HelloFresh - misleading at best....

bcfcrob

Just wondering if I have a leg to stand on here... I'm feeling a bit mugged off by them and considering they're a company in a very competitive market I'm very surprised at their appalling customer response.

Cutting a long story very short:
6th June - Signed up to take a look at their recipes, having to provide card details to do so. Annoying experience, but never mind. We took a look, and decided that we didn't fancy any of the meals there. We eat a plant-based diet and didn't pick any meals.
6th June - As a consequence. as we didn't want any of the food they offered, we cancelled our subscription there and then. I received a confirmation email stating 'YOUR SUBSCRIPTION HAS BEEN DEACTIVATED'. Clear as day.
26th June - I'm inexplicably charged £36 for a box of food that I never ordered
30th June - I'm sent a box of meals that I never ordered, and would never have ordered considering the diet we have.

HelloFresh response:
- I spoke to them on Facebook Messenger, they replied a couple of times and have then since ignored all of my messages, no response whatsoever
- I then spoke yesterday on logged in live chat. The lady was very nice but clearly did not have much power to offer anything other than a 50% refund, which I'm not really willing to accept.

Their excuses:
- Signing up is essentially ordering a box. But I didn't choose any recipes, and even if that was the case, I deactivated my subscription, so should not have been sent anything.
- If you wish to cancel a box, it has to be at least 5 days in advance. How this is an excuse I have no idea, as I cancelled 25 days in advance of payment
- Cancelling a subscription does not cancel any boxes ordered, and it says this in your cancellation confirmation email. This is the biggest gripe with me. If cancelling your subscription does not actually cancel it then what is it doing? And we never picked those meals in the box. And we cancelled over 3 weeks in advance of their '5 day' deadline. And to top it all off, there is ZERO mention of this in the cancellation email, despite what they claim. Not in the small print, nothing. I can screenshot if necessary. 

So a slight rant there, I feel like their behaviour is at best misleading, and at worst full on theft to be honest. Am I being daft here and do I have a leg to stand on in taking this further? It's more out of principle right now. Needless to say Gousto will be getting my business from now on!

Thanks

tightauldgit

I don't use HF so I'm not completely au fait with the system but in general with subscription services when you cancel it you are cancelling it for any FUTURE orders, not retroactively. 

So if you've signed up, somehow unknowingly ordered a box, and then cancelled the subscription then you would still be liable for the box that you've ordered. 

From a brief look at their website it seems like you sign up for a subscription by ordering a box so possibly you've done it by mistake and gotten confused? 

Without knowing the exact details of what you've clicked and not clicked it's hard to say exactly how much of a leg to stand on you have.

km1500

by signing up and giving your card you were ordering your first box and starting a subscription

to browse what they have without starting a subscription choose the 'our recipes' tab - no card needed

HillStreetBlues

As HF aren't playing ball,  go to card company and request a Chargeback
Show proof of cancellation (6th June)  Their T&Cs showing 5 days prior to any delivery.
That will show the date of money taken falls out of the 5 days notice they need, so is an unauthorised transaction.

 

bcfcrob

Thanks everyone, appreciate it.

tightauldgit said:

I don't use HF so I'm not completely au fait with the system but in general with subscription services when you cancel it you are cancelling it for any FUTURE orders, not retroactively. 

So if you've signed up, somehow unknowingly ordered a box, and then cancelled the subscription then you would still be liable for the box that you've ordered. 

From a brief look at their website it seems like you sign up for a subscription by ordering a box so possibly you've done it by mistake and gotten confused? 

Without knowing the exact details of what you've clicked and not clicked it's hard to say exactly how much of a leg to stand on you have.

This is the only thing that gives me doubt. But as much as I'm sure you are absolutely right, to cancel a subscription 25 days before but still consider that an 'order' is very misleading imo.

Regarding you saying I may have done it by mistake... I was aware that I was signing up and it would likely register me for a box, that I have no qualms with. But for me to cancel so far in advance and for them to still fulfil the order I think is bang out of order. As I said, extremely misleading imo, but I am open to being wrong.

Really appreciate the response, I do agree with you.

HillStreetBlues said:

As HF aren't playing ball,  go to card company and request a Chargeback
Show proof of cancellation (6th June)  Their T&Cs showing 5 days prior to any delivery.
That will show the date of money taken falls out of the 5 days notice they need, so is an unauthorised transaction.

 

I may well do this actually, thanks very much. This might be the best shout.

Alderbank

Cutting a long story even shorter:

6th June - Signed up... 

6th June - ...we cancelled our subscription there and then.

They distinguish between cancelling individual orders and cancelling your subscription. They say they are separate.
That sounds reasonable, it's so that you can for example cancel orders for while you are away on holiday but retain your subscription.

Their T&Cs include:

4.4 Cancelling or pausing your subscription is easy. You just need to go to your account area on our Website and follow these steps 

8. CONSUMER RIGHTS
8.1 You may deactivate an order, or cancel your subscription at any time. To do so, please follow the steps outlined above in clause 4.4.
8.2 If you wish to cancel your order prior to receiving your first box, please contact our customer care team via the various methods detailed on our Website prior to 11:59 PM five days before your delivery date. Your first box cannot be cancelled via your Website account.

When you cancelled your subscription did you also cancel your first box by contacting their customer care team?

bcfcrob

Alderbank said:

Cutting a long story even shorter:

6th June - Signed up... 

6th June - ...we cancelled our subscription there and then.

They distinguish between cancelling individual orders and cancelling your subscription. They say they are separate.
That sounds reasonable, it's so that you can for example cancel orders for while you are away on holiday but retain your subscription.

Their T&Cs include:

4.4 Cancelling or pausing your subscription is easy. You just need to go to your account area on our Website and follow these steps 

8. CONSUMER RIGHTS
8.1 You may deactivate an order, or cancel your subscription at any time. To do so, please follow the steps outlined above in clause 4.4.
8.2 If you wish to cancel your order prior to receiving your first box, please contact our customer care team via the various methods detailed on our Website prior to 11:59 PM five days before your delivery date. Your first box cannot be cancelled via your Website account.

When you cancelled your subscription did you also cancel your first box by contacting their customer care team?

Thanks for this, spot on and this is why I wanted to know if I have a leg to stand on.

They may well be technically correct. But I really think it should be made clearer to you than buried in the small print that you have to manually go down a second process to fully cancel. Again, I’d say that’s very misleading and I’d be sure that there must be some rules around customer clarity when doing these things.

Perhaps that says more about me and my failings here, I don’t know. But I don’t think it was made clear to me, it certainly wasn’t in the confirmation email and I made my intentions clear over 3 weeks in advance. At best it’s scummy behaviour by them in my opinion.

Alderbank

bcfcrob said:

Alderbank said:

Cutting a long story even shorter:

6th June - Signed up... 

6th June - ...we cancelled our subscription there and then.

They distinguish between cancelling individual orders and cancelling your subscription. They say they are separate.
That sounds reasonable, it's so that you can for example cancel orders for while you are away on holiday but retain your subscription.

Their T&Cs include:

4.4 Cancelling or pausing your subscription is easy. You just need to go to your account area on our Website and follow these steps 

8. CONSUMER RIGHTS
8.1 You may deactivate an order, or cancel your subscription at any time. To do so, please follow the steps outlined above in clause 4.4.
8.2 If you wish to cancel your order prior to receiving your first box, please contact our customer care team via the various methods detailed on our Website prior to 11:59 PM five days before your delivery date. Your first box cannot be cancelled via your Website account.

When you cancelled your subscription did you also cancel your first box by contacting their customer care team?

They may well be technically correct. But I really think it should be made clearer to you than buried in the small print that you have to manually go down a second process to fully cancel. Again, I’d say that’s very misleading and I’d be sure that there must be some rules around customer clarity when doing these things.

There are rules.
Consumer contracts have to be written in clear English. Terms in legal language can be ignored if they are not clear to a non-specialist.
If a term is ambiguous it must be interpreted in favour of the consumer. So for instance you could interpret 'a month' as a calendar month or a lunar month, which ever is favourable to you.

For what it's worth, I am not a fan of HelloFresh. When I tried it the pack turned up with lots of packaging including plastic icepacks, the food had done lots of unnecessary food miles and the shelf life remaining was very short.

I suspect they would justify their requirement to speak to Customer Services about first order by saying that it was intended to help new customers, who might be confused, to get what they wanted.

Ironic really.

screech_78

Whilst I understand cancelling the box and subscription are two different things, I don’t see how they can charge you for something you haven’t received. I’d be at least asking for a box to account for what you’ve spent. 

Alderbank

screech_78 said:

Whilst I understand cancelling the box and subscription are two different things, I don’t see how they can charge you for something you haven’t received. I’d be at least asking for a box to account for what you’ve spent. 

To be fair to the OP we should believe what they said in their initial post: 

30th June - I'm sent a box of meals that I never ordered...

Ksw3

Hello Fresh have a default each week on their website, you have to go in and change your choices before the cut off if you want something different or click skip week if you don't want one that week.