In Which I Pay $1,600 for Shakeology

You all know I’m on sort of a health kick (for me), right? I exercise. I don’t eat (too much) sugar. Then would it surprise you to hear that I’d recently spent $1,600 on Shakeology products? That, in fact, I’d signed up for $800 worth of Shakeology to be delivered every month?

Because it certainly surprised me.

I was sitting in my kitchen last night, going through the backlog of mail that had accumulated while we were away on vacation. Our LL Bean credit card statement was in there, so I dutifully opened it up and scanned it to make sure that–

For the love of all that’s good, why do I have a balance over $1,600?

Denisa and I love some LL Bean and all, and we had bought some backpacks there last month, but I was pretty sure the backpacks weren’t quite that expensive. The Bean can be pricey and all, but not that pricey.

“Denisa,” I asked. “Why did we spend over a grand on our Bean card?”

She was just as surprised as I was. I turned the page to see what the charges were for, and there were the lovely Shakeology purchases. $800+, recurring every month on the fourth.

Not cool.

So I called LL Bean and was speaking to a representative within a minute. They were very understanding, issued new cards to us, took off the charges, and had me fixed up and ready to go in about ten minutes. They suggested I call Shakeology and alert them as well, so I called them next.

After being on hold for a half hour, I spoke with a representative who insisted on knowing my name, zip code, and account number with them. Even after I explained I didn’t actually have an account with them, and that I wasn’t in their system. That rep had a script, by golly, and she was going to follow it no matter what. She talked over me, ignored what I had to say, and took ten minutes to figure out why I was calling.

And once she did?

“Since you don’t have an account with us, I can’t make any changes to someone else’s account.”

I blinked. “It’s my credit card. It’s under my name, with my address. I can’t stop it being used to buy stuff from you?”

Yup. That’s pretty much exactly what the story was. She did offer to send me to a different rep who might be able to look up the account by credit card, but by that point, I was done with Shakeology. I was just doing this as a favor to them, and they didn’t really seem to care. Whatever.

Long story short, my brief affair with Shakeology didn’t amount to much. I don’t have to actually pay any of that $1,600, and I was way impressed with Bean’s customer service. Real people, real help. Shakeology?

Not so much.