HELP! Trapped in SkinnyFoodCo subscription that I never signed up for

Isley

I made a purchase on the SkinnyFoodCo website in January that I thought was a 1-off purchase and paid using my credit card. The goods arrived (late but probably understandable due to Covid) but soon after I noticed a pending payment for another £16.61 on my credit card to SkinnyFoodCo. I emailed them asking about this and received a reply saying I joined a subscription service (I'm sure I didn't but if I did then it was certainly unintentional) -btw I have not received a single emailed receipt for my initial purchase or any of the later charges.
I replied asking to cancel this subscription and received a boilerplate email informing me I need to "create an account" with them in order to cancel my subscription. I have done this using the same email account and there is no sign of any subscriptions to manage - my "account" does not have any order history or even my address details.
I have emailed them again requesting cancellation of this subscription and received another response that they "cannot" cancel my subscription but I can do so through my account (not true).
They have continued to charge my credit card £16.61 PER WEEK (who on earth needs this much coffee syrup!!!) and I am trying to get my bank to put a block on the payments but this has not worked and they keep charging me. (They are delivery the goods but I don't want them and they are heavy and will be difficult to send back).
There are lots of reviews on reviews.io of customers in the same situation and also on TrustPilot (although any 1 star reviews on TrustPilot seem to be quickly pushed off the page by gushing positive reviews ...)
Please can anyone advise me how to deal with this company? They seem to have no intention of letting me cancel my subscription
Many thanks

cymruchris

It appears the subscribe and save option is selected as standard when you have a qualifying product on screen, and that the default is a weekly delivery:


That doesn't appear to be very customer friendly at all. 

They have a page that discusses how to amend subscriptions that I'm sure you've seen:

https://theskinnyfoodco.com/pages/the-skinny-food-co-subscription-guide

I'm not sure of the legalities of having subscribe and save already ticked and a frequency already set - others might be more knowledgable in that area. Have you double and triple checked to make sure the email you used when you ordered is the same one as the one you've created the account with?

If you've exhausted the online options and are getting no joy - I might put a strong complaint in writing outlining all that you've done to try and cancel the subscription and post it to their land address:

COMPANY ADDRESS: UNIT 1, Eagle Close, Arnold, Nottingham, NG5 7FJ.

They appear to have turned off their live chat - so the only contact option is their electronic form which takes 2-4 days to reply:

SUBSCRIPTION ASSISTANCE

Relating to your subscription everything can be done via your online account. There is not a need to contact customer support as everything we can do you can do yourself including swapping products, changing delivery days, updating details and you can also cancel anytime if you wish to do so.

Please remember if you did not yet create an account you will need to create an account linking to the email you ordered with. You can do this by clicking here.

Please note by emailing customer support if you wish to cancel you may risk another order being generated instead of actioning cancellation yourself.
Our initial response will be to notify you to view this page where all information is detailed click here

LIVE CHAT

Live Chat is no longer available. For fast responses please read FAQ's or email customer support.

 

OTHER FAQ'S

As you can imagine we have lots of generic enquiries about our products before purchasing. We also have lots of queries based on delivery information. For our Frequently asked questions please click here.

 

EMAIL SUPPORT 

If we cannot be of assistance or it isn't covered within our FAQ's please feel free to fill out the contact form below and we will aim to respond within 2-4 business days due to extreme influx in delivery and subscription queries which are all listed above.

Isley

Thanks for your helpful response!
Yes I think that must be how they caught me out and opted me in to a subscription but having no email receipts from my original transaction I can't be sure.
I am 100% sure about the email address, I only have one. When I created an account for that email and logged in there is no order history and no subscription to manage. They definitely have my email address correctly as I just received a reply to my support ticket.
I've replied again telling them I see no order history or subscriptions to manage.

cymruchris

Did you say you hadn't received an original receipt by email - is it possible that you mis-keyed your original email - so didn't get anything - and then when you've tried to set up an account, your actual email is different (because of a mis-spell) to the one you signed up with? If you're only getting replies now - that you didn't when you started - that could be the cause - and they need to find you - and then marry up your wrong email to your right email?

On the note of the subscription - I am not a fan of companies that would automatically select the subscribe and save option like this - it should be clickable as an option only, although as I said I'm not an expert in that area - but someone else might have more info on that specifically. 

pbartlett

you can cancel the CPA ( continuous payment authority) immediately by calling your card provider and saying you want it stopped. don't let the card provider fob you off - it is the law that you can do it that way.

google 'cancelling a cpa'

https://www.stepchange.org/debt-info/your-rights/cancelling-recurring-payments-or-cpa.aspx

MidlandsGlory

I have placed an order with them recently, they are 'one of those' companies, confusing website and I nearly got caught, adding an item to the basket later on I noticed the default subscription selection. Just to be sure I cleared my basket and added each item back making sure I changed to single purchase each time, its laborious and misleading. I know before I must have put stuff in the basket with the subscribe option but the basket doesn't show any clue of this, which is why I started again.
Fortunately I had created an account before so I can see the 'manage subscription' page and there is nothing there thank goodness. Also had to cancel email subscription as they are one of those nuisances that send emails daily... as said, how much syrup does anyone need!
Also automatically adds a £1 charity donation on, but you can take it off at checkout. I wouldn't deal with them if I didn't need products to suit my keto diet lifestyle.

Isley

Thanks for all your comments, I've managed to resolve this now with their customer support.
Here's how I got into the mess:
1) Didn't notice that some (not all) products have a subscription attached to them by default
2) Managed to typo my email address when completing the transaction without creating an account
After this it was impossible for me to follow their instructions to "simply create an account to manage your subscriptions" as I was unaware of the typo.
An expensive mistake as I've managed to receive 4 * £16.61 in weekly subscription products before their customer service finally agreed to cancel the subscription for me and inform me of the email typo.
Not very happy with SKinnyFoodCo for designing their website like that. From reviews.io it's clear I'm not the only one who fell into that trap.
Glad it's all sorted now and I won't be returning the products because they taste good and I'll use them all up eventually!
Thanks all for your help

lemondrops69

In fairness you have to take some of the blame, after all you typed in your e-mail address wrong, hardly their fault. 

cymruchris

Isley said:

Thanks for all your comments, I've managed to resolve this now with their customer support.
Here's how I got into the mess:
1) Didn't notice that some (not all) products have a subscription attached to them by default
2) Managed to typo my email address when completing the transaction without creating an account
After this it was impossible for me to follow their instructions to "simply create an account to manage your subscriptions" as I was unaware of the typo.
An expensive mistake as I've managed to receive 4 * £16.61 in weekly subscription products before their customer service finally agreed to cancel the subscription for me and inform me of the email typo.
Not very happy with SKinnyFoodCo for designing their website like that. From reviews.io it's clear I'm not the only one who fell into that trap.
Glad it's all sorted now and I won't be returning the products because they taste good and I'll use them all up eventually!
Thanks all for your help

I don't like the way they operate - had never heard of them - and now I have - I won't be using them. Good to see you got to the bottom of it - and although it was partially your own error - they could have been a bit more helpful. Never mind - all sorted now. Thanks for updating the thread, as not many do