Bark Beats Box. Do not be tempted. My review.

sarahbearah

Regular user here with a name change for privacy.

Last month an offer popped up on Facebook to try one of these boxes half price £7.49. It was advertised as a 'One off box'. Of course I now know that you are subscribed and one off really doesn't mean that at all. The text on the website that now reads 'This is a subscription service' was not there when the Facebook promotion was running.

Now, it's understandable that sometimes people miss things like this and decent companies who want to grow and preserve their businesses understand that, however, this company flatly refuse to refund Junes box, despite the fact it wont even be sent out until the last week of the month and when questioned via their live chat just repeat their T&C's ad nauseum.

Several people have been caught out by this now. I've read on another site that their T&C's actually read that they can cancel a box for any reason and not refund you!

We reserve the right to revoke your membership for any reason at any time including as a result of a violation of these Terms or the Privacy Policy, without notice. Where we revoke your membership, this will not affect current orders which we have acknowledged unless we revoke as a result of your breach of these Terms or the Privacy Policy or any other guidelines or rules, in which case we may terminate all existing orders and will not be obliged to make any refund

Now the image of what you get in the box:

(go to bark beats dot co dot uk and click on whats in the box)

Except again, they aren't being honest here because you don't get all of that in the box at all. The big toys at the top and the bones? You get one or the other, depending on the size of your dog but it doesn't clearly state that.
Looking through the past months boxes also gives the impression of a well filled box of decent value. Again, not true as they are showing the combination of 2 different boxes.

Finally, have a look at the image on the home page of happy owner with a great stuffed box:
Thats a great box isn't it!? It's NOTHING like you'll receive so don't be fooled, again thats the combination of a small AND medium dog box.


Have a look under past boxes for Mays box, Thats the one I got.
As it transpires the Kong can be found for £3 on websites, that delicious looking muffin there? Well that came shrink wrapped to the size of a hockey puck and looks so unappealing I doubt my girl would even sniff it. The chicken soup is in a packet roughly 3" x 4" and wouldn't fill a yorkie, the 'mintz' are ok but are barely half an inch each and the same for the other treats. The three toys at the top are part of another box altogether.
Cost with Facebook offer £7.49, probably about right for the content. Usual cost £14.99.

This company seem to have been sending boxes to bloggers left right and centre for glowing reviews. Well, here is my review. Don't bother.

daytona0

sarahbearah wrote: »

The text on the website that now reads 'This is a subscription service' was not there when the Facebook promotion was running.

I'd like to draw upon this point in particular.

for March 17th we find:

http://web.archive.org/web/20150317033042/http://barkbeats.co.uk/

It is all clearly outlined in both March and June, so on the face of it you have no recourse.

That being said, I do appreciate that facebook campaigns may offer something entirely different from the usual service, and this is your contention. I did some snooping on FB....

- There was zero mention of this 7.49 offer on the main FB page as a normal post.

- I did, however, see a suggested ad at the side! It said:

Last days to buy it!
barkbeats.co.uk
Smooch your Pooch! Get your first doggie box for only 7.45 using the voucher code: BB745
(reduced from 14.90 in the picture)

Clicking that banner takes me directly to the main homepage.


So, not really seeing any ambiguity there....

sarahbearah

It wasn't clear at the time, but hands up, I missed it. My fault.

What is annoying is this company know people will miss this and refuse to refund something they haven't even posted yet. I've taken it up with my bank. Had they simply said 'sorry you missed that' and refunded I would have moved on knowing that I wouldn't be buying their crap again but not taking the time to review them.

What is even more annoying is the absolutely crap content of the box thats worth a fiver at a stretch. I should have photographed the soup, I just attempted to give it to my dog. out came a congealed lump of what looked like vomit and roughly filled a tablespoon. She wouldn't touch it.

All in all it's a poor company with zero customer service skills providing a very poor subscription box value. There are better boxes out there than bark beats and hopefully anyone reading my review will investigate them instead.

wealdroam

sarahbearah wrote: »

I've taken it up with my bank.

What have you taken up with your bank?

You signed up to a subscription service... you now agree that the fact it was a subscription service was there to see.

I cannot see that there is any justification for your bank to interfere.

Unless I have missed something...

Peterdoyle

My wife has had 2 of these and paid months as they arived as agreed. The company have now just taken £324 out of her account without permission and have not replied to any of our email messages. If I do not hear from them quickly legal action will be taken

bod1467

Flag this to your bank as an unauthorised transaction. If the payment was by direct debit, invoke the direct debit guarantee to reverse the transaction.

kprigg

I started my subscription in September and was very pleased with the box - particularly as I'd used a code to get it for half price. Fast forward to October and I didn't receive my box, so emailed (as there are no contact numbers) to find out why.
It turns out my credit card had expired, so needed to be updated. Apparently id been sent several emails, but even though I'd previously made sure their email address was recognised in my email account, I had not received any of these. I had missed the deadline by one day, but was told that October's box would be sent the following week, having updated my card the money went out immediately.
A week later another payment went, this time for Novembers box.
I chased October's box about 1 week after I'd been told it had been sent and eventually received a reply to say it would come once the box had been packed.
I tried to email again as no box had been received, but couldn't log in properly - the website had been redirected from barkbeats to vivadogs, yet I'd not been told there was a company change and assumed there was a problem. I was eventually emailed back by barkbeats and I was given a timeline of 1 week - but if not it would be sent on Monday.
At the end of the day last Monday I tried emailing barkbeats once more to ask if it had definitely been sent, only to have my email returned as the email address was no longer recognised. I forwarded copies of all the emails to vivadogs, received an automated email (in Spanish!) says g it would be dealt with in 48 hours - this has not been the case.
As I had no reply today I tried (twice) the live chat, however I have been left stranded as no one is answering.
I'm now left out of pocket by £26, no boxes to enjoy and I'm trying to navigate around a web page that keeps sending me errors so I can try and cancel my subscription. Who knows if I will get a refund of the money I've already paid, as I've no way of contacting them.
Please learn from my mistake - go somewhere else.