My experience with Universal Drug Store (Canadian Pharmacy)

A while ago, I posted a question about recommended Canadian Pharmacy. Many of you replied, so thanks for your replies. Nobody mentioned Universal Drug Store (UDS), that I had bookmarked a really long time ago. I decided to give a try.

Noah_Bodie has written excellent posts on this subject and notsosicklygirl's off the board communication helped me to figure out the ways to go around this idea of buying drugs from Canada. Thank you.

GI Rxed me Canasa. I have not met my deductible yet so I was to pay $618 for 30 suppositories. I said, hell no. Got a 3X prescription from the GI. Universal drug store was offering it for $90/30 supps or $220/90 supps+free shipping. The GI made a mistake that she did not write the strength, since Canasa is offered in only one strength in the US.

The online order went smoothly, I attached scanned copy of the prescription. Next day, I got a call from Panama City to confirm my order, card number and everything. I did that.

The day after, I get a call again to confirm. This time I did not answer anything and told the caller that I have already confirmed, I will not do it again. If there is any issue, contact me by email.

The 4th day after the order, the same thing happens. The call quality was pretty bad so I asked them to write me instead. I wrote an email to tell UDS, if there is any issue regarding prescription, contact my GI, gave them phone number, fax number and the website. I got a reply that they will contact my GI's office.

The 5th day, I called up and ask what the issue is. Why the order is not yet processed. The agent tells me that there is no strength on the Rx and the local Canadian regulation require strength on the Rx. I tell her that Canasa is available only in one strength in the US and she should check Canasa website.

I get same thing replied to my email and I wrote back the same. I also suggested them to contact my GI. Now that was friday afternoon. At the same time, I wrote to my GI's office to inform them about such call.
Monday goes without any action. So now one week after the order, there is no activity by UDS to get a new prescription, although they kept telling me that they will contact my GI's office.

On Tuesday, I contacted GI's office and asked them to fax in a new prescription. They faxed it within 2 hours and it took another week or so for them to fill up the prescription and send it out. The box arrived within 10 days.
The product is Made in Canada. Check the attached picture.

I have not used the medication but I do not have any reason to suspect anything fishy. Of course, I will update if anything shows up.

What I liked -

- Decent ordering process

- Accessible customer service i.e. you are not on hold forever

- Cheapest prices (that I could find)

- Free shipping over $100

What I disliked

- No communication between phone agents and email agents. This is rather a big annoyance. And then if they are going to contact your GI, who will contact, the pharmacist, customer service personnel or someone else. You do not get that answer.  

- Slow processing

- Multiple offices and they do not know which office will charge your card.

- Confirmation of your order. Frankly, I do not see the need, unless you are ordering opiates or similar and could fall under DEA radar (but then UDS does not sell those drugs either). I am yet to come across anybody who will order the medications without need or for charity.

- Extremely crappy customer service phone line (from Panama City).

Would I order from them again? Yeah sure but now I know how they operate, I will take initiative at a very first instance of any issue with the prescription or the order.

  

Feel free to post questions, if I have not answered in my long post

VIEW IMAGE

It will be great if we could know the experience of other pharmacies as well. Not all pharmacies stock everything that we may need. Thanks in advance.

I just noted your comments about buying Salofalk from Univeral Drugstore.  Prior to May 2013 Canada purchased their Salofalk sup from Azcam Pharmacy in Atlanta GA.  This company also makes Canasa, same product, but labeled it Salofalk when distributing to Canada. I confirmed all this information when I went to my physician to discuss ordering from Canada.  It looked like a no brainer.  But now Canada purchases their mesalamine suppositories from Turkey.  It is from Ali Raif Pharmacy in Istanbul Turkey and some products will be labeled Asocal.  Some are labeled Salofalk.  If you read carefully on the Universal Drugstore website it tells you where the product is shipped from.  It will say Product of Canada shipped from Turkey.  In other words, manufactured in Turkey and then reboxed in Canada for shipping.  They no longer carry the product made in Axcam GA.  .

I just ordered my first time on line in Canada for the same reason..cost.  The Canasa 1gm supp #90 was $920.00 for 3 months with my BCBS insurance.  It was $220 for Salofalk 1gm #90 from Universal Drugstore.  Before my order, I called to confirm the country of production.  But after my order, a couple of weeks later, I was notified that Canada would now be only be obtaining these products from Turkey.

The website has changed their wording on this product and one must look very carefully to see the difference.  I went ahead with the order.  Still waiting on shipment..takes almost 2 months after all the paperwork.  It takes 3-4 weeks for UDS to obtain, then they ship with another 2 weeks estimated time. Customer service keeps using the phrase of 10 days to ship but they actually mean at the end of all this they guarantee 10 days. 

This product may be fine.  I will know in another week or so.   

But..bottom line..the product is NOT made in Canada and NOT Axcam Pharmaceutical.  I am suspicious when the drugstore isn't proud of their product source. 

And..last one.you can still get the enemas and other products made in the US and distributed in Canada. Axcam mainly produces GI meds so most are from them. Just not the suppository. Maybe someday I will get someone on the phone that knows the why of the change although I assume it is cost and profit margins.

@ redfish,

May be they changed the source recently. As the picture I uploaded, it says Mfd. in Canada. I think, it will be illegal to label it like that if its made in Turkey.

And to be honest with you, What does it matter where it is made? The fcuk ups can happen anywhere, several cases have been documented in the US as well, so as long as we get the medication, it is fine. A friend of mine got Celebrex for me from India. I paid $6 for 30 day supply and here, with insurance, it costs me $320.. (A note, she could have got me for even $2.40 but that brand was not available in the pharmacy.)

 

It strikes me odd that we, the US residents, can not afford the medications Made in US or are sold at higher price in the US than in Canada. That clearly shows how the system is messed up and the unwillingness of the politician to fix it. It is so sickening to get sick in this country. 

 

 

With UDS, I do not plan to order any other medication from them in future. The uncertainty of the medication arrival is beyond my tolerance.

You mean that the suppositories were made in Turkey and repackaged (individually or boxed?) in Canada? If so, I too would have preferred to know. It would not have any difference to my decision though.

With the medications from India (or any generic for that matter), usually the medication is not an issue but the excipients used in the formulation. Sometimes these excipients do not work well with few folks and that overall affects the medication effect.
To those who have tried brand medication and then the generic, many a times the generic is bitter or tastes different, that is because of these excipients.

If you read around the board, many have reported reduced efficacy with generic Colazal as opposed to Colazal.

Could you post few pictures please.

Thanks

Take picture of your box of various sides, picture of suppository strip and upload them one by one on http://tinypic.com/
Once you upload each image, you will get links, use link for forum or board or BB and post that link here in your message.

Which specifics you are asking about? The manufacturer etc? If so, I never asked them and trusted them with what it said online. That time, it mentioned on the page that shipping from Canada (and it was shipped from Vancouver, BC)
Now I notice that it says, shipped from Turkey.

No worries,
I think you got lost in the buttons there. I use this website often and do not have myspace account. Consider using Ad-Block Plus on your browsers so that the junk is blocked.

In an age of Amazon and other sites that compete based on customer-service, it's hard to believe a company, like Universal Drug Store, can be so apathetic about the customer experience. I have, more than once, tried to order non-prescription items from their site; only to be subjected to a series of annoying phone-calls and voice-messages requesting alternate billing information. The last effort, I tried once more because their is a page for entering electronic-check information. After placing my order electronically, I then get a voice mail telling me I need to call them. On the other end is a burned-out telemarketing employee telling me what limited options they accepts for billing; without any knowledge whatsoever about the electronic-check option on the website. They then tell me about an awkward series of steps I need to go-through in order to give them payment. I ended up eventually just cancelling the order. This company pretends to be an internet-based drug-store, but is backward and not worth the trouble.

El Balsero....You can fix your own errors within the post by clicking on the pencil in the upper right corner of the post. No need to make a new one

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