Self-Introduction of PolarMeds.com
PolarMeds.com is an accredited by CIPA online store or at least that’s what they claim. Checked if that’s true and it seems that on official CIPA’s website this has been confirmed. According to the information on their site, this pharmacy has been online since 2002 meaning they are a long lasting pharmacy yet, this website does looks like it’s a site from 90s, checking its design and home page. By doing a bit more research, it seems that this is an online pharmacy established in Canada. According to the information on the site, they are not a pharmacy, actually they claim to be an international prescription service which is connecting the potential customers with some real and big pharmacies in Canada offering medications are low prices. Although they confess not to offer all the existed medications in the world, they do claim to have available most of the drugs that you can find in Canada and in the United States of America.
Assortment Diversity
According to the information on Polar Meds, absolutely all of the drugs that are available on their site are approved by FDA which means that the medications they are selling should be of a high quality and safe to use. I was trying to see medications categorized, however they do not offer such a list. The potential customers need to either use the search bar or to search by the first letter of the drug. Having trust in what we can see on their website, this pharmacy is offering more than 2000 of different pharmaceutical products, both over the counter the prescription products available in their stock. With such a big number of items, I can assume that they are offering a very wide selection of medications. A good database of drugs being available is always welcome.
By doing a bit of research online through their medications I noticed they are offering lots of different drugs for different needs such as drugs for: women’s health, pain relief, erectile dysfunction drugs, men’s health, diabetes, weight loss, skin care, antidepressants and a variety of other medications. On their front page you can see the list of their bestsellers looking like:
From as much as I noticed, this pharmacy is offering both generic and branded products, nevertheless the company is trying to make customers go for the generic form of the products and that’s because, as they claim, they are cheaper and in the same time, trying to explain the quality and the safeness of using the generic drugs giving details about the benefits compared to the branded drugs.
Doing my usual research for ED medications, I noticed they are offering all the usual ED medications which includes Sildenafil, Tadalafil and Vardenafil. This pharmacy, as I said earlier, offers both generics and branded medications so customers may buy Sildenafil as Viagra by Pfizer or generic, Tadalafil as Cialis by Lilly or generic and lastly, Vardenafil as Levitra by Bayer or generic. I would not say that this pharmacy has as much ED medications as other online pharmacies I reviewed so far.
This online pharmacy has many different medications and yet, there is not a categories list and due to this reason as well as due to the reason that there are not as much ED drugs compared to other pharmacies my rate is 4 points here.
Prices Affordability
As much as we can understand, it is extremely important for every customer to get medications at the best possible deals and the prices for medications are playing an essential role in attracting a customer. By doing a research I could determine that here the prices seem to be *normal* or *average*. Other pharmacies offer much higher prices but there are lower prices as well. As known, there are generics which have a lower prices and getting into number you can order here: Viagra generic anywhere between 0.32 USD to 3.33 USD per tablet; Cialis generic anywhere between 0.67 USD to 3.26 USD per tablet; Levitra generic anywhere between 1.05 USD to 3.71 USD per tablet;
With the price greatly depending on the strength and quantity of pills that you choose. The prices for brands, obviously, are much higher – 4 tablets of Viagra 25 mg would cost you 72 USD; 28 tablets of 2.5 mg Cialis would be 189 USD and 32 tablets of 10 mg Levitra would be 327 USD. You can find the prices looking like:
The prices are pretty good, but then again, I have seen better prices and I have seen worse prices. but since the prices are pretty attractive and getting even better purchasing more tablets at once my rate goes with 4 stars.
Shipping Policy
According to the information on PolarMeds.com, the process of order is done up to 3 days and the delivery is up to 3 weeks. All of the orders are verified by a licensed Canadian doctor and dispensed by a pharmacist.
Unlike other pharmacies out there, the pharmacy can ship both prescription and OTC medications in the same parcel if you order them and you would get one shipping fee. However, unlike other pharmacies, they do not accept returns as soon as it leaves their stores meaning that as soon as they left – they are all yours. The only way to return meds are if damaged during transit. They would resend for free if the parcel got lost in transit. They claim that there are sometimes when the delivery can be delayed because of customs and this can happen especially on holidays so you should wait for the parcel up to 4 weeks then. But if the meds do not arrive in 3 weeks you need to ask for a refund or free reship by calling their toll free phone number.
They offer 2 shipping options – cheaper and slower or faster but more expensive. The shipping fees are 10 USD for slower one and 20 USD for the faster delivery option.
In the end, this online pharmacy has no overnight delivery not even to those living nearby, the shipping fees could be lower, they do not accept returns, and there is no info about exact delivery free with no free delivery option. All in all, it deserves 2 points for this unit.
Payment Options
Checking through their site for information on payment options I have found the following: PolarMeds.com is accepting: Personal Checks, Certified Checks, Bank Money Orders and International Money Orders and good news is that pharmacy does not charge any tax on purchases. Although the pharmacy does seem to have some payment options, they do not accept credit cards which very often is super helpful. Therefore, pharmacy gets 2 for payment options.
Technical Characteristics of PolarMeds.com
Loading Speed
Very often, we are running out of time so we definitely do not want to access slow running websites. That’s especially when we are searching for medications. I checked the information with the help of Google data analyzer and I wanted to see how fast PolarMeds.com pages are loading. Sadly but I was not able to find any information about it because the Speed information is *unavailable* and that’s why I can assume there’s a risk that you might experience delays trying to use the pharmacy’s site. For both mobile version and desktop version the optimization is all perfect with score of 100 out of 100, nevertheless, the speed, sometimes plays an even more important rate. Due to the reasons I gave earlier, my score cannot get higher than 2 out of 5 here.
Mobile Version
We all known that nowadays, people tend accessing the websites from their mobile phones and so, any modern website should have an optimized and good mobile version for mobile phones, otherwise they might lose customers. I have checked for it and regretfully, I have seen that this site does not have a mobile version.
Without a mobile version of this website, the site barely can be accessed from a mobile device and that’s why it is near to impossible ordering from them from a smart phone. With this being said, my rate is 1 star for mobile version.
Is PolarMeds.com Secure?
There’s information on their website suggesting that Polar Meds is having a website which means all the required privacy standards and therefore, all of their customers are risk free of getting the personal information stolen. Unfortunately, this has been proved wrong and that’s really sad as this means that the customers’ personal information might be disclosed by third parties and since the website connection is not secure, navigating through the site is not recommended at all.
It is obvious that an online pharmacy without a secure connection cannot getting anything more than 1 star for security.
Antivirus Presence
An Antivirus is the software which keeps the customers away from getting unwanted viruses on their computers which might lead to personal information such as credit cards info being lost and therefore – getting your money stolen. Without an antivirus on the website, PolarMeds.com can be classified as an unsafe place to purchase your medications from otherwise you might catch malwares and unwanted viruses. Then again, such an online pharmacy will receive 1 star due to the lack of the antivirus.
How to order from PolarMeds.com
By doing a bit of research, I have seen that there are 2 different ways you can place an order with PolarMeds.com. Except for being able to order online, which would offer you a faster processing, the customers are also able to order by mail, but I would mostly talk about ordering online.
After finding the needed medications and adding those items to your online shopping cart by clicking the *add to cart* button then you can easily proceed to checkout. Proceeding there you are going to need to ask a series of some questions and in case you’re going to be ordering an prescription medications then you are also going to need to either mail them or fax them a prescription for that drug from a licensed doctor.
One inconvenient thing here is that you cannot order any medications here unless you’re going to register first. Only after you would have an account ready on their site then you can start ordering.
By using the mail order you would need to fill out the patient order form and prescription request form which you can find on their site. But generally, this method takes longer until you get your drugs. Bear in mind that all new orders must come with an original prescription.
According to their information, the pharmacy needs up to 3 business days for only processing your order and honestly – that’s a really long time only for the process of the order. According to the info there, people would need to wait for their medication for an entire month for getting their medications to be delivered and I think that’s too long and few people can wait for that long.
But as I said earlier, this pharmacy has no drug categories list and as I said, that’s pretty inconvenient. You can use the search box or you could browse by alphabet, but that’s not always helpful.
However, they do have one pleasant thing – the original and the generic meds are clearly distinct from each other so you can’t purchase the wrong product by accident plus you know very well what you buy compared to other pharmacies when they do not show such information.
So after trying to order anything here’s what I can conclude: the registration for ordering is mandatory, they do not offer a categories list, there is no drug list, you cannot change the language and the currency on the site and they take 3 days to process your order with mail order as well but it takes even longer. All in all, my rate is 2 stars here.
Is PolarMeds.com Legitimate?
Checking Polar Meds Rating on ScamAdviser.com
ScamAdviser.com is very often very helpful in determining the legitimacy of an online pharmacy and by checking scam adviser’s information here’s what I have found about PolarMeds.com:
As much as we can see, Polar Meds is a company located either in USA or in Canada but it is a company with a site that is threat listed and although the site has been out there for more than 16 years which is longer than most of the online pharmacies out there, it has a trust rate of only 56%. Such a rate isn’t very low, but it is not satisfactory either. As expected, malware online reports have been detected for this pharmacy and it was expected such a result after I checked the site’s connection and antivirus. My rate is 3 out of 5 only because it coincides with the address given on their site and because of 56% trust rate.
Prescription Policy
There are OTC medications and there are prescription medications. Those products that does not require a valid prescription are being assigned with a sign but those requiring a valid prescription has another icon which looks like this:
As much as we can see from the photo, all of the prescription products are being required a valid prescription to be ordered and it is not only that you can send your Rx online, they also ask for your Rx to get it mailed before processing your order. You can only order a maximum of 3 month supply of drugs. Your doctor is also able to fill in and fax your prescription himself if you want to, but you can do it yourself.
Such a serious attitude for the prescription policy suggests this is a legal business and is a sign of responsibility. Therefore, my rate here is 5 stars.
Checking the Status on LegitScript
LegitScript.com is another site, which greatly helps us determine if an online pharmacy is legitimate, or not. I was searching for information on it about PolarMeds.com but I have seen they do not have any information in their database about this pharmacy. Because of this reason, I can’t rate it here.
Certifications
As I have said it earlier, this pharmacy has an icon suggesting they are CIPA accredited. I have checked if that’s true and indeed this is a pharmacy accredited by CIPA meaning they are regulated by government. You can see online what does CIPA accreditation means by this makes me rate it with 5 stars for being a CIPA active member.
PolarMeds.com Reviews
Customer Reviews On-Site
Many pharmacies are often sharing testimonials on the sites trying to make people understand what’s like to purchase something from their site. Without being able to find any testimonials about clients leaving their comments, reviews etc. I cannot be sure what’s the shopping experience here. Lack of customer reviews on site makes me rate this point with 1 star.
Polar Meds Reviews on Third-Party Websites
Since I have seen that this online pharmacy has started operating roughly 15 years ago and since it is a CIPA accredited pharmacy I was expecting a lot of reviews online but it seems my assumptions were wrong. That’s because there are only 3 customer reviews and the last one was written more than a year ago. 2 of those reviews were positive and one is negative. 2 people said they are happy using this online store’s services as they always get their medications from this site and this helps them save lots of money. They always get excellent customer service and in time delivery. This all sounds great.
However, another customer review left by Patrick said that his credit card has been hacked as soon as he put his information on the site and they tried to steal his money as soon he has done it. Taking in consideration the fact that there are only 3 customer reviews which are not enough to make me understand the pharmacy’s legitimacy and reputation and the fact that one of them suggests the credit card was hacked I cannot rate this unit more than 2 stars.
PolarMeds.com Coupon Codes
I couldn’t find any coupon codes on this online pharmacy regardless of how much I was searching for them, either on the site or anywhere else. the pharmacy doesn’t seem to offer any free stuff, bonuses or anything in this matter. All that I noticed is that the more you order, the more % of money you save off their sum. Other than that – nothing. I don’t think this is enough to satisfy customer needs.
Customer Support Service
PolarMeds.com Contact Information
Earlier I mentioned there is an address for this pharmacy – a mailing address, there’s a fax number, a phone number and 2 email addresses.
That’s really good. What’s not so good is that the thing that this company’s physical address is the same as the mailing one is not a fact meaning we can only guess it. Because of this, I rate this pharmacy contact information section with 4 stars which is good.
How to Get a Consultation?
I earlier mentioned that getting a consultation or getting your questions answered you can use the toll free phone number, mailing them (but that would require some time to get a response) or by email. There was no live chat function and that’s sad.
Taking in consideration that there is no live chat function, there is only one phone number which might not get answered or be busy and not getting my email answered, that’s a problem. Therefore they deserve 1 star only.
Conclusion: PolarMeds.com an Unpopular and Insecure Online Prescription Service
As many other pharmacies out there it has strong points but it has many negative points. PolarMeds.com is an accredited CIPA pharmacy, they offer good prices and some coupon codes all of which is a good indicator. But the fact that they have so few negative reviews, insecure connection, lack of antivirus and a comment suggesting that the credit card information is not safe that’s alarming. I think people should think twice before ordering here. My rate is 2.5 stars.