Cult water bottle brand Frank Green is under fire from angry customers expressing concern about whether Christmas gifts will arrive in time amid order processing delays.
Social media sites for the reusable drink bottle and keep cup brand, whose products sell for between $40 and $90 and are hugely popular with Aussies ranging from primary school kids to adults, have been flooded with customer complaints.
Know more? | michelle.bowes@news.com.au
The complaints centre around the company taking weeks to dispatch orders, delays in communicating with customers about the status of their orders and concerns that products ordered as Christmas presents won’t arrive in time.
On Instagram, Frank Green is blaming “the large volume of orders we have received” for the delays.
A Frank Green spokesperson told news.com.au: “Our customers can be assured that we are doing everything we can to get orders out to them in time for Christmas.”
“We are using options like express and same day shipping, at no cost to our customer, to achieve this.”
One customer, who contacted news.com.au, placed an order for monogrammed products on December 8, well within the company’s advertised Christmas orders deadline for personalised products of 12pm (AEDT) on December 12.
The customer, who spoke to news.com.au on the condition of anonymity, said that after subsequently seeing “hundreds of public posts from other consumers” about delivery delays, she contacted Frank Green via the company’s generic email address on December 14.
In reply, the customer received a “copy and paste” response that she’d receive a reply in up to five business days.
“Had I known about these issues, I wouldn’t have purchased two Christmas gifts and it’s fair to expect that Frank Green should have been transparent about the delays and the subsequent failure to supply the products by Christmas that were already apparent,” the customer said.
The customer added that given the reply contained no information about updated delivery timings, solutions or options for cancellation, they then requested a refund and referred the matter to the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) and Consumer Affairs Victoria.
She sent a DM informing Frank Green of this, which finally caught the attention of the company, with the customer receiving a personalised message in return.
“Can I please ask why you have submitted a complaint to consumer affairs and the ACCC?” the response read, before inviting the customer to contact the company directly via a personal email address and mobile phone number.
Other customers have not been so lucky since complaints about dispatch times began to appear on social media as early as November.
On Instagram one customer wrote: “The website states a maximum of 10 business days for orders to ship. Some people have been waiting since October. Stop telling people to look at the website! We’ve looked! It still doesn’t explain where our orders are!”
“I want my order sent or my hard earned money refunded. I think it’s time I reported your business to the Office of Fair Trading!” wrote a shopper.
“I have messaged and commented and still have had no replies from you, this is beyond a joke! My order was placed before the cut-off and have no shipping updates! When will this be sent?” another angry customer complained.
Parents are concerned about disappointing their kids, with a Frank Green water bottle the top of many Santa lists.
“Will have to craft the letter from Santa to explain why he couldn’t get the @frankgreen_official bottle in time, in a way that I can keep the magic alive,” one parent wrote.
Customers have also expressed their rage at the business continuing to post on social media encouraging customers to place new orders, despite the dispatch backlog.
“Why are you guys still advertising ‘order by this date and get it before December 25th’? Christmas is not even a week away and it seems hundreds of people haven’t even gotten their dispatch notice from and [sic] order they placed weeks ago,” one furious customer pointed out.
“The audacity! Send out the orders you received weeks ago!” another commented.
Another disgruntled customer agreed: “Still posting Instagram posts when you should be posting orders. Ordered since 29th November, still nothing. Not happy :(”
The delivery debacle echoes recent problems at cult fashion brand White Fox, with customers also taking to social media to question the status of orders and express concerns about whether Christmas gifts would arrive in time.
In a statement to news.com.au, White Fox blamed the shipping delays on the “overwhelming success” of the company’s Black Friday sales.
Know more? | michelle.bowes@news.com.au