Posting this as a caution to anyone who is interested in buying HeyBuddy QR code dog tags, as I haven't seen much discussion about the brand online but their ads show up all over my Instagram feed. They are at best an under-resourced and poorly run company, and at worst, a flat-out scam.

Sorry in advance for the long post, skip to the TL;DR if you must.

I'll admit, this experience was partly on me. I should have stuck to the cardinal rule of "Do not buy items that are advertised to you on Instagram"... but alas. Holiday consumerism overwhelmed me.

After seeing a couple ads for the tags this winter, I caved. The concept was really cool to me - a free database for more robust pet info than what fits on a tag? I ordered a pair for my little gremlins on Dec 28th.

The company sent me a purchase confirmation and a USPS "pre-shipment" code immediately, and said it would just be 3-5 days to ship. Fourteen days went by, and the USPS tracker never showed the package as received. I emailed HeyBuddy customer service a couple weeks into January about the status and got a response that was essentially "Oops! We're having fulfillment issues. It'll be 3-5 days this time, sorry!"

Okay, no big deal.

The next five days passed and I reached out to support again asking for an update. This time, I received no response. A couple MORE days went by, and I went ahead and submitted a credit chargeback, as I was beginning to suspect this package was not coming. At this point, it had been 3 weeks since I placed the order.

Within a day of submitting the chargeback, customer service reached out acknowledging that they received notice of the chargeback and asked me if I wanted to continue my order. They claimed at this point that USPS must have stolen my package, even though their own tracking link showed that the package was never accepted by USPS.

I asked them to cancel (which they did)... but they then proceeded to send me a "review us!" link, at which time I gave them 1-star and wrote how I had been excited for the tags, but was not happy with the experience and never got them.

This is when shit got batty.

Their "customer service specialist" emailed me directly sarcastically "thanking" for me for the review, and told me that I shouldn't be unreasonable with my expectations. Some direct quotes from their emails: - "haha omg you're not even listening" - "USPS is notorious for stealing/losing packages" - "I am [not] even angry, I'm just disappointed with you" - "Life isn't perfect and shit happens" - "Why do you think postage was paid for? Getting a shipping label means postage was paid for"

I have the full emails, which I'm happy to share if there's enough interest. They are truly bananas. I believe that I was never going to get these tags. My review is almost certainly deleted, and after going back, I noticed that they don't have a single review lower than 4* on their website, so I'm sure they delete any negative reviews.

TL;DR: HeyBuddy never sent the dog tags I purchased, lied multiple times about shipment dates, tried to use a "pre-shipment" USPS code as proof that they paid for postage and sent the package (even though that is not how that works), and when confronted told me that "life isn't perfect and shit happens". I wouldn't recommend to anyone.