Reviews (1)

I really wanted to like this service, and as a matter of fact, the experience from the first appointment until the 4th month was all great. Unfortunately, the quality of the service and its ability to deliver on what was promised, and the corresponding customer support really declined when it was most important.

While the service promises that a dentist will oversee your teeth straitening process, I've yet to meet or speak with a dentist. I am in my 5th month now. It's implied from their promotional and marketing material that your dentist will be heavily involved in walking you along this journey, but that is far from the truth. At the halfway point of my 7-month aligner journey, you are supposed to "check in with your dentist" on your progress. That check-in compromised of a survey that was sent to me via email in which I had to take selfies of my teeth and submit via an online form. After submitting the form you would think you would hear back with confirmation that all is going as planned. I did not receive any communication confirming that my results had been submitted and received, nor whether they were looked at by a dentist (or anyone for that matter). No one confirmed with me that everything was going as planned, only to find out later that things were not going as planned.

At the halfway point of my 4th month, I started to notice a gap in between my teeth and the actual aligner. At first, I did not think much of this, as I assumed that this was a natural part of the teeth shifting process. Unfortunately, those gaps continued to increase, and in addition, I started to notice a gap in between 2 of my teeth that did not exist before. Yes, you read that right. The aligners were pushing 2 of my teeth further apart. Here's where I started to really get concerned. As I was shifting from 1 week's aligners to the next the gaps in between those aligners and 2 of my bottom teeth started to increase even more. The gap in between the aligner and my teeth was now really visible, and the gap in between 2 of my teeth was also becoming more prominent. At this point, I decided to call SmileDirect.

The customer service call was friendly, and the person responded that my concern was noted and that they would follow up via email with me. I did receive a follow up only to find out that it was requested of me to take 6 more selfies of my teeth, to write down in detail the issues in an email, and identify the teeth numbers that I was concerned about. This is not the kind of support that I was expecting, nor is it in line with the promise that a dentist will oversee your process. I called and expressed this concern, and the customer support person scheduled me an appointment to go into a local office and have them take the pictures and note the issues.

I visited a local office expecting to see a dentist, but instead, I met with someone who just took pictures of my teeth and another scan. I don't think this person was a dentist, nor do I believe that there are any dentist at these locations. The person was friendly and told me that the gaps were not normal but all is going to be well and that SmileDirect would create me a new pair of aligners and have them sent to me. I appreciated the friendly service, though it did not ease my concern about the quality of the service and the product that I have invested money and 5 months in.

I left the office thinking that all would be handled from here and my new aligners would be sent to me seamlessly with no issues. Unfortunately, I was wrong again. I was told by the person at the office to keep on my current retainers, while I was receiving emails from SmileDirect to take them off and switch to the next pair. In addition, I also received an email from a customer support rep (Aura) that suggested everything was fine and my smile was going just as planned. The email implied there is no reason for me to receive new aligners. This was confusing and frustrating, and I had to call and clear up this issue. My faith and trust in the credibility of the service continued to decline even further, and I asked to speak with a customer account representative that can once and for all settle the concerns I have and ensure that the remainder of my service would not be chaotic. They said an account rep who handles these types of issues would call.

Two days later I received a call from a representative (his name is Tim) who was friendly at first, but unfortunately went on to make my experience with this company even worse. I expressed my concerns and this issues with Tim, and Tim repeatedly iterated that the gaps in between my teeth and the aligners are normal, and the gap in between my 2 teeth that kept increasing was just a part of the initial smile plan that I would have noticed had I reviewed the smile plan that was sent to me at the beginning of the service. As you can imagine this was infuriating. I had logged in multiple times when I received the initial smile plan and reviewed carefully the transitions my teeth were going to go through. At no point did I notice an increasing gap in between 2 of them. I also did not and do not believe that increasing gaps between the aligners and my teeth are a normal part of the process. They custom make these aligners to fit perfectly on your teeth, why would they make the aligner have a gap in between it and 2 of my teeth? That does not make sense, and I was afraid that this gap would severely influence how my teeth would or would not shift. In addition, while Tim refused to acknowledge that anything was going wrong, why did his colleague who I had seen a few days before express to me that this was an issue and that new aligners would be custom made to fix and address my concerns?

After a lengthy and frustrating call with Tim, Tim agrees that new aligners would be sent to me at no charge and I would receive a $200 discount. This appeased me a bit, but again the experience that follows continued to disappoint and infuriate.

I receive another email that new aligners have been created for me and that I need to call to order them. Jaded with all this back and forth, I call at this point only to find out that ordering means I have to pay for the new aligners. As you can imagine, this is infuriating again. I go through the whole issue to another rep again and the rep puts me on hold only to come back and tell me that I don't have to pay for the new aligners, but I need to call again in 3-5 business days to make sure that the order is processed and that I'm not charged. I still don't understand why this has to be this complicated...but I have no choice at this point and I agree.

I go back to look at the email of the new smile that was created for me and I log in to see the progress that my teeth would go through only to find out that my new smile would take an additional 3-4 months to complete. I was supposed to wear my aligners until August of this year, and now the new smile would have me wearing them until December (that's if I receive them in the next 2 weeks). If nothing was wrong and all was going as planned, why am I wearing aligners for 3-4 additional months than what was promised initially?

As of today (6/1/2019) I'm waiting on my new aligners to be processed and sent to me. I will update this review if anything changes and the company properly remedies this issue.