Forgive me for this long rant. We’re usually quite cheerful here at TBM. Not today. 
What in the world is going on over at eDiets?! I’m absolutely shocked and appalled at how quickly DY has fallen apart. I’ve never seen a service company crash and burn so quickly. Actually, that’s not true. Noodlebean and I used to subscribe to the VOIP company SunRocket for our phone service. One day, out of the blue, they shut down their service without any warning to the customers. They hung a homemade cardboard sign on the door of their office that said “out of business.” We found out because our phone no longer worked. Awesome, right? I can’t believe that anyone could ever rival that situation in my mind, but eDiets has done it. The official forums are overrun with reports of incorrect food being delivered, rude customer service, corrupt data on the website, and an inability to cancel accounts. There’s been hardly any communication from eDiets to the customers other than to say, if you want to cancel, we understand. And cancel we did. I mean, they literally DID NOT send us our food for next week!!
I’m a pretty easy customer. I’m not that concerned about swapping out meals (though, I do like the option) or utilizing the other aspects of the eDiets website. The only thing that they have to do to keep me happy is to deliver food to my house. I guess that was too much to ask. This whole experience has me very frustrated, not just for myself and Noodlebean, but for all the folks out there who finally take the step to improving their health with a trusted weight loss system (something that’s not easy to do, btw) only to be jerked around by a company who won’t even reply to their customers. If people put their trust in you, especially with something this sensitive, you owe it to them to provide the best service possible, and/or at least be honest with them.
We promoted DY on this site—not officially of course, but we’ve dedicated this blog to it. We’ve given honest reviews about all the food—which have, for the most part, been very favorable. I’m sad that we’re no longer customers. I really enjoyed most of the food, and I’m going to miss it. But this situation is beyond being out of control. I certainly hope that someone is held accountable for this, and new management can come in and pick up the pieces.
Does anyone know what happened? We’re still fairly new to the company. To me, it almost seems like DY was an independent company that was bought by eDiets, who in turn decided to run it into the ground. I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s just the feeling I get. They used to have separate websites, different color schemes, all that stuff. Then eDiets decides to bring everything under the main brand, and BOOM. The whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket.
Btw, has anyone else noticed that all of the food in the new packaging has the exact same heating instructions? Peel corner, nuke 1 minute, stir, nuke 30 – 40 seconds. It’s not even individualized anymore. I guess it must have cost them too much money to provide proper instructions for each individual item.
I just can’t say enough how disappointed I am that this experience has gone from being one of the best decisions we’ve made, to a complete disaster. It really makes me sad. I guess that’s all I have to say. Sorry again for the long rant, I just needed to vent. Flame off.
March 3, 2008 at 7:48 pm |
Ditto, my husband and I joined 3 weeks ago, the first 2 weeks arrived fine and then nothing the next week, although they were happy to have charged my credit card for food that never arrived. I started trying customer service friday afternoon and followed up with emails. No response, no answer. I tried until 8 pm. friday and started again first thing sat. morning at 8 am and was caught in a voicemail loop that no one answered, but I was determined, kept on hold until 3:00 pm that day when someone finally answered, canceled our subscription to the plan and they didn’t seem to care. They were supposed to follow up cancellation with an email confirming, but we still have not recieved any email, so we are not even sure if they really canceled. Put in a dispute with my bank on the prior charges for food that never arrived. We too loved the concept and enjoyed the premeasured food and not having to food shop, however the poor customer service scared us away. We are researching other food delivery plans, however will definitely check out reviews and their customer service dept. before ever signing up for another plan again.
March 12, 2008 at 5:11 am |
Good Grief!! Why didn’t I read about all these issues before my Hubby and I joined last week! Sounds like we received YOUR missing shipment, because today, we rcvd 4 boxes from fedex! We were like, what is all this? So I called Customer service, waited, hung up, called again and finally got through. The rep was polite, but you could tell stressed. Having worked in this enviorment before, I can tell you these folks are stressed to the max! I bet they have a high turn-over rate and everyone is new or even temping. But! I was also a software tester in a different life and boy does this just bring back memories of rolling out a poorly tested product and bringing your customers to their knees. I just can’t believe it happened the very week I signed up for this! I’m tempted to cancel tomorrow because I know there are so many other services out there. We’ll see how the food is. Anyway, thanks for letting me vent.
March 13, 2008 at 2:55 am |
Wow Meredith, that’s the first time I’ve heard that issue. Congrats to eDiets for finding even more ways to mess up their service.
I too have worked in the software industry and I agree with you 100%. Based on what I know about testing, I’d be surprised if they even bothered to run any tests on this site before launching—which makes me feel icky just thinking about it. When you’re putting people’s trust in your hands, you have to test your product. It’s so elementary. Good luck to you, I hope you enjoy the food… er, at least half of it. 
If you have further problems with eDiets, you may want to peruse our blog… we’re just now starting to receive food from Pure Foods Fresh Start and the 3 Hour Diet (both of which have food that is manufactured in the same exact place as eDiets). We loved the food, but we just couldn’t handle the incredibly bad business decisions and poor customer support provided by eDiets.
And Kim. I totally feel your pain… as I’m sure you read in the above post. I hope you have found another service. Thanks for sharing, both of you. Let us know how it all works out for you… and don’t let eDiets mismanagement derail your goals!
March 14, 2008 at 2:01 pm |
A corporate ph# is 954-360-9022
March 14, 2008 at 2:02 pm |
A Corp. phone number for eDiets is 954-360-9022
March 16, 2008 at 6:39 pm |
Count me in your ranks. I’d been an eDiet member for a while and thought I’d found the right solution until recently when I’ve noticed the declining service. This past two weeks, I’ve had the missed deliveries, holds with no human ever picking up on the member “DIS-service” number, and no responses to emails, other than to say, they were received and how imporant my business is. Right!
I called a corporate number for Lynnn Frcek, Vice President Corporate Services and she didn’t even have the courtesy to respond. So, like you, I’ve canceled my membership on line and sent a letter to the President at 1000 Corporate Drive, Suite 600, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33334. I’m guessing the next step will be refusing the charges on my credit card.
eDiets sure is a disappointment.
March 24, 2008 at 8:11 pm |
I am glad to know that I am not alone in my utter disappointment with ediets. It took me two weeks to even get a reply to my first email regarding an overcharge on my account. I ended up having the charges reversed by my credit card company because ediets would not respond. No one is available for live on-line chat and the 800 customer service line will keep you on hold all day. I never heard or read anything negative about ediets before this but obviously something has gone terribly wrong. I would encourage dieters to stay away from it. Weight Watchers Online has been a great alternative for me.
May 3, 2009 at 5:41 pm |
I did ediets DY in 2008 and loved it, and found tons of great menu choices. This year, I signed back up, and the food choices were much more limited, and everything I got tasted the same. I just canceled it since I found I really didn’t want to eat anything. I sure hope they got the cancellation right!