Country Pride Food Service Lies and Rip off Eldersburg Maryland

This is the complaint we sent to the BBB regarding Country Pride.  They will not work with us.  They are going to cost us a tens of thousands of dollars with a new mortage because they hurt my husband's credit.  Stay far away from this company.  They lied about the "6 months" worth of food.  They lied about the rent to own freezer.  They over extended our credit and never told us.  Their customer service is horrible.  

Complaint we sent to the BBB:

In February of 2013 Kyle Mason and I met with County Pride Food Service’s representative Tony Gehrt.  He pitched his products (organic food) and a freezer that we could rent to own during our time with Country Pride.  We gave Tony the exact amount of meat and fish that we eat on a daily basis. Kyle and I eat the same amount of food every day.  Tony used those numbers to calculate the amount of Country Pride food that we would consume in a 6 month period.   The total amount was $4,968.02 for 6 months of food and $3,862 for an Imperial Heavy Duty Freezer (we discovered this morning that the freezer retails for $1,200).  Monthly payments would be $107.30 for the freezer and $794.67 for the food.  We asked Tony if signing up with a financing program would hurt our credit since we were attempting to buy a house in 2013.  Tony assured that Country Pride financing (Lendmark) has never negatively impacted any customer’s credit in the 8 years he was been selling for Country Pride.

Kyle and I discussed the offer and we ultimately decided to sign up with Country Pride on February 20, 2013.  Tony said he would check in with us around the 5 month mark to make sure we are on track to order another 6 month supply of food.   We acknowledge Tony may have undercut us on our fish numbers. 

Our food and freezer were delivered on March 6, 2013.  We started consuming the food on March 12, 2013 since we took a vacation from March 7^th to March 12^th. 

At the end of May, approximately 3 months after we received our food, we noticed that almost all of the food was gone.  Kyle contacted Country Pride and asked what we should do since our $4,968 worth of food was 95% gone.  A Country Pride representative said they would call back.  They did not call back. 

Kyle called again on June 3rd.  He was put in touch with Jamie.  Kyle and Jamie discussed the problem. Initially Jamie said that there was nothing they could do and that we were not promised 6 months of food, but we were promised 133 meals.  The representative did not mention 133 meals.  He mentioned 6 months.

Kyle and Jamie discussed the problem for approximately 20 minutes.  Jamie repeatedly told Kyle that there was nothing she could do.  Finally she said she would attempt to resolve our problem and that no matter what she does neither Country Pride nor we would be happy.  Jamie strongly advised us not to contact the BBB or an attorney until she could come to a resolution.  Jamie never called back.

Kyle and I both called on June 11^th. No return call.  This was after we found out from our future lender that Country Pride negatively impacted our credit.  We were approved for $3,000 for the food.  Country Pride never contacted us about the $3,000 limit and instead financed us for $4,768.02 ($4,968.02 minus a $200.00 deposit). We now are trying to finance a house with a lower credit score because of Country Pride. This is negatively impacting our mortgage insurance and interest rate.

We asked Jamie via email to resolve our conflict by noon on June 12^th and to schedule our empty freezer for pick up.  Kyle and I both called on June 12^th and asked for a conflict resolution and our freezer to be picked up.  We never received a call. 

We want our freezer to be picked up immediately and our credit restored.  We also want to know what Country Pride is going to do about our $4,968.02 6 month supply of food that lasted 3 months.  If we knew 3 months of food would cost almost $5,000 we never would have signed up with Country Pride.  We wasted money, our outstanding credit plummeted and we do not have any food left with a $3,178.68 balance due.

We are not the only people that had this problem.  A couple that we referred to Country Pride was told the same information, their food was gone in 3 months and they will be filling with the BBB.  We all will be hiring an attorney if this is not resolved via the BBB.

RESOLUTION:

We want our freezer picked up immediately and the remaining balance on the freezer to be zeroed out.

We want a refund for the rest of the money we owe for the "6 months" supply of food that lasted 3 months.  This would correct our severe credit issue that Country Pride/Lendmark created when not disclosing how much credit we were allowed versus how much they billed.