by Jose
(London)

In a nutshell Clear Pores brought me nothing but frustration, more skin problems and lots of wasted time and money. Luckily, after a heroic effort, I did get a refund.

So here’s my story.

I don’t have especially bad skin but I do suffer from occasional break outs, enlarged/blocked pores, and some acne on my back. After doing a random Google search some months back on products/ways to help clear my pores I stumbled across the product ‘Clear Pores’…stumbled is very much the operative word here.

In hindsight I feel like a complete mug for purchasing a product such as Clear Pores without doing much research first. But I guess when you want something cured/solved so badly it’s easy for you to get sucked in by all the promises, the guarantees, and the countless assurances from both customers and health professionals alike. At the same time it’s all to easy for unscrupulous companies to sell what are essentially very cheap/ineffective products at an extortionate price and make a fair few bucks in the process.

Make no mistake however, the Clear Pores website, with all the wonderful testimonials, the ‘number 1′ independent ratings, the glowing reviews from the ‘experts’ from both medical and herbal fields, makes pretty convincing reading for someone who wants to be convinced. Chuck in a money back guarantee – yes MONEY BACK GURANTEE! And I felt I had nothing to lose by ordering the product. It was win-win: If it didn’t work then I could claim for a full refund, and if it did work then isn’t that exactly why I was looking for such a product in the first place?

It was only on ordering the product did I realise the guarantee was only valid if you purchased a minimum 3 months supply. At the time of purchase this worked out to be over 100pounds (GBP)! Now I would never walk into a shop and purchase some facial cleanser for 100pounds – however the combination of endless testimonials, combined with the promise of your money back if it didn’t work, plus the fact I was paying online with my debit card (why is it not so easy to part with 100pounds when the cash is physically in your hands?!), led me to go ahead and purchase 3 months supply of Clear Pores. I was only buying it because there was a guarantee after all.

I felt like a mug before I even tried the products. As I don’t live in the USA I had to pay additional postage costs at my end. I had already paid 30 dollars or so to get the products sent to me in Asia, on arrival I was charged another 30 dollars by the man from FED EX. Whether this is the company’s fault or not I’m not sure – but sure enough I wasn’t warned about being stung with large postage costs at my end and I felt naturally annoyed that there was no warning that this may happen.

On opening the products I was surprised by how cheap they looked. I wasn’t expecting gold-plated bottles but the packaging of the products didn’t strike me as something that would cost over 100pounds to assemble. Oh well if they work they work and if they don’t I’ll get my money back.

One laughable thing when I look back is how the company threw in a free ‘sensitive’ face cloth with my large order as a ‘bonus’. The cloth was worth 15 dollars they claimed! In all honesty, it was a shabby rag I wouldn’t use to dry saucepans with, yet alone my face. And besides have you ever seen a 15 dollar cotton face cloth before? If so you’re either shopping in the wrong places or it must have been some face cloth!

They also give you membership to one of their sites that has skincare tips – this they say is worth 35 dollars! Now why use the internet to search for millions upon millions of pages on skincare advice/tips all for free when you can use a limited, pretty unhelpful resource, for 35 dollars?!

Now the main products: Quite simply they didn’t work for me – that’s not to say some people may have some success with them. But then some people have success improving their skin by smearing banana over it. I know what I think sounds healthier, not to mention cheaper and tastier. Personally the products irritated my skin if anything – I noticed my face became red and inflamed looking for a good while after I washed my face. I mailed them about this and when I could expect to see results and they told me to stick with it and give it time before things did improve. So that’s what I did. But after 2 months I’d given up and didn’t want to damage my skin further (and the redness suggested to me the products were causing some sort of damage). I therefore returned all used and unused products to the company hoping for a refund (90 days had passed since time of purchase incidentally…another t & c of the refund). I read the small print and mailed them to confirm I had definitely met all the t & c’s!

I sent it recorded delivery so I knew they couldn’t claim they never received them. I gave it a month but no refund. I mailed them to confirm they had received them – they had and assured me a refund would be issued and to allow for 10 working days. I allowed for another month but still no refund. I mailed again and was assured a refund would be issued and to wait another 10 working days. I waited for over 3 weeks but still no refund. I mailed again, and, you guessed it, was told a refund had just been issued and to wait another 10 working days. At no point did they explain why I hadn’t received a refund previously. Nor did they ever apologise for the inconvenience. For a US company who were so big that even their face rags were worth 15 dollars a piece it struck me as remarkably poor customer service.

At the end of December, almost half a year after I sent the products back – I received my refund! I had to work for it, and I lost out a fair bit in terms of postage costs, not to mention time and frustration, but at least I did finally see a refund. What the problem was before I will never know – but I’m sure many customers who have applied for refunds have never seen them or are still patiently waiting, endlessly mailing and crossing their fingers each time they log on to check their bank account.

For anyone considering purchasing Clear Pores I will say only you are making a Clear mistake. Though if you do go ahead and buy it at least you may get the bonus and soon boast to be the proud owner of a small face rag worth 15 dollars! Now I bet even Bill Gates doesn’t own one of them! As for mine – I actually still have it – it’s in my bathroom – it serves no purpose other than to remind me of why I should seriously think before I buy something online in future…and as a handy bathroom floor wipe. Clear Pores? No. Clear Floors is arguably more apt.

COMMENT BY SEPPO

Thanks for this excellent review! This should be a warning enough for those thinking of buying Clear Pores. In the light of all this Clear Pores should change their URL from clearpores.com to clearpores.CON.

And if you do buy Clear Pores check Jose’s review for tips on getting the refund:

- Make sure you read and understand the terms and conditions.

- You need a 3 months supply to be eligible for refund; though this is in conflict with the US customer protection laws.

- Keep all your receipts and communications. Save all the emails so the company can’t ‘rewrite history’.

- Wait 90 days before asking for refund

- Email them and confirm before returning the products.

- Return the products using recorded delivery, or have some other way to prove you’ve shipped them.

- Be persistent and harass them about the refund. These companies rely on people giving up. So don’t. Become a pain in their ass; so that it’s easier for them to just give you the refund.

- Finally if nothing else works complain to your credit card company and ask them to reverse the payment; called charge back.

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