Just received an email from redpawpaw about August box and they have added delivery fees of $7.5. Does anyone else has got such email? Are you continuing your service with redpawpaw now since they added delivery fees?
Edit: added poll.
Redpawpaw relaunched with shipping fees
pyramid on 20/07/2014 - 19:54
Last edited 20/07/2014 - 22:09
Last edited 20/07/2014 - 22:09
Poll Options
- 130I am cancelling subscription because shipping is killer.
- 5I am happy to stay and pay shipping.
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Comments
They also sledged the courier company, which based solely on my two experiences, was absolutely UNjustified. I'm inclined to suspect that blaming a hapless courier company for a dramatic shift in their costs/contract a couple of months into the venture may have been a part of their "business model", from the outset.
They are welcome to make this change, if they must, to both new customers, and even to existing customers who were on a month-to-month basis of subscription. BUT, for those of us who chose to pre-pay a 12 months subscription, how dare they unilaterally say that they are going to charge much more AND will be debiting my credit card unless I intervene to cancel!! Outrageous behaviour. Surely this cannot be legal? Definitely not ethical.
Give it 2 months, RedPawPaw will be gone…
Yes RPP surely will be gone, but I'm just a bit worried that it's possible they've managed to bury a couple of hundred grand here-and-there, which will not be traceable when they declare bankruptcy (or is it insolvency, for a "business"?). Assuming that the "year subscribers" get stiffed (never get their money back), in RPP's wake they will leave a few thousand of them out of pocket, potentially soured relations from those that were advised to join the "scheme" by others, an unjustly publicly defamed courier company, numerous companies that contributed their products free-of-charge in good faith that the business was being run by peeps that actually knew what they were doing rather than a couple of kids, and now find themselves the subject of online derision… ETC.
So yeah, RPP will most definitely be "gone" within a couple of months (because the situation they have created, perhaps even intentionally, is completely irreparable), but the sad fact is that if the creators of it walk away having made money by ripping dudes off, they will just move on to the next scam. A bit older and wiser for the next time.
Or they could've just made a mistake with their profit/loss.
Not everything in this world is a conspiracy, dude.
They want to reduce the number of subscribers I guess. This is a good way of getting the numbers down, obviously no one wants to pay so much for delivery just to try out new products! sorry, not ethical.
I unsubscribed but now do not know how to delete my credit card details from their website. Anyone knows? I sent them an email to remove my card details. I guess none here would like redpawpaw to store their credit card details after unsubscribing.
I wouldnt delete my credit card details until they have refunded…if they ever do!!
Don't give them even the slightest excuse/method of not to refunding your money by the deadline, to your credit card; don't request that they delete you CC details, until they have paid your money back onto it. Remember that you can contest ANY unauthorised transaction made on your credit card, so don't worry too much that all of a sudden you will find yourself responsible for any charges you did not specifically/personally authorise.
Delivery fees is $14.50 to my area … and we only "enjoy" ( meant we actually would buy it ) half of the stuff. So no deal.
My delivery is $7.50, I'm willing to continue. I still get $12 of value each month.
The thing is you no longer get a guaranteed value of $30 per box, as per their new terms and conditions.
But im still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until I see otherwise.
Let us know how it goes. Although I doubt many people would go back to them after this. I hope it works out for you. :)
I'll wait for the next box but after then I'll cancel.
This is Ozbargain $30 value is $15 for us, maybe less.
I buy my groceries when half price and take full advantage of all points and vouchers. Sometimes I can manage paying 25% or less of retail price.
Thats the real Ozbargain spirit, as far as I am concerned!
Yeah but we choose what we want to buy at 50% off. Everyone is different but these random boxes, whilst good so far, do contain a fair amount of stuff that I wouldn't buy, even at 50% off.
And lets not forget they receive these items for free as a marketing promotion, and the people receiving the goods have to evaluate and review each and every product in the box.We have bought several items after evaluating them from 'the box'. These were products that we would not have thought of buying previously, and I have even suggested a few items to friends…
Let's not forget this is a marketing exercise, not an online shopping deal, given the right people participating it should be free because it will generate revenue and positive feedback for the companies that are providing good products.
My 2 cents.
@greydaniel: yeah, most of mine is still in the cupboard.
Good for redpawpaw if they can make this work
For me I feel our economy is already saturated with marketers skimming an income off the top of industry (not to mention charities).
Manpower and education that society could have invested in teaching, healthcare etc instead.
Hi Ozbargain Redpawpaw subscribers,
I'm really sorry for causing such disappointment. We really wanted to continue to offer the Redpawpaw service to all subscribers without having to pass on the cost of delivery but unfortunately so far we have not been able to generate enough revenue from other sources to cover our costs.
We completely understand if you decide to unsubscribe due to the delivery costs and we will be so sad to see you leave if you decide to go.
We definitely are not a scam though. We are offering a FULL REFUND to any annual subscriber who does not wish to continue, which is in keeping with our obligations. We value our subscribers and appreciate the support you have shown to us and we do not want you to be out of pocket. We have provided over $35 worth of products in each of our first two boxes. As you won't be charged for these boxes if you decide to unsubscribe you effectively have received that product for free. While this is obviously not what you wanted or what you signed up for, it is the best we can offer in the circumstance as continuing to deliver the boxes with out recouping more of our costs would have lead to a much worse outcome for subscribers.
We are grateful for the support Ozbargainers have shown us, and we hope to be able to continue to offer our service to those that still see value in it. For anyone who decides to leave we thank you for being part of the Redpawpaw community and wish you all the best.
Sincerely,
Sarah
You read it somewhere or just made it up..
Edit found it—> https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/139078?page=5#comment-2128…Sorry, something important came up and I fogot to include where I got it from.
Don't worry..I have more free time..so found it…lolz
Where did this come from?
From here…https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/139078?page=5#comment-2128755
10,000+ and so many on waitlist… regarless if customers stay or go, consumer info is worth the $s.
Yes consumer info is valuable. That's why I just changed my details on their site, such as age bracket, household ages, pets, preferences, likes, everything I could change. I even went into credit card details and changed my expiry date and cvv (3 digit number on back of credit card).
I WAS on a monthly payment, so that works for me. If you are expecting a refund though you may need to leave your credit card details accurate until you receive it. Just a thought.
Just unsubscribed, was good while it lasted. Shame costs went up as much as they did, still would've stayed if only a few dollars more. Would have been happy to provide more detailed feedback as well. Interested to see what kind of percentage of current subscribers are cancelling?
Same thought here. When price goes up by 150% at ones for anything it's no deal for me.
The delivery mechanism they had was fine for me. You can't expect too much reliability when they work and deliver with low budget. They delivered my second box in the dark around 7.30 p.m. That's not normal for other delivery companies. But this time worked better for me as I was at home at that time.
I was happy with it for the price or even with bit of increase and had the intention to stay with it for ever but now I am unsubscribing too.Hope they will at least be able to retain those who requested for reliable delivery in their feedback. If those who asked for reliable delivery for the same $5 and decide to drop out with this price hike, bad luck Red Paw Paw. There can be people who expect everything for as little as $5 but you always could decide who you want to cater for.
For me what I get for $5 is more important than reliable delivery. If the delivery was late or even lost I wouldn't be too concerned as it's just $5 and it's worth the risk.
Of the "yearly" subscribers, almost 100% of those that are made aware of their options in time, and think about them, will demand the FULL refund. There is no incentive not to, given the fact that it is RPP who are attempting to change the contract (and if it proves beneficial for them in any way, could just as readily decide to do so again in the future).
Oh well. It lasted two months before going rotten. That's better than any other paw paw I've tried.
Cant we let them charge postage by not contacting them and then do a charge back for unauthorised charge?
Their facebook page is going off. So many angry customers. I wouldn't be surprised if the company goes down the toilet… it sure looks like it's heading that way
This was posted by rep at launch.
'We use eWAY as our payment gateway which means we do not store any credit card details at all.
We are also waiting for our SSL certificate to be loaded onto our site today so if you check back tomorrow you will see that we will be fully verified and safe to deal with.
Hope you decide to join!'Does anyone know how this eWay works , how can they charge an additional amount if they don't keep CC details?
btw, I'd get the refund, I think their business is dead, people have started complaining to their suppliers directly.
I'm surprised at the strength of the backlash, Government and big business play up much worse than this and the public has no voice about it.
Hmmm well they must be storing my details as I'm on month to month and each month they charge me!
You all got baited and hooked, good hopefully you will all learn a lesson. You were all so confident in the main thread and negged down any of us that raised concerns, anyhow it does not matter as apparently there are over 3000 people waiting to take your place according to redpaw.
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Wise words my pluripotent pal. Perhaps proclaiming that our collective misfortune is "good" will not be endearing/ gain you friends on this site, but I'm guessing that's not why you're on here…
I doubt any new subscribers will be lining up at RPP to "take our place", personally… to be sure, no company will be even remotely interested in having their products associated with the farce that RPP turned out to be. Not exactly a "Ponzi-scheme" I guess, but some similarities are apparent…
Ok, cancelled subscription lucky I was on a monthly basis, I was going to sign up for a year this month but after this stunt I don't trust them at all.
Okay I guess you could call me an "outsider" as I am not a customer of Redpawpaw and never have been. I was considering joining only recently (a couple of weeks ago) but decided against it because I came to the conclusion that I probably would not use the majority of the products included in the box each month.
Well boy oh boy am I glad that I didn't end up joining. I have watched the drama unfold here on Ozbargain and also on their Facebook page. This is my two cents on this company from everything that has happened so far:
I think they wanted to develop a large base of customers and potential customers and they knew that by charging such a low amount for a box of samples each month, word would spread far and wide and a lot of people would become interested. Hence why they have apparent long waiting lists.
Now that they have a large fan base, they decided that they are going to charge shipping in order to increase their profits. Some people will actually pay for shipping. You just have to go to their Facebook page and amongst the negative comments are a few people claiming they are still happy with Redpawpaw and will continue. I don't really fully buy Rewpawpaw’s claim that they can no longer afford shipping. While I think that it has some truth, I think they want more money and I think the shipping costs are about money.
I also think that is incredibly misleading to change and amend your terms and conditions for your existing customers, especially those who had signed up to a yearly subscription. I have read on their Facebook page from many different customers that Redpawpaw have changed their terms and conditions. If a company feels so inclined to modify their terms and conditions and not notify customers that they have done so, what else would they feel inclined to do? I have read that the value of the samples received in the box can no longer be guaranteed. So basically from what I have read you could receive 2 samples worth $5. What is stopping Redpawpaw from adding more costs in the future? Based on this move, nothing.
I am not even a customer of them and I am annoyed. I feel for all those people who signed up and had this happen. It would suck. But I guess it was a good ride while it lasted so even if you got a small amount of pleasure, enjoyment or even excitement then I guess it was worth it. Needless to say there is no way I am signing up with them. I would be interested to see how many people on their waiting list actually follow through
I feel for all those people who signed up and had this happen. It would suck
I am annoyed at the way they handled this, but will probably be able to keep the razor blades away from my wrists ;-)
I got 2 boxes of samples from them for $10. The kids had a great time unpacking them and we still have a few samples to go (had blueberry pancakes yesterday). So I am pretty good all said - I got in early, got my stuff, cancelled when it went bad.
If you're going to be a professional bargainer, you can't let feelings get in the way - sometimes the deals will be too good to continue so you get it while you can!
But they still could have handled it better, and admitted up front they couldn't make money at the $5 price point so had to raise delivery charges. The lie about it being in response to existing customer's requests was just crap.
Their handling of it is the biggest issue, it's a fairly substantial jump (minimum 150% increase from $5 to $12.50 all the way up to a maximum 360% increase from $5 to $23) but in my opinion the worst thing is the yearly subscriptions.
They sent me an email yesterday (the 20th) saying that unless I cancel they will take another $75 from my bank account.
I haven't authorised this transaction, me not responding is not authorisation and the onus should not be put on me the customer.
Could you imagine if Telstra pulled this?
Sign someone up for a 12 month contract and then after 3 months send an email saying that their costs were doubling and they would be making withdrawals.The more I think about it the more I realise that what they are doing isn't legal.
WORD, ma-kegs.
Had already requested them to cancel yesterday. But today got an email from them asking to choose "Pay Delivery Monthly", "Pay 10 month delivery upfront", or cancel.
Email also informs of changes to terms and conditions.Oh and most importantly, if people dont respond by July 30, subscriptions will be automatically cancelled.
Hilarious how last month they promised annual subscribers an extra box to make up for the missed month but now you have to pay for the next 10 months delivery fee and there's no mention of the free box.
Annual people will get 12 boxes…. 2 boxes have been delivered already and 10 boxes are remaining. Just rather than being over 12 months, they will be over 13 months.
When it first came out, I thought about the yearly plan and went nah, it will fold/go under before the year is out. So went month to month. So glad I did!
I'll be giving the $12.50 Aug box a try to see what its like, if its not up to snuff, then they are gone!
Well, erm, as much as I now don't like these guys, to be fair they just said they'd send you a box on the 13th month (i.e., 1 month after your contract was supposed to have finished), to make up for NOT sending you one in the 3rd month of the contract. They never actually promised you a free box. The "new deal" they 'shimmied' into then was still 12 boxes, total; not 13.
Don't get me wrong though… I'm no paw-paw-lover. I used to quite like paw-paws. But now I even avert my gaze when I see them at the green-grocers… especially, the red ones.
Haven't even heard of this before! No surprise that it's gone downhill though. $5/month would barely cover their shipping costs, let alone the cost of the products (Which look to be larger than most free 'samples' anyway).
Surely they would have done the cost/revenue calculations before launching?
As someone has previously mentioned they get paid over $1.50 per item, per box plus another 50cents per survey.
The first box contained about 8 items, so that's about $12 per box plus $5 and the companies also give the items for free.This is simply not correct. Established companies don't pay "start-up" companies like "Poor-Poor" to give their product away for free, on a large scale; why would they?
They get paid by the suppliers for the feedback
Other companies like soup exist and send you way way way more samples for free
Are those people who voted on the poll that you will be stayinh with RPP, on a monthly basis or yearly? Just curious.
There was only 5 when I last looked; I assumed they were 'sock-puppets'; a hilarious term I learnt from this website, which apparently means, "company employees or close associates, pretending not to be".
Seriously a few Ozbargainers are just whingers.
I never signed up at $5 because I didn't think I'd get much value of them. I didn't think it was a viable business model as it's not cheap to ship/post in Australia.
I'm assuming most people will just cancel, they will offer you a full refund, so it's not out of pocket.
Sure they could have handled the change better, but FFS some people here want to involve the ACCC? to force the company to send you those items at $5?
Wise words Jabba… my poz on this is 100% intentional, and I can't understand the negs. If poor-poor fail to refund the yearly subscribers in-full as they've promised, then there will be some sort of money owed… if not though, then there's clearly not.
We'll see… I've received no refund yet, nor any info' as to when I will receive it, despite requesting this information… twice a couple of days apart…
im going to wait till they charge me box + postage, then after delivery ill will put in a charge back for unauthorised transaction of postage cost to teach them a lesson lol
there's a new comment from RPP
We are working hard to deliver all our subscribers even more value in each box, including adding some non-product offers that we expect many of our subscribers will enjoy.
Wow, they're going to make us pay $7.50 - $18 to deliver a box of paper vouchers?
Ridiculous.
(FYI the statement was in response to someone concerning whether the parcel will be worth more or less than the price we pay for it.)Make sure you fill in last months survey before you cancel.
Why's that, they can't take extra money out of your account if you don't fill it out. Normally I would say do the right thing, but they aren't so if you don't want to fill it out then bugger them.
If you were cranky, you could fill in the survey in such a way that the answers reflect poorly on Red Paw Paw if they are shared with the suppliers.
It might be prudent to do so… perhaps my pluripotent pal is suggesting that anyone cancelling should not give them ANY excuse to try and claim the it was YOU that did not fulfill the terms of the agreed contract (i.e., didn't complete a product-assessment survey, as you were contractually obliged to do). Just telling them you'd do the surveys reduced the cost from $10 a month to $5 a month, for the "yearly deal". I should've known then it was all BS! That's freakin rediculous!
We are working hard to deliver all our subscribers even more value in each box, including adding some non-product offers that we expect many of our subscribers will enjoy.
Buy 1 get 1 free offers - probably worse than the entertainment book
Quickflix deals etcThey already said they are going to streamline the boxes - who knows what that means and they had all their subscribers try to drum up more suppliers for them a month ago.
I think they will do a big box next month , to make all the people quitting feel bad and possibly sign up again - and then the quality will go way way down.
Hmmm… gives me an idea…
"Hey Everyone!
Sign up for my $5 per month box and you will receive some non-product offers that we expect many of our subscribers will enjoy."I then send everyone a list of my referral links for Vinomofo, Vitacost, Amaysim, Amazon Affiliate, etc.
where do i sign up :D
ima post this as a deal……
I had to deflect copious amounts of spam when I signed into my account to unsubscribe :(
One of the RPP ..ahem hem cough2 …loyal followers just attempted to make people believe the increased fees were cool, because now even people in WA could get the deal. posted here on 3/42014 by RPP REP, they were looking forward to opening further warehouses…WA? Brisbane ?
So when I suggested that would be the logical reason behind the exorbitant sudden increase would be to fund the new warehouses.
I was very promptly blocked and my posts deleted.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story ;-)))Yep. I just cancelled too.
I had already been given a serve from Redpaw for allegedly reporting their emails as spam, which is crap. They were really rude and abrupt.
But I was willing to stay because $5 was ok to get a surprise package.
However, now my monthly has jumped to almost 5 times that amount…lol..what a joke.
Now I will be reporting them as SPAM.
Up yours Redpawpaw….try some customer relations lessons !!
Pookie
For those who cancelled and paid for the 12 month subscription, how much should they refund?
It says full refund, how much should we be expecting? My original was subscription $50 and I just received a refund of $45. Something not right?i believe they did claim you would get the whole $50 back….. but to be honest im surprised you got anything back, i expect them to enter receivership in the next few weeks which means once they do no one will get anything refunded
Mine has just come through and I got the full $50 (the notification from e-way at least).
Thanks. I will emailed them to enquire further about the refund!
Something is not right alright; I'm not sure I believe you. You mean to tell me THEY actually transferred YOU money?
You can change your credit card details on the site - it looks like the eWay plugin (or whatever they're using) has the algorithm to identify if it's a legitimate credit card number. But it doesn't check the card expiry date and the CCV, which are used when the actual transaction is made, so if you did change your credit card number to another random number it's unlikely you'd jag all 3, which means unlikely someone's legitimate card would get charged.
Hypothetically speaking, of course.
If you're going to do this, use a test credit card number which won't actually charge anyone. They're just a Google search away. Not only are you guaranteed a number which will authenticate, there's zero chance of a real person charged.
Don't forget to remove your likes from their facebook page.
I unliked their Facebook page and now I can't access it at all. Going to the address just redirects to my home page on Facebook. Annoyed I can't get my drama fix.
Anyone else having this problem?
I think they've deleted their Facebook page.
No, I always go on it, and I haven't even liked the page. Just search for it Redpawpaw and it comes up.
FFS, I didn't bother reading their relaunch email because I thought it was a newsletter. Unlike their previous ones which had "Important!" in the subject line, apparently a rise in delivery fees is not "important". First I knew is the rather nasty surprise bill/receipt which had me go spelunking for their old emails, and even then it's not exactly highlighted and buried part way through a newsletter. Would have cancelled :|
(yes, yes, my fault for not reading every word of every email sent to me - this really does feel super bait & switch-y though, they could at least generate an invoice or something prior to the actual charge, which would have got my attention…)
Guess I'll cancel after this month's box arrives
challenge the charge seeing you signed up for a year at $5 and they took the extra money without your permission?
Fortunately it looks like I didn't get stung for shipping as much as some being in Sydney, so probably not worth it - as someone who's looking to process CCs also in my own ventures, I also don't want the bad karma of doing a chargeback on someone because I know how pricey it can be haha. Just really bad form from them, and I would certainly expect they're going to get a few chargebacks from people who were asked to pay more for shipping than me!
People are talking about how they're making their business model "make sense" etc on the other topics and defending them, but the reality is that with this extra shipping charge, the business model really doesn't make sense. Who would pay $15 - 23 to be advertised to and participate in a focus group while deriving $23-30 worth of RRP value? :S maybe if they boosted the quantities you received & the fees accordingly such that the shipping cost was less significant.
Anyway, I feel sorry for their venture, sad to see a promising startup fail. I'm guessing they were trying to build up something to sell on before needing to deal with this kind of thing, but got out-scaled too quickly..
dunno if you saw the conversation on the first page of this thread but its along the lines of what you just said above.
I think you have hit on what would have been a much better solution.
A quarterly box, with $90 RRP would make the postage charge much more reasonable and reduce costs all round.
from their facebook:
In case you do miss this cut-off, we will be offering a refund to any monthly subscribers who are billed on August 1st but do not wish to receive the August box- just let us know by August 5thOh, thanks for the info :) guess offering refunds to social network users is one way of doing damage control haha. Will look into it
hahaha probably just realised how many people are doing chargebacks for there dodgy bait and switch campaign :) sucked in to them imho
They are a scummy company. They are censoring And banning comments on facebook and only allowing positive comments from supporters. Would never trust them.
Their Facebook page has a lot of posts from people saying they cancelled their subscriptions and they are still being charged. So everyone who has cancelled, check to make sure you aren't being charged! Yet another convenient screw up from Redpawpaw
EDIT - after reading more posts it seems that this applies to people who cancelled by clicking the link provided in an email
Only idiots click links within emails they deserve to be charged for their stupidity.
Or too trusting.
Sounds like your overly paranoid, 99/100 emails from online stores note no intent on screwing you over. It's easy to spot the dodgy ones and simply never bother with PayPal or bank ones.
I too cancelled after logging into the web site itself. But there is no way to remove your account or the CreditCard details. That means if they are dodgy enough they can keep charging you or charge you randomly when ever they feel like.
I will keep an eye on my transactions on CC and will report to Bank if I see anything suspicious. If I was stupid enough to subscribe with them now I need to pay the price for that by having to keep checking for suspicious transactions on the card.
Seems like people have started to receive their August boxes already according to their facebook page
1 x 8pk of Chux magic erasers
1 x bottle of sugar free tomato sauce
1 x pk of Vita-Weet lunch slices
2 x sample size packs of dried dog food
2 x sample size packs of dried cat food
1 x 5pk of museli bars
1 x can of Lipton Iced Tea
1 x 2pk of weight watches diced fruit in juice
1 x Mug Shot (soup in a cup type thing)
1 x bottle of Mt Franklin Sparkling Water
1 x triple choc brownie mixKind of glad i cancelled out now, don't really see the value in that for my $16.50 - A lot of it i just wouldn't use anyway and I've had some of these items (or similar) delivered free already in the past.
Wow that's quite pissweak.
I thought they would do a bumper box for August as it has been two months and they needed to prove themselves after all the trouble.
I have been holding off to wait and see but if that is correct I am going to cancel too.
There is very little there that I would have bought.I thought they would do a bumper box for August
yea i thought they may have done that to sucker more people in, boiled frog kinda thing. tho i cant say im overly surprised that they didnt bother.
what really amazes me is that people are still praising them on friendface…
they ban and remove anyone from their page who posts negative comments. I reckon it is mostly family/friends of the business owner now.
Sparkling water, is that a joke D:
Just saw the email too. Even though shipping is $7.50, I only really use maybe a 1/3 of the products sent out. (Better off buying what I think I want at the supermarket when it's on sale for less)
Not worth it, they can kiss my arse. I say this as I was being "paid" for my opinion / review on the products and I went into detail when doing so.
Now they want my opinion and to charge me more? No thanks!
They're gonna suffer majorly with the backlash from OzB and what is already on FB!