The Bitterness of FirstLeaf

I recently had an unpleasant experience with an online retailer. I know, shocking right? Here’s the thing, there were two outcomes that could have happened with this experience. Well, maybe three.

Here is the back story. A while back, I took advantage of a #LifeHacker promotion that provided three bottles of wine from an online wine club called FirstLeaf. I paid $5 a bottle to try out three wines. They were not good. You don’t really get a choice of wine, so it is kind of like a random draw based on the type of wine and/or geographic region you select. For $5 a bottle it seemed like it couldn’t be that bad. Of course, the “hook” with these clubs is that they rely on you to forget that you signed up for this wine club, and add you to a subscription service (they don’t hide that they are doing this, just be aware that nothing is “free” or “discounted” without a catch).

And like most of these subscription services, you make a note to cancel the service before the next shipment. Except you forget. Things happen – not a real excuse – and you just don’t cancel. 

Then you get an email (hopefully in your inbox, and not in the SPAM holding cell) to let you know that a delivery is about to happen. You immediately kick into action mode and do everything you can to cancel the shipment. In my case the email was sent at 4:18AM and I had sent my request to cancel and cancelled my account by 8:18 AM that same morning. They’re a west coast company, so we’re talking no later than 6:18 AM their time all has been cancelled. Except it isn’t. The machinery kicks in and it’s impossible for a human to change the way the machines work. Well a human who decides to do something about it at 5:00 PM that day (only nine hours later). This is the resolution offered:

I tried canceling this order with UPS, but since it already processed, they were unable to cancel the shipment. However, as a one-time courtesy I’m happy to issue a $20 refund for this order so you’re able to enjoy it at a discount, otherwise, we do have a $20 restocking fee.

Leslie, FirstLeaf Member Experience Team Lead & Wine Concierge

The offer is that I can keep the crappy wine and get a $20 refund for my troubles, or if I dare send it back, I will have to pay $20 to restock the shipment.  So I seek clarification. No response from FirstLeaf. Maybe they didn’t get my email…

Then at 8:33 PM, I get the email (I got this one) that says “Your Firstleaf wine order has shipped!” Twelve hours after I asked for it not to, and three hours after I was told it couldn’t be stopped! So, I’m puzzled and come to the conclusion that really very little or no attempt was made to cancel this, because FirstLeaf was going to get their $20. You see once the items shipped, there is going to be a restocking fee. Had they stopped it, then FirstLeaf would have made nothing. Their outcome was to get at least $20. 

So I refused the order when it was attempted to be delivered.

Fast forward to today, and my original suspicion is confirmed. Leslie, playing the role of a manager answering inbound calls, states that there is no way for her to refund the $20 restocking fee (the rest was refunded by the way), as they “wouldn’t make any money”. Leslie goes on to say that FirstLeaf paid $10 to ship the items to me, and then paid $10 to have it shipped back. They would “lose money” if they refunded the restocking fee. And we can’t have that, now can we.

So there were two obvious outcomes one might expect. First, refund the restocking fee; end of story. Second, respond to my initial email seeking clarification with a reasonable response, and don’t refund the fee. 

Neither of these happened. Instead, we are led to what I will call outcome number three. Here are three things that FirstLeaf could have done differently (let’s call it a learning experience):

• FirstLeaf could have responded to my emails seeking clarification on the $20 refund (and avoiding the whole mess);
• FirstLeaf could have avoided telling me that I must have received all of their emails prior to the shipment (clearly my fault that I didn’t), because their system confirms the email was sent; and
• FirstLeaf could have avoided telling me that they were going to make money from this transaction regardless of what transpired. 

Instead, we are left with a bittersweet post about an online retailer whose only objective is to make money through a systemic failure of customer service systems (and management). Wine is something to be enjoyed, and I will continue to research good winemakers that are not associated with Firstleaf, and boycott the ones that are. After all, why let the bad taste from this experience ruin other perfectly good wine?

Edit: Did a search on the owner of FirstLeaf, Phillip James and found this article. Hint: This guy seems to be a bit of a shyster if you believe what is in this article.

Update: Denise over at FirstLeaf reached out and confirmed that the restocking fee was being refunded. She also solicited feedback relating to the customer service experience and I will say she exemplified what outstanding customer service is all about.