoyable process. Then we hit the jackpot of difficulties. We were not receiving a single order through the doTERRA
website, in spite of the number of people who told us they were going to order. It's reasonable to assume that not everyone who says they will place an order does. Until... A family member placed an order, and e-mailed us the confirmation of the order. They are fairly computer savvy and certainly competent enough to believe them when they say they placed the order on our website, and were quite positive they had done so. Upon contacting doTERRA I (Katherine) was transferred to a man in the IT Department (sorry, the documentation from this time period is in storage at the moment,
and I don't recall his name). Upon investigation, it was discovered that the website doTERRA had provided us with was not crediting us with orders because it was not setup to. If a customer clicked shop for oils to look at the products, the credit for the order went to doTERRA and we were completely left out of the loop. To his credit, IT Guy, was fairly dismayed and panicked. There were several calls back and forth, during which, he advised that all of the websites had been setup this way when they went to this format and he had no idea how many product consultants around the world had been affected. Not to his credit, when I asked him what was going to be done about sorting this out and giving appropriate credit for orders, he told me unless we could track down the order (such as our family member) we were out of luck. He did sound like he felt rather guilty saying it, but that was
the bottom line. He said we would be advised when the website was setup to run properly. The very same day all of this is going on, we get a call from Mark Wolfert saying he is General Counsel for doTERRA and we have a very serious issue because we have directly copied their website and claimed we are doTERRA Canada on our website. I (Katherine) was extremely confused because I knew I had never put doTERRA Canada anywhere on the simple one page intro I had set up to take people to our shopping site (which didn't credit us for any orders anyhow). It turns out Mark Wolfert was actually looking at doTERRA's own webpage and falsely accusing us of directly copying it! While we were on the phone Mark Wolfert pulled up our website and advised me the only change I needed to make to it was to add the wording Independent Product Consultant to it, which I did within half an hour. Was there any apology for the false accusation? Absolutely not. After being weary and frustrated by what definitely seemed like attempted bullying and intimidation, I (Katherine) asked Mark Wolfert what they were doing about the websites being set up improperly and us not receiving credit for any of our orders. He got off the phone extremely quickly after that, and I did not receive any response to my question. Our upline was aware of the entire situation, and indeed also verified the problem existing with the
website, which existed on their website, as well. I kept checking the site regularly, and after a period of time (again I would have to consult the documentation in storage to be exact) the website was operating properly. We were never advised when the problem was corrected. We were never thanked for bringing the problem to their attention. We never received an apology for the error (assuming it was not intentional). We never received an honest and open accounting for any other orders taken from our website due to the error (again assuming it was not intentional). To the best of our knowledge, doTERRA has never told the product consultants the truth about what went on with the websites during this period, apologised or presented them with any financial compensation. How many orders did doTERRA directly receive during that time? If a company is ethical and has
integrity, why not apologise and address the problem directly and honestly and do something for their product consultants to make amends? The almost final straw was when we finally received a check for the one order we could prove was ours, and it was made out incorrectly. Having put a business name for shipping purposes, apparently doTERRA set up the account as being the business, which it was not. When we contacted them by telephone to let them know about their error and point out the tax ID number used was for the
NAME and not the business name they made they check out to, they told us to go to the website and fill out a new contract and send it to them. We never did manage to find a contract for Canada on the website, and basically we were so disgusted with the overall experience, we did not even attempt to contact them again. We left the website sitting as it was, and in our discussions with various people we know, we tell them honestly and directly what we think about it. We threw away the marketing cards we had paid to have printed, and various other things, and basically wrote it off as a loss and very definitely feeling duped. Frankly, we probably should have posted this information sooner, but why spend good energy chasing after bad? We have been busy getting on with living, which we consider to be far more important than any of the rest of this. That is until yesterday. 1 May 2011. We received an e-mail from Mark Wolfert relative to doTERRA being in our domain and something about permission to use doTERRA. Are we reading this correctly? Registered independent product consultants cannot use the doTERRA name for a website to market the product they signed up to sell? We provided Mark with the option of how he would prefer for us to use the domain name. Would he prefer it to be pointed to a doTERRA storefront, or would he prefer an open and honest review of our experience with doTERRA? He did not respond to the question in his next e-mail, and we asked again, and again his reply was non-responsive. While the domain we purchased was originally obtained to utilise in commerce in good faith, it has never produced a single penny of profit. Any attempt to produce a profit from the domain ceased on May 1, 2011. During the time the domain was in use to attempt a profit, in no way, shape, manner or form was that business directed to anyone other than doTERRA. There was never any intent or attempt to mislead anyone visiting the website. Just as there is no attempt to do so now. The name doTERRA is only used in the domain and context of this page under fair use to provide information, criticism and commentary. For the record, it is our sincerest hope that we are able to update the webpage soon to provide information that doTERRA will conduct themselves ethically and with integrity by telling all Independent Product Consultants the truth about the websites operating improperly and compensate all of them fairly for any orders that may have been improperly taken from them during that time. Will doTERRA do the right thing? Is it a sign of a downward spiral for an MLM when they are harassing their own product consultants? Time will tell just how ethical and how much integrity the management of doTERRA has. We apologise profusely for not posting this information sooner and hope you find it of benefit in making an informed decision. Other than any incidental updates, we are not putting any more energy into this situation. We do not find any sense in keeping a focus on a negative situation. There are far too many beautiful and wonderful things to do and experience to waste any more precious time and energy on this situation. |
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I have never had a problem like this with doterra. As a matter of fact they have gone out of there way to help me the three years I have been using the oils for my family. The was an oil sent to a wrong address by accident and I called them and they sent me a new one immedately. They have always gone above and beyond to help me and my family out. I am sorry you had such a bad time with this. You should try and contact them again and lets them know how you feel.
Sincerely,
Kara R. |
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| I have nothing but good to say about doterra. I have never had a problem with ordering or the oils or customer service and I know a lot of people who would say the same. This seems like a misunderstanding and an isolated legal issue. |
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| doterra executives split from Young Living and started their own MLM essential oil company. Recipes clearly are based on the YL model. YL members and conventions were approached with doterra invitations. The YL database mysteriously disappeared during the exodus of executives who now are doterra. Integrity? |
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The YL database disappeared during the exodus of executives?
I have not heard of that one before.
Instead of speculating, I think you should meet people firsthand.
I have not met Gary Young, so I do not make any comments of him.
In fact old archive's of the Young Living website have nothing but good things to say about Dave Stirling, David Hill, and Emily Wright. |
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doTERRA is NOT a scam. They may have had some growing pains when they started out, but the company IS ethical.
I have been a consultant of theirs for over a year and they have ONLY been honest and upright. Customer service has gone above and beyond any time there was ever an issue, which happened only twice and were very minor. One was MY fault, but the company still went the extra mile to make me happy. To say that you were being "harassed" by their general counsel for having a website "doterra.ca" is absurd. If you read your consultant agreement, it clearly states that you may copy any or all of the information from doTERRA's site, as long as you say, "Independent Product Consultant" on your website! They were not harassing you, but rather, making sure that everyone was abiding by the rules. I would do the same thing if I owned the company.
P.S. doTERRA's PRODUCTS ARE TOP NOTCH!!! I've used essential oils professionally for over 20 years, and NO OTHER COMPANY can compare with doTERRA's quality and purity. THAT is really the most important thing!! |
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| Yea sounds like you couldn't hack it. You got a bad attitude about things. I have had growing pains with Doterra. I guess the simple fact that they saved my wife from brain surgery really made it so I could go through some growing pains with them. The oils are amazing, the customer service has been nothing but apologetic and ready to fix problems that yes we have encountered. You find a company that has a hundred percent customer satisfaction you have found a company with a hundred percent of 0% customer base. Seriously it is not about the business experience vs. what the oils and their purity and quality have done for your family. Suck it up. |
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