Too Many Issues, Do Not Recommend
I was a raving fan of Marley Spoon for more than five years, essentially since the company was getting started, and I’ve watched it grow tremendously over that time. Unfortunately, I’ve also watched the quality of its operations and customer service decline to the point where I finally cancelled my subscription. Over the years, I have experienced just about every issue you could imagine from a meal-kit delivery service: wrong recipes, missing ingredients, spoiled or moldy food, delivery delays, incorrect items, billing issues, overcharging, and promised credits that were never actually applied. I kept giving Marley Spoon the benefit of the doubt because I genuinely loved the service and wanted to remain a customer. I kept telling myself things would improve. Instead, they progressively got worse. The final straw for my family was receiving an entire box of meals that we did not order. Not one incorrect meal, the entire shipment was wrong!! Making matters worse is how extraordinarily difficult it has become to get meaningful customer service and in contact with a human representative. Trying to reach someone by phone often means dealing with automated/AI systems that send you through a loop without actually resolving the problem. Email support hasn’t been much better; in my experience, responses can take days or even until the following week. When you’re dealing with spoiled food, an incorrect delivery, or a billing problem, waiting that long for assistance is simply unacceptable. I’m also extremely concerned about the billing discrepancies I discovered. After reviewing my credit card statements from approximately the past year and comparing them with the charges amounts displayed in the Marley Spoon app/account, I found multiple instances where the amount charged to my credit card did not appear to match what was shown by Marley Spoon. There were also occasions when I reported spoiled or moldy ingredients and was told I would receive an account credit, only to later discover that the expected credit had not been applied. For a subscription service that charges customers, there needs to be absolute transparency and accuracy when it comes to billing. What makes this especially disappointing is that I wasn’t a customer for a few weeks or a few months. I stayed with Marley Spoon for more than five years. I remained loyal through countless mistakes because, when everything went right, I genuinely enjoyed the meals. But eventually loyalty has to go both ways. I have now cancelled my subscription and moved to a competing meal-kit service, and so far the difference in reliability and customer service has been significant, like day and night. Marley Spoon has a good concept and some genuinely great recipes, but the complete operational failure problems, lack of accessible customer support, repeated fulfillment issues, and my concerns regarding billing ultimately made the service impossible for me to continue using. After five years of being one of their biggest fans, Marley Spoon has permanently lost my business. And frankly, if I were Martha, I would be embarrassed to have my name associated with the customer experience this company is currently providing.