You may remember that back in December I received a box of goodies from a company called Degustabox. They are a monthly subscription box service and their boxes contain 10 to 15 surprise food products and costs £12.99 a month. If you read my original review you will know that I was very impressed with the box that I received, giving it 5 stars and I also hosted a competition for one of my readers to win their very own box.
Well here is where the problems began! Towards the end of January I received an email from my competition winner who hadn't yet received her prize. I had spoken to my contact from Degustabox who had asked me to review the January and February boxes and I was expecting a delivery the following week so had assumed that her prize would be delivered at the same time. Just to make sure however, I dropped her an email to make sure that it was on the way.
In fact I sent a couple of emails as for some reason getting a reply from Degustabox seems like a difficult thing to do. Having kept in contact with my competition winner there was still no sign of her prize and in the mean time my January box had been delivered. I did eventually get a reply after trying another email address and my contact obviously got confused because she started talking about my winner living in the Isle of Wight (she doesnt!) and referred to her by a completely different name. I of course corrected her but I have to admit this did start to ring alarm bells...obviously I was not the only having problems!
I sent another email at the beginning of February to their customer services team explaining my concerns about the prize not being sent out. I also explained that I had received the January box but due to the awkward position that they had put me in I was not happy to review it. I got a reply from my usual contact who gave me some story about problems with their courier and promised to resolve it.
On February the 24th I was contacted and asked if there was a problem with my box as they hadn't heard from me and if I could post my review in the next few days they would be very grateful! I couldn't believe the cheek of it! I would like to point out that this email was from the lady I had been dealing with all along! I replied and explained yet again that I was not prepared to review the box until the prize had been sent out.
I did toy with the idea of posting a bad review but I thought I that would give Degustabox the benefit of the doubt again and give them another chance to sort this out. Apparently the prize had mysteriously disappeared and so they had arranged with the winner to receive the February box instead. They asked me to let them know if I was still interested in receiving the February box. I would have thought that it was obviously from previous emails that I was not going to be doing any more reviews for Degustabox.
So on Tuesday this week I got a delivery via UK Mail and guess what it was...February's Degustabox! Well this was a bit of a surprise but this gave me hope that perhaps my competition winner had finally received hers! I dropped her an email but sadly the news was not good, still no sign of her prize despite Degustabox promising her that would be delivered last week. And guess what...no replies to her emails either!
Well I am not going to waste my time reviewing this month's box, or the previous one as I do not want to give this organisation any more publicity. I feel extremely let down and disappointed in their customer service and you only have to look at their Facebook feed and see that I am not the only one who has had issues.
So if any of my readers have signed up to Degustabox following my original review and also received a bad service then I would like to apologize. I am also very grateful to the lady who won my competition for her patience and understanding with me about her missing prize and hopefully between us we will manage to get a decent response (or just a response!) from Degustabox.
It's such a shame as the idea of the box is such a good one but their customer service is quite frankly appalling. Perhaps this post will get their attention!