Madam Glam- Review

CAUTION: Madam Glam has accumulated quit a few negative consumer reports with the BBB. Please be sure to check out the complaints before deciding to make a purchase. Here is my experience with the company and purchasing process.

When going to the madam glam website one might think “wow what great prices” and this is where the deception begins. So I start adding items to the cart to buy. Then when going to check out there is this strange looking charge “VIP membership $29.00”. So upon deleting this charge the prices of all the items that weren’t full price either doubled or tripled in cost as well as the expense of shipping also being added to the order.

So I set out to look for answers and found myself digging through the FAQ section. This is where I discovered that the membership can be canceled at any time before the 30 day renewal without incurring any charges. However this cancelation process is buried very deeply on the Madam Glam website and requires a significant amount of searching to find it. Here is the icing on top of the cake, Madam Glam requires people to create an account, log into the account, search through the FAQ, find the FAQ drop down and open it, click on a link and be redirected to a new link where you then click on another link to unsubscribe. Mind you that after completing this no confirmation of cancelation is offered.

*****Only paying VIP members can get the sale prices and free S&H.****

So I placed my first time order, with the VIP membership, hoping that I might get lucky and not experience any issues. My lamp arrived a week or more after ordering it and I canceled the VIP auto renewal. Then fast forward 3 weeks and BOOM my credit card shows a charge of $29.00 from madam glam. So my response is swift and I immediately open a charge dispute with my credit card company and reach out to the Madam Glam customer service via their email.

The Madam Glam customer service response was less than professional. I received a couple of email responses from them in which they demanded I drop my charge dispute or they would refuse to refund me the $29.00.

I would like to also mention that unless the madam glam products are 50-60% off then it really isn’t worth buying. For instance the Holi lamp is priced “on sale” at $70.00 and the regular price is listed as $139.00. So this particular lamp minus the art work is also sold by other brands at prices ranging from $35-$75.00. So the lamp sold by Madam Glam isn’t really a great deal without the free shipping and handling and the listed sale price of $70.00 is really just the true market value and not a sale.

So you can see that the prices of certain items could be drastically artificially inflated and then reduced to deceive people into believing that they are getting a deal when in fact they are really just paying the true market value of the item when it is listed “sale” and at the end of the day these sale prices aren’t really giving consumers much of a deal at all, unless it is the 60% off gel polishes then that is a good deal.

The gel polish is regular price $20.00 a bottle with amazing sale prices as low as $6.99 a bottle which is honestly a screaming deal for full bottle size gel polish.

It’s my experience that decent ethical companies offer free shipping when consumers spend a set amount such as for example $35.00. Other features that ethical companies offer are friendly straight forward unsubscribe links on their websites and within user account settings, as well as a customer service phone number. Madam glam does not offer any direct customer service phone number and their chat system is completely automated so the only way to reach anyone is by email which can take days to hear from someone.

Conclusion

Overall I was disappointed with the company but I love my LED/UV lamp and their product but it isn’t enough to get me to pay a monthly fee of $29.00 for VIP membership. I can almost hear people arguing “Madam glam is targeting professionals who order a lot of product on a regular basis.” Well that is not entirely true because a lot of their item descriptions say “for home use” and keep in mind that a good business strategy is to market and advertise to as wide of a consumer audience as possible and I feel that Madam glam misses the mark when it comes to refining their marketing to the DIY women doing their own nails at home.

Something that I feel could really help carry this company moving forward is to simply offer free shipping on orders of $35.00 or more and to do away with the artificially inflated pricing and VIP membership. Or better yet offer VIP pricing and early viewing to those VIP members of new products and colors before the general public gets a chance to see and buy those items.