Connectedau Opiniões 

The owner of this company is chronically dishonest. I initially thought I was just unfortunate to have an isolated bad experience, but reading through reviews I can see it is a systemic issue. I am usually very forgiving and understanding that there is a human trying hard behind a small business, but can’t tolerate intentional dishonesty.

Have been waiting two months for an unfulfilled order, and it is apparent that there was never any intention of fulfilling it and just mistruths and false promises the whole time.

Credit to the business, they did refund (not initially but when I asked for proof, they actioned it) so I did get my money back, but the excuses and delays were ongoing.

Some people have brilliant ideas, but not everyone has the capabilities to operate a business. Integrity is paramount and lying to customers to avoid accountability is about the bottom of the business barrel.

Editing to clarify after response from the company: the “logistical issues” mentioned were: first they said it got lost in the mail, then they didn’t have my address, then they said I missed the cut off for that month’s box and my payment was for the following month only, then they said it was processed and sitting at the warehouse, but again they didn’t have my address, except I joined the mail exchange and received a letter from my penpal, to my address. As mentioned, mistakes happen, small businesses have real challenges. It’s the repeated lack of transparency and different narratives. The “comments” I made on social media were asking if my box had been shipped, and asking for someone, anyone, to respond. Yet again, if anyone had simply replied and said “because you asked where the box we promised is 2 months after we promised to send it we decided not to send it any more” then the issue would have been closed. After refund, I never asked for the box, never expected the box, case closed when the refund was eventually processed, however you chose to offer the box, and never followed through with sending it, leaving me still chasing it up, and eventually resorting to warning others of potential experiences.

I am filing complaints with ACCC and NSW Fair Trading today. Said they’d refund for four boxes after poor communication, poor business practices, excuse after excuse and total lack of transparency. Then on the same day, instead of a cancellation email, I got emails confirming they’d sent the boxes. Do not use. Their business practices contradict their supposed business ethos.

ETA: I contacted them telling them I was filing complaints and lo and behold, all within two minutes and then after clarifying a forth box they didn’t refund initially, the refunds are now pending. They said it can take up to 10 days as a reason I hadn’t already be refunded but they turned up pending time stamped as being done while we were in conversation. No email confirmation of refund on the day they said they’d refund. I will still be filing the complaints; this company clearly has a pattern.

ETA in response to Merri’s reply: it was a refund that was given only in response to my threat. You said it was a coincidence, yet when the forth box was clarified and refunded, it was also refunded with a timestamp that was within a minute, so clearly the time stamps are accurate. You need to own your mistakes and not make excuses. You didn’t refund me until I said I would complain through official channels, the process is instant, because it was this morning with the forth box - all a coincidence, or a pattern? Read the reviews. I wish I had.

You went on to say I should show grace because I’m a therapist. I respect honesty and transparency, just because I’m a therapist doesn’t mean I let businesses get away with doing the wrong thing.

And oh, they also said they’d send a free box to make amends, but then saw this complaint and decided not to. So are they really sorry? Or do they just not want bad reviews?

Also they don’t just scroll by - you can see on their profile they have tried to appeal 6 one star reviews but those reviews were found to be honest so stayed up. My review is honest, which is why it will stay up. Like I said when you accused me of a “public attack” - this is not a public attack, this is an honest review of my experiences dealing with this business.

ETA in response to Merri's edit: I never said the refund "process" was slow. I don't think it was. What I said is that it only happened (and then instantly, so not slow at all) once I said I would complain through formal channels. It would have been different if you'd said, "whoops, completely slipped my mind, I'll do it now" but you didn't, you said it had been done, and have doubled down and got nasty. So now I have gone down the rabbit hole, and found some more issues (all of which are now added to my NSW Fair Trading and ACCC complaints, and be found by simple public searches of the Australian Business Register):

Connected AU Pty Ltd's ABN was cancelled from 20 May 2026. Their current "new" business (Merri) is not transparent about their new ABN. Their business name CONNECTED AU was cancelled 19/06/2025. Stripe (their billing platform) still says "Connected au Pty Ltd trading as MERRI". I was billed and refunded under Connected Au.

I can not find anything related to Merri/Offline Box/Connected Au on ACNC and their Trust Pilot says they're in the US (weird) and a charity (not in Australia that I can find), the billing says they're in Dubbo... so yeah.

Legally, Australian e-commerce websites are required to be transparent about the legal entity running the store, typically listed in their Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, or footer. However, the MERRI website omits this corporate information entirely.

Transparent? I don't think so. Good business practices? Definitely not. Sketchy? Seems like it to me.

And truly, they could have just been nice about it and I wouldn't have even bothered to write a review, let alone continue to edit, but when they message me "it is surprising given you are a mental health worker, that you haven't been able to show understanding and grace and are so quick to publicly attack" and "I hope you don't treat every interaction that doesn't go your way like this" well, then I need to put things straight. This has got nothing to do with my job (though my job is related to advocacy, and I believe in advocating for one's rights, including consumer rights and ensuring individuals, business, and government agencies are transparent in their practices, and I also have my own business so I do know hard it can be but how important transparency is), is nothing about things not going my way, and everything about poor business practices and a lack of transparency.

It is a real shame, because I actually think what you do could be amazing, which is why I signed up in the first place.

And on that note, I am out, and will let the ACCC and NSW Fair Trade investigate further. I hope Merri starts operating more transparently.

I have been paying for this service for years, despite contacting them multiple times to cancel. I have requested refunds - all of my communication goes unanswered.
It is such a shame that an organisation with such a good premise is run by such inferior, greedy people.
I received a single letter from a pen pal. The service guards mail like dogs. I can't even log in any more to connect with their chat bot who can apparently answer my questions. There are minimal contact details.
What am I actually paying for??
This is 100% a scam
UPDATE: I have been asked by ConnectedAU (now We Are Merri) to remove this or at least edit it. I was told I would be refunded my last 3 charges within 10 days via DMs on Instagram on Aug 25, 2026. I didn't receive anything until this review was read. I was then refunded 1 amount. I am still waiting on the other 2. Now their social manager says I cannot be helped by Instagram DM, I must rely on their email.

Thieves!!! They have stolen thousands of dollars from me and not responded to a single email requesting them to stop payments. Sometimes taking $250 a month from me. Outraged is an under statement. I never received a single service from these frauds, I simply signed up to offer a pen pal service to aged care residents in lockdown. It’s been 3.5 years that they have been stealing money from my family.

I have had a very similar experience to other commenters. I signed up in 2023 for an $86 annual membership. I then was charged nearly $1,500 throughout the past 12 months in $200 increments. I emailed 3x asking for a refund, and heard no response. I tried to message their facebook page, but it has messages disabled. I tried to get into the app but my login wasn't working. I tried to reset my password but there was no link sent through. I tried this on the mobile app and the website, but both are broken. They have no phone number anywhere.

I was able to DM their instagram and finally got a response to my email. In their response they claimed they could already see some "back and forth" which was not my experience, to this date I have only received one email from them.

They refunded me the money, but contrary to their claims in below responses they did not "reach out" to me, I had to work very hard to get in contact with people. Also, this so called "billing issue" started in December 2025, but it has taken them this long to fix. I have sent them an email asking for confirmation my card is removed from their files and DMed on instagram, but they aren't responding (as per their usual standards).

I would strongly recommend avoiding this company. Based on my experience, they have extremely poor customer service, little transparency, a product I couldn't access, and serious billing issues. While I appreciate that they ultimately refunded the money, returning funds that should never have been taken from my account in the first place feels like the bare minimum.

I joined ConnectedAU through the Offline Box subscription. The Offline Box is falsely advertised and highly overpriced for what they send you. Save your money and spend the $99 on a new book of your choosing and a heap more craft and gardening supplies from Kmart and Bunnings instead of what they send you. The Offline Box would barely be worth $25. The website and app are also hopeless, so poorly designed and annoying to use. As others have mentioned there is also no way to cancel online and you’ll wait a while for any response to your emails.

This company is a scam. Admittedly a sophisticated and polished one, with a good social media presence to fool you rather convincingly. Sadly, like all other reviewers in this thread have shared in their experience; I signed up for a $45 membership and then nothing happened. Life happened, and I simply forgot about the “community” I joined and the associated charges I’d agreed to as part of membership. Over time, I had charges that varied each month so that my credit card company never caught the isolated events as fraudulent charges. One month was $104, the next was $379, the next $245…. The list goes on.

I didn’t catch this until over $1300 later when I checked my credit card statement thinking I had fully paid it off for the month and noticed a higher cost on there that I hadn’t expected. I then followed the regular fraudulent charges from ConnectedAU and I felt sick, and utterly stupid for not catching it sooner.

I was locked out of my membership portal with no way to change the membership, so I had to contact them via email. “Cassie” gave me the same theme and explanation as what others have said, that there was a billing error and it had been fixed and I was allegedly given a refund but I had to wait 10 days- she didn’t even inform me of how much the erroneous charges were, and what amount was supposedly refunded back to me. And then (unsurprisingly) nothing happened. No refund was processed, and their communication went dark.

Interestingly, I notice they suddenly changed their social media strategy and business model recently to being “offline” and building monthly boxes of gifts, activities, books to send paying subscribers. I could hedge a bet and assume the funds in which they’ve built to rollout such a model of operations as the next tier of their scam practice would have been directly funded from those they’ve scraped money from over time.

Noting they’ve conveniently claimed their profile now on this platform to try and manage their PR - they are responding to reviews with updates. I genuinely hope they are refunding those they’ve fraudulently taken from.

Like others, I signed up pre-covid and wrote a bunch of letters and it was legit. Never got any back, but thought it was nice as I was connecting with older people.
Recently, I noticed multiple $245 charges to my card, 18 months after I cancelled my subscription. I was able to get through via email to the team and was told I'd been refunded, but it didn't come through to my CC and I had no response to repeated requests to call me. After doing further digging, I've been dealing with Ness and have finally received a full refund, but this went on for way too long.

They stole three sets of $199 from me in a ten day period. Plus other random charges of $45.
When I emailed, "Cassie" did respond saying there must have been a 'glitch' in their billing system and that it had been refunded but I never received any proof of refund or the money itself.
Fortunately my bank reversed the funds after a lengthy phone call with them.
This company is giving me the creeps. It has even featured on the Project? Dodgy, scammy company.

Agree with all of the other reviews and I wish that I had read them before joining when I was postpartum and seeking connection! I can find no way to reset my password, no way to login and cancel the subscription. Emailing to cancel subscription didn't work. Luckily when they tried to take money out last time I didn't have enough in my account! Do not sign up to this service!

Scammers! I supported this "charity" briefly by joining their Letterbox program as a volunteer. I only received one letter, they were very, very slow and it seemed suspicious, so I decided to cancel. The cancel button on the website was unresponsive, so I emailed them. They replied confirming my cancellation, but I was then charged again a week later, for a higher amount. I was then charged a further 4 times over the next 18 months despite multiple emails. I had no choice but to report them as fraudulent to my bank. I tried giving them the benefit of the doubt thinking they were just a poorly managed charity, but after seeing the other reviews here, it's clear this is a shady operation posing as a charity, scamming good samaritans and vulnerable people. Absolutely disgusting.

This so called “charity” is a scam! Luckily my bank was alerted to an odd attempt to withdraw over $300 from my account and blocked it. I had to get a new card and it honestly gave me a shock as they present as a charity in searches. Please be careful and if you see these guys on your bank statement, follow it up.

Connected AU is a fraudulent operation

I signed up for the Penpal service at $45. Received a few letters and wrote back but service was very slow. Lost interest.

Then was charged $199 so I emailed the community email address and I got a very nice automated reply but no more. I emailed them a number of times and still all I got was the very nice automated reply.

So I disputed through the bank. This was successful and money refunded.

While the dispute process was underway I realised there had been previous charges for $245. So this has now escalated into a fraud process with the bank. I will get a new credit card shortly!

As others have said:

This website and its offerings are a scam!

I originally signed up to penpal program for $45/yr. I was charged $245 on 22/10/2025 without notification of the charge. I msgd on the support chat & emailed asking why I was charged & for an invoice to be issued. No response received. I found a member email notification that 1st July the subscription model was changing as they moved to a new digital platform. I emailed to cancel subscription, referencing the cancellation terms on 24/10/25 which they acknowledged 07/11/25. On the 31/3/26 I have just received a $199 charge without notice, no invoice issued or available on the community portal, for a service I believed was cancelled. I have not heard a reply but I have elected to delete my profile on the portal and I will be escalating this to department of Fair Trading as invoices and an accurate cancellation system should be available. The last reviewers experience also contributed to this action.

The company advertised themselves as a charity org, and my partner signed up for $5 a month to write letters to a penpal, someone who may be lonely. It went well initially, but after a "system change" they charged my partner $25 a month, then $49 a month, without providing a service. Some months they would charge double. She contacted them and asked to cancel the charges, which they claimed to have done, but have since charged multiple times per month, over 4 months. Even after a cancelled card, they continue, having taken $150 over three chargers in a single month

This company is a straight up scam.