ever bought stinky Colgate toothpaste?

I finally got around to calling Colgate today to report a second tube of toothpaste gone bad. I mean, whoever heard of a brand new tube of toothpaste that stinks to high heaven? Eww, I’ve never encountered anything like this in my life. Neither has anyone I’ve talked to. Have you?

But these days, everything is substandard – clothes that get distorted or discolored in a couple of washes, bag straps that disintegrate after a few uses, stuff like that – so nothing surprises me any more. It just makes me wonder whatever happened to quality control and business ethics.

Anyhow when I encountered the first tube of stinky Colgate Triple Action, I thought it was just a one-off. But when the next tube of Total 12 turned out to have that same horrible stink, I had it!

So I called their toll-free customer line and surprisingly, someone picked up in less than 5 rings. So that was nice, as was the lady who answered the phone. So I thought it was all going to be worked out quickly – that she’d just replace them for me.

But after 15 minutes of getting down to the details, she said she’d send her agent to pick up the 2 bad tubes + 3 new tubes that I asked to exchange just in case they’re from the same batch.

She would then send the 2 bad tubes to Thailand to be analyzed. She would call me back after 2 weeks or whenever she receives the results of their findings and only then will she arrange to send me the 2 replacement tubes for the ones gone bad.

I was like what? Just replace the tubes, darn it, and you can take all the time in the world to do your analysis in Thailand or the South Pole, I really don’t care. I’m not interested in what went wrong with your production. That’s your problem.

We’re talking about a few miserable tubes of toothpaste here, not a Rolls Royce for crying out loud! In fact, to compensate me for my trouble, they should throw in a few tubes free as a goodwill gesture.

I’m not happy with this kind of customer service but let’s wait and see how they handle the case. Meantime I’m switching to another brand. Stinky toothpaste is the last thing I need to start my morning.