When I first read this I was 100% on the author's side, but after visiting CookUnity's site I have some reservations. Unless CU changed their website since this was posted (which was about an hour ago according to Github), they mention quite a few times that it's a subscription service. The banner at the very top of the page say "Subscribe now". One of the four entries in the FAQ is "My Subscription". The "How it works" page talks about how you can pause your subscription. Even the URL that the author links in the first paragraph is subscription.cookunity.com.
All this being said, the solution to "how to handle a user that hasn't chosen their meals" should be to email them with a reminder instead of just choosing random things and charging their card. Also, sending the email after the cutoff to cancel the order is irresponsible, if not outright malicious. I'm not sure if this was illegal, but it definitely seems immoral.
Author here. I admit I might be missing the subscription part (perhaps because I don't know about how meal plan companies work). But my impression when I issued my first order is simply "this is just Amazon except that item is shipped weekly". That the company would "pick something for me" if I don't act is just beyond my imagination.
And as you have pointed out, they intentionally not email any notification and only emailed me when I cannot cancel the order is immoral, which is another reason I was annoyed.
You don’t really have to be familiar with meal plan services. Their website makes it 100% clear that it is a subscription. That’s how subscriptions work; they keep going periodically without intervention.
How did you arrive at “So I decided that I will not order again given the poor cost-efficiency. And I never logged back in to their account.” as the correct course of action for a subscription? You can’t cancel a subscription by just ignoring it.
I did not realize it was a subscription, and I was expecting that even if it was a subscription, I wouldn't be charged since this subscription contains action items (the food item to buy), or at least I will have a chance to cancel. Which, both turns out to be wrong.
At the very least, if they just ship me my last week's selection, I wouldn't complain either.. But they choose to ship me random food.
The signup form makes it clear it's a subscription.
The TOS makes it clear it's a subscription.
The "how it works" page makes it's clear it's a subscription.
And they tell you beforehand that they rotate meals in and out of the selection and pick for you if you do not select your meals by a certain date.
You're bent out of shape for not paying attention to what you were signing up for. You've brought negative attention to a company because you couldn't be bothered to pay attention to literally every customer facing page on the site.
That the company would "pick something for you" was explained under "How does CookUnity Work" on the first page of the signup flow. The same page that says it's a subscription multiple times.
I just checked this "How does CookUnity Work" thing again [1] .. So you are right, "pick something for you" is there. But it's hidden in a bunch of text, and the phrasing is unclear to me:
> Our Chefs cook the meals available on each day’s menu in our community kitchen, every morning. Choose your meals or let our auto-pilot ordering select meals for you (you'll be notified of the selections in advance).
I actually recall I reading this sentence on my first order. And my impression is "what? they are using auto-piloted cars to do delivery? I should go watch how that works when it comes" and I just overlooked what it actually meant :)
The business model for these meal plan companies (there are a ton of them and they all essentially do the same thing) is to put you on a recurring subscription plan and pre-select meals for you if you do not choose them yourself.
This is no different from every other subscription based recurring service aside from the meal selection portion. Customers like recurring billing because it takes the hassle out of writing checks, and companies love it because most people are going to cancel only after months of stopping to use the service.
Author here. Honestly $72+tax is not really much for me. What I'm disgusted is all the dirty tricks they used to secure this $72 deal:
(1) They never made it clear that it is an automatic subscription system. They mentioned they ship only weekly and you need to pick your menu before some date so you can get food for that week, which seems like an explanation on their business model. But what they actually mean is that "if you don't explicitly cancel you will still get charged and get random food". This might be "every other meal plan company" does, but this is not any shopper (who are used to Amazon etc) like me would expect.
(2) They intentionally never sent out notifications. The only email I get is the "confirmation" email. Then I immediately contacted support to cancel, and was told too late. Their bad intention is clear.
(3) And in the end, I was forced to pay $72 for 6 meals that I have no interest in. So thanks to their dirty tricks, I paid the money, and not even getting the meals that I wanted.
> They never made it clear that it is an automatic subscription system
When did this supposedly occur? Checking the Wayback Machine, back to at least the beginning of 2020, CookUnity’s website has been lavishly explicit that what they are selling is, exclusively, subscription plans, and that those plans default to a company-chosen selection when the subscription is active (not paused) but no selection is made.
When you first sign up for a subscription to a CookUnity weekly Plan (a “Plan”), you are charged only for the orders schedule on your weekly plan on a weekly basis. All Plans are continuous subscription plans, and you will be charged the applicable price listed for the Plan that you select on a weekly basis on your delivery day and each subsequent expected delivery date until your subscription is cancelled. If you wish to cancel or modify your subscription to a Plan, you can do so at any time as described in the “Cancel or Modify a Subscription” section below; however, except as noted otherwise below, any amounts charged to or paid by you prior to such cancellation or modification will not be refunded, and cancellations or modifications may not impact any order for which you have already been charged, depending on the state of the order."
OK, thanks for replying every comment to defend CookUnity.
1. The point is not about subscription. It is about they only send email after it's impossible to cancel orders. This is clearly a ill-intended behavior. And no, I did not receive notification email or text before that final "order confirmation".
2. Regarding subscription, I updated my article to explain how I got tricked. Perhaps I'm not as careful as you are to read through terms.
3. Regarding "I caused negative influence to a company due to my own stupidity or whatsoever" in your other comment: it is my freedom to express my opinion, and they are based on true expeirence.
Then why have most of your comments explicitly said that you (implausibly, given the site content and how explicit it is) didn't realize it was a subscription? If that wasn't relevant, why keep raising it?
> It is about they only send email after it's impossible to cancel orders.
If your complaint is “the subscription plan that I signed up for which has a default option and a choice to actively select or pause doesn't remind me to actively select or pause if I don't want the default selection”, then, sure, that's suboptimal UX, but hardly “dirty tricks”. And its definitely not the same as “fabcricating an order”; you made a recurring order.
> Regarding subscription, I updated my article to explain how I got tricked. Perhaps I'm not as careful as you are to read through terms.
It's not a matter of being careful. I’ve looked back at their website on the Wayback Machine through several changes back through the beginning of 2020; it has always blared, everywhere, that what they are selling is subscription plans. There is no plausible way to have engaged with that site and remotely reasonably mistakenly thought you were making a one-time order. Its not a matter of something that presents what you’ve described as an Amazon-like ordering interface with recurrence and default selections hidden away buried in FAQ text and T&C; those are front-and-center prominently-marketed facts about the product.
> Regarding "I caused negative influence to a company due to my own stupidity or whatsoever" in your other comment: it is my freedom to express my opinion,
Indeed you are, just as those to whom you express your opinion are then free to express their opinion about yours. But when the fact claims you make to try to get people to share your opinion seem at odds with the readily verifiable facts, well, its worth noting that you are not, legally, free to cause harm to others’ reputation with false fact claims.
You first tried to misrepresent the situation by claiming they didn't communicate to you what they were going to do, and now you're pretending like getting informed after you're invoiced is some sort of dark pattern because you're embarrassed.
You didn't get tricked. They LITERALLY tell you it's a subscription on every page and most people would probably at least pay attention to what they intend to do by reading the page that says exactly how the plans work.
They didn't create a bad experience for you. You did it to yourself because you didn't pay attention to explicit details that are literally there for you to read on virtually every page.
I would be enraged by this, as it seems you are. Have you considered a chargeback via your payment card? It seems justified given the lack of clarity and notification email sent after the deadline to cancel.
Every page on the site that is for customers says it's a subscription service. It's like being angry at getting shot because you got into a hobby of juggling loaded guns.
My boss got me on CookUnity and I use it because the taste/variety is good enough and I'd rather spend my time on my hobbies. Re: portion size, you just have to know what to pick to get your money's worth.
The calorie counts looked way off in the past, and my boss actually contacted them about it. I still don't believe most of the calorie counts and breakdown of macros.
I heard their service went downhill for some people but I've never had any issues, and a long time ago got a deserved refund for something.
I always get alerts before the cutoff time, so you could "skip" that week rather than message customer service. I'm not saying the author's gripe isn't real, it is, but they've at least always been clear with my orders.
All this being said, the solution to "how to handle a user that hasn't chosen their meals" should be to email them with a reminder instead of just choosing random things and charging their card. Also, sending the email after the cutoff to cancel the order is irresponsible, if not outright malicious. I'm not sure if this was illegal, but it definitely seems immoral.