ComplaintsforKiwiCo Inc

• Initial Complaint

  09/24/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Delivery Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I placed an order on 9/13 [KE-ED775C1F09142449], which was intended for an event on 9/21. During the initial purchase, I selected free shipping, with the earliest expected delivery date being 9/18. On the morning of 9/16, I received an email stating that my order was on hold, prompting me to call the provided number.I called immediately and spoke with an agent who confirmed the order details and informed me that the order would be released for fulfillment. I expressed concern about the order arriving on time, and we discussed expedited shipping as an option. Although I was willing to pay for expedited shipping immediately, I was informed that it was not possible without canceling the original order. As time was critical, I agreed to cancel the initial order and place a new one with expedited shipping.On 9/16, around noon, I received confirmation that the original order had been canceled, and the new ordernow with expedited shippingwas scheduled to arrive by 9/19. The expedited shipping fee was $21.30, which I promptly paid. Even allowing for a potential one-day delay, I was assured that the package would arrive no later than 9/20. The next day, I received a confirmation email stating that the order [KE-485C9F4E09172421] had been successfully placed with expedited shipping.Unfortunately, the package did not arrive by 9/21. On 9/22, I sent an email requesting to return the undelivered items for a refund and asked for instructions on how to return the items once they arrived. Since then, I have exchanged several unproductive emails with customer support, who have informed me that the items are non-returnable. They could only offer apologies for the inconvenience. The reason I am requesting this return is that the items were not delivered by the promised date, despite the additional payment for expedited shipping. Had I known there would be such a delay, I would have canceled the order during my initial conversation with the agent on 9/16.

  Business response

  09/26/2024

  Hi there and thank for taking your time to provide your feedback. We're sorry to hear that your crates did not arrive in the expected timeframe that you'd hope. Our expedited shipping can take 2-5 business days. When the order was replaced on 9/16, it arrived on 9/23 which was the 5th business day. If there was any confusion with the screenshot provided, showing 9/19, that is the timeframe of the estimated earliest arrival date. We understand the frustration that this may have caused. We have provided a refund for the expedited shipping ($21.30), please allow a week for the refund to process. If you have additional questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to our team.

  Customer response

  09/27/2024

   
  Complaint: 22330709
  
  I am rejecting this response because:
  

  Hello,
  
  Thank you for following up. I had clearly informed the first ***** that I placed this order for an event and needed the items by a specific date. Had I been informed at the time of ordering that the shipping timeframe might not meet my deadline, I would have canceled the order immediately. The term arrive by should leave no room for ambiguity, and I strongly suggest revising the language on your shipping page to improve clarity and transparency.
  
  For reference, one box with some crates arrived on 9/23, and the second box containing the remaining crates arrived on 9/24. If I had ordered only a couple of crates, I could have potentially found another use for them, but unfortunately, I now have ten unopened crates still sitting in their original shipping boxes.
  
  I would appreciate it if you could provide me with the return instructions and issue a refund.
  
  Thank you for your assistance.
  
  Best,
  ******

  Business response

  09/30/2024

  Thanks for your response. It looks like our team have provided the two return shipping labels. Once we receive the crates, the refund will be processed. Please feel free to reach out if you need additional assistance. Thanks again for letting us resolve this issue! 

  Customer response

  10/05/2024

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.

  I received the return labels, and sent the items back. Subsequently a refund has been posted. Thank you. 

  Sincerely,
  ****** *****

• Initial Complaint

  09/18/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  First Kiwi makes it hard to cancel your subscription, you have to keep pausing and if you forget then the will start your subscription over and charge your credit card. Second you dont have a telephone number to call a live person the ********** will not allow you to get past that step. I want to cancel they just send other order the other day and charged me ***** dollars.

  Business response

  09/18/2024

  Tell us why here...Hi there and thank you for reaching out to us. We're sorry to hear about your experience and the with trouble canceling your subscriptions. We do understand that we should continue to look for ways to improve and clarify this process for everyone. You can contact our team by clicking on the "help" button found on our website and then selecting "FAQ's and Support." From here you can email, call, or chat with us 7-days a week during our posted business hours. After reviewing your account, it looks like you had two active subscriptions for the same child. The 3-month subscription was paused, however, the monthly one had recently shipped out a crate. We have gone ahead and canceled both subscriptions and refunded you the two remaining prepaid crates ($72.57). Please allow up to a week for this refund. You will not longer receive additional crates or renewal charge as your subscriptions are canceled. Please feel free to reach out to our team if you have additional questions. Thanks again for letting us help resolve this.

  Customer response

  09/19/2024

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *******************************

• Initial Complaint

  09/17/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I signed up for a 6th month tinker crate subscription at a discount for 96 dollars roughly. I added a yummy crate for under 4 dollars. I did not choose auto renewal. They claim in fine print. At no time do they send prices in emails or do anything when they auto renew yummy - I assume when I kept getting it it was at the same price so was ok. Turns out they are charging me 26 dollars and more a month for what I got for under 5 dollars. Then when I want to stop it renewing there is no button to turn off auto renewal - just to cancel but the subscription was done. Then without my permission they send me atlas crates - when I call to ask why getting it (assumed was a gift) they say yummy done so they changed to a different crate with nothing to do with other. They refunded these two but did nothing for the extra money o yummy crate. this site is purposely misleading - you do not ask for auto renewal - they do it without permission making it cubers to change - no way to do it online - I spent an hour on with customer service to change it. Never do they email price increases or prices nor do they have in accounts online - this company should be investigated

  Business response

  09/18/2024

  Hi there and thanks for sharing your feedback. After reviewing your order and account history, we confirmed that you did take advantage of the holiday promotion on 11/27/2023. At the time of your purchase, you selected the monthly payment plan for the Yummy Crate subscription and a semi-annual payment plan for the Tinker Crate subscription. Since the promotional offer was only valid for the first order, your Yummy Crate began billing at the regular price of $23.95 in Jan 2024, and we sent a reminder renewal email in May that your Tinker Crate subscription would renew in June at the normal 6-month price (which is $19.95 per crate). In August, we sent an email alerting you that you had completed all of the Yummy Crate and that we had graduated you to our Atlas Crate line at no additional cost. After you reached out to our team a week ago, we agreed to give you some refunds for the crates you received given that you did not intend to purchase the renewing subscriptions. While we understand your frustration, you agreed to the terms at the time of purchase and we provided you with the notifications needed to understand what you were purchasing and had purchased. We thank you again for your time and invite you to reach back out to our team if you have any additional questions regarding your order. 

• Initial Complaint

  08/30/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I purchased a kiwico box on 8/16 for my nephews birthday. Shortly after paying and confirming my first order was received, I paused my subscription so I didn't get any additional boxes, until I knew my nephew liked his first. Shipping was supposed to occur 2-3 days after my order was placed. It is now 13 days later and nothing.I reached out to kiwico and they told me that when I paused my future boxes, they paused the 1st one too, and basically just kept my money with no intent of ever sending me the box I paid for. The first ****** I spoke to from kiwico's chat option disconnected the chat when I asked why they felt ok keeping my money and sending nothing. The second ****** I talked to basically said, we'll unpause it. Okay. That doesn't help me when I'm supposed to have this gift in 2 days. I now need to buy ANOTHER gift because kiwico intended to essentially keep my money and ship nothing. I feel like this was horrible customer service.

  Business response

  09/04/2024

  Hi there and thanks for reaching out. We're sorry to hear about your experience did not meet expectations. After reviewing your account, we can confirm that the first crate was not shipped out right away due to the subscription being paused manually. When you reached out to our team, we've expedited the crate to be shipped out and offered a full refund for your inconvenience. Please let us know if there is anything else we can help with.

• Initial Complaint

  03/08/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I cancelled our account 8/23. They are claiming that there is a duplicate account, using an email that is one letter off from my actual email. I did not set up a duplicate account. Per customer service "they don't verify emails, they don't do anything with bounced emails, and they don't send receipts." Now I have all these KiwiCrates and I've been charged $155.58. I cannot get into the other account, because the email DOES NOT EXIST. I would like to return all these crates and get a refund. It's so disappointing, because I've been getting these crates for quite a few years, but cancelled because the kid using them has started school not and we don't have the time to do them.

  Business response

  03/08/2024

  Hi there. We're sorry to hear about the frustrations you had with this order. For context, we confirmed that you had two different subscriptions, and on one of them, you accidentally entered an incorrect email address during your ordering process. While you did successfully cancel one of your subscriptions in October 2023, we have not seen any attempts to cancel this subscription until today. Since this was an unintentional order entry error you made to your email address during the ordering process in June 2023, and we were not made aware of this error until March 2024, we are not able to offer any refunds for the monthly deliveries you received. We can confirm that this subscription is now canceled as of today, so you will no longer receive the crates or monthly charges. Thank you again for reaching out and sharing your experience.

  Customer response

  03/14/2024

   
  Complaint: 21405698
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  Every time I checked the website, or called, I was told the account was cancelled. As the email address was invalid, how would I ever know there was a duplicate? It took your customer service person quite a while to locate the "duplicate" account and they only did so after I insisted that there must be a way to check this because I'm still getting crates and bills - no matter what your computer says (I screenshotted the entire conversation if you need to see it). This is a shoddy way to run a business. 

  Sincerely,
  
  ***************************

  Business response

  03/19/2024

  Hi there, and thanks again for your reply. In looking at your account history, the only contact we have from you is on 3/8/24 and we canceled your subscription on this day after we discovered you entered an incorrect email address for the order at the time of purchase. We've confirmed that there have been no additional charges since 2/22/24. If you've received more charges after this date, you may have accounts under different email addresses that we are not yet aware of. Please reach out to our team and share any additional information you have so we can better assist you. Thank you and we look forward to helping you resolve this as soon as possible.

• Initial Complaint

  01/03/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  They are spammers. I never signed up for their emails nor I have I ever done business with them. In addition, they hide their contact information. They are violating the CAN-SPAM act.

  Business response

  01/04/2024

  Hi there and thank for reaching out. We're sorry to hear about your experience and we'd be happy to further assist you. We were unable to find any accounts associated with the email that was provided. You can reach us by clicking on the "help" button found on our website and then selecting "FAQ's and Support." From here you can email, call, or chat with us 7-days a week during our posted business hours.
  

• Initial Complaint

  12/12/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  12/09/2023 I noticed on my account that I had a charge of$66.62 from KIwiCo on an order I did not purchase; called them and their representative told me it was ordered using my dead husband's (2 yrs) email address. I checked while I was on the phone and the only correspondence from them was that a delivery was on its way. I asked for refund and was told I couldn't get one because package is on its way. I checked my KiwiCo account and their are no active monthly subscriptions. It makes me angry

  Business response

  12/13/2023

  Hi there, and thanks for reaching out. We're sorry to hear about your experience. We reviewed the interaction you had with the agent and confirmed that this was an auto-renewing, 3-month subscription that was established in Feb 2022. We did send two different auto-renew reminders (the first was 7-days before the first renewal in May 2022, and the most recent was 30-days before the annual renewal in Feb 2023). During the call with our agent, we see that you accepted our offer to refund you $44.41 for the two unsent crates and we canceled the subscription for you. If you have any additional questions we can help you with, please let us know.

  Customer response

  12/28/2023

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***********************************

• Initial Complaint

  12/08/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Have multiple times tried to cancel the account. The company has even locked me out of my online account. However, I continously get charges on my credit card that they cannot understand or refund and I need to dispute with the credit card company. Each $225 - $240.

  Business response

  12/11/2023

  Hi there, and thanks for reaching out. We looked into your account and only see one charge for an auto-renewing subscription for this year (which we have since canceled and refunded), and confirmed that you still have access to your KiwiCo account. During a conversation with our team, you shared that you had spoken to someone else at a different company about these charges. Since we've confirmed that no other charges are on your account from ******************, we're unable to assist you further with this complaint. We encourage you to reach out to that other company who is billing you the extra charges and see if they can remove those charges for you. Thank you.

• Initial Complaint

  11/21/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I purchased two kits from the site for a party that was happening on November 18. I was diligent about checking to ensure that the gift would arrive on time, and made sure to purchase the fastest shipping option which stated the gift would arrive by November 17. The items did not arrive by November 17, which forced me to buy a new gift for the party. I reached out to the company about the situation and asking for help getting a refund for the shipping and items. The provided a refund for the shipping costs I paid to get the product by Nov 17, but stated I have to personally pay to return the items to get a refund for items. I stated that this was penalizing me for the company not delivering on what I originally paid for, and asked for them to send me a return shipping label or cover the return shipping cost in the refund. They refused to do it, so I'm asking BBB for help getting a refund for return shipping and a refund for the items - which are still in the original shipping box and unopened. I also feel that their shipping menu should change to note the customer will still be responsible for all costs if they do not deliver gift items on time.

  Business response

  11/21/2023

  Hi, thanks for reaching out and sharing your experience. In reviewing your order history and interaction with our team, we've confirmed that you did purchase the gift in time for the delivery, but it was delivered a day later than expected. We apologize for the delay in receiving this order, and for not offering a return label when you reached out to our team. We've requested the return label to be sent to you and are coaching the agents involved for improved quality going forward. Please accept our apologies for this oversight and we thank you again for bringing this important matter to our attention.

  Customer response

  11/22/2023

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  Che'*********

• Initial Complaint

  11/21/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We were gifted a sub on my child's first birthday and bought our own in her 2nd birthday last year. Each box we received included a stand alone book based on the boxes' character and related age group (i.e. the panda box always included a small book about the panda and the koala book included one about the koala). A book has always been included, except for the last two boxes where the book itself appears to have been discontinued and instead has been absorbed by the information packet. No information was sent out and no changes to the cost of the box has been made. They seriously cheaped out and refuse to lower the price point.In addition to this issue, the quality has gone significantly downhill in the last several months that's we've received the koala crate. The materials are flimsy and easily come apart.

  Business response

  11/21/2023

  Hi, thanks for reaching out and sharing your experience with your subscriptions. In looking at your current subscription, we see that your child has graduated into an older age group which does not always include a book with the crate. While we're always updating the crate offerings and do include books whenever possible, we know that we don't always hit the right **** for some customers. We don't see that you've ever reached out to our team to share your feedback. We invite all customers to contact our team if they're not happy with the quality or content of any of our products, and we'll see if we can find something else that *** be better suited for the child. Thank you again for sharing your feedback.

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩