What Would You Do In This Situation?

I ordered about $30 worth of "retro" candy from a site. I just got the order at my house today, it had me as excited as I've ever been, which is sort of sad considering it's only candy! Anyways, I bust out a knife and start slicing away at the packaging, then I finally get down to the good stuff. I ordered Abba Zabba's and Big Hunks, which are taffy bars that I've never had but have always seen around. I'm in Canada and wasn't really aware as to where I could buy these, so I just got them off of the internet.

Fast forward to the actual eating of a bar, they were incredibly hard and tasted (for lack of better words) like absolute shit. Like literally, they tasted terrible and the taffy wasn't soft in any way, shape or form. I looked at the expiration dates on each bar and they had dated back to 2013, even though I place the order in 2014 a week or so ago. Obviously I wasn't happy, although I only spent $62 (USD that is, I spent ~$70 CAD, the shipping costs were more than the actual candy, go figure) I still feel like I should go after a refund. It's not like it's a lot of money, I just don't want that company to think they can keep shipping people shitty, stale candy and getting away with it.


What would you do in this situation? Do I even have any leverage here? What are the odds I'll get my money back?

P.S., don't order anything from CandyCrate

- A

I understand your situation, it's not really about the money, it's the "being screwed over" situation.

I would start with sending a strongly worded but polite email to the company to let them know you're displeased with your order and you want them to make it right, however they see fit. There is a posibility of some sort of not intentional mistake on their part, in which case they should want to make it right. If they don't respond you should probably drop it

Orbit143 said:

I understand your situation, it's not really about the money, it's the "being screwed over" situation.

I would start with sending a strongly worded but polite email to the company to let them know you're displeased with your order and you want them to make it right, however they see fit. There is a posibility of some sort of not intentional mistake on their part, in which case they should want to make it right. If they don't respond you should probably drop it

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I just got a response e-mail, the woman told me to send them a picture of the candy in question with the expiration date shown. I did so and now I'm just waiting on the reply, she was pretty snotty about not refunding me for the other 4 bars I ordered, which weren't even expired and I actually enjoyed (a lot!), but I wasn't expecting to get a refund for those. Hopefully they don't just stop replying and hope the situation will sort itself out, like you said it's the principle of the situation!

Note to self, never buy food online. Ever.

- A

You should (have) contact(ed) the authorities that deal with that kind of stuff. I am not sure what are they called, but I guess they should have something about health care management in their name. Not to fuck the company over, but to help other people not get poisoned. It's still not too late to do that.

Call your credit card company and file a dispute. Tell them that you ate one and it was terrible so you threw it out, and after that you checked the expiration date. Candy Crate is terrible. I got it for a gift for someone once and they said that the candy was hard as a rock. But I got a refund because I had bought it from their Amazon storefront.

redrubies said:

Call your credit card company and file a dispute. Tell them that you ate one and it was terrible so you threw it out, and after that you checked the expiration date. Candy Crate is terrible. I got it for a gift for someone once and they said that the candy was hard as a rock. But I got a refund because I had bought it from their Amazon storefront.

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Oh you're one of those guys... Besides, he said it wasn't about the money.

@OP, just because it's from 2013 doesn't mean it should be bad. I mean mass produced candy isn't supposed to be some tender fresh piece of art. If you want fresh candy, buy it locally. Besides, if you've never had it before, how do you know it's not supposed to be like that? It's like someone who drinks Guinness, calling Guinness garbage, and turning out to not like beer at all.

So, CandyCrate ranks on first page for Abba Zabba ?

Do some legal actions, ask for a refund and sue them.

macdonjo3 said:

Oh you're one of those guys... Besides, he said it wasn't about the money.

@OP, just because it's from 2013 doesn't mean it should be bad. I mean mass produced candy isn't supposed to be some tender fresh piece of art. If you want fresh candy, buy it locally. Besides, if you've never had it before, how do you know it's not supposed to be like that? It's like someone who drinks Guinness, calling Guinness garbage, and turning out to not like beer at all.

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Yes, I am one of those. I have a store and have been working for myself in retail for 24 years. I expect to get what I pay for, and if I don't and the business won't refund, then I have no problem filing a dispute. It is not that hard to deliver what is promised. I do it every day.

I wouldn't care if it was only $1 that I spent with a company, if their product was S*** and the quality wasn't good, I would make a complaint. It comes down to business and good practice, in this situation it's about principal, not money.

You could have saved yourself the trouble and ordered from Sees Candies. I know they're not retro but good Lord....they're yummy.

brianpog said:

Do some legal actions, ask for a refund and sue them.

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Lol wtf! Although your media in Philippines may portray the US people as a group of people that often sue each other, hard toffee is far from a reason to sue......

funkybunker said:

You could have saved yourself the trouble and ordered from Sees Candies. I know they're not retro but good Lord....they're yummy.

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Can't go wrong with Berkshire Hathaway!

The problem here comes down to the fact that it is bad business practice to sell expired products as unexpired. My local grocery store has inventory tracking to make sure that they don't accidentally sell expired goods at full price unexpired goods. As a customer, I would be pissed to receive expired goods, unless what I purchased was explicitly stated to be expired.

I remember when my young cousin worked at a movie theatre and the manager told him to throw out a large amount of boxed candy the moment it was one day past the expiration. Sure the candy was still good (cousin brought most of it home to share with me), but it is not good business practice to sell expired goods to customers without making sure full well that the customer knows what they are getting.

I hope the OP got a partial refund for the expired goods that he received. If not, then file a dispute with the credit card company. A good company will straight up offer a partial refund/replace the candy. That is good customer service and a way to keep the customer happy. Happy customers are more likely to be repeat customers.