Nejad

While the age of Amazon is in decline, stores like Robert Dyas are important to bring customers back to the high street and grow themselves. I have given 3 stars in this review because although there’s a large stationer at Haywards Heath, in addition to old WHSMITH, I note the Ryman stationer inside the Robert Dyas store is growing and pushing the main business back with a reduced stock range, which is, in the end, poor business management. If you go to Clarks or WHSMITH, you see that they’re diversifying by selling toys and other stuff, obviously stationary is not enough to keep them going and Robert Dyas is moving in the opposite direction. We have enough stationers in Haywards Heath and trying to compete in a crowded market doesn’t make sense at all.

I purchased a replacement Dimplex bathroom heater and it arrived the following day. Comparing this transaction to Amazon; I could choose any payment card using Apple Pay, and didn’t need to sit on my hands waiting for Amazon's random leisurely delivery

I’ve been using Dishomatic I-Stands for years but you can’t get them in the high street shops so I tried their website and bought 2. They were very slow posting them but what wasn’t an issue, what was shocking was that both of the items looked worse than the one I’m using for years. They looked worse in the transparent section of the body that forms the washing-up liquid container. This plastic is, obviously, of poor quality and reacts badly to UV lights and all the indications are that they were kept under the direct sun. The decent thing would have been to bin them rather than wasting customers' time and money.

I was rather hesitant buying from a company that I hadn't heard before but I went ahead and purchase a Tommy Hilfiger sunglasses, reasonably priced. The item arrived on the date they had given. It was as described and certainly a value for money, so I bear this seller in mind next time I am looking for something else.

Items sold by Boots are more expensive than elsewhere, unless you take advantage of their 3 for 2 offers, and that was what I did, buying 3 food supplements. The items arrived in line with their estimated date; however, one of the bottles had a broken seal, smelled rotten, and had less than a month until its expiry date. There was no chance that I would force 60 capsules that I hadn't tried before down my throat before the looming expiry date. I contacted Boots online, filled out all the forms, and received a confirmation email, but that was all I had from them, as if the confirmation email was the solution!
With the 3 for 2 deal, you can't just send one item back, as that invalidates the deal, and you'll pay full price for the rest of the items you keep. So, I took my purchase back to their store. They took the goods but didn't make a note of what was wrong or give me a receipt or confirmation email, saying I'll get a refund in 8 to 10 days.
So it looks like this was the last time I bought something from these cowboys, and my advice is if you have to, check all the items thoroughly on arrival.

I've been with the EDF for a few decades. Since late last year, I've been receiving irregular bills that I can see are caused by eagerness to hand over control to dumb machines. I've, nevertheless, given EDF 5 stars for excellent customer service, which is still operated by humans. I thank Harry, in particular for all his good works.

I purchased a Hotel Chocolate Easter Egg for my granddaughter back in March and mailed it to the USA.
The parcel hit a block at the US customs and was returned to me a month and a half later. When I was examining the Easter Egg on its return, I was horrified to see that it was assembled with no protective packaging like cellophane. You could just get to the chocolate inside by taking it apart and then reassembling it. I can see that the figurines inside the egg are manhandled and look slimy. I have no choice but to bin £34 worth of chocolate because of Hotel Chocolate's sheer incompetence in doing decent packaging. Whether it's legal to sell food products without proper protection, I can't tell

I spent £82 shopping at Boots online and used a voucher that claimed it’ll give me £4.50 in Advantage points if I spent £45, but I was given £315 bonus points in addition of standard points instead. This penny pinching won’t help the American owners but leaves a bad taste and something to remind me, next time I plan to shop with this people.

Responding to Boots reply:
I was making a point about what appeared to be the company's dishonesty, and I didn’t expect to be insulted too by their reply asking me to contact them so they, presumably refund me £1.35.

My previous review gave this company 5 stars, but I am disgusted by their dishonesty, hence writing another review and giving them 1 star.
I purchased two separate items on 27/12/24. For the first one, I opted for the standard delivery, and for the second one, I paid extra for ( Royal Mail Express, as they called it). I received two emails at around one pm the same day (Friday) saying they had dispatched the items, but not so according to the Royal Mail, its tracking states that First4Magnets told them that they had dispatched the items at 2 pm on Saturday! Whether I get the items I purchased or not remains to be seen, but, in my opinion, dishonesty is as good as con.

Replying to First4Manets’ comments:
Although I appreciate their sympathetic response, the fact remains that today on 2nd January 2025, the Royal Mail tracking is still reporting “we are expecting it”! It is no good to say we have no control over it since Royal Mail is your chosen default courier, and you didn’t say -at the time of purchase-if you order “we have no control over it” which sounds as pathetic as it is.

Illy shop (illycaffè) is ok if you buy coffee or accessories, like cups and mugs, but, as I learned, it is very unwise to get anything more than that from these people.
I bought an illy X1 coffee machine from illy on 17 June 2024. It looks good, but frankly, it's a piece of crap made in Spain.
The machine operates randomly, it sometimes brews coffee ok and other times it just dripping it out. You can't set the volume of dispensed coffee or its temperature because contrary to Illy's instruction, it doesn't remember the settings.
In late June I asked how to remove the plastic insert from the portafilter to clean it, after several weeks of chasing I received an answer saying: "Yes, you can remove it"! On 23 September, I contacted illy customer services, raising a support request for the aforementioned problems, again, after a long wait, I received a reply trying to talk themselves out of the problem. Frankly, the response was an insult to one's intelligence. Illy X.1 is sold for over £600, if you buy a dishwasher for £200/£300 they send an engineer out to address problems but not these fools. DO YOU WANT TO BUY ANY MACHINE FROM THESE PEOPLE?

Twice so far, I have added my card to Google Pay and removed it.
Having any dealings with Google is like talking to your old wireless Radio (Radios before the new age). Google has no tangible customer service, and no way of contacting, so when things go wrong outside their written computer codes, there is no one to talk to.
Today, I purchased a modem from AliExpress paying with Google Pay. After purchase, I received a message confirming I'd bought an American version known to me, so I managed to cancel the order. Money has been taken from my bank account, but Google doesn't even show the transaction, so what is the point of Google Pay?

Microsoft's idea of progress is going backward.Yesterday, I purchase one time license of Office 2024 - so I thought!. To make a purchase, I logged in more than 16 times received as many pass codes and resets played countless robot game (despite the fact that I had passkey and should have used my fingerprint on the computer). Finally after downloading the Office I noted that it's Office 365 they have given me. I wouldn't touch Office 365 with a barge board, so not only they are stupid and rubbish in their service, they are crooks too (if behaving like one they must be one)

I bought 3 items on 14 June from these Latvians. That was 12 days ago and way past the delivery date they gave. All the emails they sent for tracking orders or delivery that I received were just a pretence leading to a blank page, meanwhile, I kept receiving promotional emails from them until I emailed them asking where are my items and it's all gone silent since

Responding to Joom's reply;
They make no mention of the fact that all tracking links they "provided" led nowhere and were just a pretence!
I received an email from Joom, at the same time, today that I can copy here:
"The maximum delivery time is 85 days, which we have set to take into account possible delays at customs or sorting centres.... please contact us between September 8, 2024 and September 22, 2024, so that we can issue a refund." Now, where does this "85 days" come from? I can guess Jules Verne and "Around the World in Eighty Days" plus 5 days for Joom's administration! No self-respecting retailer makes a fool of itself like this! I can only imagine that by those dates they have conned enough people so that they can disappear without a trace.

On Greed:
Back in April/May this year I stayed for a month in the USA. I purchased an e-sim to use in the USA and put the 3 sim in my old phone, turned the mobile data and roaming off before switching the old phone off. During my month stay, I turned the phone with a 3 sim on twice for about 5 minutes. I didn't receive a text, other than 3's phoney welcome text, make a phone call or send a message, yet I was charged £5 extra twice for turning the phone on. 3 obviously playing an active role in the ripoff Britain scam!
Poor Customer Service
I called 3 today and for 33 minutes I tried to tell them there is no internet neither on my iPhone nor Huawei mobile WiFi that unfortunately has mobile data sim in it. The operator tried to guide me to troubleshoot my phone and completely ignored my reasoning that it is virtually impossible to have the same problem appearing all of a sudden on two totally separate devices. Anyone with a bit of common sense would have said let's check the common denominator I.e. the network, but that's 3s policy: don't accept responsibility for anything.
I have been 20 years too long with 3 and it's time to first complain to the Ombudsman and then move away from a company that looks like owned by the Chinese and has their dictatorial mentality.

I purchased a BREVILLE Barista Signature Espresso VCF160. It was delivered the following day on Sunday 19.05.2024 using DPD service. The above machine was either defective or not fit for purpose. so I called Currys on 22/05/24 and requested a return. The item was collected 2 days later, by DPD and I received an email on 27/05/24 notifying me that Curry is processing my refund. This is an outstanding service by any standard and I will bear that in mind when purchasing any electrical goods in future.
The most important lesson I learned is that I don't need to touch Amazon to buy electrical goods. Amazon doesn't provide a contact number to call, they deliver at their leisure and return and refund is a stressful experience.

I purchased a pair of Siluhette frames on May 7th and paid an extra $19.95 for priority service. Initially, we were led to believe it would be posted in 2-3 days, then it changed to 1-4 days and eventually posted on 14 May. When I contacted Cool Frames, I made it clear that I needed the glasses by the 14th because I was leaving the States. Although they promised I'd get it by then they didn't post it so I didn't get the pair I bought.
To add insult to injury in their email responding to mine they asked "How would you rate your Coolframes experience?" but the pretend link for "Bad" was just an image and no valid link. My order number was 1414339

I got a year of travel insurance and was impressed by how straightforward it was. I was most impressed that they advised that to cover the cancellation of my upcoming travel I needed to change the date which I did by pulling it forward by a day. I was concerned it would take me back to the beginning, starting all over but it didn't. I should say, I was trying to just get a quote but I felt they were good enough and I bought it.

I neither received the item I paid for nor the refund they promised. It looks like I have to report Chemist4U as a fraudster to my bank in order to recover my money.

The vendor's reply is an admission that they lied in their email seven days ago, 23 Feb 2024, 16:17 GMT that they have refunded me.

I placed an order with this company, and their courier, Royal Mail, delivered the parcel to a different address. I contacted Chemist4U and provided a photograph of my front door as proof that Royal Mail had delivered the parcel to a different address. I even explained that there are two roads with a similar name in this area but with different postcodes. The reply I received is way beyond stupid. I quote word for word, "I am very sorry your tracking shows a different image to what you have provided for the 'proof of delivery" as if the problem was the photograph and not the failure to deliver the item to the right address!
After several emails, I was unable to make them understand that I hadn't received the item and that their courier had delivered the parcel to another address with a different postcode. Instead of arguing with me, they could have contacted Royal Mail.
This company has no contact phone number and it takes 24 hours for them to come back to you after filling out the contact form. God forbid if I had signed up for their prescription service.
Five days ago, the company told me that "as a measure of goodwill", they refunded me. Since I did not receive what I paid for, "measure of goodwill" is sheer arrogance, especially since I never received a refund they claimed.
Responding to the company's reply:
I provided the order number while filing this review, so the ignorance plea doesn't wash.

I attended the funeral wake of my sister-in-law in this pub on 23 January 2024. About 2 weeks later, I received a penalty notice from Euro Car Parks, for the sum of £100 because I had parked in this pub's carpark for the duration I was there. No one in the pub brought to our attention that we, as the quests, needed to do anything about parking on their premises. These people have no morals, and considering there were at least two dozen guests in there, surely they made enough money and didn't need to squeeze more by acting in such an uncivilised manner.