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The Downfall of HelloFresh

May 2, 2022 · 8 Comments

This is the story of how I was cheated out of more than $5000 by HelloFresh.  

I want to first say that I would never make a habit of putting a company on blast via live blog post if I hadn’t tried absolutely everything to remedy the situation.  With that being said, I have tried and tried and now want to share the story of a company which grew too fast and had their service suffer to the point where I wouldn’t even want their product if it was free because the actual product quality is so bad.  More on that later.  I’ve communicated this with them and they did not have any proper escalation channels which seems like customer service 101 to me.

Hello Fresh with X this image

Back in 2017 I tried a bunch of meal delivery services and loved them. I wrote about my experience. I reached out to HelloFresh and asked if they had an affiliate program (where I’d get a small commission if someone became a customer as a result of my referral.)

I was told they didn’t have a program, but that I could earn account credit which I could use to receive products. 

A year passed and I saw other people referencing HelloFresh’s affiliate program and I tried reaching out again. I kept asking, isn’t there a way I could be part of their affiliate program and not just keep earning referral credit (at this point my referral credit was at $1500, meaning 150 accounts had signed up because of me)?

On April 28th, 2018 I received an email from the Hello Fresh Marketing Manager and Affiliate Program Manager telling me that HelloFresh had purchased Green Chef and would I like to be part of their affiliate program and apologies.

 “I apologize, since I’m sure you have sent numerous emails regarding this – but would you mind giving me some background on the situation? I may not be able to help with the referral credit, but perhaps we could find a way to resolve this using our affiliate relationship.”

I gave background and said I would love to work something out. 

I followed up four times and heard nothing back. So I gave up.

I still shared about them because I liked their product. 

My account credit grew and grew and grew (to the tune of over $7000 in account credits which I was told repeatedly wouldn’t expire). 

I repeatedly tried reaching out to HelloFresh to try and work with them to possibly give me money instead of account credit or to change our arrangement. 

I was seeing them working with people who had literally a fraction of the traffic I got and who delivered a fraction of the results I had already delivered. 

Then the product started really going downhill in terms of quality. I’d get rotten produce and poorly packaged products.  They don’t separate the meat from other ingredients which causes meat juices to leak all over everything else in the box/bag.  At the time, I was pregnant and didn’t want to risk getting sick. I told them about these issues no less than 5 times, I never got a call back, it was just like talking into a void, yet again.

It feels really crappy to throw out a big box of food! It’s so wasteful. But it just wasn’t safe to eat.

CUSTOMER ACQUISITION COST 

Please keep in mind, when someone signs up to a meal delivery company, it’s usually for a subscription and they usually stay a customer. This is called ‘customer acquisition cost’. For meal delivery companies, the cost of a customer acquisition is high (usually thousands) so to have someone actively sending you customers and an actual customer themselves, seems like they would want to nurture and appreciate that relationship. 

Then, a few weeks ago when I went to order a box, I saw a charge for shipping and was confused. Why was I being charged shipping when I had so much account credit ($4600) and had never before been charged? I thought it must just have been a system glitch. 

I chatted in and someone told me that they’d be able to offer me a one time refund on shipping, but that moving forward I’d be charged for shipping and that my account credits couldn’t be applied. 

I called back and when I explained the situation the customer service rep said they agreed but they wouldn’t be able to help and would escalate the issue and I’d receive a call back. I only received a call back 3 weeks(!) later.

Simultaneously I received a message from their affiliate account management team asking why I wasn’t referring more business to them. 

The whole thing is kind of comical, they have no idea who their customers are and don’t value their customers at all. 

The shipping issue got resolved for me as a workaround after literally 10 emails, but customers are now being charged for shipping above other companies.

I asked for a resolution for me and my unique situation, and they flat out refused and didn’t even say thank you for all the thousands of customers I’ve sent them!

They claim to be the #1 meal delivery company, and that’s clearly a lie. I’d love to see the research behind that. 

Home Chef and Sun Basket
Home Chef | Sun Basket

With so many really amazing meal delivery services out there (I love Home Chef and Sun Basket) there is absolutely no reason to stick with a crappy company. I will no longer be affiliating myself with HelloFresh and recommend anyone switch to a different company.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. BEVERLY A KORKOWSKI says

    May 30, 2022 at 1:28 pm

    I read your post w/much interest as I had received a voucher (purchased thru Groupon) by my daughter. It was purchased 12/23/21 and stated it was good for 2 weeks of 3 meals for 2 people equal to 12 servings w/free shipping. First, I must state that their site is definitely NOT user friendly. After clicking thru my meal choices, it asked me to add a credit card or Paypal account which these days is fairly normal, sort of a backup of sorts. I added Paypal and immediately thereafter, I received an email stating my order was complete and would be delivered this weekend! Never was there a choice of applying my voucher. On an online chat w/an agent, she said my voucher was now only good for orders made over 5 different weeks! Something is dreadfully wrong here. I told them to keep their goods!

    Reply
    • Sweetphi says

      July 1, 2022 at 8:07 am

      I’m so sorry to hear about your experience, it sounds like I’m not the only one who has been mistreated by them. It’s truly sad how awful their company is nowadays.

      Reply
  2. Helen Becerra says

    May 6, 2022 at 10:35 am

    I tried Hello Fresh last year, actually after reading one of your food delivery review posts! They were OK, but not great, I had some issues with produce gone bad. The reason I canceled the service is that every recipe called for several tablespoons of butter during cooking and at least two packets of sour cream to be stirred in at the end. There was no imagination in it, I had been hoping to learn how to cook new things but ended up with a fridge full of unused sour cream packets lol!
    I’m so glad I didn’t give them my money for long after hearing about your experience, I can’t believe they treated you like that. Good on you for putting them on blast!

    Reply
    • Sweetphi says

      July 1, 2022 at 8:10 am

      Thank you for sharing this experience with me. I definitely laughed out loud about the sour cream packets comment. My husband said the exact same thing “why are there 8 sour cream packets in the fridge” lol. Such a shame how this company went from being good to being flat out terrible.
      If you’re looking for interesting recipes that are unique (and don’t have a million sour cream packets lol) I’d definitely give Sun Basket a try!

      Reply
  3. Mary W says

    May 6, 2022 at 7:37 am

    The CEO of Hello Fresh is Dominick Richter who is German. This is his LinkedIn page – https://de.linkedin.com/in/dominik-richter-hellofresh . You would be surprised how fast some companies will respond when you directly contact the CEOs. This is from their own page that shows who’s who in the corporation: https://ir.hellofreshgroup.com/websites/hellofresh/English/4000/corporate-governance.html I have seen this work when contacting companies as a last resort . Worth a try!

    Reply
    • Sweetphi says

      May 6, 2022 at 9:09 am

      Thank you so much Mary, I’ll definitely try it!!

      Reply
  4. Monica says

    May 3, 2022 at 8:01 am

    Thank you for posting your experience. I’ve thought about trying one of the home delivery services and will definitely take that one off the list of ones to try. With so many companies doing delivery, I should be surprised that they treated you this way (but am not surprised).

    Would be nice if you could find out who one of the higher up’s is in the company, so you could send them a copy of this post. I’m sure they will be losing business, and/or future customers because of the customer service they provided you (or in this case, did not provide).

    Reply
    • Sweetphi says

      May 3, 2022 at 9:32 am

      Thank you so much for your comment. You totally understand the severity of the situation and I so appreciate that. I literally tried over weeks and months for this to be escalated before sharing my experience publicly. At every step of the way they would seemingly just not care. Totally not worth supporting a company like that, because, like you said there’s so many really amazing companies out there (and their food is better too!) Thanks again for your feedback!

      Reply

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