Several users are reporting missing laundry; and the CEO appears to have disappeared without paying his staff
On-demand laundry businesses are notoriously hard to sustain; in recent years, many have tossed in the towel.
And it doesn’t matter whether they are based in Silicon Valley or India, a poor business model can’t take root no matter where the soil is.
Singapore-based on-demand laundry service My Laundry Box appears to be the latest such startup to shrivel up.
However, no announcements were made; its website and Facebook page is still up, and its hotline is still in operation (although it directs you to leave a message).
Everything appears to be hunky dory, until you read customers’ comments on its last Facebook post (dated July 24, 2016) – which interestingly, is a call for new hires for positions including Logistics Solutions, Design & Creative, Database Management and Process Optimisation.
First, some background and context. My Laundry Box, founded in 2014, uses a system of smart laundry lockers – operational 24/7 – where customers can deposit their laundry.
The laundry are sent to third-party laundromats and dry cleaning services, then returned to the lockers between two to five working days. Customers make payments via pre-paid credits in the My Laundry Box app.
A home delivery option is also available between 10am to 10pm daily.
Now, back to the Facebook comments. It appears that My Laundry Box went off the radar in early September.
One of its customers, Daniel Pang, claims that Founder and CEO Kelvin Khoo has went on total radio silence without paying his staff and delivery carriers.
Many customers with outstanding laundry said that they had to resort to contacting the affiliated third-party laundry services to retrieve the laundry themselves.
One individual had thousands of dollars worth of laundry left with My Laundry Box.
One of the third-party laundry services A&B Professional Dry Clean And Laundry even had to step in to advice users on how to claim back their credits.
Some users are also contemplating taking legal action and lodging police reports against My Laundry Box.
The state of affairs in My Laundry Box is certainly dire. e27 will continue to update this story as it develops.
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Image Credit: My Laundry Box
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