Best Loving Earth Chocolates

Despicable unscrupulous company – I’ve been a customer of theirs for close to 20 years- mostly buying their superfoods which HAD been good quality and with good communication and… Read more

business practices. (Notice you cannot review them on Google) In the last few years they have decided they don’t want to be those things anymore. They sold me gubinge and maqui in a transaction directly through their website in July, and despite storing it correctly as I always do with no issues, it has clumped into a hard rock. I emailed them asking them what’s going on, and they admitted due to a packaging fault, the lids were ‘unflocked’ and caused moisture to form in the product. From there it all went downhill. So they KNEW they had sent out shonky products that didn’t do what they were supposed to do, and stayed silent on it, pocketing customers money they didn’t deserve for an inferior quality product. Yuck. I gave them the benefit of the doubt (which they’d make me regret) when they said they’d send me a replacement immediately and collected my details. A week went by and there was radio silence from them- no shipping details or confirmation it had been sent. When they eventually communicated again, and on their terms only, they made numerous excuses for staffing issues that I was expected to prioritise over and above the actual problem- they caused. It got worse from there. They contradicted themselves several times- I asked 6 times (via Instagram and email- they weren’t answering their phones for a week and counting) if the product was safe to consume as I still hadn’t received my replacement. I was eventually told on Instagram that it’s fine- 30 minutes later I get told not to consume it. They asked me where I purchased it from (as though it somehow negated their admittance they messed up the lid) so that feedback could be given to the store. This was pretty delusional and buck passing because I had already told them that I bought it directly from them- you would think they have computers and an ability to track their sales and shipping to see that themselves…. Nope. It got even weirder. They told me that after a week of over promising and not delivering anything, that they had no maqui to replace, and that they had made an unwanted irrelevant executive decision, without consulting me, to send me some of THEIR favourite chocolates instead. I was shocked at how amateurish this was, and how they were trying to evade upholding their responsibility to either replace or refund the spoiled item due to THEIR packaging error. I told them I didn’t want their chocolate substitute, and that this was extremely unprofessional and ridiculous. From then on, they returned to cherry-picking their contact with me, evading everything I tried to address (such as when they would be getting more maqui in stock) and treated me like a liability for not giving up my statutory rights. I don’t know how this company is still operating but if this is normal behaviour for them, they need to shut down and be reported to the ACCC. This is not how you run a business, then ghost a customer who paid you money in good faith, for hoodwinking us. Their attitude was that it was MY fault they sent me a dodgy product, my fault for believing they were going to replace it, and MY fault for not accepting a few of THEIR favourite chocolates as a substitute for a $40 superfood. The items couldn’t even be more different. I sent them my account details after they curtly requested them and signed off with no names from their email addresses, and also sent them a screenshot of my purchase for a company that was looking increasingly clueless- I shouldn’t have to convince a company that I bought something directly from them. I couldn’t believe how hellbent they were on burning a 20 year relationship over their own repeated mess ups. I received no response to questions about when to expect the refund and how much they were even going to refund because they had become wishy washy, passive aggressive and completely unreliable. I spoke with Victorian Consumer Affairs the following day and they provided me with options of taking the matter further, in addition to giving them a timeframe of 7 days by which to have refunded my money. Unsurprisingly these disingenuous shameless cowboys ignored it, and I eventually got my $40 refund today, and without a word from them let alone any remorse or changed behaviour. They should actually be replacing EVERYONE’S product they have known for months to be faulty yet don’t care. They falsely market themselves as kind vegans and friends of the earth type people but they are anything but. A despicable, conscience lacking experience all round- I can and have, found substitute brands to their products which proved to be much easier than I thought it would be, and will encourage everyone I know to not do business with them. They barely even sell any superfoods anymore compared to what they used to do- they pretty much only sell chocolate now. Quite a significant fall from grace.