Clair M

Last year I had a really positive experience with fluent with a bridging loan - great communication, very smooth sailing, so I thought I would go back to them to remortgage my house. Submitted an online query - phone call within 5 mins - great. Unfortunately it’s gone wrong from there -they agreed to ring on Tuesday - no phone call. Instead they tried to ring weds/thurs when I was at work. So I leave a message saying when I was available. No response. Send another message - this time get a voicemail to confirm they had my message and said Sam will ring me Monday. Does Sam ring? No! So I message again giving times when I was available and asking for confirmation that I would get a call - nothing and no phone call. I can only assume fluent don’t want my business and can’t be bothered to communicate with me. It’s a shame because I had recommended the company to others but won’t now.

Poor quality products - bought swivel solar lights for the garden in February and all six of them have packed up by June. Normally with solar lights you expect to get at least a year out of them before thinking of changing the batteries. Have also tried the sumo tape - what a nightmare - either you can’t remove items once you have used it (I have an outside house sign which won’t now move) or it doesn’t work at all. And it certainly wouldn’t be reused as when you try and remove it it breaks off and curls up. I’m now resorting to using a well known brand from Amazon. The company keep pushing their 100 day guarantee online but products should last longer than 100 days (including legally under the consumer rights act). Great ideas in theory but I won’t be purchasing again.

Response - you really haven’t read the review have you? I’ve already said about your 100 day guarantee and that goods should last longer! Oh and gorilla tape is more effective than your sumo tape for anyone that is thinking about buying it…..

I’ve had some shocking experiences with mail order plants this year - from some of the big named companies so though I would try golden valley plants. After a mistake on my address when I ordered the company have gone out of their way to assist me which has been much appreciated.

The plants that have arrived so far are really good healthy plants - far better than from their competitors. Am looking forward to the rest of my delivery and already looking at what I could purchase next!

Spent quite a bit of money with this company - many of the fruit trees/magnolia tree I bought have died. I also ordered some pink and white lavenders which to my surprise when they flowered some of them were the normal lavender colour. Emailed customer services - they asked for photos from
When they arrived - which of course I couldn’t do because at that stage I didn’t know there was anything wrong. Emailed back to say this and have heard absolutely nothing. It appears gardening express really is as bad as reviews suggest. I certainly will never use them again - a company is only as good as their customer services which is non existent here.

Have used this company for years and never had any issues until the last orders. I bought a pack of perennial pack of bare roots (no longer available on website) and several bare root phlox - most of which haven’t grown and very few of the perennial pack have despite me following instructions and planting in raised beds. Also had plants on order where I wasn’t updated for weeks and when the order said delivery in April I decided to cancel. The company have asked me to send photos of the plants so they can give advice -difficult to do that when they have never developed so I gave up and bought plants elsewhere. Won’t be using again as wasted a lot of money.

Update: it appears that getting a loan with Lendology makes it impossible to remortgage your property because of the title restriction they place on your property. My mortgage broker can’t find a mortgage because the Lendology restriction even though there is a massive amount of equity in the house. My only option to get a mortgage is to pay off the Lendology loan. I honestly wish I hadn’t bothered with Lendology. It would have been less hassle just getting a personal loan out or remortgage first.

Really straightforward experience - fitted quickly and conservatory looks amazing. Made so much difference to the temperature- now my cats stay in the conservatory all year round out of choice - they prefer it to the rest of the house

Amazing - paid up on my dogs leg break within 24 hours of the vets submitting the claim. Really helpful in giving me information about how to join to vet surgery’s to the same claim. Made the whole process pain free. Also found the puppy online training sessions that come with the insurance really useful.

Fairfax & favor have a very generous exchange policy for new items if returned within 365 days - I recently returned something for exchange. There was a mix up with addresses and the new parcel was sent to my old address and ended up at a completely different property. Sian at customer services was excellent - she took ownership of the situation, apologised and arranged for a new pair of boots to be sent out to me. Accidents happen and it was so reassuring that F & F took control to sort it out so quickly meaning that the stress levels could quickly go back to normal. Thank you Sian!

I placed two orders in the sales online. There were issues with the app crashing. I subsequently found out that lush had taken payment twice for one order. Despite contacting them with evidence of the two payments being taken, I haven’t had any response from them or any idea of timescale of when they will deal with my complaint. Lush have definitely lost me as a customer because of their poor customer service.

Update 27th jan. after speaking to my credit card company and instigating a charge back lush suddenly got in touch to say they had accepted it. Will never know if Lush would have voluntarily sorted it out! I will still never shop with them again

I’m a private seller on Vinted and never had any issues until this week with one od my completed sales - the money won’t go from pending to allow me to withdraw. £275 which is probably my biggest sale to day. Yet other smaller transactions have gone through absolutely fine. Vinted (who specialise in being as unavailable and difficult as possible) have said there is a temporary technical issue but looking at complaints online it’s been going on for a couple of weeks. The feedback on here scares me from using Vinted again for larger sales.

Mind you it’s a great way for mangopay to earn interest on the money that they are withholding from sellers!

Update 19th Dec - after making a complaint to the citizens advice consumer service who passed it on to my local trading standards - they kindly emailed the legal email address at Vinted about my case. Within an hour the money was in my available balance. Customers shouldn’t have to do that to get a decent service from Vinted but am relieved it’s now over.

I sell a lot of my clothes via Vinted - over the last few days I have had cheaper orders complete and the money has been paid into my balance and I’ve been able to withdraw. However one sale for £275 which has completed and the buyer is happy, but the money js stuck in the “pending” money and hasn’t been transferred to balance. It’s virtually impossible to speak to Vinted as you get robbed off with automatic responses and when you click the option to try and say no this information hasn’t helped you it won’t let you click anything. Have ended up making a resolver complaint just to try and get some help from Vinted. Will definitely make me think twice about selling more expensive items on there.

Update after making a complaint on resolver I’ve been told there is a “temporary technical issue” which if true should have been publicised by Vinted rather than waiting for people to contact them. Wonder how much interest they will be making on people’s money

Update 12 dec - formal complaint made to their legal email address - standard response back. They are actively avoiding providing information showing a complete disregard to customers. Why aren’t you actively telling customers that they might not get their paid? By not telling people Vinted keep earning money at the busiest time of the year and don’t give a damn about their sellers. Disgusting!

Update - I eventually got my money after getting in touch with my local trading standards who emailed them on my behalf - within 2 hours i got the money in my account. Since then Vinted have continuously sent me requests for feedback - 5 to my email and 6 to my resolver thread. When I’ve asked them to stop messaging me they have responded to say they don’t know who I am. Is it incompetence or them being deliberately malicious?

I sent a parcel signed for and when it didn’t arrive I looked at the receipt I had been given and realised Royal Mail had misinterpreted my writing and put house no 219 instead of what I had written no 21g. As there is no 219 at this location the parcel hasn’t arrived. I’ve tried 4 times to contact Royal Mail and 4 times received bog standard responses blaming me for putting an incorrect address and saying I should wait til it came back to me. I stupidly didn’t put my address in the parcel so the parcel so stuck with Royal Mail, who don’t want to do anything proactive despite their mistake in misinterpreting the address. I stupidly thought that if the parcel had gone to the local delivery office maybe they could send them a message to say that parcel that couldn’t be delivered was actually for a no 21g not 219, or that maybe someone could think of there wasn’t a No 219 what could it be instead?! I’m even sending it to a business and no one has thought to double check that either. At my local delivery office they have local knowledge and are actually sensible and proactive. Royal Mail must end up with loads of parcels stuck in limbo - I wonder what happens to them? In this case as it’s a dog onesie it’s not going to have much use unless you have an Italian greyhound dog in which case I’m sure they will look fetching in blackwatch tartan.

Update - the company have been quick to contact me and send a replacement and will investigate why the clips broke. I will update if this one doesn’t have the same problems.

I bought a doorway and front door gate in August 2024. The various sections are held together by two plastic clips which are screwed together at the top and bottom of each section to keep them together. Recently one of these became loose and I found on the floor - I thought this was a one off. However today my puppy has come to me with another one of the clasps in his mouth (different place) - missing the screw and one half of it. It had clearly become loose without me spotting it and being a puppy he has naturally chewed it. This is clearly a design flaw with this product. If you are using a doorway product regularly opening and closing it then these clips are under pressure a lot - a small screw is simply not holding them in place.

I bought this thinking it was a better option than a baby gate. However a baby gate would not be using small parts like screws because there are clear safety standards for those products - these do not apply to products designed for animals. I currently do not know if my dog has swallowed the screw. But to have parts come apart within two months of purchase is unacceptable and in my view a design flaw. If you have one of these and a dog who likes to chew things then please regularly inspect so you don’t have the stress and worry of wondering if you are going to need a trip to the vets.

Update Jan 25 - I have had no similar issues with my replacement gate so happy it seems to have been a one off

I purchased what was described as blackout thermal Laura Ashley pencil pleat curtains, but when they arrived the curtains didn’t mention thermal. I contacted Next on Facebook and was initially told the item number meant they were thermal, then the next person told me they weren’t. I asked why I was being given different answers and was told it was a possible misdescription and would be investigated. I asked whether I would be told the result so I know whether to keep them or not and the nameless member of staff told me to keep an eye out on the website to see if the description is updated in a week or so. So Next expect me to keep checking their website just in case the description is changed, rather than taking two seconds to message me to confirm if they were thermal or not. As much as I love shopping with Next you either get excellent customer service or completely appalling. Next you have been emailed a complaint this evening about this.

Requested delivery on another day which was accepted - still delivered anyway to a neighbour which wasn’t what I wanted

Initially I thought cadent were good at communication - work started in my road on the day they said and the gas was back on when they said it would be. However….a hole in my driveway was dug and I wasn’t given any information on what would happen in terms of fixing it.

The workers left the road on a Friday night and I still had a hole with barriers round making the driveway unusable. I emailed on the Tuesday after no sign of them returning to ask when they were coming back - was told someone would be in touch. Thursday I found someone in the hole who then disappeared after placing most of the bricks back in place - except one, which appeared to be missing. Friday I get an email saying they were glad to have been able to help me and had closed the enquiry. This left me with no idea why they closed it when work was outstanding, where my missing brick was or whether they were coming back.

Now my driveway isn’t the nicest in the world but having only just moved into a property with a driveway it’s a real novelty for me, but the addition of bright orange barriers around a missing brick isn’t really adding to the novelty - particularly when I’m now parked on the road looking at my driveway with its new additions. I have removed some of the additional bits that cadent left - the half eaten bag of Doritos and empty bags on the ground, but left the rusty piece of pipe scattered outside the barriers as who am I to know whether Cadent want that or not. So now a complaint is in to Cadent in the hope I will get answers and not get my query just closed again. (Customer no 20120233)

Easy and straightforward process - great communication and helpful in chasing things on my behalf. Catherine Palmer was great at explaining the steps and reassured me through out. Would definitely use again!

I requested an online valuation - you have to give your phone number which I’m fine with as you expect a follow up call. 3 missed calls with no messages left within 24 hours which I find annoying as if someone says who they are and leave a message I would phone back IF I wanted to - so I blocked the number - They then moved over to mobile numbers and so far I’ve had 4 different mobile numbers in 2 days - none of which leave a message. When searching the numbers they all come back as Yopa. Revolutionary thought but why not leave a message say who you are and wait for the person to ring back?! 8 calls in 3 days is excessive, aggressive and I would never contemplate going with a company that does that to potential customers.

I signed up for monthly payments which was initially great but I experienced problems when I needed to update my card. Contacted customer support for assistance because website acknowledged I had updated my card but told me to contact them. Their answer was for me to “use a different card” for payments - not something I wanted to do. I ended up cancelling and let them know that I thought they werent very helpful in getting my issue resolved. Their response was to let me know I had successfully cancelled and ignored the bit about them not helping. No attempt to assist me or keep me as a customer. So great website unless you need help.