Hello Fresh - Scam? Bait & Switch - Ignored Cancellation
Not sure if it was an e-mail or a pop up but the offer was 10 Free Meals from Hello Fresh applied to the first box. So, I thought I would give it a try. I chose 4 meals for two for the first box. So, 4 x 2 is 8 although I was supposed to get 10 free. So, I looked to see what kind of meals were available for a second week. Wow! Not much of a selection and the cost was outrageous at $109.35 for the base meals. Then I saw that my free 10 meals (only 8 chosen) were going to cost $49.34. Within an hour on July 4, 2026, I went from signing up to cancelling the account and advising Hello Fresh that it was not authorized to make any charge to my credit card. Well, yet Sunday morning I get a notice that Hello Fresh charged $49.34 to my AMEX credit card for my box of free meals and by Monday the charge went from Pending to Actual.
I contacted Hello Fresh
by Chat, requesting and waiting for a live agent. I explained that Hello Fresh
had no authority to charge my credit card, that I canceled my account in less
than an hour from signing up and made it clear that I did not authorize any
charge by Hello Fresh to my credit card. The chat agent offered me a credit to
my account, calling it a "topping off" of cash in my account for
future purchases. I was shocked and explained I want nothing ever to do with
Hello Fresh so why would I want to have it keep the amount charged despite my
clear instructions to cancel the account and that it had no authority to charge
my credit card. The agent then said it would apply a credit equal to the amount
charged and it would be 7 to 10 business days for the credit to show up on my
AMEX account despite that it was able to charge my credit card in less then 12 hours after being told I cancelled my account (less than an hour after opening the account.)
So, my opinion is that Hello Fresh is disingenuous at best with regard to its “10 Free Meals Offer." It had no right to charge my AMEX card after being advised of the cancelation and instructed to not charge the credit card and ignored those instructions. Its CSRs seem to have been instructed to do whatever to keep money improperly charged to potential customers and make the customer use its over priced products.
Well, I will never ever consider using Hello Fresh again and when asked, will advise my friends to avoid it as well.