Jeff Layton

If you’re thinking of ordering online, best not waste your time. The stocking system is rubbish, the search facility throws up 80% of stuff your not looking for, and the checkout just doesn’t work if it has problems.
I just tried to place a bulk order today for over £600, mostly stuff only sold online, not in the stores. Order wouldn’t checkout, tried every which way, no success.
Rang the helpdesk, explanation was obscure @ unintelligible.
I cancelled the order rather than waste more of my time. I’d rather go to a more expensive builders merchant than waste 2 hours.

The irony is that most of what I was buying is for online order only, not available in B&Q stores. So their system is stopping them selling goods. Barking mad.

Being a Type 2 diabetic, these are the only sweet tasting luxury I can treat myself to, and they don’t play havoc with my gut like all the other ‘sugar free’ options. Or used to treat myself to.

They’ve gone up 430% in just over 3 years, from 75p to £3.25 at my local garage.
Buy a 12 pack on Amazon and the unit price falls to a jaw dropping £1.40. That says one-off price is inflated.
No sweet way to say it - that’s taking the ****, no matter how good they are. My conscience stepped in, they are officially an ex-treat now.

I thought my son and daughter’s inheritance would be safe with a household financial name like Prudential. Then my daughter asked to withdraw enough for a car so she could look for work further afield.
As you’ll read from others on Trustpilot, it began with one delay and form request after another, obvious delaying tactics. Latest form was for companies or persons living in Ireland??!! We live in Suffolk. So we’re still pushing, hoping, about six months since this began.
Then I found it wasn’t just us, and there’s all these horror stories, and people losing either funds or pensions as a result.

Our funds were setup by a Financial Advisor. If they didn’t see this coming what chance do the lesser mortals like us have?
Spread the word - let everyone know. In the meantime let’s hope the Financial Authorities will do something. Thought this sort of practice from a leading company was history.

Every time I have needed to interact with Eon (mostly over an errant Smartmeter), I’ve found them friendly, helpful and, unusually, willing to go that bit extra.
After a messy billing period caused by said meter, Abe helped me find a tariff that wasn’t published but helped us and saved £200 a year.
2 lovely ladies @ Team R2 did that this time but it’s more than just a small handful of people, it seems to be a team culture.
A very positive and welcome difference to the distant Support Services of most companies.
Thanks team T2, and Eon.

Price was good, brand impeccable, beat current insurer by 23%. Nothing more to like.
Thanks, Allianz

If you take on a new Hp printer, like I did (2800), be aware that
a) HP will try to dead-end you into choosing Instant Ink and b) if you don’t choose it, and use non-HP ink cartridges, they’ll tell you you’ll invalidate your warranty. HP might deny that, but that’s what their language said to me.

To use Instant Ink involves signing up for a subscription, BUT also allows roving printing via the Internet. Once I signed up I could cancel the subscription but not the web printing (HP-print-to-roam), which messes with my simple, local printing, and documented solutions on the web either don’t work or produced error messages.
All I wanted was for my family to print, in my house, to my printer, not all this very painful, peripheral hassle that HP insist on, just to co-erce me into buying their most expensive liquid on the planet. It’s a lock-in attempt.
I’ve been an HP printer user since the Deskjet was born, but their poor software, connectivity, documentation and processes have become a huge pain.

Yodel email said driver could not leave delivery on doorstep. Driver completely ignored my notice to deliver next door, left it on the doorstep to get rained on.
Don’t want to use a company who can’t enforce their own rules.

I have used B&Q for years. This purchase was a new built in oven. Not only was the price competitive but the delivery arrangements went like clockwork and the delivery guys placed it very helpfully straight to the kitchen.
You’re doing good B&Q. Keep it up

I have had a bad time with our SmartMeter (one of many I hear). I knew the readings Eon were basing my annual consumption on had to be wrong. The young lady who helped me with this query was really helpful, polite and sorted everything. A pleasant help desk contact experience that ticked all the boxes. That doesn’t happen too often nowadays.

Up front I must admit I’m new to selling on Reverb. I sold my sons Fender and was pleased with the sale.
I was expecting around 5% plus commission and charges to apply, as per their sellers info, even that seemed a lot, and arranged my own, much more competitive insured shipping.

Reverb took a massive near 10% in the end - far more than I ever expected, so I checked it with them, it was right. They offered me a little credit, but only towards future sales.
I’ve always used EBay, who have just announced commission free sales, which means I can drop my price and still not lose anything even close to 10%, so I won’t be back.

Our local Evri courier is truly a professional. The companies systems are the opposite. I tried to send a parcel online. It was a Disastrous experience. Spent two hours at it, going round in circles - wouldn’t take payment (3 cards tried), couldn’t get the order into sales basket, chat line simply gave up and closed me down. I could go on but won’t.
Who gets to run companies who think this is the right way to run a business?
Just seen the Evri reply - don’t they read what they’re replying to? Because your system doesn’t work, I don’t yet have a tracking number. Without one your customer services won’t help you. Loop.

I would have given 5 stars, as their products are (so far) good and clever. Only been a user for a year.
The good?
The kit is fairly intuitive so can be quite easy to set up, but when it’s complicated the instructions don’t help & you do find you have to resort to seeking help. We’ve used the smart plugs to automate the turning off of items that the kids seem blind to. This has definitely saved us money. Plus we can turn off/on anything from anywhere in the house, or anywhere for that matter.
We’ve had some security concerns recently so experimented with cameras. Easy set up, intuitive to use, and the result, for the price, is impressive.
Added a doorbell/cam which is really useful as we live in the country so can be out when deliveries arrive. Expensive but will pay us back in time.
The bad?
Not everything works out of the box, and some of the smart plugs annoyingly simply fail for a while - an unusual occurrence cos they do come back to life.
The doorbell simply wouldn’t play any door chime tune except a Christmas Carol - not wanted!

Experience of the first line Customer Service has been frustrating, virtually just reboot/reset/follow the instructions. But, when I escalated the doorbell issue, which I made up my mind was going to go back, that changed - result.

Overall, don’t think you can fault TP-Link products, or ignore them at their price point. Just need to not take the first help desk answer you get; persist or escalate.

First use of Micks Garage. Impressive array of stuff and good pricing but sign-up experience was a nightmare. Spent an hour just trying to sign up, 'Crowdflare' and untrue unstable Network error messages everywhere, many buttons simply not working. And my Apple Mac is only a year old, so it's not that. Couldn't even send a plea for help to the Helpdesk - more non-functioning buttons.

Eventually did it by Paypal. only way to supply my address.

Apart from just trying to signup, rest seems worth the pain.

We had an Eon smart meter installed in May last year (22). It was something of a blackmail that Eon insisted on when we switched to a better tariff. I wasn’t keen having heard the rumours.
It worked well up till Jun this year (13 months), and we managed to reduce our usage by 15% - pretty impressive.
But the tech gremlin struck and we stopped getting data in the Eon Next & Loop apps. I tried everything that Eon suggested like reboots etc, even camping outside next to our meter cabinet while I did it. I’ve given up.
If anyone tells you these can really help, they’re right. If you think the tech is safe, it isn’t. The meter itself seems to work but the apps Loop & Eon Next won’t connect to it. I now have to page through on the actual Smart Meter itself to check my bills, not as easy.
Eon are fairly dismissive and don’t seem to care. If you can refuse to install, do. Wait till they fix the tech.

New to Asda in May. Truly awful account software, lots of problems renewing each month - app said not renewed, service will cease, but we had. Had to get Helpdesk to sort it for 1st 2 months. Seemed ok this month.
Service itself fine, just the app/software lets AM down

I put diesel into my unleaded classic car. It objected violently by spewing smoke across the street, revving uncontrollably up or down the scale and sounded awful. I was concerned.

Misfuel arrived, as predicted, within 2.5 hours, keeping me informed about arrival time by text. Very pleasant guy who inspired confidence and explained the risks etc. I stopped worrying, I knew I was in safe hands.

He finished in just over an hour, extremely professional and knowledgeable. Wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.

Easy to book website, best pricing we could find. Seemed to answer all our questions although no jargon explanation (SCDW?)

The real test will be whether the reality lives up to the initial image. I’ll follow up once we’ve tried the reality in August.

I hesitated to post a negative review when faced with so many positive ones, so hope this can be seen as a thoughtful but helpful viewpoint
We’re a UK, average school age household of 4, Apple based. From the outset we found we had difficulties accessing some sites, including main usage (Netflix). We got used to switching off the VPN while we waited to see if things would settle down. My children rebelled, it was a struggle to keep them on it.
Eventually, 6 months in and regularly failing, I asked for help from customer service. I was told to use the US nodes. To be honest I wasn’t sure about that as I’m aware what network latency can do to reduce response times, and it seemed a backward step, crossing the world to access UK sites in what is supposed to be a global, not American network.
It became academic anyway though. We couldn’t even find the nodes they nominated in the list. I told the Helpdesk and was more or less just asked if they could close the report ticket. By now we had a bundle of sites we just accessed outside the VPN, which again seemed backward for the ‘world leader’.
So we gave up, halfway through a year’s membership. I’m disappointed, but I’m more genuinely surprised. I had expected this to be a simple ‘turn it on and use it’ experience, and would love to understand why some of us live in the 4% minority that don’t make this work for them, and why it doesn’t seem to matter.
Footnote: Tried to use the in-app subscription cancellation. Dead end, which made me realise how basic the app (service?) is. Should be a good thing, but in ExpressVPN’s case it just gives a take-it-or-leave-it impression. Had to cancel via help desk - that’s backward.

Watch out for most unreasonable, hidden P&P charges.
I bought a calendar for £7.95. When the invoice popped into my mailbox, total charges went up to a really unreasonable £12.95. Lure of a low price, hiked by overpriced P&P - £5 for a 1st class, letter size envelope. Cancelled the order.

This is more a review of Argos’ warranty service than a buying experience, although I hope it helps buyers think about whether they want to buy from Argos in the future.
I bought my son a gaming bundle of keyboard, mouse and headset for his PC in April 2020. The headset started failing nearly a year later. No problem, I thought, Argos will be good at that. How wrong?!
Their website referred me to Trust’s website, the manufacturers, who’s website, in clear terms, referred me back to Argos. None the less I tried Trust - “call Argos” they said. The calls to Argos were painful. It was like talking to a roomful of parrots, one after the other, who promised to ring back but didn’t. One kind lady, though, made it her mission to help, even though it wasn’t her job. Eventually Argos agreed, most reluctantly, to collect and refund, but the whole process was disaster and took 4 hours. Many other choices out there, why risk this?.
Praise to the Angel who tried so valiantly to save their reputation.