Willow: An absolutely terrible product form a completely reprehensible company.

Yes, an absolutely terrible product from an absolutely terrible company to deal with. I think the analogy to the Dollar Shave Club (another complete fraud... by the way if you want to mail order blades, try Harry's...great product, great service) is quite apt.

I decided to give them a try. On the upside, they look pretty nice. Kind of a fuzzy gray lowrise men's brief. That's the only good thing. Inside is a tiny insert like a men's guard that is the sole functional part.

They are completely non-functional. While they have standing leak guards, I'm not sure why. The insert is smaller than most of the guards on the market (either the Depend or Tena). The thing is not absorbent at all, even if you hit the "guard" part. And worse yet, anything that does end up there starts weeping through the front of the brief in short order. In fact, as near as I can tell, you'd be better off sticking a handiwipe in the front of your pants for all the good these things do.

No problem, says I. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I was only out the $5 shipping for the "free" trial. But wait. You can't go online and cancel. While you can change the amount and frequency of your orders, they won't take the cancellation that way. Fine, call their 800 number. After ten minutes of music on hold, you get routed to voice mail. Left a message telling them if they charge anything more to my AMEX card it will be protested and reversed immediately.

So, anyhow. As horrendously bad as these things are and as impossible as they make it to cancel, I recommend you not even try the "free" trial unless you want to open yourself up to a lot of frustration.

I'm always surprised how many companies invest large amounts of capital to spin up a business based on trying to pull the wool over peoples' eyes, although in some cases this sort of thing isn't readily visible. If you buy a cheap electronic gizmo, it may do what it's supposed to do for a little while and quit months after they've got their money, but with incon products, it's pretty readily apparent when they've leaked! I know there's been a few gyms that rely on making quitting the recurring membership hard, and hope that people will just deal with getting fleeced every month, but ultimately the reputation of the entire company suffers (we have the internet to complain about things now, this doesn't work so hot nowadays!). Maybe they never talked to anyone who actually was IC and just assumed everyone only has light bladder leakage?

As near as I can tell, these things aren't useful for any amount of leakage. As soon as the pad area gets wet it starts leaking out. I've not figured out if it's just pourous or it's leaking around the edges or what, but frankly, it's the lowest performing incontinence product I have EVER tried. And I've been doing this since 1974.

Dude I am so sorry you got ripped off and guessing got wet patches from it.

Really appreciate the CSA on this and wish for nothing but misery on the owners/directors of this company.

I too have bought sample products that were just a f@cking joke when it came to absorbency/capacity and leaked through but in the end it’s actually fraud from these b@stards.

I would be calling my credit card company now and altering them you don’t trust the company they will cancel your account.

Fortunately, AMEX is really good about things like this. If they try to bill me again, they won't get very far.

You're right on several counts.

In my experience, AMEX is really good at taking care of customers that want to reverse a charge due to non-receipt, damage or whatever.

I also find it disconcerting that some companies force you to call their office for something when you can do everything else online.

I had a similarly terrible experience with a company called Hexa and Co. They advertised as a discreet incontinence supplier with a "new, different, and superior" product at an affordable price. The information posted was terribly generic, and there was a suspicious lack of actual product photos. Everything was just the standard "cartoon" representation of their product. There was a free sample option...which required signing up for the monthly delivery service. They said that the delivery could be cancelled and no billing would take place within the first 10 days after sign-up.

It took very nearly 10 days for the sample to arrive. Upon opening it was immediately apparent that the product was Wal-Mart Assurance brand crap. I had a feeling already since the other paraphernalia they carried was Equate and Assurance. Needless to say, the product was terrible and did not match up to the description of the product on their page. I called them as soon as the package had arrived to cancel the monthly subscription (it was a Friday evening and it was scheduled to start Monday morning).

There was no one there, and the business hours reported on the recording stated that no one would be in until Monday. It also stated that if you were calling to cancel the subscription, to leave a detailed message with the account and any reasons you'd like to share on why you were cancelling and it would be handled immediately. I left the message, but made sure to call first thing Monday morning as well. I couldn't get through to anyone during the first couple of hours Monday morning (calling intermittently) and when I finally did, I was informed that I could NOT cancel just by leaving the message. This disagreed completely with the recording which stated very clearly that that is HOW you cancel. I then cancelled on the phone with that person...who informed me that my first order had shipped that morning and I would be charged for it with the cancellation taking place at that point forward.

I was furious as heck, and exceptionally busy (finishing engineering capstone projects and wrapping up finals in different engineering courses). I decided to cut my losses, try and cool off and just mark it off as a $100 dollar loss. The shipment arrived, 100 stupid single tab Assurance garbage and I left it at that. Much to my surprise I got an e-mail a few weeks later informing me that my next shipment was being prepared and that I would be billed again.

I was deadly furious at this point, but tried desperately to maintain my composure as I tried to get ahold of them on the phone again and again. I finally got through and something in the voice of the agent I got calmed me immediately as I got the sense that she was capable of listening, understanding, and helping. I told her the story and she was mortified. I explained that I hated the product, and that I hadn't even touched what I received as it was junk. It sure as hell wasn't worth the outrageous $1.00 per diaper they were charging. She agreed, she also notified me that the product was being dropped and that a ton of people were calling in with the same issue. She then cancelled my account completely, but not before asking me the required questions of "usage", "frequency of usage", and how I felt the product was insufficient.

She not only cancelled the account, but she reversed the charges from the last cycle and gave me all my money back. I was pleasantly surprised and a bit taken aback. I asked how she wanted me to send back the box I'd received (untouched and unopened) and she told me to just keep them, maybe give them to GoodWill if they were completely useless. That was nearly a year ago, and I still have fifty of those damn things around.

Many of the suppliers like NSC or the like will be happy to put your stuff on auto ship. They'll give you a discount, and it won't be a nightmare if you decide to change or discontinue it.

Calling them to cancel wouldn't be so bad if they'd ANSWER THEIR FREAKING PHONE. They've not responded to either the voicemail I left or the email I sent them.

Eesh. So it goes in the pile of "Looks kinda nice, is completely useless".

Disappointing. But not surprising.

Agreed, I bit on the offer and had the same experience. Wasn’t worth even the “free” $5 fee. Simply terrible.
And yes, 800 number was the only way to cancel subscription. Super sleazy. They won’t survive.

I finally got confirmation that they have cancelled my subscription.

I have been dealing with North Shore as my supplier for over a year now and I never have had a problem with switching my order or canceling an order via phone call. Auto ship is great and delivers are on time every month.

My comments in the post on NSC about people not answering the phone was in reference to Willow. Northshore Care has been nothing but exemplary in their customer service.