AminoZ Selling Expired Protein Bars

L5reeloader on 06/02/2016 - 12:59
Last edited 06/02/2016 - 13:00

I placed an order with AminoZ on 30/12/15 but it wasn't shipped till 18/01/16 because one of the items was on back order. Earlier this week, I noticed one of the protein bars was expired, dated 16/12/2015. I proceeded to contacting customer care. Exchanges with store reps can be found at the bottom of post. They admitted to selling protein bars that have passed their best-before dates. My understanding is that they had/still have more of those in stock that they intend to sell. I found the whole thing very disappointing because I had purchased from them a couple of times (first time buying the protein bars). I thought I'd give you guys a heads up. You might be paying for expired products buying from AminoZ. I also want to know:

  • Do you think it's ok for stores to sell expired (best before/use-by) goods?
  • Now that AminoZ is on my avoid list, what would be your recommendation for buying fast-shipping, reasonably priced, quality, NOT expired supplements?

Me to an automated post-sales email:

Hi,

There is in fact a problem with my order (order #xxxxxxxx) that I just noticed.

The best before date on the Musashi bulk mass gain bar 80g is 16/12/2015 (see attached). That's 1 month before my order was shipped out on 18/01/2016.

Is it your common practice to sell protein bars that have passed their best before dates? Why was I not made aware of this? My stomach gets upset easily. I would've canceled the order if I'd known.

Rep 1's response:

Hi xxx,

Thanks for your reply.

We're sorry to have sent you a Musashi bulk mass gain bar 80g is 16/12/2015. This must be the ones we have in stock. However, this is still safe to consume.

Best before: foods that are labelled as best before, signifies that although the date on the package may have passed, the product is still safe to consume on the proviso the item has been stored correctly, while still generally maintaining its colour, texture and flavour. The best before date is used more to identify when the food product may lose some of its qualities, rather than being unsafe to eat.

Use by (expiry date): foods that have a use by date are generally regarded as unsafe to eat after the designated date because a build-up of bad bacteria may have occurred – even if the food in question still looks and smells good enough to consume. Additionally, it is also illegal for a business to sell an item after its use by date due to the danger the product may pose.

http://www.findlaw.com.au/articles/4777/whats-the-difference…

We apologise for the inconvenience xxx and if you require further assistance, please don't hesitate to ask.

Kind regards,
Dale

My reply:

Hi Dale,

Thank you for your reply.

I'm well aware of the difference between 'best before' and 'use by'. I'm also aware that it's not illegal to sell products past their 'best before' dates. However, I personally steer clear of them all.

Amino Z should be more honest and transparent when it comes to the products you sell. Why do you have items listed as 'shortdated' (which I clearly avoided buying), but not label the out of date ones?

No matter how significantly or insignificantly worse the quality of the protein bar becomes or how not-unsafe you claim it to be to consume, it's not what I paid for. I would never buy from your store again nor recommend to anyone.

Regards,
xxx.

Rep 2's response:

Hi xxx,

Thanks for your email.

I'm really sorry for the inconvenience. I have checked our listing and I was able to confirm that there was no notice on our product page regarding the expiry of the product. May I offer a refund as store credits for the bar, ($4.69).

Again, I'm really sorry for the inconvenience and I hope that you would let us rectify this for you.

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Kind regards,
Liza
Amino Z
Research based. Results-driven.

My reply:

Hi Liza,
Store credits won't be of any good since I'm not shopping at your store again. Keep it.
Regards,
xxx.

General Discussion

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Comments

  • spackbace on 06/02/2016 - 13:08
    +7

    1 mistake and you avoid a business? Wow must be hard buying anything then! Every business stuffs up! You brought it to their attention, and while it wasn't offered upfront, a store credit was offered. The rep sounds more than reasonable, it appears it was you who should have stepped away from the keyboard before replying! I probably would have pushed for a replacement to be mailed out or something, because <$5 wont get you much and then pay shipping on top.

    But yeah, relax before making a complaint and they'll be happier to rectify it. I hope that's not how you treat every business.

    • 5reeloader on 06/02/2016 - 13:43
      +3

      1 mistake and you avoid a business?

      A critical one. I have a long history of food poisoning. I've gotten sick from eating seafood that wasn't fresh, improperly stored food etc… But mostly from consuming expired food. So I always triple check for expiry dates. I trusted AminoZ to not sell my expired products and they did. I think it's pretty reasonable for me to not buy from them again.

      But yeah, relax before making a complaint and they'll be happier to rectify it.

      I'm pretty chill and level headed (as I was when contacting AminoZ, as I was when making this post), so I'll choose to ignore most of your keyboard warrior comment and only respond to this bit. I took it that the $5 store credits were the best they could offer to rectify their mistake, so I said no. How would you have responded to their $5 store credits offer?

      • pais on 06/02/2016 - 14:44
        +2

        … I trusted AminoZ to not sell my expired products and they did

        You've said that you understand the difference between best before and used by, so it's a bit disingenuous to insist that the product has 'expired' and link it to any past instances of food poisoning. It's past its best before date, should've been disclosed, but a credit without having to send the product back is a pretty fair trade off. An actual refund would've been an ideal outcome IMO (and presumably a CS rep would've ceded that).

        The reality is that any food distributor is going to have products that slip through the cracks — both expired and stock past best before going unnoticed. If you have this attitude towards any company that does this, you would quite literally have nowhere to shop. Hopefully you've got a veggie patch.

        • 5reeloader on 06/02/2016 - 15:05

          You've said that you understand the difference between best before and used by, so it's a bit disingenuous to insist that the product has 'expired' and link it to any past instances of food poisoning.

          My 'expired' refers to both past UB and past BB products because I've had stomachache from consuming either in the past, albeit with different severity. So I avoid them both. My wording could've been better for clarity's sake. Apologies.

          An actual refund would've been an ideal outcome IMO (and presumably a CS rep would've ceded that).

          True. I should've tried for a refund.

          If you have this attitude towards any company that does this, you would quite literally have nowhere to shop.

          It is quite a burden.

        • richy_o on 08/02/2016 - 17:07

          @5reeloader: if you get an upset stomach easily, why would you buy any musashi products at all? They are packed full of fillers and milk solids that upset even the strongest stomach.

  • oscargamer on 06/02/2016 - 13:53
    -3

    i get you're angry…..but…..if you are so sensitive to food, why didn't you…

    1. confirm dates at time of purchase
    2. there is no 2

    move on and learn

    ooooooh…. just thought of something - was the first bar you selected out of date? or all of them?

    • 5reeloader on 06/02/2016 - 14:04
      +2

      i get you're angry

      Ok…

      why didn't you confirm dates at time of purchase

      My previous orders from them were fine, so I didn't think it was necessary to do so. Is selling expired supplements common enough to warrant a confirmation every time?

      was the first bar you selected out of date? or all of them?

      You mean from the order? Just the one.

      • oscargamer on 06/02/2016 - 14:09

        if you've bought from them before and all was well before, take the store credit - do you think they will even care about you taking your business elsewhere?

        • 5reeloader on 06/02/2016 - 14:13
          +2

          It doesn't matter whether they care or not. They should. But it doesn't matter.
          The point of this post was to bring this incident to your attention and discuss things, eg. Is selling expired supplements common enough to warrant a confirmation every time you buy something?

        • oscargamer on 06/02/2016 - 14:20

          @5reeloader:

          ok

          i guess people who care deeply about BB dates would already be checking everything they buy

          the rest of us….well, who knows? maybe we have bigger things to occupy our time…or not?

    • No ONE on 08/02/2016 - 14:12

      confirm dates at time of purchase

      You ask for expiry date for everything you buy online even from coles & woolworths. You are special kind of weird.

      • oneland on 24/06/2018 - 18:39

        LOL

  • RedRocket21 on 06/02/2016 - 15:13
    +10

    Why is everyone hating. He clearly received something which was past the best before date and they are not allowed to sell it as something which is still before the date. Also 1st impression is the last one

    • spackbace on 06/02/2016 - 15:36

      Also 1st impression is the last one

      .

      Thanks for your reply.
      We're sorry
      We apologise for the inconvenience

      You're right, I see really good customer service by AminoZ

    • the-mal on 06/02/2016 - 15:49
      +7

      Also 1st impression is the last one

      It wasn't his first impression. OP said:

      My previous orders from them were fine

      So they made one mistake on one $4 protein bar, clarified so he knew the food was considered safe, rechecked their product listing and offered him a store credit and apologised.

      I'd say this is good customer service overall.

      • RedRocket21 on 06/02/2016 - 15:51
        -1

        What's he gonna do with store credit?
        Buy more best before stuff

        • the-mal on 06/02/2016 - 15:57
          +5

          All his previous orders were fine. Sounds like this was an outlier. He also didn't ask for a refund - they offered a measure of good faith and he declined, if he wanted a different solution (eg refund) he should've asked.

          They can't go back in time and erase a mistake, and considering this is the first time it's happened to OP and they actually note items that are close to dates it hardly sounds endemic.

          I'd say most customers would've accepted the store credit or asked for a refund. OP was complaining to them about a mistake they made and it seems he wasn't interested in it being rectified - what were they supposed to do?

        • RedRocket21 on 06/02/2016 - 15:58
          -1

          @the-mal:

          I was joking

        • 5reeloader on 06/02/2016 - 16:09
          +1

          @the-mal: >Sounds like this was an outlier.

          I agree that this could've as well been an isolated incident. But the response from the rep suggests that they have/had more stock past their best before dates:

          We're sorry to have sent you a Musashi bulk mass gain bar 80g is 16/12/2015. This must be the ones we have in stock.

          So I thought I'd let Ozbargain know. As I would've appreciated it if someone'd let me know.

          OP was complaining to them about a mistake they made and it seems he wasn't interested in it being rectified

          I took it that the $5 store credits were the best they could offer to rectify their mistake, so I declined. I should've asked for a refund.

      • 5reeloader on 06/02/2016 - 15:58

        first impression

        It was my first time buying protein bars from them. Previous orders were protein powder. So 'first impression' was appropriate.

        • the-mal on 06/02/2016 - 15:59

          Was the protein powder past it's Best Before date? Or was it as described?

        • 5reeloader on 06/02/2016 - 16:01

          @the-mal: As described. Protein powder was well and good.

  • nomoneynoproblems on 06/02/2016 - 15:45
    +4

    I agree with OP although Aminoz have been pretty good in the past. They offered a remedy and apologised. If they sold the product and knew it was past its best before use date and knew about but didn't disclose, I would also be unhappy.

    Having said that try Supps r us.

    • 5reeloader on 06/02/2016 - 16:02

      Having said that try Supps r us.

      Finally! Thank you!

      • oscargamer on 06/02/2016 - 16:28

        suppositories are us !!!

        WOW and YUK !

      • 5reeloader on 06/02/2016 - 17:32

        @Spackbace: Oh boi. The psychological projection is getting petty.

        • zolinger on 06/02/2016 - 17:59

          Why was spackbaces comment unpublished_

  • Jay43 on 06/02/2016 - 18:08
    +4

    I just checked some that I bought from them recently and they are out of date as well. Bugger.

    They didn't send my order for over a week when it was supposed to be sent overnight as well. Five years ago they used to be really good. I had a good experience with Supps R Us last year and will shop with them from now on.

  • ant meal on 07/02/2016 - 10:46
    -6

    It seems to me that you were trying to get some freebies! Even if I'm wrong, a courteous reply might have been more effective; I find the whole tone of your posts quite aggressive. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

    • RnO on 08/02/2016 - 07:27
      +2

      i thought his tone was quite polite but firm.I just think this would never been on ozbargain if they had asked for a posto, confirmed bb date, provided cust with the refund of UNDER $5 and advised they would endeavour to rectify the issue. unfortunatly the didnt rectify the customers issue or the product issue for future customers. also that's a cmment with no basis above that OP was trying to get freebies. there is no basis for this opinion from the communication I've seen.

      • 5reeloader on 08/02/2016 - 13:32

        i thought his tone was quite polite but firm.

        Thank you. That's the tone I was going for - short, sharp and factual to get my point across. But if that many OBers got an angry vibe from my post/comments, I guess I could be more careful with my choice of word in the future (?)

  • j5ive on 08/02/2016 - 07:39
    +4

    Just a q, don't take it as an attack.

    If you had of bought the bar at a super market and noticed it was out of date, would you have stormed back and when offered a credit, told them to keep it because you were going to shop elsewhere now?

    • 5reeloader on 08/02/2016 - 13:29

      Hypothetically, if I bought something at a super market which turned out to be out of date, that would be entirely my fault first of all (which wasn't the case here with AminoZ). And given the convenience of shopping at a super market, I would've taken the store credits. I would've still warned my friends and family who shopped at that specific supermarket for that specific product, which was the point of this post.

      Now, the $5 ($4.69 to be exact) store credits AminoZ offered would not have been enough to cover the shipping cost for <$75 orders, meaning I would've had to spend more to make the credits worth it; and hypothetically risking receiving more expired out of date products as the store rep suggested there were more of those in stock. Therefore, I told them to keep it.

      Also,

      would you have stormed back

      I chuckled.

  • JHoliday on 08/02/2016 - 09:44
    +1

    Post a review on http://www.productreview.com.au/p/aminoz.html

    • spackbace on 08/02/2016 - 11:44
      +3

      Yep, but don't post a positive review of the purchases you've had without issue… You know, that's not allowed on the internet.

      • bghunter on 09/02/2016 - 01:51

        If everyone posted positive, it'd be too much to read

  • Soybeanus on 08/02/2016 - 13:36
    +4

    It's nice how they just tried to play that off as okay and only offered a store credit after your second message. A store credit! LMAO. Classic. And if they were listing items as shortdated and not mentioning anything on products that were already past best before, that's pretty dodgy.

  • GameChanger on 08/02/2016 - 15:41
    +1

    I agree with OP, they should have offered to send out the item again instead of store credit.

    The fact that they provided you with definitions, says this is a common practice by them. Why would anyone in their right mind order a product with the before by date expired? I know its eatable, but it needs to be advertised on the listing especially if you're not offering to re send.

  • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 09/02/2016 - 08:29
    +2

    Hi everyone, this is Jay from Amino Z and I wanted to get involved in this discussion.

    5reeloader, firstly thank you for sharing your concerns here. Furthermore, thank you for making contact with us to try to resolve the issue. While I feel we could have done a better job, this feedback is invaluable to us and is something we can learn and improve from.

    Speaking on behalf of the company 5reeloader, we have obviously let you down. Your order was held up and we ended up sending you some protein bars that were past their best before date.

    I agree with your feelings on the matter that a store credit is not adequate. Besides having paid for a bar that had expired, you’ve been inconvenienced and disappointed.

    I’ve read through the discussion and whilst I greatly appreciate the support for our company, I do want to emphasise that we do care a lot about each individual situation, and particularly about retaining you as a customer. Sure, we send hundreds of orders out daily, but it wasn’t too long ago that I was personally packing all the orders myself (like, 5-10 a day) and doing all the customer service emails too. So I know first-hand that the only reason why we have grown to our present size is due to the support that we have received from every individual customer. We will fight to rectify this situation (and any other situation that goes wrong with anyone else).

    Things go wrong and we do make stuff-ups, but when we do, we do have to take responsibility for that. So ultimately if you are unhappy with store credit, we’re going to have to do better than this to reach a fair and reasonable resolution.

    Today I am having a meeting both with our warehouse and our customer service team on this matter so we can learn from our mistakes and minimise the chances of us repeating this again in the future. I believe we could have better handled this situation with you via email, but we could have also prevented this problem in the first place by having a better system in place to prevent the dispatch of expired items. We are also going to look improving the transparency of product expiry/best before dates. Furthermore I am speaking with Ailene (head of customer service) about this situation and she will make direct contact with you ASAP.

    Having said that, based on this experience, if you feel that you never wish to shop with us again then I fully understand your position 5reeloader. Thank you for your support to date.

    • Jay
  • Hirolol on 28/02/2016 - 05:34

    Bit late to the party but i had an annoying situation with these guys that i wanted to share with everyone to hopefully raise awareness.

    So originally i bought 2 preworkouts that were out of date so they were cheaper.
    But when i opened one it was all clumped together and basically unusable.
    I contacted support and they told me to open the other one and it ended up being the same so they offered to send me a replacement item.

    I said ill just pay the difference and get a fresh item.
    The item they sent me is due to expire in may. But i know from buying preworkout it usually has 1 year or more till it expires, so obviously been sitting in store for a while.
    So when i opened this one it was also clumped together, not as bad as the other out of date ones i bought but it still doesnt have that freshness that a new one has.
    After the first issue that i had i would think they would send me one that has a longer expiry date to guarantee freshness but i think these guys are just trying to get rid of old stock as quickly as possible and not really interested in customer satisfaction.

    I contacted customer support about it and they didnt seem to care about it so i guess that goes to show.

    Personally i will not be shopping at Amino Z ever again.

    • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 25/03/2016 - 11:19

      Hi Hirolol,

      Thank you for your feedback and I am sorry for the inconvenience you have one through.

      I understand that you are unhappy about your experience with us however we have no means of checking if the contents of the product is clumpy because we do not open products before sending them out to our customers. This is to ensure that the product that you have received is not compromised.

      As per our returns policy, since the product you received is damaged (clumpy), we can arrange the return shipping, and the shipment of any replacement goods to you to avoid any further cost and inconvenience. As soon as we have received the returned item, you have the option to have either a replacement or a refund.

      If you could please provide me your order number via private message (or send me an email with pictures of the product showing the batch #, name of the product and its contents) so that we can look into this and rectify the situation.

      Please send me an email at [email protected] or you can call us at 1300 264 669.

      Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

      Kind regards,
      Ailene

      • Hirolol on 26/03/2016 - 19:07

        Yeah i have been told countless times.
        But seeing as the track record isnt too good (from reading other reviews) the freshness of the product cannot be guaranteed so maybe someone could have thought that it might be a better idea to send a product with alot longer remaining for the expiry date.

        Anyway i contacted customer support and they informed me about the refund policy but because it was after 30 days or something i could not get a refund or anything so i just threw it out

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 01/04/2016 - 16:16

          Thanks for your reply.

          We do have specials for shortdated products. We sell these at a lower price than the regular retail price.

          Kindly provide your order number so I can look into this and check if there is anything else that I can do to rectify the issue.

          Kind regards,
          Ailene

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