"So I placed an order for some tea, waited a whole 6 days and still no sight of the tea. I go back and log into the website and it shows my order had been cancelled. I did NOT receive any notifications of cancellation, and so I was waiting for nothing. I emailed them about it and their response was "it probably went to your junk mail". They also told me that it was cancelled because the item was discontinued. When I was ordering it, it was a discontinuing item so the price was 75% off. Why would you have it to be discontinued for 75% off and allow a purchase - BUT THEN CANCEL IT AND SAY ITS ALREADY DISCONTINUED?"

"Ordered my teas in late December, then received an order confirmation. So far, so good, right? By January 19th, when I had not received a notice of shipment, I sent an email to customer service. Three days later, a response email stated that while my order was very important, there was a high volume of backorders and that it would be several days to research the problem. Okay. However, my email inbox continued to receive ads from marketing ending with the slogan, "Life is short. Drink some tea." THAT lit my fuse, as I am quite aware that time is passing and I have no tea to drink. I sat on hold for more than 30 minutes, waiting to speak to a living being. Once I did speak to the voice, all she had to offer was an apology and reassurance that the order was pending. Asking to speak to a higher power, I sat on hold again. After a fair amount of time (8 minutes), I was informed that the supervisor was in a meeting. I asked that the supervisor call me. The customer service rep upgraded my shipping. I asked for a tracking number for the order. None was available yet. The order will ship from Connecticut via UPS. I am skeptical and, after this experience, will never use Teavana's online ordering service again."

"My Order was placed just before the New Year. I thought it odd that it didn't ask me for my address then I realized it pulled the address from the account that I had set up a year earlier. Well I had moved. The online ordering process does not have you confirm shipping address, if it had I would have caught the error. So I tried to call them before the items shipped. Their phone lines are open from 8:30 until 5pm Eastern Time. So unless you work at night, it is very hard to call them, I tried over my lunch hours and breaks over the course of 5 days and never got anyone to answer the phone. In fact, after 38 min on hold the line would always disconnect with a busy signal. Eventually I received notice from UPS that the items were shipped. Great, so then I contacted UPS to see if they could redirect the package to the correct address. Nope, I have to go through Teavana to do that. Well thats nice, but Teavana doesn't answer the phones. I did leave a message on their mailbox for them to call me back, they attempted to call me 1x but I couldn't take the call due to work, there was no message, and when I called the number that displayed my phone no one at Teavana answers it. Another opportunity for Teavana to help me get this resolved and they are unresponsive to several customer service emails etc etc. So I waited for my packages to be delivered to a vacant house, and called ups to pick up the packages and return them to Teavana. I'm curious... I wonder how long if ever I will get my money back. $30 bucks down the drain. So Sad. My in store experience has been great, alas, I'll never walk into a Teavana again. I doubt they care, for if they did they'd have customer service answering the phones. "

"I used the Teavana web site to order Tea tins, within 5 minutes I sent an e mail notifying Teavana that I had ordered the wrong tins and needed to change my order. Teavana never responded to two E mails and never responded to two call back messages on thier customer service phone line and I could NEVER reach a live representative. I have been buying thier teas for three years but will never shop with them again. They have no Customer Service ethic and no regard for thier customers. "

"Horrible customer service and online ordering system. I mistakenly order their tea-on-time service which autoships your order ever month. They sent me out a reminder 10 days before it was set to autoship so I went into their online system and cancelled the order. 7 days later I get a charge on my credit card for the autoship. I go to their online system and see that the order is cancelled and no notification of any kind that anything was shipped or set to ship. I call customer service and am on hold for 20 minutes and they have an option to have a call back so I did that on 4 separate occasions and never received a call back. I've waited on hold with these people for a total of almost 2 hours and never had anyone pick up - the longest I've waited is 45 minutes. Does anyone now if they even have anyone that answers the phone."

"Their online ordering system was a disaster. The customer service representatives wouldn't acknowledge that they had shipped my order to the wrong address, and they claimed that their online system was incapable of error. They wouldn't complete the order correctly and they wouldn't refund my money. The Better Business Bureau said not to bother submitting a complaint because Teavana usually ignores them. "

"I followed my toddler into this store. 4 employees and no customers should have been a warning. They gave us a sample and I hesitantly decided to buy 2 oz for $6.80. Of course it was a blend, so she does 2 oz of each tea. Then she says the weight is a little over 2oz for each tea like it's a fish fillet she can't cut. How hard is it to measure 2 oz of loose tea? I handed over my credit card and my total was $25! They also told me "No one leaves here without a tin." A $7 tin. Give me a break. And then there was the sugar she tried to push on me. I will never go in here again. I don't even care what the tea tastes like at this point."

"I consider myself a tea purist. This store does offer a great selection (of blends only available there), but don't go there without a LOT of money!!

First they rope you in with free samples, & don't tell you that they are usually blends, which will cost you more to buy. Once they make your blend, don't be surprised if the weight is over a little. Of course, once mixed, they can't put the tea back in the individual canisters.
Ahh, the canisters... this is the real hook. They convince you to buy their air tight, light proof canister (sounds like any other tin, to me). There are various sizes, but they don't give you all that info, either, so you have to buy the larger one. What they DON'T tell you is that you can take it home in a plastic baggie, to be stored anyway you like.

My 9 year old was very interested, thus the suck in to the store. I won't set another foot in this establishment, other than bringing them back their $6 tin & telling them to stick it where the sun doesn't shine."

"Successful transactions in-store v. an overly "pretty" site backed by benumbing, ineffectual, feckless customer service... brass tacks, yadda yadda: Teavana is a great alt. to Adagio Teas--in regards to product quality, but really only if you can access their brick and mortar locales.

Just one "first online order" FAIL with them makes Adagio's online processing infinitely better by comparison.

Beginnings...

A superb discount on an item is announced via the ML, I stumble upon it (others flock to it), check for it in person, at a store--negative, and check again online; it's listed as "in stock". Sweet. Mind you not just a generic "in stock", but "in stock" for the *specific* quantity I desire. They go to greater lengths than others to split hairs; but, s'okay. The appropriate amounts are selected--a Stupendous deal, all is tolerable with S&H, and then oh... no Paypal, but orders can be placed sans acct registration.

Fine, do it, charge the card. But, a PASS on the reg: zero incentives is enticing how...? Also becoming an "affiliate" isn't a customer benefit, but a job for shills, thank you.

Anyway, done; hooray for a successful transaction... or so I think. How could I not? The server sends me an email confirmation with clear details. The domain for orders is apparently different from those (subdomains) used for list emails, but both types are received without issue, so all should be fine.

Or so I think.

Lot of nothing for those tallied business days; "nothing" being nothing BUT more useless specials, updates, publicity dross and nothing regarding my order, shipping, et cetera. I just want. My. Order. BEFORE investigating--much less acknowledging--anything they deign to label "therapeutic" or "mysterious" or "dream"-worthy... christ.

A full week passes, more blah, another week. A thought: they could be back-ordered, so what gives? Then, busy for awhile, forget for half a week. And then a wake-up call arrives in the form of a stupidly titled ad in the inbox--in a new month.

The inquiry to Teavana's customer service results in this:

"Uh... [tap tap tap] uh... well, it was canceled."

"Oh? Why?"

"We're out of it, uh... it's discontinued."

"But it was listed as 'in stock' when I ordered."

"Yeah."

"So...?"

"Well... uh, there's no more now."

".........*so*, why wasn't I notified?"

"Uh... [tap tap] um... yes. You were: we sent a confirmation, a shipping notification, back-order notification, and then a cancellation notice."

"Wha--when?"

"Uh... [dates]... [pregnant pause] [date]... yeah, so you should've known already."

"...But I only received the confirmation email. Are the other three from different servers? And why would there be a *shipping notice* if the item is later back-ordered?"

"Well, uh.... [tap tap] did you check your um, spam folder?"

"Yes, I have my email filtered appropriately; it targets the address used to order from your site. My question is about the servers, do you know if they're from different servers?"

"Um... [tap tap] well... hrm... okay, see, we have mail from a different place for newsletter emails. And... for our orders and stuff, it has to say... "teavana.com"."

"Yes. I know that already. But I'm asking about the shipping, back-order, and cancellation emails. How can I get the confirmation email and then NOT receive any other important, order-related emails?"

"Uh... well sometimes, people don't filter their email right, and the order information gets sent to spam, or the trash, you know."

"Can you see the address that I used?"

"Uh... [crickets segueing into silence]"

"Are you still there?"

"I uh... [tap tap] ...have to pull up the order, again."

"Alright."

"[long pause] What's your order number, again?"

"[order #(@%$*&?!)]"

"Okay... um... let's see... okay here it is. It says [email addy]."

"Yes. Do you see now *unique* it is? How it's *tailored* to your specific site?"

"Hrm... yeah?"

"I filter for that."

"Okay... well, like I said, the order emails all have Teavana.com in them..."

"That's not my point--"

"...so they come from there."

(OMFGKMWAFSB)

To avoid additional grief in reliving this inanity, here are several established points:

1) Customer service cannot change the email that you have for an order or the mailing list. You need to register first and then do it yourself. (Fair enough.)

2) No interest in paypal; no reason given. But if you want to say something about it, feel free to post a comment in their blog, or whatever. (Warms the cockles watching them give a damn.)

3) "In stock" doesn't mean an item is actually in stock. (So... hey, surprise! Lies! Unapologetically MORONIC.)

4) Even if you get an "order shipped" email, they might renege it by saying that an item/order is back-ordered later. (But of course, I only have the word of that rep to rely on since I couldn't actually *read* any of those three missing emails.)

In toto, you can suggest changes all you want to a rep--THIS rep, and there will be statements of the obvious and a dire lack of apologies for the BS, e.g., time-wasting-teeth-pulling session, lip service, false advertising, retarded behavior, technical errors et al. Apparently, they don't feel the need to improve customer relations to bolster sales... which goes to show you how much better Adagio Teas is--on so MANY fronts--even if their steepables aren't always on par with Teavana.

They are overpriced, and are thus worthwhile--if you're even borderline thrifty--ONLY when they have extra special deals; the kind that incites hordes of rabid enthusiasts to snatch up every last oz of fragrant ____ in the name of... decadence? At this point, I can't tell you if the quality truly warrants that degree of crazy, but know that anything online (that's available in-store) SANS a discount is overpriced in a spectacularly stupid way. Affiliate my ass.

If a discounted order is ever RECEIVED, this post will get an update. For now, the walk-in locations seem best."