In June 2012 I was contacted by Born Pretty Store the first time by "Nicole", and I did two reviews, but the only item that I really wanted to review was a set of nail art brushes - and twice they sent me something completely else by "mistake"...
Even the discount code for my readers was a mix-up - I got the same code as another blogger, who kindly informed me about it!
The required reviews and photos of the reviewed items I was supposed to upload to the BPS website were impossible to upload, because the system "could not see I purchased this item" - DOOH!
August 2012 I cancelled the collaboration and wrote this:
"Frankly I think there has been so many problems, it's now the second time the brushes has not been sent, the only thing I truly wanted to review.
Alle the excuses are good - but still it leaves me with a increasing distrust towards the company...
And then there were all the review problems, I spent a long time reviewing on your website - but nothing ever showed up, and I still haven't gotten any information if it's fixed or not.When I think of the time I spent so far just to receive a nail polish and some studs - it would have been much cheaper for me to buy them."
March 2013 "Daisy" asked me to do reviews for BPS - I never replied.
Between August 2012 and up to April 14 there were other emails than the one in March 2013, but I deleted them without saving them, and I also did not reply to them.
April 2014 "Allison" asked me to do reviews for BPS - and at this point I was fed up, so I replied and asked her please to stop asking. She was sorry and promised never to contact me again.
June 2014 "Allison" broke her promise and sent the exact same email. Her excuse was: "I forgot to make a note in the records."
July 25th 2014 I suddenly started getting newsletters from BPS, I unsubscribed and got the message "Thank you! You've been removed from our newsletter list, you will not receive newsletter from www.bornprettystore.com anymore". On August 1st. another newsletter came, and I unsubscribed - I have kept screenshots from both occasions.
But today a new newsletter came, so I contacted the customer service and I sincerely hope they will unsubscribe me.
August 19th I was spammed on Pinterest by a comment from "Born Pretty Store/Tina" right HERE. 15 minutes later BPS/she spammed my blog in this post. I replied rather harshly to both comments - but either "Tina" did not read it, or more like did not give a damn - because....
August 20th I received an email from "BPS/Tina" - so as promised yesterday in the blog post comments: "Enough is enough – next time Born Pretty Store, I will do a blog post about your relentless spamming!"
I am however pretty convinced that the pushy spamming will go on as long as I am an active blogger, and in the future my reply will be a link to this post, and I will update this post each time.
But no matter what, I suspect Born Pretty Store do not care or even truly respect bloggers, and I deeply distrust Born Pretty Store!
But at least this rant helped a bit - so thank you for reading if you got this far!!
Of course bloggers will get various kinds of review offers the larger the blog gets, but all other companies have accepted if I thanked no: Glasses, dresses, strips etc. etc. and they did not contact me again. But Born Pretty Store is totally out of reach in their aggressive and relentless spamming!
Have you had similar experiences with Born Pretty Store or other companies - even after you numerous times politely said no thank you?
Update August 21th 2014: You are NOT going to believe this, after having sent links to the company another email have arrived: Hi, This is Kevin from Born Pretty Store, your blog is awesome, and we want to offer some of our Nail Art samples to you, would you like to test and review? Best regards, Kevin
Update April 6th 2015: I honestly believed the spamming had stopped, and was pleased about it but no such luck, today this email arrived: Hi, This is Cynthia from www.bornprettystore.com. I have visited your blog, it's awesome! We'd like to send you some nail art products, would you like to test and review them on your blog? Please feel free to mail me if you are interested in this collaboration. Best regards Cynthia
Oh, I know Allison and I know Daisy as well :DDD. What should I say - I also received different items, than those I wanted to review and I'm quite surprised I've never been contacted again, after my reviews. May my nail arts have been too ugly :DDD.
SvarSletKind regards,
Elena
PS: Sorry, but I forgot to mention I know Alice as well ;DDD
SletSoon you probably will know "Tina" too :(
SletThat sounds seriously annoying, and I would be pretty upset too if it was me. Linking them to this post is a great idea :D
SvarSletI'm so glad you feel the same way - yes, and I hope it will have an effect, even if i doubt it will!
SletI don't know the e-mail addresses but maybe block them or something?
SvarSletI didn't buy anything from the store but I had a similar incidents with one of Polish banks. I told them - the talk was recorded, because it was a phone accident ;) - and I was annoyed by phones with their new offers - to stop calling me and they were calling me still. When I blocked them, they started phoning as anonymous callers. I hate the bank really, such dumba*&es* :P
They use gmail adresses - different ones for each person contacting me..
SletWow, that seriously also does not sound very nice, tsk tsk...
It is very annoying - and I replied to "Tina" earlier today - and i have sent the link later on - no reply yet at least...
SvarSletThey sent me 2 packages without any problem and they were so kind. But this situation is really sad :(
SvarSletI'm glad it's working for you!
SletThey contact me over and over, I just delete their emails haha. Frustrating tho.
SvarSletYes, they are very aggressive in their marketing - and apparently with no respect....
SletAs blogger, you can't it any more and you ask to the other bloggers for what they think of it.
SvarSletBut you ever ask yourself the question : what think of it our readers who receive permanently posts on the products of BPS ?
Personally that downright pisses off me.
Your post tells the same thing as a French blogger, among the most known, wrote on this subject.
She had the courage to make it and I tell you, as I told her : BRAVO !
It is a swindle for you bloggers and we your readers, if only because the code which you give does not work on most of the products which already have a discount on their site.
I ever bought nothing with them and it's not this world bombardment which tempts me, quite the opposite.
But as I told you, it works. For France and I imagine the countries of French language, at the beginning of this summer, they even created a site " Née Jolie " word for word translation of Born Pretty.
Of course, this site is based in Hong-Kong, there are fewer choices and the translation is very rough.
So now in France we have comments on Born Pretty Store AND née Jolie ... No comment.
But the very aggressive commercial policy of BPS works and will work, as long as bloggers will be allowed have. And there will be always.
Thank you very much of this article, very interesting and very clear for us readers.
Exactly - the massive posts on blogs with things from BPS makes people believe it's "good", and that's what BPS wants - more purchases :(
SletAnd you are right, it will never stop, new bloggers feel very flattered by an approach and willingly say yes :(
Thank you for your support - and it sure sounds ugly that you have both (and I'm thinking it could be BPS in disguise?)
Please feel free to give me the link to the French bloggers post, I can use google translate...
OH - and you will not believe it - a "Kevin" from BPS has now contacted me with the "do reviews for us" email since yesterday - wayyyy toooo much!!!!
That sounds really bad. I'm sure you can take the matter further, I know I would.
SvarSletI've been contacted by a few companies to do reviews for nail art products and sign up to sites. Some of the emails mentioned how "my blog was great and they loved my nail art and would love me to do reviews" if they even checked my blogs they would see no nail art on them! I got an email a while back from KKCenterhk asking me to review some nail art products (studs, rhinestones) or eyelashes etc.. I replied back and said I would only review nail polish as that's what my blogs are about. They got back to me and said they couldn't send any for review only the nail art products or eyelashes. That was the end of the matter, they seemed decent.
I also had a few from the faketattoos company for doing a review of the nail tattoos. They emailed me a few times but I just ignored them!
These companies that have emailed me and no doubt will continue to, I'm just not interested in reviewing their stuff. It doesn't fit in with what my blogs are about. I usually just delete the emails without reading as most of them end up in the spam folder anyway!!
I hope you get it sorted because that sounds really annoying and just plain wrong. I wonder which part of "NO" they didn't understand????
Well I sent the link to them - no response.
SletBut I have gotten a NEW email, see at the end of the post - they really are so aggressive :(
KKCenterhk are good in that respect, they accept a no, so bravo for that!
I'm wondering too is it the N or the O - they do not understand :D
That's really poor and annoying! Grrrr :-(
SletYou wouldn't want to block the whole gmail domain but can't you block the different addresses from the different people you mentioned? Or if the subject title is always the same or contains born pretty store you can block them from coming through as well. I know I had spam for casinos and bingo and I blocked everything with casino and bingo in the the subject title and the email message. That might stop you from getting the spam. Not sure how to do it on gmail but they will have that function :-)
Exactly...
SletVery often the BPS name isn't in the title line, and it's new email addresses, I guess one for each person.
Somehow I also suspect they are false identities - not many in the far East have such English names...
I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience! I've been reviewing with BPS for a couple years now and have never had a problem like the one you're describing - perhaps that's because I haven't stopped reviewing for them. It really does sound frustrating that they won't get the hint. It would really bother me too! I wish I had some answers to help you! I personally have only worked with Daisy, and she's been wonderful for me. Everything that arrived was correct and prompt, and I contact her - she never contacts me and, my code works too! Again, so sorry you have had such a bad experience, I hope it gets resolved :(
SvarSletI'm happy to hear that it works for you - and yes, I suspect they are "nice" as long as you put in hours of free work for fairly inexpensive items - they get a massive response...
SletThanks, but as you can see in this updated version I got a new email asking me to review, this time from "Kevin" :(
I'm glad I stumbled across your blog and this post! I recently wrote some reviews for BPS and it all went smoothly. But then I decided to place and order and they forgot to send me one of the items. Customer service never replied and finally after mailing several people, I was told they would 'send it with my next order'. Since I was offered a new wave of samples, I asked them if they could just add the missing item to that shipment... And I was ignored.
SvarSletI used to like BPS and order there often because they have such a variety and good prices, but lately I've been hearing a lot of complaints and bad reviews. :( Makes me think! Of course I agree with you and everyone else, if you politely turn down a company, they should accept your decision and just back off. This is really unacceptable!
It is super naughty to say 'send it with my next order' - that's no kind of service or way to treat a customer :(
SletI have heard a LOT of similar story about purchases gone wrong - and the customer get NO help what so ever!
I think maybe because they've grown a lot in the past and have more customers and orders now, so they don't care as much anymore :( I think this will be my last review for them, since it was me who asked them for a cooperation and I'm a small fish, maybe that's why they aren't as friendly/caring as if I had a lot of readers. Oh well, we learn from experience :)
SletI see why you do not feel like doing more reviews, but I do hope you get the missing product!
SletMaria I know how you feel! I keep getting emails from them too and fucking hell it's annoying! (Excuse my language). You need to take them out of your "safe" list in your email account and mark the email as spam and then it will no longer go into your inbox, but your spam folder. . at least that way it isn't coming directly to you and it's out of sight, plus your email provider deletes spam emails after 30 days or so! Stay strong!! :) xx
SvarSletYeah, that's the way I feel, thank you :)
SletAbout the blocking: All their email addresses are different - and all of them are gmail accounts, so blocking isn't a possibility I think?
Eh, spam, spam, spam, with no possibility to avoid it, that's an aggressive marketing...
SletIndeed it is :(
SletI have to say that I have purchased from them a couple of bottles and I was happy with them. They should be ashamed of their behaviours with blogger though. I am sorry for your unpleasant story :(
SvarSletThey should indeed be ashamed - but they don't give a damn!!!
Sleti'm really sorry for your bad experience :(
SvarSleti'm working with bps for few years and they're always fair to me
here is one biiiiiiig, the biggest virtual hug :*
Thank you so much much friend!
SletOMG! I am speechles !
SvarSletWHAAAAAAT!?!?!?
This is horrible!!!
It is - it's so surreal and truly horrible!
SletWow, I had no idea that things got so bad with them. They don't send a very professional image about themselves.
SvarSletI had a very nice first experience with them and their customer service when they really tried hard to help me get my desired items. Afterwards I was fortunate enough to win one of their holo polishes. I did some reviews for them (never had trouble with getting wrong or defective items), but you know that what they offer isn't really in my wheelhouse so I stopped doing reviews for them. I wasn't spammed like you are, though.
I find that aggressive approach to you disrespectful.
That's how I feel too, most items except for the holos - don't speak to me at all, and I can find them cheaper on Ebay anyhow - even with free shipping.
SletI'm happy for you being spammed is terrible...
Hi Marias , I am surprised read this post here . I am so sorry for those troubles to you ! Our colleagues let me know that they are really like your nail art style , so they hope can have cooperation with you . We are really hope that you can use our products make many nice designs and give us some suggestion about our products . It is very precious for us . We do hope that our products will be useful in your life . We are sorry for the repeated contact .Our system is improving now . So , if you really don't want to cooperate with us , we will not contact with you again . When you want test our product , just contact with our PR for free .
SvarSletStatement for all the bloggers here :
If there have the same issue , please contact us , then you will not receive our letter again .
My name is Maria, but apart from that - thank you for your reply and your promise, I hope it is true - and I WILL hold you to it!
SletI am not interested in your products as a rule - but if you feel like sending me your holographic polishes for free with no strings attached as a "we are sorry" gift, feel free do so!
I also hope that I get help to be removed from your newsletter?
I also suggest that you contact Felines Cubicle see comment above in this thread and make sure that she gets the missing item - it's naughty to tell a customer that she has to wait until the next time she orders to get what she paid for!!
SletOh Maria to bad you have such a bad experience with them. I don't have any troubles with them at all. I always have contact with bps Cynthia and she is very kind. But I guess BPS got your point now. :-)
SvarSletI'm glad you had a good experience with them, and yes, I keep my fingers crossed!
SletYes, spamming is not good... :/
SvarSletI once also had some misunderstanding with BPS too, but now all seems ok
I'm glad you solved your problems, I hope mine are too :)
Sletwow, this is a horrible experience. i said no when they contacted me and they left it as that.
SvarSletI'm glad they didn't contact you more than once - I hope this was the last time for me too!
SletThank you for posting this!! I have been wanting to sign my blog up as a reviewer for them, but after hearing this I'm definitely not going to. That's ridiculous! Thank you for saving me what sounds like a HUGE headache!!
SvarSletI'm glad you found it useful Tiff, thanks a lot!
Slet