1st Phorm’s ‘110% Money-Back Guarantee’

Supplement company 1st Phorm is so confident in its products it offers a 110% money-back guarantee.

In other words, according to 1st Phorm, if you order one of the company’s products and aren’t happy with the results, the company will not only fully refund your purchase, it will give you an additional 10%, no questions asked.

A sampling of marketing examples touting the 110% money-back guarantee appears below.

The supplement company explained the reasoning behind its money-back guarantee in a recent Instagram post (included above), writing:

Why do we do this? Because no other company stands behind their products like we do, and we want you to be able to try new products worry-free.

But does 1st Phorm actually offer a 110% money-back guarantee?

To test it out, TINA.org made a recent purchase on 1stPhorm.com. Specifically, we ordered the company’s Opti-Greens 50 superfood greens powder for $69.99 plus $15.43 for standard shipping for a total of $85.42.

But when we sent the product back for a refund, we were only reimbursed $69.99. In other words, instead of getting 110% of our money back, we only got about 82%.

As it turns out, shipping is not included in the touted 110% money-back guarantee. That’s according to the actual terms of the guarantee, which are disclosed on the 1st Phorm website (but which are only accessible if you click a link at the bottom of the site).

The company sent a return label so we were spared the cost of return shipping but the money-back guarantee still came up nearly 30% short of the advertised 110%.

Company responds

In response to TINA.org’s request for comment, 1st Phorm said it makes all of the “material information” relating to its 110% money-back guarantee available to consumers “once they arrive on our website.” The company provided the following explanation for why we didn’t get the 110% money-back guarantee (minus shipping costs).

[I]f a customer opts to get a refund back to the credit card used to purchase the product, we are only able to refund the original purchase price to their credit card due to credit card processor limitations. In those situations, we have to separately issue the additional 10% refund once the return is complete, but your experience identified a scenario where our system didn’t trigger the refund of the additional 10%.

The company offered to send the additional 10% via PayPal or mail a check and said it would look into ways to ensure what happened to us doesn’t happen again.

The bottom line

Consumers should be wary of ads that promote guarantees, and look into the terms and conditions of these enticing offers before signing up.

See more of our coverage on supplements.