Tuesday, February 6, 2018

My Experience with Hello Fresh and why it's not even worth it to bother

We've been flip flopping about trying a meal delivery service for a while now and haven't because of the price but when I got a Groupon offer for 50% off a groupon in my inbox and Hello Fresh was one of the offers, I figured we should give it a shot.  The Groupon price was $50 for a family box which consisted of three meals for four people (the regular price of this box is $104, I don't spend that on a week's worth of groceries!) but for $25 with my groupon deal plus 50% off coupon it was a great deal so I went ahead with it and chose my meals... and hoped for the best. 

I chose my delivery date for Monday since it was the first available and was really excited when I saw that the box was delivered.

Except when I saw that it was delivered to the front door.. actually the delivery confirmation said it was "signed by the front door" Huh.. I never realized my front door could do that 😒.  I had made sure on the instructions I put to deliver to the back door.. packages have been known to go missing off my front porch which is why I get deliveries to the office during the week, Hello Fresh wouldn't deliver to my office so... I figured the delivery driver would deliver to the specified location... but the aggravation doesn't end there.

We carried the box inside and, well..  when I opened it the dry ingredients and vegetables were packaged in brown paper bags labeled with stickers and the meat was basically thrown into the bottom of the box with ice packs.  What really annoyed me first was two out of the three meals I ordered were wrong, including one with Spinach Ricotta Ravioli which is a meal that I can not even eat 😡 and there absolutely was not enough food for four people in there. 

I was a little more than annoyed at this point so I went to the app and tried to get customer service there was nobody available.. so my only other option from there was to write them an email but I wasn't satisfied with that so I went to facebook and left a message for them and then we called.  The customer service rep looked into my account and low and behold They messed up and sent me a classic box (three meals for two people) instead of what I ordered (three meals for four people) so there actually was NOT enough food in this box (Oh man was I glad I didn't pay full price for this!). 

The CS rep said it was now too late for them to send me a new box for the week (it was 7pm on Monday, but ok whatever) and there was nothing they could do for me except offer me two free meals for another week but it would still be $50 for the rest of the meals, that wasn't going to help me now because now I still have to go grocery shopping for a meal for myself to replace the Ravioli that I can't eat and buy more food to bulk up these meals that they sent us.   I told them to just cancel my subscription and thought it would end there. 

About an hour later I got a response to my FB message and I was offered a replacement box for another week, I declined since this was not helping me when I needed it for This week.  They told me they couldn't refund me because I made my purchase through Groupon.  OK, well.. They've lost a customer and I will not recommend them to anyone, that's for sure.  I was not happy. 

I had initially put the next few weeks on hold because 1. I didn't want to be charged $104 for three meals before I had a chance to see how these worked out and 2. they only give you five options for family meals and that's not enough variety for me.  I'm glad I did because Hello Fresh was a one and done for us. 

Nothing in this box was anything I couldn't get myself at any of my local grocery stores with the exception of the novelty of the little bottles of vinegar and maple syrup.

I can see why these can be so popular, but I also see why so many of these services have so many poor reviews, not only did I not get what I requested, I got the entirely wrong box and they did little to remedy the situation when I needed it.