Last week I signed up my sister up for a diet food delivery service (The Fresh Diet for those of you interested) as her Christmas present. On Thursday, 12/4 I attempted to use their "online concierge" to ask them some questions about some allergies my sister had. At first they were responding, but once I asked them if they could eliminate soy from her diet, they stopped responding. I got back on and started an online chat with another concierge. He was also stumped by my question and stopped responding. After that all of the concierges were unavailable so I called the company and spoke with "Oscar."
Oscar was helpful at first. We got everything set up and I paid with my husband's credit card. Not a big deal. I get a call 10 minutes later - the credit card would not go through. Huh? We had plenty of money in that account. My husband called his bank and finds out that they tried to charge his credit card 3 times for 5 cents each. Since these were out of state charges, it raised a red flag and froze his bank account.
I let Oscar know that I would be out of town and not able to check my email, but to call me so we could get this resolved. Friday morning on my way out of town I called and spoke with someone who said that the credit card still wouldn't go through and I told him to try it later in the day and to please get back to me so I knew what was going on. I received no call back, but on Saturday I was able to check my email at the hotel and had an email from Oscar from Friday morning saying that the credit card didn't go through. No shit Sherlock!
On my way back on Sunday I get a call from Oscar (after replying to his last email that he was not to email me, but to call me back and I wanted to make sure that my sister received food for Monday) that he was able to get the card to go through and that my sister will be receiving food for Monday. Yay! All is right in the world now! Or maybe not.
She gets the food and every meal either has bread or breading or is totally carb heavy. They say that they are modeled after the Zone diet, but I've done the Zone before and this wasn't it. The breakfast was just oatmeal and fruit and had no protein in it. The rest of the food was bland, had no color and she said it tasted like cardboard. On Tuesday she was not going to be home to get her food so I picked it up from her house to try it myself. Breakfast was some sort of mushroom "scramble" that looked like vomit. I couldn't even take a bite of it, it looked so vile. Again, everything else was carb heavy and disgusting. She also received mushrooms with three meals that day. I called Oscar with my complaint and asked for credit for the breakfast since it was inedible and asked for them to put mushrooms on her no-no list and Oscar said that he would speak with the chef and get back to me about the credit.
Cut to Friday, she received a salmon wrap for lunch and some congealed looking salmon dish for dinner (salmon for two meals in a row? ew!) and still no call back yet from Oscar. I was at my boiling point. I wanted to cancel her program, get a refund for the remaining days and try another one. I tried to call from 8am to 4pm. No one in the company would pick up their phone. So I shot him the following email.
Oscar,
I have been trying to call you for awhile now, but there is no answer at your company (I have tried your extension, sales and customer service.)
I need to stop my sister's deliveries immediately. The both of us are disappointed by the food she has been receiving. She got salmon for lunch AND dinner today. I still have not heard back from you or your supervisor regarding the disgusting breakfast on Tuesday.
I expect a refund for the 3 scheduled days of delivery left PLUS the breakfast on 12/9 to be put back on my husband's credit card immediately.
Please call me (do not email me as I will not be able to check my email for the rest of the day) at (my cell phone number) so we can discuss this. If I do not hear back from you by the end of day today I will be calling my credit card company tomorrow for a charge back of the full amount.
Thank you,
i_heart_queso
This past Sunday he calls me and tells me that he does not have enough time to stop my sister's delivery for Monday as it is the day before. I told him that is not my problem, that I had tried to get a hold of him all day Friday, during regular business hours. He said that he would try, but that he could not refund the money for the following day's delivery as the meal had already been prepared. I told him that I wanted a refund for that day and if I did not receive one I would follow through with the charge back and file a complaint with the BBB and whoever else I could. I asked him again to call me back and let me know what was going on. As of this morning I had no call back, my sister did not receive her meals for Monday, and the coolers that the food come in had not yet been picked up. I checked my email this morning and got this email that he had been sent yesterday:
i_heart_queso,
I wanted to let you know that you will be refunded today. The refund will include today's meals which were made for your sister already. I don't know of any company who has been as accommodating in regards to delivering meals without even an initial payment and working with your sister's diet to deliver her Fresh food every day. We are not an ATT or such but always return our client's calls and requets as soon as we can.
I hope you saw the value in our program.
Have a great day!
Oscar
WTF? Seriously? I work in customer service and if I ever sent out an email like that to a client I would be fired so fast my head would spin!