If you are willing to risk it, or don't care about money, then Tokyo Treat has an opportunity to be a 4 star (at best) company. If everything goes your way, which it seems to have for most reviewers here, they will provide an over-priced repetition of treats you've had before with a few gems thrown in there. I had a decent experience with them and would've given 3 or 4 stars up until the point where my annual subscription was coming up. This is where disaster struck.
This all started with me going for yearly premium subscriptions. I thought the cost was pretty extreme, but I could skip my usual snack budget and maybe cut spending to make up for it. First issue with them was actually the first e-mail I got from them after everything was set up, but I didn't think anything of it at the time. They offered me a chance at a giveaway (which likely doesn't exist) if I give a 5-star review of them on up to two different sites. (Image attached) This bribing of new customers is likely why there's so many positive reviews.
It was July 2020, my subscription was going to renew in August. I see a promotion of using a code to get a box of KitKats with your subscription. I think "Sure, I'll renew a month early to get extra KitKats." and I try renewing early. Oops. I come to find I've ordered a second subscription for myself. Why anyone in their right minds would ever do that, I'm not sure--but apparently that's what they assume you're doing. I quickly start a ticket and try to get this mistake fixed. The kind staff member assures me that I will have to pay for the two boxes that are already being packed, but they will give store credit for the rest and it will pay for my automatic subscription payment that's coming in August. Cool. Glad that got fixed.
August rolls around, and I'm charged for a full year. They lied to me about store credit or they messed up. Okay. Maybe it was an honest mistake and they forgot. I submit a ticket again. They do not admit to what happened, but they tell me they can give me a year's worth store credit one year from now. EXCUSE ME? Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you. I'm not taking any store credit. They tell me it's impossible to issue an actual refund. (This is a lot of frustrating talking to a wall conversation I'm skipping over in every ticket I open.)
I decide to contact PayPal for a refund and after some back and forth, they finally give me a refund. Okay. Finally. It's actually fixed. I paid for one subscription. I'm getting one subscription.
Fast forward a few months. I don't have a box to show since the refund. I assume, since I refunded and they cannot charge me for the speedy DHL shipping (PayPal policy for disputes), they are ground shipping the boxes to me--plus Covid has slowed shipping down for a lot of companies. No worries. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and wait patiently. The box is likely on a barge in the middle of the ocean right now.
Okay, it's now been about 6 months since my last box. Where are they? I check the site and both my subscriptions are cancelled. I now have to make a third frustrating stream of tickets to find out Tokyo Treat apparently has a policy of if you charge back ANYTHING, they will shut down ALL of your subscriptions automatically. Since I passed 180 days, PayPal will not refund the charge. My bank will not refund the charge. I'm now stuck waiting for Tokyo Treat to give me product (that I don't even want at this point) or my money back, and I don't think I'm getting either. As of right now, they're literally stealing from me. All they do is keep repeating that they had to freeze my subscription while the refund was being processed (it was processed a month after I asked for it... not 6 months).
I'm waiting on a resolution and all I'm getting is copy-pasted lies about how they are so sorry for the inconvenience and understand how frustrating it is and they're doing everything they can. They're holding my money hostage. I know I'm not the only one, 'cause I've seen others review saying they tried refunding, were offered store credit, and had to dispute the charges. I'm being punished for being the better person and giving them the benefit of the doubt instead of disputing all charges and being done with this shady company like I originally considered back in August.
Avoid this company like the plague. They will not give refunds for their own mistakes. They will not give refunds period. They'll only promise imaginary store credit. They have many policies they hide from the customer as much as possible like stopping ALL subscriptions under a payment method if ONE thing gets disputed, or the recurring subscription, or the extra extortion for DHL shipping while claiming you can have free shipping but not allowing it, etc. Very bad customer service.
Snack boxes
After numerous takedowns on the Tokyo Treat forums and other social media I have found a place to let others know how Tokyo Treat currently operates.
When the global pandemic struck in March of this year it caused a great disruption to the shipping of their boxes. My March box never left Japan Post and was immediately returned to Tokyo Treat. Tokyo Treat worked diligently to come up with alternative ways to ship out their boxes. For my country that meant surface shipping via boat which they estimated would take 3-4 months to reach me. This was acceptable to me and I patiently waited for my first box to arrive. My March box was shipped back out mid-March and my April and May boxes were shipped out together mid-May.
In September I finally received my first box. When I picked it up at the post office I was surprised to see that it was the June box. I was concerned at what may have happened to the March, April and May boxes but figured there could have been some additional delay due to the pandemic. My second box came in October and this time it was the July box. At this point I suspected that I may not see the March, April and May boxes as after more than 6 months they were unlikely to arrive. As a result I contacted Tokyo Treat support to report the missing boxes.
I had been a subscriber for 4 and a half years and for the first 3 years of my subscription I would lose a box every year. The first box that went missing Tokyo Treat provided me with a full refund. For the second and third boxes they said I couldn't get a (partial) refund until the missing boxes were returned to them. I wasn't happy but I accepted the loss at the time. Last year I was excited when they introduced the insurance add-on. I was finally covered for that inevitable yearly missing box. With my 15% off lifetime discount from my streaks I could easily afford the monthly $3 insurance and had been gladly paying it for the last 18 months.
So this time when I reported the 3 missing boxes, support seemed ready to provide me with a refund and asked me to confirm my payment details were still up-to-date. After confirming my payment details were correct, I was shocked to then receive a response from support stating that I couldn't receive a refund as missing boxes needed to be reported within 90 days of the box being shipped. I immediately replied pointing out the fact that this was insane considering it now took 90 days for a box to reach me via surface shipping. I could never claim for a refund based on this. Their next response was that the boxes weren't reported within 120 days (an arbitrary time they came up with not documented in their Terms of Service). I then pointed out that I literally had no baseline for how long a box would take to reach me until after I received my first box. After pointing this out and requesting they make an exception due to the current situation, they went back to the 90 days reporting time and made multiple references to their current Terms of Service (ToS) that they said I agreed to when I signed up for the service.
Frustrated I went through the ToS and pointed out to them that the ToS allows for them to extend the reporting time under certain circumstance (e.g. Natural disasters, postal delays, etc.). I also pointed out to them that their ToS had been changed recently without them notifying their customers (based on the fact that the ToS now has references to a global pandemic). Although their ToS states that they can change their ToS without notice at any time, this has been overturned in courts in many countries. A ToS is an agreement between two parties and cannot be unilaterally changed without first notifying the other party (the customers) and specifying what has been changed.
In my final plea for reason I explained that I had paid $54 in insurance over the last 18 months. My Classic box was only worth $21.25. A refund for the 3 missing boxes would be $63.75. By January 2021 if I was still a subscriber they would have redeemed any loss from giving me this refund. They refused once again so I cancelled my subscription. I can only assume that the insurance add-on is a scam that they have no intention of paying out to anyone. I believe customer service must have a mandate not to give any refunds to anyone regardless of the circumstances. I was a loyal customer but this type of behavior is super shady and going to cost them in the long run.
Also as other reviewers have noted the amount of items in the box have gone up but they are mostly dagashi or small penny candy stuff - literally one bite and it's gone.