A very high level person at PFFS just called me and we spoke at length about my challenges with customer service this past month. He was very responsive to the issues I brought up, and I’m now convinced that the problems I had were extras shipping/customer service related, not meal-related. Sounds like the meal preparation end of the business IS very quality-control oriented which is why the meals taste so good and fresh. The quality of the actual meals was top notch (they also had excellent steak and their tomato basil soup was fantastic), but I’ve still discontinued the service for now because of the need to improve their shipping/packing practices. The person I spoke with said they’re a new division and are still working out the kinks.I feel better now that my concerns were heard and I hope they can get those issues worked out soon at PFFS.

That’s’s the positive stuff, but I’m stopping the program anyhow because the customer service/fresh foods aspect of the program was so incredibly poor. Here’s what happened:

Week 1: 8/28-9/4. They substituted small, dry apples for all the pears and oranges I’d requested (the packing slip said they had to do that in order to ship it out on time). Most meals were fantastic, but the carrots did taste rotten, and I looked at the exp. date on them which was 9/3 so I called and they said they’d refund that part of the order.

Week 2: 9/5-9/11. They sent me apples instead of pears and oranges again. They’re starting to pile up, and they’re not that tasty so even my kids don’t want them. I called cust service and they promised to substitute nuts for the apples if they didn’t have fruit the third week. The carrots had an exp. date of 9/20 so they were fine. Small wheat rolls are usually dry and stale tasting so I just taste and toss them when they come in now. I do love the actual meals, though, and am losing weight, so I keep going.

Week 3: 9/12-9/18. You got it, 4 more apples came again instead of the fruit I’d ordered! My family’s starting to make jokes about it, but I’m not amused since I’m buying my own fruit at the grocery store while paying for this “all inclusive” program. I called cust service again, and the young woman spent a good 20 minutes going around with me (said her supervisor told her not to refund me anything for the apples). She even went back into my record to show me that I’d ordered one apple the second week so I must like them some. She told me they keep sending apples because they’re cheaper and they keep running out of the more expensive fruits. It was a frustrating conversation, especially since I joined this pricy program because I thought I’d be pampering myself with high quality, fresh foods while improving my eating habits, not spending time each week on the phone with customer service reps.

That week I also had a hard boiled egg that didn’t taste right, and the carrots’ expiration date was 9/10 so I just threw them and the dry wheat rolls out. I e-mailed customer service about my dissatisfaction but they didn’t reply to my e-mail, so a few days later I sent another note asking who the CEO of their company is (couldn’t find that info listed anywhere on the internet, by the way). No answer to that e-mail, either. Waited 3-4 more days, then sent an e-mail directly to Julie Hanes (the only actual person with an e-mail listed on the PFFS website) with copies of the two other e-mails. You guessed it, she didn’t bother to answer my e-mail either.

Week 4: 9/18-9/25. I did receive pears and oranges this time, but the wheat rolls were dry and stale again, and the carrots had expired on 9/10!!! Again!!! Is there no quality control in this organization at all?? So I called this morning and cancelled my final week and asked them to close my account. They didn’t offer me any refunds on any of the expired items from previous weeks, by the way.

It’s a real leap of faith to order food all the way from some place in Iowa I’ve never heard of, and with the repeated challenges I’ve had with freshness of the food I have lost my trust in the PFFS company. How do I know that they are actually using fresh ingredients in the recipes they prepare when they don’t even bother to look at expiration dates on the other fresh products they send out? I didn’t get sick from any of the meals they prepared so maybe that part of the operation is separate, but for $189 a week it’s ridiculous to keep tossing out many of the extras they send. Btw, anyone have a good applesauce recipe so I can do something with all the apples I still have in my fridge? Hope others have a lot better experience with this program than I did. I certainly can’t recommend PFFS at this time.

Take care, friends
Ro

Yes, I noticed the situation with eDiets deleting messages on their forums. Ack… not good on so many levels (that’s no way to run a community; in fact it can be really damaging in the long run).

Thanks for the info on BistroMD!

What are you going to do now — are you on a different plan?

Best of luck to YOU too!

As I understand it, if you were on the signature plan with DY, you were supposedly getting around 1300 calories a day anyway. At least that was one of the differences explained to me at the time I signed on.

Also, I tried BistroMD out for 2 weeks and found the food to be delicious. Problems being the cost was a little too high for me with 7 days being $190 including tax and shipping, and the meals are all predetermined, but they do allow you to make allowances for what you don’t care to eat on a regular basis.

Thanks for your great site! And best of luck to everyone!

one last thing re:BistroMD, no community board.

Yes! I agree re the BBB. I am planning on filing a complaint. I want to wait and see if my cancellation goes through and whether they screw up my billing. I got my February credit card statement and it looked okay, but whatever has happened post-eDiets website switchover will be on my March statement, so we’ll have to see. I agree, though, I checked it out and it looks super easy to file a complaint.

What have you decided to do? Are you going to just stay w/eDiets until your cancellation goes through and then decide? Are you going to get a different meal delivery service?

Keep us posted!
-NB

Shannon

Oh yes, we looked at Diet to Go too! In fact, I vaguely remember that when I used to go to a gym in the neighborhood, they had a fridge (or freezer?) there for Diet to Go food, so I bet if we tried that service, we could probably pick up our food there. We really liked the caloric level options they offer, too. The only thing that was a sticking point for us with DTG was that we didn’t find the food selections very appealing for our personal tastes. But I will be very eager to hear how you like it because we are like rogues now and aren’t loyal to ANY company in particular!

As for the media, well, I don’t know. It’s probably not something I would pursue on my own, though if someone contacted us, that would be a different story. I agree, though, that there should be some negative publicity generated by this. I cringe each time I see one of eDiets’ snazzy new commercials — I’m like noooo, please no one sign up right now! I was thinking if a lot of people complain to the BBB, that might create some media about the situation somehow. (I’m going to make a formal complaint myself, but I’m going to wait and see whether they actually screw up any of my billing first because I obviously want that to be part of my complaint, even if I resolve it with my credit card company!)

And also I wanted to say that IN NO WAY do you come off as a coward! The customer service person you talked to insinuated that you wouldn’t get your money back if you complained on the boards!!!! Yowza. I’d be scared too. I don’t want to post there either because I don’t really want them to know who I am; however it would be great if some of y’all posted the link to the blog to drive some traffic over here (I’m thinking our conversations here at TBM would be helpful for some poor confused eDiets members who signed up recently and are wondering just wtf they’ve gotten themselves into).

Best of luck to you as well and definitely keep us posted on how it goes!