Misfits Mishap

I signed up for Misfits Market back in August of 2019. I’ve been generally happy until now. I’ve gotten some busted produce that I blamed on shipping. I’ve had a few things that went bad sooner than they should have but I blamed myself for those. It’s been pretty good. Good enough that I told a friend to sign up.

Until now.

Last week they sent out an email saying everything was delayed by a day. Cool. I can work with that. I was glad for the communication. I have been especially grateful to get a produce box now rather than going to the store to try and find things. I even changed my subscription to one giant box every week.

But this week? No communication so I expected the food box on my normal day because that’s my logic. No news = good news. My usual delivery day is Wednesday. I looked around on Twitter to see what was going on and saw that lots of people are wondering where their produce is. I asked my friend about her box and she said she didn’t get her add-on items from last week and no one is responding. (Super. Now I feel like an ass for suggesting this company.)

I posted on Twitter. Misfits must have a bot to auto-respond to complaints because the phrasing is similar for all of us. They suggested I email the company for an update. I did. Got an auto-response saying they were experiencing delays. No estimate on how long. Then I got a promotional email talking about what’s in the boxes this week. Well, wouldn’t I love to know! Where is my food? Then I got another email with a ticket number. The Misfits twitter account asked that I DM them with that ticket number. So I do and they tell me there are delays. Thanks, guys.

I keep looking on twitter because I’m a nosy one and I see a lot of complaints about not getting boxes. Some are getting boxes with busted and/or rotten produce. They say boxes aren’t packed until the day they ship (and to look out for this email verifying shipping – I usually get this email on Monday, which was my first clue that something was up.) Then I see people that did get boxes and well, good for them! One person messaged me to say they had just gotten their first box and how awesome it was.

Hold on, so a brand new customer got their shipment and I’ve been a customer for EIGHT MONTHS and all I can get is auto-replies via email and twitter? Yesterday I got the email that the add-ons were available starting in the afternoon. Usually I rush to see what’s still for sale, but instead I went and paused my subscription. Why would I pay for a box next week when I haven’t gotten this week’s box? I still haven’t gotten a delivery notification, so it’ll be at least next week before I get it, assuming I ever get my food that I paid for.

Some level of communication would be great. Maybe something like last week where they tell us it’ll be delayed by x number of days? Anything but radio silence. I don’t know if they should’ve shut down the referral program or if they need to switch everyone to every other week to handle the demand or what the solution might be.

Yeah, I’m mad. I plan on that ~20ish pounds of food. I can’t exactly meal plan because each box is a medley of surprises, but I do plan on having that for us to eat. Thankfully, we signed up for a CSA that delivers on Tuesdays. Until then, we have a few handfuls of lettuce, a few cherry tomatoes, some carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and a lone cabbage from last week’s Misfits Market box.