Meal-kit company HelloFresh is striking down claims that it took money from customer accounts after they canceled their subscriptions.
A number of customers say their accounts were reactivated without their consent, and when they logged in, customers had found that their money was taken for orders they had never placed, the BBC reported. But Berlin, Germany-based HelloFresh rebutted the claim, saying that the cash it had taken, applied to customers who had made the “conscious and proactive decision,” to reactivate their account.
“We are categorically not taking any money from customers,” HelloFresh said in a statement.
Customers, however, claim that simply logging onto the HelloFresh app prompted the reactivation. One customer told the publication that even after he had cancelled the subscription, he and his wife received a follow-up email from HelloFresh thanking them for reactivating.
The recipe box firm is steadfast in its claims that its app is working as it should. HelloFresh said it had not faced “any glitches in reactivations,” nor had it seen a rise in customer complaints related to the issue.
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Shares of HelloFresh plunged by more than 42% on Friday of last week after it warned that its 2024 fiscal year profits would be far below its 2023 levels.
In its latest earnings report, HelloFresh said it expects adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (AEBITDA) to be between €350 million and €400 million, or about $381 million to $435.5 million, which it said would be “below the level reached in 2023.”
That decline is due to an increase in production capacity, higher marketing expenses, and the “ramp up” of two new fulfillment centers, which the company said would be located in two of its largest international markets, the U.K. and Germany/Austria.
Even so, HelloFresh said it expects revenue from its North American market to grow at a higher rate than its international market