Bloody Beauty Pie!

[Kollin]

A cautionary tale ...

Someone recommended to me a face cream by Beauty Pie so I took out a membership of £5p/m, the lowest of their subscription levels.
I ordered, it cost me £8.95 (the membership price, down from their "full price" of £65) plus postage.
It came, it's crap.
I don't want to reorder or carry on with my membership.
You can't cancel from their website, you have to email them that set alarm bells ringing, for one.
I got a reply stating if I want to cancel my membership, I have to pay the difference between the membership price and their regular price (£56!) or carry on the membership for a minimum of 3 months (depending on which level of membership you take out, this could be £15, £30 or £60! Luckily, I had only took on the lowest membership of £5pm so for me it would be £15)
Or I can return the product, if it's sealed I can have a refund ... or if it's not they will take it back but I still have to pay for it ... I mean, how am I supposed to have deduced that it's no good if I haven't used it and why would I send it back, pay another postage and then still have to pay them £56 for the privilege of no longer having the cream in my possession

Anyway, I have cancelled my card.

Lesson learned!

It does state very clearly when you sign up that it's a 3 month minimum subscription. It's not like they nefariously hide that information...

It's such a shame that Beauty Pie gets such a bad rep from people who can't simply read what they are signing up to and take time to ensure they understand it. It's actually a really straightforward business model, but because it's different to the norm (and people don't bother reading the information that's given to them) it's often condemned as a scam.

It's essentially a buyers club. Your membership makes up Beauty Pie's profit, and you buy the products at cost.

If they're happy to take £9 for a cream then that's all it's worth and the "regular price" of £65 is just a £56 mark up con.

This is the whole point and demonstrates that you haven't understand how it works. They are very open that the RRP is based on the cost of a similar (from the same factory) product by premium brand, and that the difference between the BP member's price and the RRP is that brand's mark up (or BP's mark up if you aren't a member). The member's price is the cost price for the product, and BP make all their profit on membership fees.

I've switched virtually all my skincare products over to the BP version over the last year. I don't love everything and I've joined a Facebook group to swap unwanted products. Even the best brands have some dud products or products that don't suit everyone. But I've found the vast majority of BP's products are excellent quality and unbelievable value.

@Kollin

Read the op and my subsequent replies. I don't want to return it, I want to stop my subscription.

But... it’s a subscription service. So, like all(?) subscription services you are committed to pay it for a minimum period when you sign up.

The other option that might be worth exploring is whether you are within a 14 day ‘cooling off’ period as a result of distance selling. That might allow you to opt back out of the subscription.

Can anyone explain how it works and what the different levels of membership mean?

If you read my previous post I explained a bit about how it works which might help you. The different membership levels just give you a different spending limit. Spending limits are based on the RRP so for example, I pay £10 per month for £100 spending limit. That means I can usually get 2 or maybe 3 products each month that add up to a maximum of £100 RRP, but I only pay the member's price for them. So if I used my £100 spending limit to buy 2 products that were each priced at RRP £50/member's price £11, I would pay:
£10 monthly membership PLUS £22 (£11 x 2 products) PLUS postage.
Also the limit rolls over so I often save up several months of credit at a time to reduce postage fees.

It does say in the t&c’s when you sign up that the minimum time is 3 months. Sorry to hear you didn’t like the product. I’ve tried quite a lot and personally I really like most of them. I don’t think it’s a con at all. I used to have a £20 membership, but I’ve got quite a lot of allowance built up now so I just emailed customer services and I’ve downgraded to £5 for a while. It was really easy and customer services responded quickly.

Beauty Pie haven’t done anything underhand or wrong in this situation, is clearly stated on the BP website. I’ve been a member for a few years, cancelled and reinstated once, very easy no issue.
I comment only to provide balance as any hint of a MLM would have me running for the hills and the op stating it is akin to one is incorrect and unfair.

Agree with the others OP, unfortunately it looks like you misunderstood the terms and conditions. Use your membership to try some products as suggested above, some of them are really good.

Silly to cancel your card. An unmet commitment can show on your credit file.