My Unfortunate Experience With pv.body/Ellie {Review}

I wasn’t going to post this review, simply because I don’t really like to say mean things. I especially don’t like to say mean things about companies that are just starting out. But after three consecutive months of problems with pv.body, I felt I owed it to my readers to share my experience.

I placed my first pv.body order on November 28, excited that I would have some new workout clothes to take with me to North Carolina over the holidays. I figured I would place the order and see how the first shipment looked before deciding whether or not to continue a subscription. All the hype about pv.body talked about getting awesome, name brand clothes at a discounted price ad I certainly wasn’t going to say no to Lululemon, especially since I haven’t actually taken the plunge to purchase any yet.

The first thing I noticed on my order confirmation was that the style of clothing I was set to receive was not the style I was told after the “Style Quiz” when I signed up. I emailed pv.body and a few days later got a generic email response with FAQs and a number to call if I still had questions. Strike one: If what I needed was in the FAQs, I would have found it when I looked at the FAQs before emailing. Also, it took you multiple days to send me a generic response?!

But still, not everyone looks at the FAQs, so I let it go and called customer service. I was pretty disappointed when I was told that the style quiz actually has no bearing on the clothes you receive and that everyone gets the same basic styles month by month. Strike two: So what was the point of all the questions asking where I like to work out and what kind of exercises I like to do if it isn’t going to inform the kind of clothing you send?

I decided to try to let that go too and waited patiently for my order to arrive. As of December 16 I had still not even received a shipping notification about my order, despite that the website indicated (and still indicates) that orders usually ship within 4-7 business days. At this point I emailed pv.body again (mistake) and again received a generic email. Frustrated, but gearing up for North Carolina, I let it go.

On December 28 I received a confirmation email thanking me for my second order when I still hadn’t received my first! Frantically I called pv.body and was told that my first order had recently shipped and I should be getting it soon. When I expressed my frustration over being charged for a second order before receiving my first order, I was told that orders would never process until the previous month’s order had shipped, but if I wanted to have more time between orders I would need to skip a month. So skip a month I did! I immediately canceled what would have been the January order well in advance so as to not take any chances. Strike 3: How can you let your orders get that backed up without notifying your customers at all and then proceeding with their subscription as usual?

At this point, after three strikes, I should have cancelled my account entirely, but I was still hopeful. So hopeful, in fact, I offered a month of pv.body to Karissa as a prize when she won the Muscle Building component in my Healthy Holidays Challenge. She gladly accepted and I contacted pv.body to figure out how to orchestrate this process. It wasn’t easy. I was told there was no way for me to purchase a gift card or pay for a special code for a free month, even though I had seen this on other blogs. I sucked it up and on 1/17 just created an account for Karissa, put in her preferences, and paid with my card. On 1/18 my credit card was charged and the order cleared on my online bank statement.

When I finally received my first order, over a month late, both pieces were the wrong size! While it is entirely possible that I put the size larger for the bottoms when I filled out my form, I knew there was no way I said I needed a size small top. I’m not delirious. So I logged on to my account to figure out a way to correct this, if my profile did in fact say size small. Unfortunately, there was nowhere for me to do that, so I had to call pv.body yet again. When I called the background noise was CRAZY! I could barely hear the customer service agent, who seemed irritated with me that I couldn’t hear over all the noise. I struggled through, “updated” my profile, and hung up.

A couple of days later I checked the tracking info for my second order and saw the delivery estimate was for the end of the day on 1/21. Well, 1/21 came and went with no pv.body delivery. Shocking. Finally, on January 28 I received my second order, again a month after the order had been placed and charged to my account. I wasn’t very excited to open the package, so I didn’t (at least for a day).

The next day, January 29, I got an email from Karissa. Not only had she not received her package, her tracking link said that there was no estimated delivery for her package. She had tried emailing them, but hadn’t received a response. At this point I was beyond frustrated. It’s one thing for me to not get my own packages in a timely manner, but when it starts affecting my readers I can’t stand for it.

I called pv.body and was again greeted by so much background noise that I couldn’t even hear the customer service representative. I asked her several times if she could go to a quieter location, but instead she just continued to try to talk to me at a louder volume. Finally I got my point across to her that the order had not been delivered, but I had been charged on January 18th. She explained that their stock had been delayed and would be shipping out as soon as possible. Not having it, I asked her if this was the third month the stock had been delayed since my two orders had also been delivered a month after they had been ordered. She got flustered and put a supervisor on the phone.

The supervisor apologized for the delay, but once I asked why this keeps happening on a regular basis, he started making excuses and blaming everyone except pv.body. It wasn’t a good look. He then told me that starting next month pv.body was going to be rolling out their own line of clothing, of comparable quality to the name brands they were currently carrying. He also said that starting next month they will no longer be charging people until orders had shipped. Glad you decided to do that AFTER you’ve been in business for several months. He assured me that Karissa’s order would be shipped within the next two days. I thanked him for his time and hung up. Then I proceeded to fully cancel my account.

As luck would have it, Heather posted an update about pv.body that same day. She’s an ambassador for pv.body so I was interested in her take. From her post:

pv.body is launching Ellie, a new clothing line made by the pv.body team. Starting on February 1st, Ellie will be the only brand being shipped out to you in your monthly subscription services. That means you will not be receiving brands like lululemon, NUX, or Nike in your monthly subscriptions. You will be receiving exclusively Ellie. The pv.body site will re-direct viewers to Ellie.com and current pv.body subscriptions will begin receiving the Ellie clothing line in their packages.

THAT was disappointing to read, for sure. It felt a bit like a bait and switch. “Sign up for pv.body to get workout clothes from brands like Lululemon and Nike at a discount!” to “Oh, just kidding, we can’t afford that anymore so even though your next shipment has probably already been billed, we’re not sending those brands anymore.”

I also noticed some of the comments were from people who felt the same way. I also saw a comment directing me to Sonya’s post where she reviewed the Ellie line. She wasn’t impressed. From a hole next to the stitching to uneven seams and raveling thread, the capris she received didn’t seem high quality, and definitely not comparable to what I’ve heard about Lululemon and other brands pv.body marketed itself as providing when people started signing up.

I was beyond disappointed at this point, so imagine how upset I was when I got home and opened my second (and final) package from pv.body to find that the capris I received were the Ellie brand (even though it hadn’t officially launched yet). My capris were also poor quality, with the seams not lining up and the thread raveling before even being worn.

I’m so angry. It goes way beyond disappointed at this point. The worst part is that now that Ellie launched today (pvbody.com now redirects to ellie.com), I can’t even log in to check the status of Karissa’s order and see if it actually shipped!

I can’t even begin to say how upset I am with the lack of professionalism in this company. They haven’t been completely honest with their customers, their customer service is abysmal, and now the quality of their product is awful. Other people’s experiences with pv.body and Ellie may have been different, but my own has been so terrible that I couldn’t stay silent. If you feel compelled to try out Ellie, you should. Just know that I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

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