Anthony

Already have holes in after just five weeks, but they're cheap so I suppose worth the price really.

Used their products for over 12 years now, and don't feel the need to look elsewhere. The customer service is superb too, staff are very easy to get hold of and accommodating.

I bought the pre-paid food/drinks voucher for 20 euros to save a few quid, but was told it had already been redeemed when the trolley came to my seat! Despite this clearly being the company's error (as I couldn't possibly have redeemed the voucher because we had only just left the ground), the staff told me that I needed to pay for my meal - saying "oh just request a refund when we get back". Two weeks later and I still haven't got the refund. In fact, I haven't even got a reply. Refund requests are impossible by phone so you have to raise a support ticket, which I'm still waiting for a response for.

Faster and easier to use.

Anyone who has been struggling to find work will know how devastating it is to be given false hope. This is exactly what happened to me with Zen.

After completing all the forms, submitting my DBS and all the other stuff (which took a while), I was phoned by a member of staff and she excitedly told me that there was a school near me that desperately needed someone, I was a perfect match and a 'shoe-in', and I would be able to start before Christmas (a couple of weeks away) - provided that I go in for a trial day the following week. Naturally I was over the moon with this, and I told friends and family that I had a job at last!

The following day I had a Teams meeting with the staff member, which I assumed was to chat about the school and what was expected of me etc. In this meeting, however, her tone changed. It felt more like an interview than the 'chat' that was promised, and her tone was much more formal. She didn't say anything about the school I was led to believe I would be starting with very soon, and one of the questions was "How far would you be willing to travel for a placement?". In other words, she simply asked the questions that I had already answered in my initial application to Zen.

When I emailed the person a couple of days later, to ask when the school would like me to come in for a trial day, it was as if I had contacted a different person. She became defensive and said "this is a definite role but I can never guarantee that a role will be given to a particular individual... I am always very transparent about this". Seeing as though I hadn't accused her of misinforming me, this remark seemed to have been something she had prepared earlier - as if she has used it before. Moreover, these words were in writing, so it was as if she was covering her track.

At this point, although devastated that I thought I had a job for certain but didn't, I was still hopeful. This hope turned to anger, however, when I decided to use my initiative and approach the school directly. When I did, they told me that they hadn't even heard of Zen Educate! They were, however, looking for new TAs and interviews were to be held on 17th January. So I applied directly and had an interview. I wasn't successful, but there were many applicants so I wasn't too disheartened - and I gave it my best shot.

So in short, the job I was promised didn't even exist! At least not in the form I was told about. The school wasn't 'desperate' for staff, I wasn't 'a shoe-in', and there certainly wasn't guaranteed start before Christmas - or even a trial day.

I do not have evidence of the initial phonecall, obviously, but I do still have the emails that promise the trial day. Shocking treatment - I advise everyone not to deal with this agency!

Hmm, there's a lot to consider when it comes to Cashback and I haven't got time to mention it all. But I'd say:

PROS: 1) An ok project if you need some money.
2) Customer service are fairly good. They do reply to you at least, and helped me out on a few occasions.
CONS: 1) You do actually have to work for the money (which they don't tell you), because you have to keep track of all the different things you need to sign up for, and make sure you cancel at the right time. I fell foul of this a couple of times, so paid for subscriptions that I didn't need.
2) Most of the tasks (especially the gambling ones) require you to pay some money. You will make a profit in the end if you do it properly, but you'll need the money in the first place.
3) There's a minefield of smallprint; read it thoroughly. I didn't get paid for a few tasks because I didn't follow the instructions properly.
4) I paid out about £80 and earned £154. So that's £74 profit. It's impossible to calculate accurately, but the time I spent faffing around with it all - plus the time it took up in my brain's life when I wasn't actively playing the games etc - amounted to about 2 weeks' work in total. And that's being generous. So I earned roughly £37 for a week's work. That's what you're dealing with here.

Emos did an informative webinar about job prospects, and he has a pleasant style - he is easy to listen to. I feel more informed now, thankyou.

Speedy delivery and perfect fit, thanks.

Lovely flowers and on time, but as an added bonus the delivery person waited a few minutes for my Mum to to get downstairs on her stairlift. Means a lot that, thankyou.

Faster yet cheaper than National Express. Why on Earth wouldn't you choose Megabus?

Great value for money, and almost as fast as by car. Drivers are usually friendly and helpful too

Speedy delivery and glasses are great, thanks.

All in good order, thanks.

When you pay the premium membership fee, you're entitled to a refund if you cancel within two weeks. However, in the smallprint on the T&Cs is says that 'any costs incurred' during those two weeks will be taken from the refund amount. Naive as I am, I assumed that I had not incurred any extra costs.

This extra cost, however, is the personality test. And guess how much it costs? 65 quid!! Now I'm a reasonably intelligent person and did check the T&Cs myself, but - as I say - didn't realise that this personality test was an 'extra cost'. No doubt I was informed of this at some point, but I'm a busy person (like most of us) and this was not made clear to me. After checking the welcoming email, I saw (in smallprint at the bottom) that I was (very briefly and in tiny writing) informed that this test is classed as an extra cost, but even here the wording didn't include the figure of £65.

So basically, eHarmony are legally covered - because they do state, albeit in different places, that the personality test costs £65 and this is non-refundable. But ethically speaking this is very dubious indeed, so please watch out.

Please, just go elsewhere. You may save a fiver or so with this company, but it really isn't worth it.

So I bought a refurbed iPhone SE on 22nd April. It hadn't arrived by 12th May, and as this had gone way beyond the 10-working-day delivery time promised, I decided to cancel my order. Customer services were apologetic, saying that the delay was due to staff shortages caused by the outbreak. This is fair enough, of course, but there was no mention of this when I bought the product in the first place. Doing so would have been more considerate, but it wasn't the end of the world for me.

When I cancelled the order, I was told that it would take 14 working days to receive the refund. Is that normal? I got no reply to this question when I asked, so assumed that this long wait was also due to the Covid crisis.

So yesterday, 3rd June, after this second waiting period was up, I asked where the refund was. I received this message:

"Owing to the current Government guidelines a few of our departments are working with limited staff numbers and some refunds are taking longer than usual. I have requested our finance department to look into your order and they have advised that you will be receiving your refund on or before the 13th of July. I am aware this date is longer than our standard timeframe but I can assure you we are all working to ensure services to our customers are uninterrupted as much as possible. We appreciate your patience and are apologise for any inconvenience caused."

So in other words, after OVER THREE WEEKS - the financial department finally 'looked into my order'? And then give a new date of 13th July, over a month later? But I'm sure most consumers would agree that it's the tone that's the most infuriating - it's kind of like "Yeah well what do you expect, we're in a crisis you know". Shocking service really, I wonder if I'll ever get my money back at all.

And worst of all: I'm still getting marketing emails from this company, which suggests that they're trying to get as many sales as possible before the crisis crushes them.

And the punchline? I bought the same phone from a rival company for about a fiver more... and it was delivered THE NEXT DAY!

So please, just used a trusted company ok?

Beware the heating costs! 133 Euros for a week!

We booked the Leenane cottage 249, and were shocked to find that the charge for heating was 133 euros at the end of the week.

The owner himself said that this did seem very high, despite the usually-high fuel costs in Ireland anyway, but I paid him in good faith that Shamrock Cottages - as the company I hired the cottage from - would reimburse me somehow as, obviously, there was some kind of problem with the meter. When I got in touch with Shamrock, however, I was told by 'Tracey' that it wasn't her problem and I would have to speak to the owner, Matthew, who would get back to me.

After a week of waiting to no avail, I called Matthew - he wasn't in but this time returned the call the next day. He was much more polite than his employee Tracey, but to cut a long story short he said that the matter was between myself and the cottage owner - Eddie - and so would not reimburse me. He did promise to look into the matter of how the meter could give such a high reading, but I don't fancy my chances to be honest. Neither do I fancy contacting the owner to try and get some money back, when I paid Shamrock Cottages for the cottage - not him. Would you do the same thing Matthew? I don't think it works like that.

Mum loved 'em. thanks. And prompt delivery too.

I bought the Seagate Expansion hard drive in September 2016. The product served me well for 18 months and then stopped working through no fault of my own. I only used it monthly and hadn't dropped or knocked it.

My warranty was only for one year, so at first I thought 'fair enough', but when I checked out the product online I saw that it now had a two-year warranty, so wondered why this had changed. I contacted Seagate to ask why this was the case, and if they could perhaps change my warranty to two years, so I would be covered. Bear in mind: at this point I had read that this product had had a lot of problems with Windows 10, which I have on my pc. If this problem had caused the malfunction, then surely it was not my fault?

Luckily for me (or so I thought), I received a reply quickly and was told that my product 'should be in warranty', and I would just need to send a proof of purchase. Now, I'm aware that 'should be in warranty' can be taken in different ways (did they mean 'I don't know if it's in warranty but I'll check for you', or did they mean 'it's not in warranty but it should be, so I'll change it'?). Either way, the email correspondence that followed was ridiculous, and ran like this in summary:

- I forwarded the proof of purchase.
- I got a reply from a different employee, telling me my warranty was out of date.
- I explained the situation again.
- I was asked by another employee to send the proof of purchase email again, as the date was unclear on it.
- I sent the proof of purchase email again.
- I got a reply from a different employee, telling me my warranty was out of date.
- I explained the situation again.
- I was asked by another employee to send the proof of purchase email again, as the date was unclear on it.
- I sent the proof of purchase email again.
- I got a reply from a different employee, telling me my warranty was out of date.

And so on ad infinitum, you get the point. Naturally I gave up.

Working well so far, but I've only had it a few weeks so time will tell. Arrived on time, no need for correspondence with customer service. I would have given this a 4 but, as I say, it's too early to say.