HelloFresh denies taking money after closing accounts

Food delivery company HelloFresh has denied receiving sign-ups from customers who say they have canceled their accounts.

The BBC heard claims that some customers found their accounts had been reactivated with money taken for orders they had not placed.

They believe that simply logging into the app reactivated their accounts.

HelloFresh said the funds were only taken when customers made a “proactive decision” to revive the account.

Lawrence, a finance manager from Bedfordshire, said his wife Nina set up a trial period with HelloFresh in November, but she didn't like the service.

“After canceling my HelloFresh subscription three months ago, my wife woke up to a message saying her account had been reactivated. But she did not reactivate it,” he said.

He said his wife opened the app to look at menu options as her dietary requirements changed.

Lawrence told the BBC he believed HelloFresh had set up its app in such a way that “you're automatically reactivated if you have an account, just to open the app.”

HelloFresh took £40 from Nina's bank account on January 31, and despite contacting her three hours later, she has not returned the money.

“They said no,” Lawrence said. “We told them we had not reactivated the account. My wife said she would contact her bank to get our money back, but they said if we did they would send a third party debt collection round.”

After canceling the subscription again, they received an email confirming the cancellation, but on February 9 they received another message thanking them for reactivating the account.

The 44-year-old said: “They took £40 again, but this time we got the money back.” Then the account was closed.

HelloFresh told the BBC that its 1,000-strong technical team, which monitors and maintains its systems “continuously”, has not experienced “any glitches in reactivations”.

She said customers must log in to the app or website and go through a series of steps before their accounts can be activated again.

But Lawrence said he and his wife have not gone through that process. “This is not true. We did not take these steps and had no idea what meals were being sent to us.

“Why would we call customer service to ask them why they were taking money from us if we took these steps? My wife deleted the app and a week later her account was reactivated again.”

HelloFresh said it listened to the conversation its agent had with Nina, and said there was “no evidence that the customer was charged without his consent.”

The company told the BBC: “The agent explained… that they would still be responsible for paying for the box… and that if they stopped their bank from paying, a third party might contact them.”

Other customers told the BBC they had similar experiences with the company.

Karen Sadler from Surrey said she canceled her subscription but was sent a box when she “just went to look at the listings”.

“I didn't even ask for it, and when I explained it, I received no apology, just 'well, it will cost £10 to cancel your membership'.

“Nightmare” is how Sarah Purnell describes her relationship with HelloFresh.

“If you log into your account for any reason, even by mistake, because it is an app on your phone, it will be reactivated and then a new request will be sent,” she said.

In a statement issued to the BBC, HelloFresh wrote: “We categorically do not take any money from customers without a conscious and proactive decision by those customers to reactivate.

“We have not seen an increase in customer complaints related to this type of issue, which is what we would expect if there was a problem with the process. We are also taking diligent steps to ensure that the reactivation process is clear.”

Last week, shares of the prescription box company, which was founded in 2011, fell more than 40% after it warned that its profits would fall below expectations. It is scheduled to publish its annual report on Friday.

Along with competitors Gousto and Mindful Chef, the company enjoyed a boom in its business during the pandemic when people were told to stay home.

But its user numbers have declined since then. In 2022, it had more than 8.5 million active customers worldwide. By the end of 2023, this number had fallen to 6.64 million, it said in its report Annual Report Posted on Friday.