Is there a Gevalia Coffee scam? I just got yet another shipment of Gevalia coffee. I’m beginning to think that these guys should be taken out by a Navy SEAL team. I mean, how much coffee can one person drink, anyway?
Actually, the problem with Gevalia is that they seem to have decided that I’m going to get coffee whether I like or not. A couple of months ago they sent me some Royal Vinter coffee in spite of the fact that I’d suspended my account for 20 weeks. Then this week they sent me a regular shipment of coffee (in spite of the fact that I’d suspended my account for 20 weeks).
That was enough for me. I called Gevalia to cancel my subscription and my account. The nice Indian lady that I talked to didn’t seem to understand the concept of “cancel my account”, because she followed it up by trying to sell me more coffee. I’m not entirely sure my account was canceled or not, but she said “is there anything else I can help you with today?” I resisted the urge to say “Yes, you can confirm that you understand the concept of ‘cancel my account’ and that I’m not going to receive any more coffee”. But I didn’t. I wanted to, but I didn’t.
This is actually a shame. I’ve been getting Gevalia coffee for years. It’s my favorite coffee. But they must have been bought out by someone, because they’ve never been this aggressive before. Come on! Look, if there were college girls coming to the house once a week to wash the car in bikinis, I’d still be annoyed if I had no say in when or how often they showed up. Especially if they were automatically taking their charges out of my PayPal account.
So, after all these years I’ve canceled my Gevalia account. I don’t think it’s fair to say that they’re scamming me, but they certainly took away from me the right to control how often I receive their product. So I’m done with Gevalia. If they try to send me coffee again, I’ll not only challenge it through PayPal, I’ll start filing formal complaints. Enough is enough.
We have the same problem. I called and asked them to stop sending coffee and making sales calls, well that didn’t work. Sent them letters telling them to stop, nope. Finally told one of the sales people to put a supervisor on the line and gave him the royal ass reaming. That worked, for a time. Another box showed up today. The local food bank will start getting coffee today and it’s on Gevalia because I’m not paying for it.
I have one better. I received a coffee pot and coffee completely unsolicited. They eve got hold of a credit card I “only” use to pay bills.
Had I not called to inquire, I would have been charged for a subscription I never asked for.
Bastards!!!
I got charged a shipping fee for a box of coffee that
I never ordered, sent back unopened ‘return to sender’
and had to fight with someone in Manila, Phillipines
who I’m sure did not understand me about the shipping
fee. I will NEVER deal with them again. Something
stinks at Gevalia!
I have been trying to cancel for 6 months and shipments still arrive and I still get bills demanding payment or they will send to collection. Please advise anyone thinking of Gevalia to stay away. Their coffee is very expensive and really not that good
I’m reading what you all have written. I have not had a problem with Gevalia as I use their website and I space out my shipping dates for coffee delivery. I have had communication problems with Gevalia and many, many other companies where I want to place an order by phone – because businesses are using cheap labor out side of America (India, Phillipines, Manila, as you say). THAT is my complaint with any company! I want to speak to a clerk who speaks English! Period! So, you are having difficulty ordering coffee, cancelling subscriptions because they unfortunately do not understand you clearly. You need to contact Gevalia directly in writting (worth the stamp)and complain about not having an English person to communicate with.
I forgot – no, they have not been bought by another company to my knowledge, seems to be the same address. It is the language barrier that is causing all these problems and a website that needs a bit more “tweeking”.
I’ve never placed an order with Gevalia and yet they just took money out of my bank acct. How? Where did they get my acct info? To return my money, they want me to send my bank information? I don’t think so. I’m just canceling my back account
I was a Gevalia coffee person for nearly 12 years…until I started getting outrages charges from Gevalia on my credit card for “New” coffee “programs” that I had not even heard of,let alone authorised. I was getting shipments of 4 to 8 boxes of coffee per week no matter how many times I spoke with supervisors or wrote nasty grams to the main office,they even sent some sort of “Kona Coffee Premium Select” that they TRIED to charge $35.00 per box for plus S&H in 4 count boxes, do the math….almost $100.00 for 4 small boxes of coffee,on top of all of the other coffeee that was coming once or twice per WEEK are you kidding me!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, I finally had to have an Attorney send a “Cease and Diesis” letter and I was still receiving coffee and bills for a while until we sent another letter!!
What a mess over GREEDY PROFITEERS!! If they would have just kept doing the great job they had in the past, they would be making plenty of money and not having so MANY people canceling and turning them into the BBB and filing class action lawsuits. Gevalia is even involved in signing some of us up for “Travel Programs” and Magazine subscriptions and the law is going after them, YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If anyone has a problem with Gevalia speak with a supervisor in the U.S.A. and if that doesn’t work you may have to get a state lawmaker involved!!!! This is beyond absurd it is illegal!!!!!!!
I like the Navy Seal solution. I signed up for a membership and have no complaints about the product — however, I’m unhappy with their business practices. After I received and paid for two orders, I then began seeing mysterious charges on my card. Upon investigation, I traced them back to my Gevalia account. They are in cahoots with other online marketers and the membership contract has a lot of fine print — shame on me for not reading it more carefully, but shame on Gevalia for making it appear that by answering questions online you are taking advantage of additional benefits offered by your membership. Needless to say, I’m cancelling immediately.
I didn’t put any order, and they [Gevalia] charged my card (that I used to order sample for 3$) FOR $26.40. They sent me a package with coffee, I actually thought it is another sample, advertising etc. Then called to my bank, reported fraud…
Interesting way to make business! :)))
New scams seem to be popping up everywhere. I was taken by a scam recently called Melaleuca. Thanks for letting us know about the Gevalia scam… I’ll be sure to steer clear!
I’m not sure if someone is just trying to ruin their business or what, but I just called them about a $14.95 charge to my credit card. I never even heard of this company before let alone ordered anything from them. They had everything correct except the email address on the account was some made up one. I have to call them again to try and cancel. Needless to say I had my bank cancel my card and issue a new one.
Gevalia is in the list of e-Tailers that are connected to Post-Marketing Transaction providers that are being investigated by the Feds.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10399880-93.html?tag=mncol
I feel compelled to defend Gevalia …..I have responded to three of their offers for free coffee makers with the purchase of coffee over a number of years. As soon as I receive the merchandise I call and cancel my membership. No more coffee and no more charges. I have never had a problem canceling and never received any hard sale reaction when I did cancel. I don’t drink a great deal of coffee and told them when I decided that I needed more I would give them a call. The operator has always been very polite and professional.
Since you not only get Gevalia Coffee, which the best that you can buy, but a free coffee maker as well……I would say it’s one of the best deals around and is far from being a scam!!
Sam, it sounds to me like you’re in the business of scamming Gevalia for free coffee makers. 😉
I was a Gevalia customer for many years, without problem or complaint. I loved their coffee, and any problems I had were resolved quickly and professionally. But that changed. I don’t know if it was new management or what, but suddenly I was getting coffee that I didn’t order in addition to my regular shipments. They told me I had subscribed to services that I most certainly had not, would finally concede to remove me from said services only after attempting to up-sell me on other offers, and then would not remove me from the services. The following month I’d receive even more coffee that I hadn’t ordered.
I only turned my back on Gevalia, after many years of being a loyal customer, when they took from me the right to control my own purchases. I’m happy that your experiences have been better, but that doesn’t mean that other people have not had nightmarish experiences in dealing with Gevalia.
You’re right. Gevalia is not an outright scam. But they definitely have problems. All you have to do is search the Internet to find scores of dissatisfied customers. That speaks more eloquently to the problem than anything I could say.
Okay! So I ALSO received two boxes of Gevalia. One with an Expresso Maker and 4 bags of coffee. And one with…a free blender. Wtf.
I’m 17 years old.
I do not drink coffee.
We have a blender.
They stole/bought my debit card number, and sent me a bunch of stuff for only 28$. I’ve looked around and that seems to be around what they are charging everyone else.
Up until this, I hadn’t even heard of Gevalia. However, I now have to cancel my debit card.
I was told by my bank that I’d be refunded, etc. But I’ve read that it doesn’t necessarily work like that. We’ll see how it turns out.
All I know is that I hate this company, and they should be taken to court.
AND! They aren’t getting their shit back unless they come and pick it up themselves.
All i seem to see is people who either used a stupid credit card or a paypal or some other form of payment that they can actually suck cash from. TRY using simple money-orders, they cant suck money from that people!!!
http://attorneygeneral.delaware.gov/consumers/protection/complaint.shtml
I contacted DA of Delaware. Working well.
Also, contact a complaint department’s staff of Gevalia:
Veronica 1-800-343-8254 Option 1
Contact DA first. Otherwise they pose themselves that they are victims, too. It could be true.
Hi, well I have been reading all the problems on here about Gevalia, while we never had a problem with our orders and our stopping the shipment, we used them for 2 years straight and then about 3 years ago we called and ordered our coffee, it was time for us to reorder so we got that taken care of, and the next morning we had a bunch of overdrafts in our bank account. My husband called and disputed the withdrawal that had happened, they looked into it, and it did take 2 weeks to clear up everything, but come to find out, it went back to the person at Gevalia who took our order turned right around and used our card to sign up for one of those dating sites. They even told us the name of the dating site, well anyway we never ordered from them again. I do love there coffee, but I sure don’t trust them!!!! Gypsy
I too had the same experiance, Gavalia bill my card. Sent coffee 2x a week. And how about trying to staighten this out with their customer service OMG all from India.
We just saw that our account was debited around 29 bucks 4 days ago from this company. We’ve never even heard of this company before and have never ordered anything from this company. We just happened to google “Gevalia” and turned up this article and message board. We’re calling our bank tomorrow and hopefully getting this taken care of. What is this company?
A few days ago I noticed a charge for $19.95 from Gevalia on my bank card that was pending. I called the bank only to find out there were many other small charges to my account for things I had not ordered. I closed my card right then and had a new card issued. The next day all of the charges had been denied except one for $1 for some type of credit service. Then I got home from work only to discover a huge box from Gevalia on my front porch with a coffee maker in it and 2 boxes of coffee. I called the # on the invoice and talked to a very nice Indian woman who said she cancelled my account and would not be receiving a shipment next month as the invoice had read. All of the information she had on file for me was correct except the phone number which happened to be that of a 12 year old girl. I filed a fraud claim with my bank and asked how this could have happened. They said that most likely when I used my card online to pay bills, somehow my number and all of the security information, address and name was intercepted. She said to delete all of my cookies or this would happen again because your computer stores information and if your security settings are not good enough they can get any information they want. Oh and I don’t drink coffee so since they told me not to send it back, someone is getting a very nice Christmas gift.
These people have no shame. They send you a gift (they charge a small fee to get hold of your credit card), then you see unwanted fees taken out of your account once in a while… Is there any way to stop this indecent scam? Motherfuckers
I received the coffee pot and smaple box unsolicited and had the charge to my Amex. I contacted Amex and they rescinded the charge and are now invesigating. I did mail back the $96 item in orginal box and pacakging to the PO Box in Deleware insured at my cost of $19. I changed my Amex # too. Yesterday I got another shipmment and 33.95 charge invoice and noet saying my card couldn’t be found and to call the number to update my credit card.
Called the 1-800-438-2542 number on invoice, asked if I could speak to someone in Deleware. I had Manila office.
I said here is the deal. This stops or my friend the attorney general of CT Richard Blumenthal who lives in my town was my next call.
They told me keep the coffee and they would remove me from the marketing list. Bad thing here when she asked me to verify my mailing address, which I did, she walso asked me for phone number, which I said i was not ging to them..,she then read it out loud to me.
We’ll see.
I am sorry, but you are either jerks, or work for a competitor in the coffee industry. I have been a more than satisifed customer of Gevalia for more than 20 years. Other than an occassional shipment with one bag in which the vacuum seal was not secure, I have not had one single problem. They have never refused to replace a bag or shipment, and I have had to delay shipments for months at a time without a single hitch. As good as Starbucks may be, they don’t come close to Gevalia’s quality. Switch to bottled water dummies! You probably won’t notice the difference between that and whatever you are drinking now. Anyway, it is safer to use water in your bongs!
Ed, don’t get mad at us because your stock options in the Gevalia company are being devalued. I’m happy that you’re so deliriously happy with Gevalia, but the fact remains that they’ve lost a lot of customers because of changes they’ve made in the business model. I was a happy customer for nine years or so before they started sending me products I didn’t order, sometimes as often as every two weeks, and charge my credit card despite the fact that I was supposed to only receive bi-monthly shipments and was not subscribed to any of their special offers. Sure, when I complained they always removed the charges and told me to keep the coffee. But that matters little when they’re taking money from your account at will.
I still don’t think Gevalia’s coffee can be beat. It’s not their coffee anyone here has a problem with. But when a company removes customer choice from their business model, they deserve whatever negative publicity that comes to them. You should not assume that because your experience with Gevalia has not soured (yet) that everyone who has problems with Gevalia are nothing more than a bunch of jerks. That’s short-sighted and childish. And it sounds vaguely like the kind of disinformation that a Gevalia employee would plant.
I’ve had Gevalia for many yrs. and have had no issues at all. In fact once I received coffee that I thought I had not ordered and called them. They simply let me have it for free. No problems at all. Overall their CS has been fine, at least for me.
I’ve purchased from Gevalia for years, and never a problem…until last October. Since then…nothing but problems. I’ve called, emailed, and written snail-mail letters, all to no avail. I recently learned that Gevalia in the US is now a subsidiary of Kraft, and the CEO of Kraft received a copy of my last letter and all of the enclosures. That letter was sent eleven days ago, and I’ve heard nothing, yet. If I receive another statement from Gevalia for coffee that I did not order, I will contact the AG in Delaware. Guess I’ll see how that goes.