Shady business practices, unhelpful support
The wines are good, delivery is great, and the app is pretty easy to use. All in all I actually found their service pretty good during my free trial.
However, when I signed up through the app, I wasn't informed about the £90 fee. Once I had signed up, it became clear that access was paid and that I was in a free trial.
I was okay with this, and used the service and considered paying to continue. When the trial expired, I lost access to the 'Shop' tab in the app but not other parts, so I figured this was the 'free' level and I was happy with that level of access, but still considering upgrading.
Some time later, I was charged £90 without agreeing. I got a push notification from my bank, and immediately cancelled my Winedrops account, within minutes of the transaction going through. After hearing nothing from winedrops about my cancellation, I emailed asking them to refund the membership fee and the bottles I had already purchased but were not shipped (they wait until you have 6 bottles before shipping). I received a refund for the bottles I had bought, but was informed they would not refund the membership fee, because it was "clearly listed" and "non-refundable".
Winedrops have repeatedly told me the fee is "clearly listed" in the app (something I can't verify now because if I try to sign up it recognises me) and they claim they sent an email after I signed up stating this in the FAQs at the bottom (similar to their website). I never received this email. I have repeatedly told them that there FAQs at the bottom isn't "clear" but they still refuse to refund me.
It is clear to me that they have tried to make it difficult for people to see the fee before signing up, without actually hiding it, so they have some defence. When I complained, they replied with a scripted message offering £90 in credit to use on their service instead, so I'm fairly certain this happens a lot and they think they can bully customers into accepting the fee because it's "clearly listed" at the bottom of the page in the FAQs.
I think this business practice is as close as you can get to fraud without actually being fraud, and it's unacceptable.
14 June 2024
Unprompted review