I have purchased several meds from Indian pharmacies, and here I’m going to share my experiences.
I selected several vendors, all from this thread and others on this site. I just received packages from several, so I’ll share my experience there, and I’m waiting on more so I won’t mention those for now.
I sent the same email to several vendors, looking to buy specific brands in decent quantity, 300 pills each of Rapacan 1mg from Biocon/Eris, 300 pills of telmisartan 40mg Telact 40, 300 pills of empagliflozin 25mg, and 300 pills of pitavastatin. I requested a quote on the meds in that quantity. The vendors I’ll discuss are 4:
Jagdish rlhealthcare1928@gmail.com
Safe Overseas safeoverseas22@gmail.com
Forveda Online Private Limited forvedaindia@gmail.com
Holystics Medicure Indiamart
Let me first dispose of the one I couldn’t use - Holystics Medicure. I could find no email for this outfit, and only could contact them through an intermediary, Indiamart. That is a terrible, terrible modality. The impossibility of contacting Holystics directly made communication extremely onerous - Indiamart communicator is flaming SH|T. It will only let you input your request into their stupid box and they forward it to the vendor, and in response to those specific inquiries, I was sent the entire catalogue of what Holystics carries for me to find and price out meds - garbage. I tried really, really hard to communicate through the Indiamart middleman and it was super hard - like they simply would not allow text to be sent, except for specific phrases you had to select and there was no questions to be asked. I still managed to power through all of that, but then for payment the details were just not good enough for wise.com, and I had no way of contacting Holystics directly, and Indiamart was useless. So I gave up. Maybe Holystics is a good vendor, and maybe you know how to deal with Indiamart, but this was just too much of a painpoint for me, so after hours and days of trying, I said EFF IT and stopped… now I get spam from Indiamart wanting me to buy textiles and offers of threads. I will never try to use these clowns again.
Now on to real vendors. I sent the same email in the same timeframe to Jagdish (RL Pharma), Safe Overseas, Forveda Online, it was day here in LA, CA USA, but middle of the night in India.
Surprisingly, I almost immediately got a response from Safe Overseas - prices, banking details. A few hours later, when everyone else woke up, I got a response from Jagdish and Forveda. Both provided the price and banking details. HOWEVER, first distinction:
Jagdish and Safe Overseas, provided prices for each of the 4 meds, plus shipping. Forveda, only provided a global price with everything included - no breakout of individual prices or shipping. Not exactly 5 stars for transparency. However, the prices were very reasonable across the board, with the lowest (by a small margin) from Safe Overseas ($530), next Forveda ($580), and Jagdish ($687) most expensive (though not insane). I responded to all and stated that I want to go ahead with the purchase. They all requested my personal details, name, address, phone#, which I provided.
Now a bit about payment method. I opted for going with wise.com. It’s a bit of a hassle to set up an account. But, the first vendor I tried to pay through wise.com was Jagdish, and it went SWIMMINGLY. No issues at all - I suspect that is because wise.com recognized Jagdish’s email, so he’s a trusted vendor. I input all the banking details Jagdish provided and it all went through, smooth as silk. No issues. I alerted Jagdish and he said as soon as he receives the funds, he’ll send the package.
Trying to get Safe Overseas paid was a major hassle. Wise.com had a devil of a time accepting the banking details, but in the end I managed. Then, I hit a snag - “provide invoice #” - no matter what I put in, it would simply not accept it and I was in communication with the guy from Safe Overseas, and he suggested that next time, I choose not “business” but “personal” and they won’t ask for invoice. But it was too late. So then he provided a link with his details already imbedded in wise.com and clicking on that would resolve the issue - only now I had to create a special account with wise.com where I could deposit funds from which it would draw. That was easy enough until they asked for ID confirmation - it would simply not accept the selfie I was taking of myself (to match it with my passport or DL) - I tried both the passport and the DL - no luck, tried literally dozens of times. Finally, I did it on my wife’s phone, and somehow this time it accepted my photo! Funds transferred, the link provided by Safe worked, and now it was time for Safe to wait for funds and get busy sending the meds.
Forveda Online was also not easy to get accepted on wise.com, but in Forveda’s favor, they provided an insanely well done instruction set with screencaptures, so it was idiot proof, just the best, lol. Finally, randomly, one time, having changed nothing, kept putting the same info, wise.com cooperated. Forveda waited for funds.
Remember to include the fees charged by wise.com and payment method in the total sum, otherwise your vendor will be shortchanged. It’s not much anyway $15-$40.
This all happened over the span of two days. Funds were shown by wise.com as sent.
Observations up to this point. Forveda and Jagdish were brisk and to the point bam and done. Safe Overseas meanwhile was very communicative and extremely solicitous - like I have about 40 emails from Safe, and like 5 from Forveda and Jagdish. Part of it were the difficulties with wise.com that Safe Overseas account had, in fact, the guy from Safe even called me on two occasions! But mostly Safe was communicating every step (“funds now here”, “my next step will be”, “thank you” etc.)… almost too much, lol!
Next big point: Safe Overseas contacts me very distressed. He cannot source the exact brand of pitavastatin I want. He wants an alternate brand - I provide several options. He goes with Zydus (which btw. all the other vendors did too… except on their own initiative - not very happy about it, but OK since the brand was good). And then the sticking point - Safe Overseas guy calls me on the phone, he needs another $20 over the quote he gave to buy the Zydus pitavastatin, I agree, he sends me a wise.com embeded link and I do it on the spot. Problem solved. Even with the extra $20, still the cheapest (though not by much).
A few days later I get emails from all three. They’ve sent the packages. Photos included and tracking number. DISTINCTION #2!! Again, with Forveda. Forveda, on their own initiative, said in the email that they’ll be breaking the package into two, sending first one with about half the meds - which tracking # they provided. Their justification was that it would be easier to pass customs with a small package. I’m not super happy about it. I understand, and don’t even object to the idea, but would’ve liked a heads up and agreement from me, instead of being put in a position of fait accompli.
All this was concluded in less than a week, and by the end of the week, Sept 27, the packages were sent. Now the tracking was all over the place for each package, but surprisingly I got all 3 of them the same day, October 10… super fast, seems to me.
All packages were well put together. Most inconspicuous was the Forveda, because it was small (half the meds), and there was no padding inside, though meds were safe. The biggest by size was Jagdish, and Safe Overseas, even though package was smaller had a lot of padding (including styrofoam).
All the packages had the brand and medication quantities specified. Expiration dates were not insane - i.e. no old meds close to expiration. Jagdish had the best looking product insofar as on one of the drugs the original packaging had those ‘break seal’ ribbons, clearly brand new unopened.
One issue: one of the vendors sent an off brand empagliflozin with pretty funky looking pills - some were discolored as if by mold and randomly smudged. I am not going to say who it is because I don’t want to penalize the vendor reputationally, nor am I going to complain to the vendor BECAUSE IT WAS 100% MY FAULT. Namely, I specified the brands of all the meds, but forgot to specify the brand for empagliflozin, so the vendor was free to select whatever brand/generic they’d please. My fault. I will not use these off brand pills - I’m tossing them, and again, I will not even alert the vendor as it is 100% my fault.
I informed all the vendors that my meds arrived. Safe Overseas as usual was aware of it and sent me emails all along the processing of the package, lol. Forveda owes me the second half of the pills.
SUMMARY OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS. All three vendors performed quite well (Holystics doesn’t count). I would do business with any of them again. The distinctions among them are pretty minor. Jagdish takes the prize by a nose - super professional, no wasted words, everything provided, 100% transparency; more expensive, yeah, but I’ll gladly pay more for this level of service - A+. Safe Overseas is super solicitous, if you need hand holding that’s the guy for you - very eager for the business, very appreciative, slightly hapless (needing the extra $20), extremely competitive price-wise; great service overall. Forveda - somewhat a tricky vendor, not super transparent, doing stuff without consulting ahead of time, but in the plus column competitive prices, extremely well mapped out payment process through wise.com.
Again, I’d do business with any of these three. Recommended.
Points to remember: (1) wise.com can be tricky, prepare to be frustrated, for it to take days if you don’t already have an account set up, and don’t forget to include the fees otherwise you’re shorting the vendor! (2) specify the exact brand of the medication you’re ordering, and don’t accept substitutions you have not OK’d yourself! Stick to good brands from major manufacturers and known pharma companies, nothing local or small off brands (3) be prepared that the initial quote may be not final if the vendor cannot get the brand you want and must do a substitution (which YOU MUST FIRST CLEAR!) which is more expensive. The post office and customs are a lottery - your package may fly through in record time, or be stuck, or confiscated, it’s a lottery. Package size and pill quantity may matter, but none of my packages were inspected by customs, so that didn’t matter, and the sizes were from 18"x6"x10" (Jagdish) to a small one (Forveda - but only half the pills) - it’s uncertain whether you an influence the chances of smooth sailing by being careful about size of package or number of pills - it’s a lottery so as my favorite saying goes “it is better to be lucky than to be good”.
All in all pretty happy with the experience. Would’ve preferred not to deal with all these complications and be able to buy in the U.S. without scrip hassles and at reasonable prices, but alas, you can’t have everything.
I’m still waiting on other stuff from India, but as these arrived, I can only speak of these vendors in this post. Apologies for such a long post!
UPDATE: after I sent Forveda an email on 10/10/24 informing them that I received their first package with half of my order, today, 10/15/24, they sent an email with a photo of the second package being sent (as yet not showing up at the usps tracking). Will update when/if arrives.
