I had purchased a travel bag from Avon and when the rep handed me the bag i looked it over and realized that is was way smaller than anticipated and very poorly made. I told the Avon rep that i wanted to return it and she said i would have to still pay for it and hold onto it until the next order because she has to pay for the item upfront therefore i would have to wait to get my money back when Avon gives her the credit back. That could be 2 weeks. So i have to pay for an item that i don't want and now i have to wait up to 2 weeks to return it. That is the worst policy i have ever heard of. If i don't like the item i should have just been able to hand it right back to her and only pay for the items i chose to keep. Not pay for it and then wait for a refund. I think it doesn't take a genius to figure out that it is a bogus policy and someone needs to come up with something better if they want to keep their customers.

I went online to Avon.com to sign up to be a representative. Well about two weeks later I never received a phone call or email response. So I decided to make another call. Big mistake! Now the representative is talking about coming to my home unannounced to drop off books. You better believe I will not be joining Avon. This was unprofessional and unethical. The ethics part is when she decided to force her materials on me. The unprofessional part was when she kept sending me back to back emails and inviting herself to my home. I even received an email with the representative saying she drove around Winston-Salem trying to find my home. Stay clear of Avon!

Around December of 08, I had a Avon catalog hanging on my front door of my home, in the catalog was a flyer, telling me to sign up TODAY to start selling Avon, to make more money. And it would only cost $10.00 to start.

I over looked it and ignored it thinking, 'yeah right'... Then months went by and I started thinking I would look into it. So I contacted a Rep through Avons web site. And she contacted me with in 5 minutes of me going to the avon web site.

We set up a meeting, for her to give me my Avon catalogs and for me to pay her the $10.00... During our meeting, she informed me that they were in the last week of campaign 9... She asked me If I wanted to wait until campaign 10, since there was only a week left in campaign 9. And I told her, yes I would rather wait until campaign 10 to start Avon.
She handed me the Avon bag filled with avon catalogs, as I looked through it, I seen that all the catalogs were for campaign 9. And I questioned that. I said why would I pay $10.00 for old catalogs, when I'm not supposed to start until campaing 10. She assured me it was no problem at all, and that any avon rep can always use catalogs from the previous campaign.

So I was advertising Avon in my salon, to salon clients that I have had for 7 years. I was getting many orders, since mothers day was right around the corner. When I went to put my order in online, I seen that my account information was showing me as owing them $7.00... Now I was confused because this was my first order, and there shouldn't be a reason for me to owe them anything at this point. So I called the Avon 'help line'... First let me say that their call center is over seas somewhere, and while the people who answer the phones speak english, their accents are so strong that you can't really understand what they are saying very well. It makes the phone call longer than it needs to be, because you really have to listen to understand the rep, and have them repeat their selves.

Anyways, so I'm going through this struggle to try and understand the rep. What annoyed me first was, when you call the avon 'help line'... the automated system ask you for your account number and name. And of course you state that over the phone, then the avon rep answers the phone and again ask you for your account number and name. that's annoying because they are making me repeat myself.

I asked the rep why there was a charge of $7.00, that i owe them when this is my first order. She informed me that since I was taking orders from OLD campaign catalogs that I was being charged a late fee.
Yet I was told by the rep who signed my up that I could use the campaign 9 catalogs with NO PROBLEM!! Yeah right!

Then I was supposed to have campaign 10 order placed no later than May 4th, to have it arrive by May 7th. Remember my orders were for my clients that I have had for 7 years, and they were gifts that they purchased for their mothers day gifts. I placed the order online May first. My order amount was $155.00 but I paid $185.00 so that I would extra money in the account for future orders ( as a just incase).
Then on May 5th, then sent me a order confirmation email with a link to track the order shipment. I did that, and the tracking showed that my order was in another city at 1:00 that after noon, and that it was 'out for delivery'... the city it was in was ONLY 3 HOURS away from me... It said that they order would arrive May 7th.

So i thought GREAT! it will be here in time for mothers day . Then on May 7th, by 5:00 pm, it hadn't arrived. So I tracked it again, and it still showed that it was 'out for delivery'... I called this avon's so called help line for reps, and they informed me that my order was in fact out for delivery and that they deliver up until 8pm...

That upset me, because the rep who signed me up said that it would be best for me to have all delieveries sent to my salon since someone had to sign for the order, and I'm at work most of the day, I get off at 7pm.
So I was worried then, that the order might come after my salon was closed. The rep told me to wait until 7pm, if it wasn't here by then, to call back the next day.

I did just that, I called the next morning and told them it never arrived and I wanted to know where it was at. They told me that my order had been "LOST", and that they would sent a duplicate order out the following monday, because it was may 8th which was a friday. I told them I couldn't accept that, because the order was for mothers day gifts and My customers were EXTREMELY upset, because now they didn't have money or the time to go out and get a gift for their mothers in time. So basically since Avon dropped the ball and didn't get my order to me, these customers were mad at me for their mothers days being ruined. These customers told me to cancel the order. So I told avon NOT to waste their money on shipping, to re-send another order, instead I told them to cancel the order and I want to stop selling Avon because these customers that are uspet are also my salon clients that I have had for 7 years, and now this is hurting my salon business cause these customers are mad at me.

Avon assured me they WOULD not re-send the order. They told me they would send a letter stating that I didn't receive the order, and that I was supposed to sign this letter, then return it to them, and once they got the letter they would then refund my money. I asked why i did i have to mess with this letter at all, and the rep told me I had to because they need "PROOF" that I didn't get my order, this shocked me even more, because they are the ones that told me my order was lost!

Anyways, I called them back May 11th, which was a monday, because I went to log into my avon account online and I couldn't, they had deleted it. So I called them to ask them, since you cancelled my account online does that mean that you have refunded my $185.00, they then told me that the money won't be refunded for 30 days, and that they only owed me $43.00!!! I asked them how is that? When I paid you $185.00 total, and the order was only $155.00 and I NEVER GOT THE ORDER? They didn't have any straight answers for me.

Then today, May 14th, UPS comes into my salon with the order from Avon, I refused the order, and then called their so called avon help line again, I asked them why they resent the order when I told them not to, and they promised they wouldn't? They told me is was 'proceedure', so I asked them if the letter had been sent out, and when should it arrive, they told me they DIDN"T KNOW!

I'am now wanting to sue Avon and contact all news stations that I can, to spread the word on how they have treated me, I know there are many other reps that have been screwed over just like I have. Please we need to all pull together and put a stop to this.

I'm also shocked at their lack of conern. Like I said I own 2 salons, and I have donated products to avon for their fund raisers. And I could have also sold TONS of avon for them through my salons. I guess they don't really care at all. I will never say a good word towards avon or their products, I will NEVER donate to them ever again, I will not allow anyone to ever bring avon catalogs in to my salons.

Avon is nothing more than a company who screws people out of money, yet they claim they care so much, yet when you need them to help you and do their job correctly, they DON"T CARE!

I too started Avon thinking that I could make money. What a mistake!! I would not wish this nightmare I have had with them on my worst enemy.

I had my account frozen for returns after pieces came up missing (shortgages) even though I had returned the items they told me unless I could prove it I had to pay for them.

So on my last returned box of $162.84 worth of merchandise, I placed sticky notes with the Item description, RMA #, and price on each one, took individual pictures, took group pictures of the items in the Avon box then sealed it shut with tons of tape and all paperwork inside. Well when Avon received it, they now claim that $110.49 worth of the merchandise was not in there. I promptly filed a UPS claim, called the customer service phone number (like India can help do anything for us) and called my District Sales Manager twice that day to let her know what's going on. Well it is currently 2 days later, no return call at all from my DSM, Avon now shows those Items as outstanding and India customer service told me there is nothing more I can do for over 6 weeks as I am not approved for Instant Credit. My bill is current, I am currently an E-rep and after reading thing, have decided that I can no longer afford this Avon "business". The company has routinely shown "shortages" on my returns even though all the items were sent back. They treat me like I lie for a living and when I tell them I have pictures of the items they get panic stricken on the phone and customer service told me they were there but I would have to wait 6 weeks for them to "process through"!! Yea just one more joke. My next call is going to the Attorney General of Texas because these kind of fraudulent business practices need to be put to an end somehow someway!!

If you have had similar problems, contact the Attorney General of your state and file a complaint. Since it most of the products cross state lines, we can complain to the Attorney General of the United States as well.

I have tried to call HQ in New York but can't seem to get past the automated system there. But I won't stop trying,

A soon to be ex-rep,

Joann

I have been buying avon products for over 25 years. I recently tried the elixir and the anti ageing moisturizer. I purchased the elixir for 3 months and one bottle of moisturizer. I spent 186.00 on this. (one bottle of elixir was on sale for 10.00 less) I figured I would use the elixir for 3 months and that should give me enough time to see what it would do. Well it didnt do anything they said it would. I called my rep (and she is a great person) and told her I wanted my money back. I had one jar of elixir and jar of moisturizer. I didnt keep the other two empties but she knows I purchased them. She called the higher ups and they refused to give me the money, except for one on sale jar of elixir for 44.00 which my avon lady gave me so I wouldnt have to wait for it. She said she had to argue to get that and I believe her. I am mad, that is not what the guarantee says and thats a lot of money for garbage that doesnt work. I dont know what else to do. I have tried to contact avon, sent many emails and have never received a response. I would like to know who else to contact and how to make sure that avon has to do something. My rep is not responsible for this, I have dealt with her for a long time and she cant do anything else. I want to do something to stop them from being able to get away with this and I dont know how. Please if anyone has a suggestion or other contact info I would appreciate hearing from you. There has to be a way to get something accomplished. I would like to know if there are other places I can report their fradulent behavior. Thank you for any help you can give me.