They are the worst. I signed up once for trial and decided to cancel it. They kept sending me postal mail, sms, phone calls, and emails.
ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails
81–90 of 144 posts
Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails
#82I receive a lot of physical mail from HelloFresh and there's no clear way to opt-out. I've never (willingly or knowingly) signed up to their service or any marketing bits.
Same here. For kicks I checked my USPS Informed Delivery emails and not only did I find one with Hello Fresh, it has its own dedicated section within the email with share links.
It seems like Hello Fresh has an agreement with and/or pays USPS to deliver their advertisements, to the point of getting a spot in their emails.
Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails
#83There seems to be a lot of anti-ICO rhetoric in the comments, which I don't think is entirely fair. Reading the enforcement notice, it seems that the ICO were satisfied that the breach was negligent rather than intentional. HelloFresh have fully complied with the investigation and taken steps to remedy the breach. Bearing in mind that the ICO's remit is to ensure compliance rather than dole out punishment, this seems…
Agree, not sure it’s helpful for a regulator to bankrupt a business for sending too many emails. Spam email is pretty par for the course nowadays. This seems like a proportionate response to alert them to get a handle on it.
I'm not saying that bankrupting businesses is the best strategy, but it can be helpful. If you put fear into these companies that they can get wiped out at a moments notice they will smarten up really quick. If you show them that they will get a fairly cheap slap-on-the-wrist warning first they will ignore the rules until they get the first warning, then toe the line.
So if you want the whole industry to follow the rules without investigating and fining each one-by-one you better make sure that your first action against them makes them regret their choices.
Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree, not sure it’s helpful for a regulator to bankrupt a business for sending too many emails. Spam email is pretty par for the course nowadays. This seems like a proportionate response to alert them to get a handle on it.
I'm not saying that bankrupting businesses is the best strategy, but it can be helpful. If you put fear into these companies that they can get wiped out at a moments notice they will smarten up really quick. If you show them that they will get a fairly cheap slap-on-the-wrist warning first they will ignore the rules until they get the first warning, then toe the line. So if you want the whole industry to follow the r…
There are far worse entities than HelloFresh that are still alive as of today and given that the ICO is trying hard to get parties to comply it is kind of logical that they take an individual approach to each case. That said I think 140K is too low.
Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails
#85Less than a fifth of a penny per spam message. This will not act as a deterrent.
Regulators typically start with a small fine and then if the behavior continues, fines and penalties increase exponentially. Having worked inside a number of companies who've received fines, the ones that intend to continue operating change their behavior immediately and install controls to avoid this escalation path. The obvious exception is when the behavior change creates an existential threat to the core business…
This just incentivizes companies to do this behaviour until their first warning. If you want companies to follow the rules from the get-go you better make sure that your first fine makes them regret ignoring the rules.
If you make the incentives to ignore the rules until they get caught the first time then companies will do that. HelloFresh got huge numbers of subscribers based on this strategy for pennies. Even if they stop now the next competitor will do the same thing until they get the first fine.
It's like saying that your first murder should just result in a warning or a token fine. This basically gives everyone one "free" murder and it would be a waste not to use it. (Moral issues aside of course)
Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not saying that bankrupting businesses is the best strategy, but it can be helpful. If you put fear into these companies that they can get wiped out at a moments notice they will smarten up really quick. If you show them that they will get a fairly cheap slap-on-the-wrist warning first they will ignore the rules until they get the first warning, then toe the line. So if you want the whole industry to follow the r…
There are far worse entities than HelloFresh that are still alive as of today and given that the ICO is trying hard to get parties to comply it is kind of logical that they take an individual approach to each case. That said I think 140K is too low.
You are kind of stating the problem with individual approaches.
> There are far worse entities than HelloFresh that are still alive as of today
If these entities saw HelloFresh bankrupted with no prior warning and no option for recourse some number of them will clean up their act. When they see the first fine being tiny they will just double down because they know that they will get a warning before any serious action. And other entities that were following the rules will reconsider and start breaking them because they realize that the cost is tiny so they may as well get the benefit.
Basically there is some value to making an example of HelloFresh and showing that you will not get a warning, breaking the rules will not be tolerated. The first offense will be punished more than they have profited off of the crime.
I am playing a bit of a devil's advocate here. I think the correct position is likely somewhere in the middle. But it is clearly flawed if for each individual business their first fine is less than than their profits for doing the crime. Because that incentivizes every business to break the rules until they get their first "warning".
Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are far worse entities than HelloFresh that are still alive as of today and given that the ICO is trying hard to get parties to comply it is kind of logical that they take an individual approach to each case. That said I think 140K is too low.
You are kind of stating the problem with individual approaches. > There are far worse entities than HelloFresh that are still alive as of today If these entities saw HelloFresh bankrupted with no prior warning and no option for recourse some number of them will clean up their act. When they see the first fine being tiny they will just double down because they know that they will get a warning before any serious actio…
I'm all for exponentially increasing fines with the first one a base 10% of turnover wiping out roughly half of last years profits for most entities. The second violation would wipe out all of their profits for a year, the third would undo two years of life and so on. Before you get to 5 you either get the message or you're done.
Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails
#88The worst about Hello Fresh is the subscription itself, you get meals every week, unless you opt-out. Of course that you will forget to opt out at some point, so they just send you 3 meals of their choice. No 'Hey, we will send you this, are you ok with it or do you want to change it?' Plus, the receipes aren't that good if you are an above average cook. You get something Indian and it is a gringo version of the real…
I tried Hello Fresh because of their "free" box promotion, and I have to say as a single person who lives alone, it was great to both have sensible portion sizes, and reducing the mental overhead of having to think about what to cook during weekdays, along the planning and shopping that comes with it.
It's nice not to have to eat Bolognese for 4 days if you make one, since beef mince normally only comes in 500g sizes and so on. I know you can freeze it, but you get my point.
That being said, I agree with the others that the recipes are quite simple, and once you know them it becomes just as easy to buy the ingredients at the shop and make it yourself.
Another disadvantage I've noticed is the amount of packaging, it can't be environmentally friendly. They ship perishables wrapped inside mineral wool with a non-recyclable plastic bag with ice, everything is in a huge cardboard box, there's tons of printed recipes and promotional codes printed on cards, and tons and tons of little plastic and paper wrappers for everything.
Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails
#89HelloFresh seems to be optimising for user count above all else (incl profit). They keep offering their big -40% loss leader promos to people that cancelled. Must be costing them an ungodly amount.
There's no way they are losing money at 40% off unless they are doing something unreasonably bad.
I've never used a meal kit delivery company but isn't the grocery market extremely cost-competitive?
Retailers like wal-mart only make about a 3% profit margin. And that's with the customer taking on the picking, packing and delivery. Are meal kit companies really charging twice retail for the things they supply?
Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails
#90I receive a lot of physical mail from HelloFresh and there's no clear way to opt-out. I've never (willingly or knowingly) signed up to their service or any marketing bits.
I've been getting tons of physical mail I didn't ask for for years. We need a spam filter for the USPS. I only check my mailbox when I know something I want is coming, or if I need some grocery ads for kindling, because it's all garbage. It drives me insane how wasteful it is, chopping down trees just to make mailers that noone wants.
What we really need
is an email address like @usps.com and all physical mail that isn’t from a registered law firm or government institution to be rejected because I’ve “opted-in to electronic physical mail”. Emails to that address would be forwarded to the personal email addresses of household members based on the named recipient. And sending those emails should cost the same as a stamp.
Would help cut down on the massive amount of waste that is physical spam and help generate profit for the postal service