HelloFresh

THERE WAS NO GRAVY WITH ANY MEALS! I WOULD HAVE NEVER SPENT A DIME ON THIS YUPPY FOOD! WHERES THE DAGGUMMMM GRAVY! TOOK 50 OF MY HARD ERANED MONEY! IM PISSEDDDD OFFF!

I contacted Hello Fresh customer service via the online messaging feature because it was too late to call. I explained how I saw an email notifying me that a package was being delivered, but explained that I had not ordered this package and that the food was not selected by me. They told me it was too late to send it back.

I asked if they could do anything to help me because I thought I had pushed cancel for this period and I didn't choose this food and cannot eat these options. They said I had canceled the previous 12 weeks but after that it auto-renews to automatically select an order for me. I told them I didn't realize that is how it worked. I thought I was able to cancel all the future and just select when I wanted to make a shipment, but I misunderstood how the company works. When I did it before, I thought it was all in the red. I also did not get emails notifying me in advance that an order was upcoming. I only received an email the day before telling me the shipment was already on its way. I didn't feel that I had a chance to even try to cancel it.

They told me they couldn't do anything for me and I told them I don't think that is a good practice and if that is how the company works, taking money from the customer with no regard for their happiness with the product, I would like to cancel my subscription. Their response was to say goodbye and essentially "hang up" on our conversation.

Today, I called Hello Fresh customer service and spoke to a manager. They essentially did the same thing. The only difference was to cancel my subscription for me when I asked. Otherwise, they did nothing for me and gave me absolutely no incentive to stay on with their service. There is a lot of competition out there and many other services like this, and there is no way this company will last with service like this- I was shocked at the lack of care for my issue, especially because this is the first time I have had an issue. You could tell they just wanted to be off the phone and finished with the conversation, they were not worried at all that they lost a potentially long-paying customer.

The one star is for their customer service because they were all nice and helpful. I give the company zero stars. I wanted to give a meal company a try because I was eating badly because it was easy. So. They gave me the wrong meals twice in a row, all 4 expensive fast food which I am livid about. Because I purposfully chose low Calorie meals. So since I deactivated my account before I got my last box, I couldn't get a refund for their $#*! up. So for anyone wanting to deactivate their account have your last box delivered first... I even paid 20$ extra for a "premium" meal I didn't get.

Hello Fresh doesn't save you money and I'll tell you why if you don't get that already. They buy their products in bulk and get a restaurant discount. In bulk prices beef is less than 2$ a pound.

They give you the cheap stuff you can find at Aldi for 80 cents a can/ box and charge you 3 times the price it's worth, an example is that crappy enchilada sauce and the 6 little flour tortillas that cost no more than 30 cents each.

They pay at most 3$ for their ingredients for each meal because it's all portioned into small packets, while you pay more than 10$ a meal you still have to cook yourself. I had 5 meals delivered and only one was delivered without any issues - and that was my first box. The two after that has meat packets punctured, half rotten onion, and then the last two boxes were completely wrong, I even called and spoke to an agent in recommendation from another agent when my first box was wrong! If you want actual good food just order out and portion it yourself, or use cooking apps to help you out. You'll have food left over and more money in your pocket.

I do not recommend using them. It's a scam.

I don't typically go online to post a negative review of anyone but this experience really sucks. I heard about Hello fresh so my wife and I wanted to view the menu. I went on to the busy looking website site and attempted to navigate to see a menu of offerings I was led through a series of questions to determine my preferences. I get it as I'm not internet or automation illiterate. I just want to see a menu. I am continually led though the questions that lead to payment info. My inner alarm goes off so I read and re-read carefully, it says "don't worry we won't charge you yet we just need to complete your profile." So I acquiesce I admit, against my better judgment. Next page I am given their selection based on my answers. I want to see other options and I am locked into hypothetical scenarios I had given in their initial questionnaire. I couldn't back out of what was now an order and an agreement for a subscription. Devious marketing that I loath. After already spending way too much time on their site approximately 30 minutes, I find the cancel my subscription button and I get the cancelled after your first order that's already being processed for a delivery in 2 days.
Bull**it.
I call customer service. After the 2nd call drop and waiting in the cue, I call a 3rd time and get a nice customer service rep and explain my situation and experience and I assume she is reading a rebuttal script and tells me that when I signed up I agreed and acknowledged to a subscription service and that the delivery is already scheduled and that my $45 cannot be refunded and that I will no longer be charged after this delivery.
Beware. By the looks of these reviews on food quality I'm curious how long this company will be in business.

Several years ago, I used Hello Fresh and cancelled when my summer schedule became too busy. On Saturday May 14th, I was interested in starting it up again and went to their website. I discovered I was unable to view any current meal options (even after logging in) unless I reactivated my account. I assumed I would be allowed to view the meals and decide what I wanted to do. First, I discovered they signed me up for 4 people when before I only had 2. I fixed that online. Then I received a welcome back email from Hello Fresh at 3:04 PM that same Saturday afternoon. I was not presented with an option to choose my delivery date. They picked a delivery date of Thursday May 19th and clearly indicated that date in their email in CAPS, colored text and large type. Below that, they have a section titled "Want to change your menu?" and inside that paragraph in normal type and spelled out, they indicate I have five days prior to my scheduled delivery date to make changes. They didn't make it clear my last day to modify was that night at Midnight. I feel their selection of a delivery date, short notice of my ability to change my selection (less than 9 hours), and failure to clearly notify me of said deadline demonstrates deceptive business practice designed to force a transaction. When I noticed a pending transaction on Sunday the 15th, I called to tell them I didn't want it and was still shopping. They said they can no longer cancel my order even though it had not shipped. I told them I didn't feel I should have to pay for this order as I had not yet selected the items I wanted. They said they could not do that. I said I wanted to cancel my subscription and had assumed they had, but today noticed another pending transaction with them today. I called again and was told they cannot cancel my order and refused to refund my money. I made sure my account was cancelled.

The first time I tried Hello Fresh, my husband and I were just trying to look into it and check out the choices to see if it would work for us. We decided we liked the meal options and would come back to it when our daughter was home so she could help us pick the meals. THEY CHARGED US FOR A WEEK AND CHOSE OUR MEALS FOR US! I didn't realize that happened until I looked at my account 2 days later. I tried to cancel or edit the meals but you only have 24 hours to do that! So I canceled my membership. We revisited using it again to help our daughter get through a difficult time. We remembered what happened last time so we made sure we took the time to complete everything in hat sitting. The first order was great. I received an email 2 days after receiving the delivery letting me know to get ahead of my next meal planning and to choose my next delivery. I blew it off because we weren't ready to order yet. I was paying bills a day later and noticed HelloFresh took more money out of my account! So I logged in to find out that I had no time to choose my next meals because once again they chose for me and charged my damned account! I had no time! And of course now it is too late to edit my delivery and the meals we are getting are not even close to what I wanted or will even eat! So I just paid $156 for 5 meals I don't even like! There is no communication...the rules are not out in plain sight, you have to go through the endless terms and conditions to find the rules, and if you aren't ordering your next delivery yourself within a few days of your previous delivery then be prepared to pay for food you may not like! I have to say that I should have learned the first time and not given them a second chance, but we needed help planning meals that my daughter could eat. I will NEVER use HelloFresh again! I don't like it when companies are not transparent in plain sight! Not to mention that you have to give your credit card info before you can even look at the meals. Just a poor way to do business. I could have been a loyal customer if this company could have just been transparent and gave you more control over your deliveries and meal planning! Shame on this company for being shady and deceitful!

Very dishonest and fraudulent company. I have never done business with Hello Fresh but they have been billing me $60.55 every week for the past 4 weeks. And continue to do so. I called their company and they just tell me that I do not have an account with them nor have I ever had one. They ask for the last 4 digits of my card number, my zip code, and my name when calling. They searched their records and said I do not have an account and they can not help me. I again explained that they were billling me every week and they stated it was impossible to bill a credit card without sending food to the billing address. They said that security measures in their company prevent anyone from using my credit card and shipping to a different address than my billing address. I again explained that they were billing me every week. They agreed to have a supervisor research their billing system to find charges to my card and call me. The supervisor called a few days later and stated that they needed an order number and couldn't research why I'm being billed with just my credit card number, I explained that I don't have an order number because I don't have an account. The supervisor said they couldn't do any thing for me without an order number and told me to just dispute it with the credit card company, I called the credit card company to dispute the charges and had to cancel my card. A few days later, the credit card company said Hello Fresh replied and told them that I had agreed to recurring charges and were able to get my new credit card number due to Visa's policy regarding recurring charges. They keep billing me and I have to call the credit card company every week to dispute this.

If I can give a ZERO I would but review…
If I can give a ZERO I would but review does not allow. I got an e it's and after the score was a promo stating "21 meals for free" from Hello Fresh so i decided to try it out. When I got to the end of my selections it asked for your credit card but o thought there would not be a charge only if I wanted to con't after my free trial. Trump out I was charged $36. I went back into the app to cancel the order and got a confirmation. A week later a box was sent to me which I don't know why bc I had already cancelled my order. Then I got my credit card statement showing the charge so I decided to call Hello Fresh to ask for a refund bc I had already canceled right when I ordered so it's not my fault that the system didnt pick up the cancellation. Anyhow I had to speak with a manager and they had called me back when I was not available. Their system sucks bc you have to call the Hello Fresh customer service and they will email the manager thru their system and there is not direct number to speak to a manager. So one of the rep said they will have the manager call back at a time good for me. No call back and I never got a hold of a manager. So I disputed the charge and somehow I was still in the wrong and doesn't make sense to me when I clearly cancelled the order less than 2 min after I clicked purchase! Hello Fresh has bad upper management service. Impossible to get a hold of someone. There was a deal at the time where I could get 21 meals for $35 but ge rep said since I already made then1st purchase they cannot change or modify order. So I guess they didn't want my business. I figured if I was going to be charge $36 for that order may as well just do the complete 21 order but they did not honor that. Therefore I don't recommend this company at all! Before you try their so call free 21 meals make sure you don't accident press complete your order without looking at the actual charge! Never doing business with this company. I already opt out of all their emails but for some darn reason they still send me email! STOP sending me emails!

I recently gave HelloFresh a try. I was looking for new ideas with recipes to get me out of my recipe rotation rut. And HelloFresh came through very well with that goal. The recipes/meals were very tasty.
That was a positive. Over the course of 3-4 weeks, I acquired 14 new recipes. All were vegetarian except one, which had chicken breast strips. My preference was veggie, and I specified that when I signed up. Nevertheless, HelloFresh kept sending me both veggie (a few) and non-veggie (much more than a few) suggestions with my order selection. That was a little frustrating, but I managed it.

Also positive was the size of the portions. I ordered for two, myself and my wife. We both seemed to get exactly the amount of food we wanted with our dinners without being overfilled. A few times we even had leftovers for the next day's lunch. Also positive was the packaging and delivery. No complaints there.

Now for the negatives. You'll see that I gave this review 3 stars. That was generous. It had to do with the quality of the food items received. Some examples:

(1) I mentioned the chicken breast strips above. I had to throw them out. Mushy and nearly decomposed.

(2) The quality of the vegetables I received was 50/50. For the most part, usable, but occasionally I had to toss out an item (tomato, zucchini) for being well over ripe (again, mushy). Fortunately, I had my own substitute items available.

(3) Most of the recipes I chose had lemons or limes for juicing and/or zesting. They were typically hard and dried up. One particular lime was so hard there was no way of squeezing it for juice. As hard as a golf ball.

BEWARE! Run away from this company! DO NOT Order from them no matter how good the "deal" sounds. The reason they give those initial discounts is so they can rip you off later. Would give less than zero stars if I could. WORST Food delivery service ever! The scheduled delivery was messed up, the 2nd box processed 2 days early, so that left No time to cancel or change the delivery date especially since both meals contained extremely spicy menu items which one of our family members can not eat because of a medical condition.
Even though I did contact them to stop the shipment (only a couple hrs after their imposed cut off time), once your credit card has been "billed" they do not want to issue a refund, even though the order has NOT been packed, and has NOT even been shipped yet!
This box I canceled was not even packed or shipped until FOUR days later, (so yes, it COULD HAVE been stopped) and then it was shipped TWO days before it should have been shipped, so the food (meat included) sat outside, on the ground, for hours, because we had not anticipated delivery that day and could not be home to bring it in.
So after the box sat unopened in our spare refrigerator (had to remove shelves to make it fit) for three days while trying to resolve these issues with customer service, gt a refund and return the box (the label (from UPS) says NO RETURN, so I tried a package pickup request which would have cost me an Additional $27.50 to send back their garbage food).
After waiting three days for hellofresh to resolve the issues, I finally opened the box, just to check the contents and discovered that it was packed without an insulated bag (only a flat cooling pack under one pf the meat items, which leaked, inside a brown paper bag. To make matters worse, there is NO Expiration date on the meat item, and one of the meats was missing! Customer service is the absolute WORST I have ever dealt with. (when you can reach them). So I have this unusable spoiled food they wont take back, wont issue a refund and I just threw away $77! On a bag of garbage. So furious right now, I want to scream some colorful four letter metaphors!

So so so so many problems so I'll just mention the most important ones:

I received 4 gift cards for Hello Fresh from my family this Christmas, and I saw they had the 22 free meals + free shipping promo. I've never used Hello Fresh before, so when I tried to use the promo and my gift card, it would only apply one or the other (the promo or my gift card). I called customer service, and the rep on the line told me to use my gift card and that she will apply the promo after I add my credit card. I follow through, but she does not add the promo and said it is impossible to add. She lied to me so that I would now have a purchase on my account and can never use a Hello Fresh promo in the future (since they are only for first-time purchasers).

My invoices never added up to the right numbers, the charges never made any sense, and I had to check my Hello Fresh account every single day to make sure they did not over-charge me (by randomly deleting out my gift cards), change out my meals after I already chose which ones I wanted, or unsubscribe me entirely but still charge me for the box. For example, I bought 4 boxes, each with 4 recipes for 4 people each. When I purchased them on my account, it clearly states the boxes are $137.83 including the 9.99 delivery fee. I had 3 $115 gift cards and 1 $140 gift card. For some reason I had to pay $43.63 for the first box, $22.83 for the second, and $0 for the last two boxes. If this company was honest and true, I should have owed $525.36 total, and with $551.46 in payment and gift cards, I should have $26.10 left over for my 5th box. I also got $20.45 in credit due to the mushrooms being rotten, so $46.55 total to spend. However, on my invoices for each week, the numbers changed randomly and I only had $23.75 left over to use. One box charged my $148.64 + $10.99 shipping, another charged me $127.84, etc. Such a shady practice! I never knew how much my bill would be or what would actually arrive in my box. When I asked customer service to explain where the random charges were coming from, they said they didn't know but I could call back and ask someone else. Every time I open my hello fresh account, the cost changes. I've included the proof in photos below.

On top of it all, the recipe cards were not helpful at all. For someone who has never really cooked before, simply writing "dice the tomatoes," "pour a splash of oil," and "cook until cooked through" without any photos or descriptions can be very confusing.

On the health front, even the "Fit & Wholesome" recipes have 1050-2050 mg of sodium in them, and the lowest calorie dishes are still 800 calories each! Because the sauces come in little packets, there is no way to lower the sodium on my own.

TLDR: Shady payment practices and promo lies, confusing recipe cards, and unhealthy meals.

My very first order was beyond disappointing.
1. Like others have reported, the quality of the produce was so poor, I was left with ingredients that I could not use and that had to be put in the compost bin or ones that were so underripe, they had zero flavor and also ended up in the compost bin.
2. The packaging is a joke. While they do use recyclable cardboard, they also use single use condiment packaging entirely made out of plastic material that is NOT recyclable. They claim that "Your box can stay out of the fridge for up to 24 hours from delivery. Even if the ice packs melt, the vacuum packs help to isolate the cold air to keep foods fresh." This might be true if the box was tightly packed in an appropriately sized box for the shipment, however in my case, there was more air than product so everything was already warm by the time it arrived. Additionally several of the condiment packets burst in shipment so everything was a mess and it left me without those ingredients to use.
3. Reporting the damage presents itself as "easy" however, this is where the con game kicks in. They do NOT stand behind their methods. Once I reported everything, I was told the only thing they could offer was a "credit" on my account, however, credit could not be used until ALL of my discounts were used up first. (Discounts are assigned when you sign up.) I would have had to spend around $700+ before I could get my refund of $50 for a low quality grocery delivery. (My first order cost around $90 including shipping.)
4. If one wants a well rounded, better tasting quality meal, HelloFresh adds on a surcharge - even if it is just a chicken dish. Also, in the end, one still has to COOK the meals so there really isn't that much convenience.
Given the poor quality produce and the unsatisfactory refund remedy, I cut my losses and cancelled my membership. In the end, I find that I can get the same recipes online, receive a higher quality produce and other products and at a lower cost using my local grocery store service AND produce meals that are more interesting and flavorful than what they put together. Save your money and if you struggle with creating meals, take a cooking class instead. Buy local groceries. Better for the environment, supports your local businesses and is more healthy food.

I will not be a future customer. The food is good don't get me wrong, but all the issues and problems I've had don't make the good food worth it to me.

First of all you can only do a gift card up to $140 so I received 5 different codes to use as gift card. Once you create a account you can only apply ONE gift card code at a time. So if you have a small balance left from prior gift card to use on your next box your payment method on file will be charged no matter what. I call to try and get refunded the amount my card was charged and use my next gift card but they are unable to do that due to "their system and was told that's not how hello fresh works".

If you forget to choose what meals you want for a week they will choose for you which I'm ok with but... they choose the meals with a up charge which will then be charged directly to your credit card on file not your gift card. Balance.

YOU ARE UNABLE TO USE GIFT CARDS OR CREDITS ON ANY DESSERTS, ADD ONS OR MEAL UPCHARGES.

They deliver your boxes at 8:00 in the evening, so don't plan on making one of your meals that night. They also have a expiration date of usually a few days. (One of my boxes meals expired 3 days after receiving the box which came with 6 meals)

I received several meals with missing ingredients as well as some veggies bad.
Doesn't normally come with free delivery like most delivery services.

One week I never received my box although marked delivered by delivery service used.

I'm seriously not one to complain but each order I've gotten there has been a issue and my card has been charged several times (over $100 maybe even $150). I'm a stay at home mom so these gift cards were given to me for that reason, save money on groceries and to help save time making dinner. I WILL BE LOOKING FOR ANOTHER DELIVERY SERVICE NOW. ILL NEVER RECOMMEND HELLO FRESH OR USE THEIR SERVICES AGAIN.

My girlfriend and i decided to try hellofresh for a month after recieving a promo code from a friend (who also has canceled their sub since) and it was possibly one of the worst things i have ever tried. I don't even know where to begin. We got 4 boxes before calling it quits, but i should have just stopped after the first like my gut told me to. The first box we received had such a rancid smell we could barely open the box, to find everything spoiled and covered in mixed meat juice. When i tried to contact customer service, i was shuffled into their streamlined automated customer service of "here's account credit" (which is so presumptuous that it's almost insulting) not to mention i didn't even receive the amount of credit i had paid for the box. Can't even use the account credit because my boxes were under a "promotion" so good solution there *heavy sarcastic eye roll*. Pretty annoyed at this point. Our second box (the 1/4 we both received and could eat) arrived and was fine. Our third box arrived just as rotten as the first, completely inedible. At this point i'm seeking real customer service and to cancel my subscription, and this was the nail in the coffin for me. They intentionally make you jump through hoop after hoop just so you can talk to an actual customer service rep, who was barely helpful and was more interested in talking up their terrible product and service (which i mostly do not blame him because i can see that he is likely forced to say those things). I was able to get a partial refund, not even close to the amount i wasted on this whole endeavour. Did i mention they also intentionally do not have a way to cancel your subscription in the app? Another hoop to jump through. After going on the website and being bombarded with "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CANCEL?!" messages (more to come via email) i was able to cancel and take a breath. Our 4th box was delayed twice and has yet to arrive, by which time i'm sure it will be just as inedible as boxes 1 and 3 were.

In summary:
Nothing about this service is even close to quality, only subscribe if you want to spend 3x the amount to receive rotten food and to not get your money back. This review does not even do justice to their level of deplorable service. Save yourself the headache and use InstaCart instead

So originally I was trying to navigate the website and try and find the meals just to look at them and it seemed like the only way I could actually looking meals was to go through in order until I got to that point where it showed you the food. It had me put in my PayPal which I didn't think too much of it because a lot of the time when you do that you still have to confirm the order at the very end but instead when I did that it immediately purchased the item and then had you choose after I thought that was really weird. The order was still processing so I emailed them immediately saying I didn't want the item I was just looking and I would like a refund because I wasn't planning on buying it and despite it literally just being ordered they had originally said they could go back on the order and give a refund. The next day in an email I got someone saying that it was too late to go back on the order and it was already processing but that I would still get a refund. I told them I didn't want the food I just wanted a refund and they said OK. A few days go by and I actually get the food and I'm like what the heck. So I emailed them again and let them know and ask if I'm still getting my refund and they confirm with me that they are going to give me the refund. I ordered this June 24th originally and canceled and asked for a refund The next minute after ordering it on accident and they answered pretty fast to confirm that I would get it. They said it would take about 5 to 10 business days for me to receive the refund. It's been a month now and I have yet to see a refund at all and I have emailed them multiple times and they keep assuring me that I will get the refund but I have not seen anything so it kind of seems like a scam or just bad business the way that they handle everything I'm really close to just doing a dispute on PayPal just to get my money back because it's going through so much just for a refund that could've taken five minutes for them to do.

I had wanted to skip an order and unknowingly the stupid thing I did was "donate the box". I wasn't thinking all that clear and I was not under the impression it would out of my pocket. Now y'all can say I'm stupid all you want, but no where else it clear that it was my pocket. I thought surely this company would just pay since they are a *well reputable* company and during the holidays that's their nice way of giving to the needy.

As soon as I saw the payment processing my account was in the negatives. I quickly opened the app and contacted support to let them know it was very hard to scrap my last pennies to save my account and that this month is very hard. I was hoping they would be empathetic and understand and since I don't use the services anymore that they could see I've been skipping every delivery for the last year. They make it EXTREMELY difficult to cancel without talking to a representative.

TONI seemed very understanding and said they would gladly refund me and to try to enjoy the holidays. I was told it would take 5-10 business days to complete. So I was grateful that they actually seemed helpful. On the 6th day I logged back in to check the status and to confirm it was being refunded, someone rather quite rude said to wait and I asked why they don't send an email or if they did and never received one saying my refund would be processing. They said they do not do that and that I just need to wait it out. Now surely it's appropriate for the company to acknowledge this through email for security and confirmation reasons, right? Nope they just go about their day hoping you'd forget and not to mention the date of the reversal would be helpful on both ends of each party.

I waited until the 12th business day hoping I was maybe counting my days wrong or that they processed it the next following business day because I had talked to them initially on a Thursday. I reached out to make sure my days were correct and why is it that it's been 10-12 days with no funds returned. Of course they asked everything all over again and they looked back through the history. They come back saying they see no chat history in the beginning which was December 1st. They only saw the second chat and asked if I had "proof* of the initial chat. I said no and that's unbelievable your agents would dare to delete that.

They told me my bank already has disputed the charge and I just said bye and left the chat.

I called my bank and told them everything again and what had happened. They said no dispute was ever made and they I myself had to do that myself through them. So we began the process and they said they would cancel future payments just incase.

The fact Hello fresh lied and was sneaky makes me NEVER want to return to them. They are snakes and should be out of business.

Never again!

They are charging me for food I have not received. DONT USE THEM. THEY OVER CHARGE. CLOSE YOUR ACCOUNT BEFORE THEY OVER CHARGE YOU