Michael sent a message to John P. Bilbrey – President and Chief Executive Officer of The Hershey Company – Email Address that said:
Mr. Bilbrey,
I am contacting you (hopefully directly) to tell you about an incident that happened with one of your products. I am going to try and sum it up as short as possible. Unfortunately it is not good, though I wish it would be because I have always considered Hershey's a great company. Bottom line is we found a pushpin (thumbtack) in the Ice Cubes gum that is made by The Hershey Company. We contacted Customer Service to point us in the right direction and all they did is offer a $25 Amazon gift card and some coupons. We asked to speak to a supervisor and nobody could speak nor call us back. We kept calling and it took a week or so to finally speak to a supervisor to tell them about what happened. I am active duty military (18 years) and my wife is an RN at Tampa General with an MSN. I say this because we weren't looking for money and that was proven because we didn't immediately take this to lawyers. We wanted to give Hershey the chance to correct and examine what happened. Through the process we were looked at as people looking for money, treated like nobodies and Hershey didn't care less what happened. Finally though after many phone calls and threatening to go to the media it was forwarded to your Senior Analyst in Consumer Claims, Candace Weiser. She explained the process and talked about getting the product back to run test and see what happened. I told her up to that point I didn't trust them in sending it and she assured she would take care of it. I asked though for some type of signature and tally record to be sent. She sent that and I asked her to send a copy of it back once she received it confirming signature receipt of receiving this. She sent a letter and said she received the box, but never actually sent the copy of the signature/tally record form. I called several times and left messages, but never received a call back. I also said we needed to talk about compensation and what Hershey is going to do to rectify this/make up for this. Nothing was said about this. My wife was stabbed in the mouth by this pushpin in the gum and any of my SIX kids could have had this happen (minus the newborn) and it would have been much worse. They had all chewed gum from this container of gum. She had to miss two days of work to get tests run to make sure there was nothing on the pin or she did not catch anything from this puncturing her upper gum. In addition, the punitive damages here were thru the roof because frankly we were treated like trash and are still getting the Silent Treatment from Hershey. In closing, we have always enjoyed and loved The Hershey Company but this process has been a nightmare and your company does not seem to care to much about us or the situation. I am hoping to talk with someone that shows sincerity and cares and is going to do something to ensure this does not happen again and talk about compensation for my wife for not only the days missed from work and damage to her gum, but the treatment we received from The Hershey Company throughout this process. Sir, what are you/can you do about this situation. Feel free to email me at the address above or call me or my wife Stacie thank you. Michael
