Meal kit subscribers billed despite cancelling
Customers of German-based meal kit company Hello Fresh say they are still being charged for boxes after they unsubscribed from the service.
The issue was first raised a year ago, when customers said they were charged for deliveries they had cancelled or skipped. The company said at the time that it was not a fault with its systems.
But Kayla Bomford said she cancelled her account in October, and two months later, on December 28, she was sent a box with a week’s worth of meals and charged $170 for it. ‘‘There are literally hundreds of complaints from customers on Facebook.’’
Bomford said Hello Fresh automatically signed her up every time she downloaded the app to try to speak with someone from the company.
‘‘When you shut your account, they don’t let you remove your payment details unless you replace them with other payment details. So you can’t even stop it that way. People have had to shut their bank accounts because the company kept sending them boxes.’’
She said she was still waiting for her refund.
A Hello Fresh spokesman said the company did not send boxes once an account was cancelled if it was before the cut-off time of 11.59pm on Tuesday the week before the box was to be sent. If a cancellation happened after this time, the customer could still receive one final box.
‘‘Given the nature of our business as a flexible subscription service, we ensure information on how to skip a delivery or cancel is included throughout the sign-up process and detailed on the app and website.
‘‘If a customer skips a delivery week, without cancelling their subscription, boxes will be re-triggered once the skipped weeks have passed.
‘‘If a customer reactivates their account online or via email, this will also result in a new box being ordered for the customer.’’
A Facebook group set up by Hello Fresh customers had a number of posts warning others to take screenshots of their cancellations, in case they were charged again.
Leanne Harrison said that because she had heard from others about the difficulties around cancellations, she made sure there was no money in the account linked to her Hello Fresh subscription – but this resulted in the company referring her to debt collectors.
Harrison signed up toHello Fresh for a month in January last year. But after cancelling the service, she was sent a box and $167 was deducted from her account.
She spent the better part of last year trying to dispute this, but without having any screenshots, she decided to pay up because she could not afford legal fees.
Consumer NZ head of research Jessica Wilson said companies had obligations under the Consumer Guarantees Act to carry out their services with reasonable care and skill. This included making sure that any online cancellation system was working properly and registered customers’ requests to suspend or stop deliveries.
Any notice period to cancel must also be reasonable, she said.