I have received several "Free 72-Hour Food 4 Patriots Kits" via emails recently. What you are told is you must pay the shipping and handling. Not until you are on the order page do you see the $14.95 shipping and handling cost for a free $27.00 value Food 4 Patriots Kit. If you go to Food 4 Patriots internet site to order what you would pay for, the site states that shipping and handling is free.
The free kit is three bags; one of eight servings of oatmeal and two of four servings each of the two soups, weighing a total of 39.94 oz for the 16 servings advertised. 72 hours is three days, and that is nine meals for one person and 18 meals for two persons (oops, each person is going to miss a meal). With two people there would be six breakfasts, so someone will be eating oatmeal for lunch or supper.
To pay 55% of the value of a physically small item for shipping and handling is not just shipping and handling but some other charges.
A 72-hour emergency food stash needs to have those three meals each for each person in the household, not a random number of servings. A default minimum number of persons set that would set the number of servings. The previous Food 4 Patriots Kits had four servings of four different soups but no oatmeal for breakfast.
Enough said. This entire 72-hour plan is poorly defined, and the shipping and handling charge is grossly out of the realm. I purchased from Food 4 Patriots previously but not under these terms and conditions.
Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend
Company Response from 4Patriots, LLC
Aug 18, 2017
Dear Paul,
We are sorry to hear you were unhappy with the price and packaging of the 72-hour Kit. Each kit is designed to be enough for one person for the designated time period, in this case, 72 hours. The shipping and handling do cover certain costs, such as packaging, warehouse stockers, shipping etc. So while we would love to offer this item as completely free, we have our own employed Patriots that we need to be able to keep with us, in order to continue getting our wonderful products out to everyone. We are happy that we can still offer this kit at the reduced fee of just shipping and handling while we can, and we hope it will be helpful to anyone who wants to have a little something set aside "just in case." We appreciate you as a customer!
Please let us know if you ever need assistance. You can email us at help@food4patriots.com. You can also call us at 1-800-304-4202, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. CST or Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Thanks, and have a wonderful day.