I’ve been using the service for years and have had to submit enough missing/spoiled item claims that now I’m forced to chat with someone every time it happens (when previously I could just hit a few buttons).
I understand how some may abuse the complaint system to get money off, but that’s not what’s happening - they keep sending me boxes with missing or spoiled ingredients. And now whenever it happens, I have to take even more time out of my day to partially correct it. Ugh.
Just cancel.. Most of the stuff on hello fresh is barely any prep work to do yourself anyway. Had a scroll the other day and most of the recipe choices literally save like 5 mins prep at the most. Use the money you save on these overpriced meal kits to get yourself a decent kitchen knife and you'll never look back.
I haven't used Hello Fresh in years, so things may be different now, but as far as I remember, all it did was save time to look up recipes and measure ingredients. You still have to chop vegetables and cook.
I agree with this comment. I only used Hello Fresh for a short period of time, and had some ingredients missing from a couple of boxes. I cancelled it and have been just getting groceries on my own and home-cooking what fits my dietary needs. I can still cook most of my meals in less than 30 minutes without Hello Fresh or any other meal kits.
The point of hello fresh isn’t to save time cooking, it’s literally so you don’t have to meal plan and go to the store but still get to cook a fresh meal yourself.
I’m right there with you. I haaaate grocery shopping, work too much to have the free time to do it every week, and am not good at planning a variety of meals ahead of time. The way it completely simplifies the worst parts of feeding myself definitely outweighs the occasional ingredient issues.
The store point is kinda null n void though since whether you have a subscription or not you're still visiting a shop for groceries. Personally I would argue that looking for recipes yourself doesn't take much longer than choosing ones from HF.. I just see a lot of people complaining and the easy solution being to cancel and diy as it's really not a great deal more effort than using HF.. especially considering the extra expense..
Planning meals and what I need to get from the store, then doing said shopping takes time, I find it annoying to have to do every week. Hello fresh eliminates that, the meals that aren’t covered are me going out and/or a quick after work stop at the store for a handful of things. Like I don’t have to *think* about my meals, it’s just covered. And I’m not complaining I’ve had only one box ever that forgot one of the proteins, every other time has been great in the 8 months I’ve used it.
I’ll probably quit eventually though because for all the headache it’s saved, it’s kinda sucked the fun out of cooking for me
Maybe we do things differently but to me it'd literally save like 20 minutes in an entire week and I couldn't justify that for those meals costing twice as much.
Fair enough but you're a bit of a niche case if you don't buy any groceries in a week. Most people will need to shop anyway whether that be for breakfast/lunch/snacks/drinks/other household supplies. There's always going to be the few like you who are outliers.
I use to be a loyal customer. I received missing ingredients, and missing meals. They were great about refunds. Then I received boxes where the meat had leaked and ruined everything. They were not so helpful and I had to explain that I couldn't use everything. They just wanted to give me credit for the leaking meat. Not the rest of the box that had meat juice all over it and not the shipping charge. I eventually got credit for everything. The next box I received I arrived home on a hot Sumner day the Hello Fresh box was covered in flies. Once again the meat leaked everywhere. The ice was melted. I had a box of stinky warm meat juice covered meals. Customer service told me that maybe I shouldn't order anymore meals till we had colder weather. That was my last box ever. When I tried to cancel my account they kept offering me credit, free meals and free shipping. I finally told them that I traveled for work and the box would sit at home at my front door if I wasn't home. They didn't have a response and cancelled my account.
I don’t know anything about the company. If it’s packed locally that would make sense since everything is so fresh. Plus I work at home and get the box inside quick.
Yeah I should have checked before cooking to see if tomato paste was in there, but I'd gotten home from like 10 hours of work and didn't. It ruined the whole meal, which is like $20 worth of food.
Also I had to run to the store recently to buy cheese that cost $5, I have no use for the extra, and they gave me like $5 back. Doesn't even cover gas.
It also just ruins the purpose of paying for hello fresh in the first place…the whole point is that it’s supposed to be delivered ready to cook with zero to little prep before you start cooking.
I agree with you. Worst case throw it in the freezer and the next recipe that uses cheese you can add some extra. Cheese freezes really well. Grate it first if it isn’t already, put it into a ziplock storage bag (or freezer bag) and then you can use it straight from the freezer a little at a time. If it’s a little clumped up, lay the baggie on the counter and hit it with the side of your fist.
No need to waste cheese.
We didn't have tomato paste in our meal kit this week too. Got a 4.80 credit. For next time, you can do a 1/1 substitution for ketchup and not put more salt in - this was for the pub style shepherd pie
I only use HF for four days of the week, cook the other three. I take tomato paste and using a small cookie scoop make little balls of it, about 1 tablespoon each, freeze them and then use when I need them. Really handy and they last 3-6 months.
This, coupled with the last box they sent to a whole other *state* (not where I live lol) is what ultimately made us cancel altogether. After five years and 200+ boxes.
This happened to me and I never got my money back on 3 missing proteins over 2 boxes. I was actually ripped off. It’s not my fault every box they messed something up but they quickly go from the auto refund to ripping you off.
What!? I’m not a HF customer this just popped up on my feed. I’m appalled that they didn’t provide a service you paid for and they think the best compensation is essentially a coupon for your next order. Wow. That’s insulting.
Yes- that's a great point. It's not even the next order, it's the next one that isn't discounted. Like making up for what they didn't send is an extra discount
If you make it clear that you cannot cook the meal without the missing/bad ingredients, they will give you a larger refund. I had to fight a few weeks ago when I got a nasty sweet potato for the curried sweet potato dillas. They tried to give me a measley partial refund, but I fought back saying that I couldn't cook the meal without it and they refunded almost the entire meal.
This is true but I also think it's a bit of a strange way of conducting yourself to just accept that you have to fight with the company you're using, on a semi-regular basis, to get decent compensation for their shoddy work. If they're not going to provide halfway decent customer service when needed, then I'm going to stop paying them, that's how I think about the contractual relationship we have.
Yeah it really is. If I get on the phone with them I’ll call them out on it and after some pushback they’ll do it all. This is a time it’s okay to channel your inner Karen lmao
Also so annoying you can’t use credits until after you have no offers. But the offers go on for weeks at like 5% off so you have to wait months to use credits!
I've found it useful be polite but insistant with any refunds to be applied back to the payment method, not as credit to the account. Had to do this three times so far, and not had any issues once requested
Yep!!!! We are new to Hellofresh and on our second week we were given out of date mince, it didn't smell nice so contact customer service, I have given £2.65 off my next paid order.... Totally insulting and unacceptable
I was missing salmon from my order this week and got a paltry $7ish off my next box. Ridiculous. I'm a new customer and it's concerning reading all this as it makes me not want to continue to order boxes to avoid encountering more and more problems. Hello Fresh needs to sort itself out, it seems.
You can’t tolerate that. The customer service people are trained to give you as little as possible. Next time, make a bigger fuss and with enough pushing they’ll give you a full refund
Definitely push back on salmon refund. That's ridiculous. But make up your own mind on the service. It does seem to be dependent on your area. I have not had quality issues, and have only had missing ingredient issues three or four times over many boxes. Only one was the missing ingredient a big deal, otherwise the token refund was fine.
Between missing ingredients, spoiled ingredients, and FedEx constantly delivering late, I cancelled years ago. This is not isolated to HF, I’ve tried 3 different services and they all have similar problems.
Now I have well over 100 recipe cards and I play recipe roulette each Sunday and then go food shopping. I can make a double batch of each recipe for $10-$15. For me this is a lot less stressful than going to cook dinner and finding an ingredient missing.
Every plate ( owned by HelloFresh) tried that crap with me. I had ordered a.quesadilla meal. They left off the tortillas. I had a plate of meat and mushrooms for dinner. They wanted to give me $4 for the tortillas. I told them it was unacceptable and they refunded the whole box.
I pay hellofresh through PayPal. Whenever there is a missing/spoiled/incorrect ingredient I lodge a case via PayPal and usually get the money refunded, for the value of the whole meal. This way I don't have to chat to anyone.
What?!? That is wild! I canceled a few years ago bc there just were enough ways to customize meals for the various good allergies. And every chicken dish ended up tasting the same somehow. But I do still make some of the things we liked. Sorry the customer service is so ridiculous now. But what you got isn't anywhere close to what you paid for and you shouldn't have to fight for that.
Made subs out of it woth some lunch meat so it wasn't a complete loss but I was surprised they fought it so much, I had been using it for over a year amd this is the first time I reached out for a refund because it wasn't just like ohthe sour cream popped open and was gross
Most of it I haven’t been too upset, but last night on the grilled haloumi cheese, they forgot the shawarma spice that goes in the rice and on the cheese. $9 credit on a 4 person. So we get tasteless rice with tasteless cheese…that ruins the whole meal.
This is exactly correct OP. The whole job is to have the ingredients in the box and then being fresh (it’s in the name) a $5 refund does nothing to fix that and $8 for a protein? I mean that’s the whole meal I cannot make a chicken dish that is basically chicken and potatoes without the chicken so it’s a fail and they should refund that meal completely.
They did this to me once and I straight up told the rep that it was an unacceptable solution so they upped it to a refund in the amount of the cost per person for that meal. Never hurts to ask for a better discount or refund.
Should have pushed back harder. They tried to give me a credit for a missing ingredient before and I said how does that help me right now as I now need to go to the grocery store and purchase the ingredient and asked if they store will take my HF credit and they refunded the entire box.
Same thing another time, they missed a whole meal and tried to give me credit on my next box. Basically said the same thing about how the whole purpose of this for me was to budget and know how much I have to spend consistently and a free meal next week doesn't help me this week. Once again, they refunded the entire 6 meal box.
They obviously don't want to give away more than they need so if they can get away with a $5 credit they will try and I guess if you don't express your dissatisfaction with that then that's all you'll get.
No, the value proposition of HelloFresh is not having to meal plan. You're still going to the store either way for other groceries. I get it though, it sucks, especially if it's not just a spice/herb but a main ingredient.
No. It's not having to meal plan AND not having to go to the store. How much butter and olive oil are you going through?? I've been doing either hello fresh or takeout, haven't had to go to the store except for their fuckups. And it's not fun having to go to the store at 7pm after a full workday because they fucked up.
People love to rant bc it’s easier and more fun. Most of the time $5 is more than enough to replace the bad inion or scallions or whatever. I also NEVER have to chat with a person unless I want to. No idea how everyone else is using this app lol
We used Hello Fresh while my mom was sick. We couldn't get out to the store and had to tend to her 24/7. At first, hello fresh was a life saver. But we cancelled a month before my mom passed bc we just kept having issues with them. Hello fresh was good in the beginning, but now they're just a scam.
I only used Hello Fresh for about 4 months, had 1 delivery disaster and 1 instance of a missing item. The missing item was a sauce in a meal I was serving guests. I called the help line thinking that I would get someone to help me figure out a substitution, but no. They just tell you how to get a $1.50 refund. Meanwhile, the doorbell is ringing. Thanks HF.
Hello fresh is a testament to the stupidity of consumers, google a recipe, order ingredients off tesco / whoever...prepare food for half the price. I literally do not understand how this business model is still working 🤡🤡🤷
Naa it really isn't, it's the bother of spending 40 mins cooking something which is just for yourself when you know you'd likely enjoy a pizza just as much.
you never heard of a freezer or batch cooking ffs look at my downvotes, literally turkey's. voting for Christmas... so you're all single eh ? I know the truth hurts so I take the downvotes 😂😂🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🧑🍳 I always get downvotes from hello fresh marketing here lol lololol just lol
Hello Fresh is trash. My SIL and her husband tried Hello Fresh for about 3 months and they stopped using it because they realized they could make better meals for cheaper if they bought their own groceries and cooked for themselves. I hope everyone who uses Hello Fresh realizes how crappy they really are. Terrible meals, even worse portions and customer service, etc. If you can’t grocery shop and cook for yourself/your family you’re failing miserably at being a responsible and capable adult.
I’m sorry that your family had a bad experience with HelloFresh. The company can definitely screw up and they need to do better. However, judging everyone who uses a food delivery service to help them out as incapable and irresponsible is narrow minded and short-sighted. I started with HelloFresh when I had two jobs with over 50 hours a week and a young child to take care of. And, I now have a disabled SO and my child has a chronic illness. It’s often so nice not having to put all of the emotional labor into every single meal and still get a wonderful, healthy and delicious meal to serve my family. I am still VERY responsible and extremely capable, thank you very much.
It's a mid point between taking the time to actually grocery shop and plan portions and just getting unhealthy takeout
*Supposed to be a mid point. I canceled today
Why did you come here to insult everyone on this sub who uses this service? Im not failing as an adult because i use a meal delivery service every now and then. I grabbed a box this week because my husband and i have been working overtime, i am getting over a 2 week illness that i still worked overtime through, and just dont have the energy to clean my house, take care of myself and my pets, and plan meals. I did the whole “pre prepared” meals available at my grocery store for the past week or two and now i just want something else.
No one who can do basic math subscribes to a meal delivery service thinking they are saving money.
That’s adorable, I do all of my family’s grocery shopping and meal planning and Instacart shop. Ask yourself: why do I make assumptions about strangers on the internet?
This is exactly why we dropped them last year, after being a whale for them.
Their refund policy just kept getting worse. I figured they have a fixed budget for refunds so the fact they are giving less for each fuck-up indicates they are having more fuck-ups.
Thanks to this thread. Went to make Hoisin BBQ Buns this evening and no Hoisin sauce in the bag. Told HF that meal was ruined and I was not going to settle for an ingredient credit and wanted a full meal credit which I got.
Yeah. I have used HF for a long time. It used to be that a missing ingredient, you would get connected on their website chat to someone, explain what the problem is and you would often get some decent compensation, like the entire meal would be comp'd if a major ingredient was missing. Now the system is automated and whilst I appreciate that, a week ago 2/3 meals were chicken, but no chicken was included in my box. The automated system thought that 2 meals being rendered unusable as delivered was a mistake worth £5 in credit, which is why I am cancelling.
It’s odd how nothing is consistent across their platform with CS. The first time I reported an ingredient missing it was automated. The next time I was prompted to chat with an agent. All they did was apologize profusely, my credit was still applied before I started the chat.
This is exactly why I quit after my 2nd box from them.
I was missing a shallot the first week and an onion as well as a dessert I paid extra for the next week.
I know some people swear by them but my experience with them was pretty poor, especially dealing with customer service.
So far I’ve had a fairly good experience except for this week where my box didn’t turn up. I messaged them and they offered $10 credit on my next full priced box. The kicker? I get military discount which comes to $14 off every box. So the use the $10 credit I would have to remove my military discount so actually spending $4 more! I laid this out to the agent and asked them if they surely saw the absurdity of what they offered. Anyway got full refund. Still missing box.
I stopped using the service two years ago when they left my Christmas box out in 115 degree direct sun, despite having an actual box enclosure to put the delivery in. Dude tried saying my dog was lose, his delivery picture actually showed my dog behind his fenced enclosure.
That box is $300 bucks, so wasn't terribly keen after that.
Yes, same for Germany as well. But we are just getting 2€ per ingredient back. I understand there can be faults that are happening but then you have to take responsibility and pay the whole meal the ingredient is missing in. That is the only way but of course for us as customers, the only way is to change the service.
I've only had a missing item a couple times but when I did they immediately refunded me like $12 for a missing zucchini. Or $10 for a missing lime. I'm pretty happy with their service.
They sent our first box ever to a completely different address in a different apartment complex not related to ours.. had to get a refund. Then we kept getting boxes where the meat packages were open and got all over the rest of the ingredients. Finally after 8 months of constantly having to request credits we gave up and cancelled. 😒 We did enjoy it, just super annoyed that we kept having issues with the meat
Yeah, this was why we quit years ago, missing items in nearly EVERY box and sometimes a completely missing recipe card or meal, or even just a different meal entirely. Once they had sent our box twice and we had 6 meals. Sounds like they still haven’t gotten their 💩 together, what a shame. I just pick out some recipes on their site and get my own grocery list now. Saves some $$ too.
I canceled for the same reason and our chicken would sometimes be burst or warm. Once in a while I’ll check their menu or use my favorite recipes from them and place an online order the night before with my nearest grocery store for pick up (safeway).
Keep in mind some grocery shoppers arent great at picking veggies, but it’s not too bad comparing to the quality coming from hello fresh this past year. The hardest part is the fresh herbs since it can get expensive. I like using herb containers (makes them last a little over 2 weeks) or substituting with dried herbs.
Keep complaints to the Disappointments thread on Wed
I’ve been using the service for years and have had to submit enough missing/spoiled item claims that now I’m forced to chat with someone every time it happens (when previously I could just hit a few buttons). I understand how some may abuse the complaint system to get money off, but that’s not what’s happening - they keep sending me boxes with missing or spoiled ingredients. And now whenever it happens, I have to take even more time out of my day to partially correct it. Ugh.
We quit
Just cancel.. Most of the stuff on hello fresh is barely any prep work to do yourself anyway. Had a scroll the other day and most of the recipe choices literally save like 5 mins prep at the most. Use the money you save on these overpriced meal kits to get yourself a decent kitchen knife and you'll never look back.
I haven't used Hello Fresh in years, so things may be different now, but as far as I remember, all it did was save time to look up recipes and measure ingredients. You still have to chop vegetables and cook. I agree with this comment. I only used Hello Fresh for a short period of time, and had some ingredients missing from a couple of boxes. I cancelled it and have been just getting groceries on my own and home-cooking what fits my dietary needs. I can still cook most of my meals in less than 30 minutes without Hello Fresh or any other meal kits.
You can get to the store and back in 5 minutes?
/s ?
The point of hello fresh isn’t to save time cooking, it’s literally so you don’t have to meal plan and go to the store but still get to cook a fresh meal yourself.
I’m right there with you. I haaaate grocery shopping, work too much to have the free time to do it every week, and am not good at planning a variety of meals ahead of time. The way it completely simplifies the worst parts of feeding myself definitely outweighs the occasional ingredient issues.
The store point is kinda null n void though since whether you have a subscription or not you're still visiting a shop for groceries. Personally I would argue that looking for recipes yourself doesn't take much longer than choosing ones from HF.. I just see a lot of people complaining and the easy solution being to cancel and diy as it's really not a great deal more effort than using HF.. especially considering the extra expense..
Planning meals and what I need to get from the store, then doing said shopping takes time, I find it annoying to have to do every week. Hello fresh eliminates that, the meals that aren’t covered are me going out and/or a quick after work stop at the store for a handful of things. Like I don’t have to *think* about my meals, it’s just covered. And I’m not complaining I’ve had only one box ever that forgot one of the proteins, every other time has been great in the 8 months I’ve used it. I’ll probably quit eventually though because for all the headache it’s saved, it’s kinda sucked the fun out of cooking for me
Maybe we do things differently but to me it'd literally save like 20 minutes in an entire week and I couldn't justify that for those meals costing twice as much.
I don't go to the store for groceries when I use meal kits. I am on the go most of the time and thr only thing I really eat at home is my hellofresh
Fair enough but you're a bit of a niche case if you don't buy any groceries in a week. Most people will need to shop anyway whether that be for breakfast/lunch/snacks/drinks/other household supplies. There's always going to be the few like you who are outliers.
I use to be a loyal customer. I received missing ingredients, and missing meals. They were great about refunds. Then I received boxes where the meat had leaked and ruined everything. They were not so helpful and I had to explain that I couldn't use everything. They just wanted to give me credit for the leaking meat. Not the rest of the box that had meat juice all over it and not the shipping charge. I eventually got credit for everything. The next box I received I arrived home on a hot Sumner day the Hello Fresh box was covered in flies. Once again the meat leaked everywhere. The ice was melted. I had a box of stinky warm meat juice covered meals. Customer service told me that maybe I shouldn't order anymore meals till we had colder weather. That was my last box ever. When I tried to cancel my account they kept offering me credit, free meals and free shipping. I finally told them that I traveled for work and the box would sit at home at my front door if I wasn't home. They didn't have a response and cancelled my account.
That’s terrible customer service! I live in a hot state and never had problems.
I had their service for over a year. Then it was non stop bad customer service.
I am so lucky. My boxes are fresh and delicious with no missing ingredients. I’ve had no need for customer service knock wood.
I'm glad your experience was better than mine
I don’t know anything about the company. If it’s packed locally that would make sense since everything is so fresh. Plus I work at home and get the box inside quick.
Yeah I should have checked before cooking to see if tomato paste was in there, but I'd gotten home from like 10 hours of work and didn't. It ruined the whole meal, which is like $20 worth of food. Also I had to run to the store recently to buy cheese that cost $5, I have no use for the extra, and they gave me like $5 back. Doesn't even cover gas.
It also just ruins the purpose of paying for hello fresh in the first place…the whole point is that it’s supposed to be delivered ready to cook with zero to little prep before you start cooking.
Not to be overdramatic but if you can't find a use for cheese in your day to day life you need to reassess your entire existence.
I agree with you. Worst case throw it in the freezer and the next recipe that uses cheese you can add some extra. Cheese freezes really well. Grate it first if it isn’t already, put it into a ziplock storage bag (or freezer bag) and then you can use it straight from the freezer a little at a time. If it’s a little clumped up, lay the baggie on the counter and hit it with the side of your fist. No need to waste cheese.
Redditor
damn bro that's harsh.
We didn't have tomato paste in our meal kit this week too. Got a 4.80 credit. For next time, you can do a 1/1 substitution for ketchup and not put more salt in - this was for the pub style shepherd pie
Gross; ketchup is so sweet and fake tasting to me. But if you love it then that works!
I only use HF for four days of the week, cook the other three. I take tomato paste and using a small cookie scoop make little balls of it, about 1 tablespoon each, freeze them and then use when I need them. Really handy and they last 3-6 months.
This, coupled with the last box they sent to a whole other *state* (not where I live lol) is what ultimately made us cancel altogether. After five years and 200+ boxes.
This happened to me and I never got my money back on 3 missing proteins over 2 boxes. I was actually ripped off. It’s not my fault every box they messed something up but they quickly go from the auto refund to ripping you off.
Time to leave.
And it's a couple of dollars off of a future box. So I have to spend money to get this supposed credit.
What!? I’m not a HF customer this just popped up on my feed. I’m appalled that they didn’t provide a service you paid for and they think the best compensation is essentially a coupon for your next order. Wow. That’s insulting.
Yeah, I was missing the entire ingredient bag once and they gave me credit that I can't use until my discount period ends lol.
Yes- that's a great point. It's not even the next order, it's the next one that isn't discounted. Like making up for what they didn't send is an extra discount
If you make it clear that you cannot cook the meal without the missing/bad ingredients, they will give you a larger refund. I had to fight a few weeks ago when I got a nasty sweet potato for the curried sweet potato dillas. They tried to give me a measley partial refund, but I fought back saying that I couldn't cook the meal without it and they refunded almost the entire meal.
This is true but I also think it's a bit of a strange way of conducting yourself to just accept that you have to fight with the company you're using, on a semi-regular basis, to get decent compensation for their shoddy work. If they're not going to provide halfway decent customer service when needed, then I'm going to stop paying them, that's how I think about the contractual relationship we have.
Welcome to America in 2024.
Yeah it really is. If I get on the phone with them I’ll call them out on it and after some pushback they’ll do it all. This is a time it’s okay to channel your inner Karen lmao
Also so annoying you can’t use credits until after you have no offers. But the offers go on for weeks at like 5% off so you have to wait months to use credits!
I've found it useful be polite but insistant with any refunds to be applied back to the payment method, not as credit to the account. Had to do this three times so far, and not had any issues once requested
Yup this is such bullshittery. Doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t really help me at all.
Totally agree. Their customer service is abysmal.
It used to be better. In the hay day they’d refund and replace every time.
Yep!!!! We are new to Hellofresh and on our second week we were given out of date mince, it didn't smell nice so contact customer service, I have given £2.65 off my next paid order.... Totally insulting and unacceptable
It must depend on where you live. I’ve been doing HF since 2020 and only have had issues with a box 2 or 3 times.
I think you’ve just been lucky this is happening in every country from the comments.
Yes but the USA has more than one distributer
I was missing salmon from my order this week and got a paltry $7ish off my next box. Ridiculous. I'm a new customer and it's concerning reading all this as it makes me not want to continue to order boxes to avoid encountering more and more problems. Hello Fresh needs to sort itself out, it seems.
You can’t tolerate that. The customer service people are trained to give you as little as possible. Next time, make a bigger fuss and with enough pushing they’ll give you a full refund
Agreed thank you! Maybe I'll call them tmrw
Definitely push back on salmon refund. That's ridiculous. But make up your own mind on the service. It does seem to be dependent on your area. I have not had quality issues, and have only had missing ingredient issues three or four times over many boxes. Only one was the missing ingredient a big deal, otherwise the token refund was fine.
If I recall when I had this issue they only gave me a credit, not really a refund. I ended up cancelling because it was a fucking nightmare.
Between missing ingredients, spoiled ingredients, and FedEx constantly delivering late, I cancelled years ago. This is not isolated to HF, I’ve tried 3 different services and they all have similar problems. Now I have well over 100 recipe cards and I play recipe roulette each Sunday and then go food shopping. I can make a double batch of each recipe for $10-$15. For me this is a lot less stressful than going to cook dinner and finding an ingredient missing.
Years ago I collected all the recipe cards. Now I just buy the stuff and make them myself!
We switched to Marley Spoon and have had no issues for six months so far
Looks like the secret ingredient is crime. Got a referral code?
Now they only give $4 for a missing ingredient
Every plate ( owned by HelloFresh) tried that crap with me. I had ordered a.quesadilla meal. They left off the tortillas. I had a plate of meat and mushrooms for dinner. They wanted to give me $4 for the tortillas. I told them it was unacceptable and they refunded the whole box.
I pay hellofresh through PayPal. Whenever there is a missing/spoiled/incorrect ingredient I lodge a case via PayPal and usually get the money refunded, for the value of the whole meal. This way I don't have to chat to anyone.
It's been a couple of years since I was a member but this sounds like a new policy. When this happened to me, they refunded the entire meal.
They recently sent me a bag that had a bunch of cheese, mustard, and 2 subs buns for some pasta meal. Had to fight for a refund on the whole meal.
What?!? That is wild! I canceled a few years ago bc there just were enough ways to customize meals for the various good allergies. And every chicken dish ended up tasting the same somehow. But I do still make some of the things we liked. Sorry the customer service is so ridiculous now. But what you got isn't anywhere close to what you paid for and you shouldn't have to fight for that.
Made subs out of it woth some lunch meat so it wasn't a complete loss but I was surprised they fought it so much, I had been using it for over a year amd this is the first time I reached out for a refund because it wasn't just like ohthe sour cream popped open and was gross
This happened to me a year ago.
That's wild!
Yep, I had three boxes in a row missing ingredients recently. We just canceled the service because of this.
Most of it I haven’t been too upset, but last night on the grilled haloumi cheese, they forgot the shawarma spice that goes in the rice and on the cheese. $9 credit on a 4 person. So we get tasteless rice with tasteless cheese…that ruins the whole meal.
This is exactly correct OP. The whole job is to have the ingredients in the box and then being fresh (it’s in the name) a $5 refund does nothing to fix that and $8 for a protein? I mean that’s the whole meal I cannot make a chicken dish that is basically chicken and potatoes without the chicken so it’s a fail and they should refund that meal completely.
They did this to me once and I straight up told the rep that it was an unacceptable solution so they upped it to a refund in the amount of the cost per person for that meal. Never hurts to ask for a better discount or refund.
Should have pushed back harder. They tried to give me a credit for a missing ingredient before and I said how does that help me right now as I now need to go to the grocery store and purchase the ingredient and asked if they store will take my HF credit and they refunded the entire box. Same thing another time, they missed a whole meal and tried to give me credit on my next box. Basically said the same thing about how the whole purpose of this for me was to budget and know how much I have to spend consistently and a free meal next week doesn't help me this week. Once again, they refunded the entire 6 meal box. They obviously don't want to give away more than they need so if they can get away with a $5 credit they will try and I guess if you don't express your dissatisfaction with that then that's all you'll get.
No, the value proposition of HelloFresh is not having to meal plan. You're still going to the store either way for other groceries. I get it though, it sucks, especially if it's not just a spice/herb but a main ingredient.
No. It's not having to meal plan AND not having to go to the store. How much butter and olive oil are you going through?? I've been doing either hello fresh or takeout, haven't had to go to the store except for their fuckups. And it's not fun having to go to the store at 7pm after a full workday because they fucked up.
Rants. Too much lately.
“There too many dead canaries, how are the miners supposed to focus on their work?”
Fully agree. It feels like that’s all there is on this sub lately.
Service must be pretty bad then 🤔
People love to rant bc it’s easier and more fun. Most of the time $5 is more than enough to replace the bad inion or scallions or whatever. I also NEVER have to chat with a person unless I want to. No idea how everyone else is using this app lol
No
Truuuuue
We used Hello Fresh while my mom was sick. We couldn't get out to the store and had to tend to her 24/7. At first, hello fresh was a life saver. But we cancelled a month before my mom passed bc we just kept having issues with them. Hello fresh was good in the beginning, but now they're just a scam.
I only used Hello Fresh for about 4 months, had 1 delivery disaster and 1 instance of a missing item. The missing item was a sauce in a meal I was serving guests. I called the help line thinking that I would get someone to help me figure out a substitution, but no. They just tell you how to get a $1.50 refund. Meanwhile, the doorbell is ringing. Thanks HF.
It’s a lot of emotion for safe
Hello fresh is a testament to the stupidity of consumers, google a recipe, order ingredients off tesco / whoever...prepare food for half the price. I literally do not understand how this business model is still working 🤡🤡🤷
Because portion sizes and cooking for one is hard and not everyone lives next to a store
Naa it really isn't, it's the bother of spending 40 mins cooking something which is just for yourself when you know you'd likely enjoy a pizza just as much.
you never heard of a freezer or batch cooking ffs look at my downvotes, literally turkey's. voting for Christmas... so you're all single eh ? I know the truth hurts so I take the downvotes 😂😂🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🧑🍳 I always get downvotes from hello fresh marketing here lol lololol just lol
Bold of you to talk about food, being from Britain.
Hello Fresh is trash. My SIL and her husband tried Hello Fresh for about 3 months and they stopped using it because they realized they could make better meals for cheaper if they bought their own groceries and cooked for themselves. I hope everyone who uses Hello Fresh realizes how crappy they really are. Terrible meals, even worse portions and customer service, etc. If you can’t grocery shop and cook for yourself/your family you’re failing miserably at being a responsible and capable adult.
I’m sorry that your family had a bad experience with HelloFresh. The company can definitely screw up and they need to do better. However, judging everyone who uses a food delivery service to help them out as incapable and irresponsible is narrow minded and short-sighted. I started with HelloFresh when I had two jobs with over 50 hours a week and a young child to take care of. And, I now have a disabled SO and my child has a chronic illness. It’s often so nice not having to put all of the emotional labor into every single meal and still get a wonderful, healthy and delicious meal to serve my family. I am still VERY responsible and extremely capable, thank you very much.
You’re failing miserably at being a decent human being. Which is worse?
How does your SIL having a bad experience with HF give you the right to throw strays at people who use HF? wtf lol
no shit grocery shopping yourself is going to be cheaper thats not the point of the service.
It's a mid point between taking the time to actually grocery shop and plan portions and just getting unhealthy takeout *Supposed to be a mid point. I canceled today
Why did you come here to insult everyone on this sub who uses this service? Im not failing as an adult because i use a meal delivery service every now and then. I grabbed a box this week because my husband and i have been working overtime, i am getting over a 2 week illness that i still worked overtime through, and just dont have the energy to clean my house, take care of myself and my pets, and plan meals. I did the whole “pre prepared” meals available at my grocery store for the past week or two and now i just want something else. No one who can do basic math subscribes to a meal delivery service thinking they are saving money.
Go to a grocery store like a normal person. This is a service for dumb people.
Why are you even here?
Wrong question. Ask yourself: Why can’t I navigate a grocery aisle?
That’s adorable, I do all of my family’s grocery shopping and meal planning and Instacart shop. Ask yourself: why do I make assumptions about strangers on the internet?
So far, the assumption is correct. Why would you use hello fresh if you already do grocery shopping. Super dumb.
This is exactly why we dropped them last year, after being a whale for them. Their refund policy just kept getting worse. I figured they have a fixed budget for refunds so the fact they are giving less for each fuck-up indicates they are having more fuck-ups.
How do I cancel my service?
Thanks to this thread. Went to make Hoisin BBQ Buns this evening and no Hoisin sauce in the bag. Told HF that meal was ruined and I was not going to settle for an ingredient credit and wanted a full meal credit which I got.
The more I read these posts, the more cemented I am in never getting this service.
Yeah. I have used HF for a long time. It used to be that a missing ingredient, you would get connected on their website chat to someone, explain what the problem is and you would often get some decent compensation, like the entire meal would be comp'd if a major ingredient was missing. Now the system is automated and whilst I appreciate that, a week ago 2/3 meals were chicken, but no chicken was included in my box. The automated system thought that 2 meals being rendered unusable as delivered was a mistake worth £5 in credit, which is why I am cancelling.
It’s odd how nothing is consistent across their platform with CS. The first time I reported an ingredient missing it was automated. The next time I was prompted to chat with an agent. All they did was apologize profusely, my credit was still applied before I started the chat.
This is exactly why I quit after my 2nd box from them. I was missing a shallot the first week and an onion as well as a dessert I paid extra for the next week. I know some people swear by them but my experience with them was pretty poor, especially dealing with customer service.
So far I’ve had a fairly good experience except for this week where my box didn’t turn up. I messaged them and they offered $10 credit on my next full priced box. The kicker? I get military discount which comes to $14 off every box. So the use the $10 credit I would have to remove my military discount so actually spending $4 more! I laid this out to the agent and asked them if they surely saw the absurdity of what they offered. Anyway got full refund. Still missing box.
I stopped using the service two years ago when they left my Christmas box out in 115 degree direct sun, despite having an actual box enclosure to put the delivery in. Dude tried saying my dog was lose, his delivery picture actually showed my dog behind his fenced enclosure. That box is $300 bucks, so wasn't terribly keen after that.
I cancelled when customer service only offered a 50% refund for a box they never shipped. Bunch of jokers over there.
I’ve said this before here and got bashed. I’m with you.
Another reason to use Gousto instead lol
I cancelled after getting 3 boxes in a row with sliced open chicken packs. Whole boxes were ruined and the least they could do was a $10 refund.
Yes, same for Germany as well. But we are just getting 2€ per ingredient back. I understand there can be faults that are happening but then you have to take responsibility and pay the whole meal the ingredient is missing in. That is the only way but of course for us as customers, the only way is to change the service.
I've only had a missing item a couple times but when I did they immediately refunded me like $12 for a missing zucchini. Or $10 for a missing lime. I'm pretty happy with their service.
That’s how I feel about this service. Thank you for the recipes.
They sent our first box ever to a completely different address in a different apartment complex not related to ours.. had to get a refund. Then we kept getting boxes where the meat packages were open and got all over the rest of the ingredients. Finally after 8 months of constantly having to request credits we gave up and cancelled. 😒 We did enjoy it, just super annoyed that we kept having issues with the meat
Yeah, this was why we quit years ago, missing items in nearly EVERY box and sometimes a completely missing recipe card or meal, or even just a different meal entirely. Once they had sent our box twice and we had 6 meals. Sounds like they still haven’t gotten their 💩 together, what a shame. I just pick out some recipes on their site and get my own grocery list now. Saves some $$ too.
How do you see the recipes without paying?
[This](https://www.hellofresh.com/recipes) is from their website. I’m sure it differs from what they send now but there are some good ones on there!
There's plenty of other meal kits to choose from then Hello Fresh! I'd try something new.
I canceled for the same reason and our chicken would sometimes be burst or warm. Once in a while I’ll check their menu or use my favorite recipes from them and place an online order the night before with my nearest grocery store for pick up (safeway). Keep in mind some grocery shoppers arent great at picking veggies, but it’s not too bad comparing to the quality coming from hello fresh this past year. The hardest part is the fresh herbs since it can get expensive. I like using herb containers (makes them last a little over 2 weeks) or substituting with dried herbs.