Phil Smith

Product quality and customer service second to none

Easy to use and delivers

Google reviews are at best a waste of time at worst grossly dishonest. None of the negative reviews I have contributed have been posted. On one occasion I changed a positive review to a negative one following a subsequent visit and that disappeared as well.

Absolutely brilliant app for creating backing tracks. Good quality and very flexible. You can for instance download separately each track so that they can be individually mixed to your satisfaction. I found it easiest to have the files sent by email.

This has been a nightmare. I’m now onto my third installation date. I’m told that the reason is because they have to apply to the local council for a road closure. This is patiently nonsense as the plastic box is only 5 inches from my property on the pavement and they didn’t close the road when they put in the original infrastructure. Moreover this wasn’t required when a neighbour had theirs installed. Each time I point this out the customer service person agrees with me, said they will sort it out and get right back to me. Hasn’t happened. Meantime despite organising this all well in advance I am now out of contract and being financially punished by my current provider. As it stands I don’t have a new date and the link on the set a new date email never works.

Thanks for your response. I raised a formal case with you this morning and received an update 2 hours later simply saying it had been closed. You couldn’t make it up

First walk was really good but the second truly terrible so honestly can’t recommend an app which is so inconsistent. The walk was entirely on a road with pavement counting as a track as far as the app is concerned. At its most elevated point there were fine views of the local cement factory.

Undoubtably one of the worst purchases I have ever made. The Anode looks pretty smart but after only a couple of trips it is pitted with scrapes and holes. The odd scrape is to be expected as baggage handlers are notorious for rough handling but I’ve used many different cases on many trips and I’ve never seen so much damage in such a short space of time. My Areolite which is the same size was on all the same trips and is completely unmarked.

I was advised that my boiler was terminal on Tuesday lunchtime and by Thursday lunchtime my new boiler had been fitted and commissioned. Outstanding.

Duolingo is the only language app I’ve ever used and it seems to be doing a pretty good job. The fact that it was free and cited as part of their mission was a big attraction. Over time however changes to the site have increasingly rendered the free version unusable. At first the only apparent difference between the paid and free versions were that you had to suffer adverts, then they introduced penalties for making more than four mistakes a day requiring you to earn back lives through repeating completed exercises. This was ok because you could choose any exercise so could focus on any weaknesses. Next they restricted these exercises to the most basic meaning that it had virtually no learning value. Finally they started to introduce new words by forcing you to deduce their meaning from context. I suspect that this is a valid learning approach but inevitably it results in a steep increase in the number of mistakes. The company should now drop free learning from their mission statement. My advice to someone thinking of using Duolingo is to expect to pay or look else where and similarly to those persevering with the free version pay or go elsewhere.

Further to the above Duolingo’s money grasping has continued unabated to the point where I will not be renewing my subscription when it next comes up.The latest trick is to withdraw certain useful function then reintroduce something which looks very similar but at added cost. Personally I think that conversation and explanation functions should be fundamental to any language app and you should not have to pay extra for them.

Fast and efficient processing, good communication and an excellent product at a competitive price. Would definitely use them again

Recently used them for the second time. Similarly excellent

Justparkme is a booking service whose primary function appears to be to act as a front for companies who no sane person would want to leave their car with. I Thought I was booking an airport based car park as it was called Central Parking but didn’t discover until after I had paid that the actual provider was a firm called Airport Tavern which had the most awful reviews. I made to cancel the booking once I had discovered the actual provider and eventually they did refund me after deducting £15 cancellation fee and a £1.95 admin which is as I understand it illegal as they are supposed to provide a full refund if a cancellation occurs within 14 days.

Postscript
This review has only survived because of my tenacity. Justparkme played the old we don’t recognise this customer trick so I supplied the customer number etc. Surprise surprise they didn’t recognise this either. Trustpilot then got into the act saying that the copies of emails I subsequently sent them were in the wrong format. Just hoping I’ll give up.

Purchased 10 of their soft shades range for an internal feature. They look absolutely stunning.

I’ve previously given a 5 star rating for my Otty mattress when I originally purchased it. Three years down the track it’s still 5 stars. It is as comfortable as ever and has lost none of its shape, unlike the Simba which I tried first and which was too soft and started to lose its shape after only a couple of months and was significantly more expensive.

Dyson pioneered the bagless vac. I have serially purchased 4 of them over the years. Thankfully other real British firms have now caught up. Given this, following Dyson’s support of Brexit and then cynical relocation to Singapore there is no need to purchase Dyson products anymore and I won’t be

I’ve previously written a review on what a miserable experience it was to join this company. Now I’m writing another one to reveal what a miserable experience it has been leaving it.

Some four months after leaving I was flooded with demands for a final payment without ever receiving a bill. I asked them to send me one which they did and which I then paid immediately, however they have continued to send increasingly threatening demands for payment. To give you a flavour of what I am up against I have just received an email from their payments team in response to an email from me pointing out that I have already paid. They simply attached the bill again. Avoid this company if you don’t want a lot of hassle

I purchased a pair of HD400 hearing aids from this company which have worked well. However recently one of the plastic connectors between the heating aid and the tube has broken. When I sought a replacement I was told that they have discontinued this model and are no longer making replacement parts. I am therefore facing a huge bill for the sake of a cheap plastic part. Given the cost of hearing aides I really think it is incumbent on manufacturers to continue to make spare parts like these when they discontinue models which they seem to do all the time

Update:

Turns out this was an error and in fact Hearing Direct can supply this part and did so within 24 hours free of charge. Outstanding customer service

I’ve used this company three times now and found them to be good value, fair minded, honest and efficient Nuff said.

We ordered a ceiling light which when it arrived we discovered had an integral LED bulb that could not be replaced. Who want to pay £120 for a fitting you have to throw away when the bulb goes. The description did not specify this was the case in fact implied otherwise when it stated that the bulb was not included. There was supposed to be a return label with the product but there wasn’t so it was a bit of a fad to get them to send one. It’s now over a month since I returned it and no refund not even an acknowledgment that they have received it. The wait time for their telephone customer services is an hour and they no longer answer emails

I am a new customer and it’s been pretty shambolic so far. The Final bills from my old company Had inflated meter readings (dated nearly a month previously one was even a lot higher that the current reading). My old company indicated that the reading had come from Together Energy but I was sceptical as I had not supplied any readings at that point but when I finally got access to my account there were the readings so that’s a mystery. So far I have rung three times and been told that I will receive a call back. So far I’ve had one missed call with a message to say they had rung but no promise of a further call or any effort to resolve the problem. Now I find I’ve been locked out of my account as I it does not recognise both my email and password

I now have access to my account and at the request of Together Energy have submitted meter readings 10 days apart some weeks ago But have heard nothing back and my account is showing no readings at all now. Potentially I could be hundreds of pounds out of pocket here and naturally very concerned at the shambolic service I have received.

I drawn attention to the fact that challenging of negative reviews by companies can have the effect of over inflating overall ratings. On the previous occasion it took no little time and effort including numerous emails before Trust Pilot was satisfied that I was a genuine customer. Many people would I think have given up which is what these firms rely on

Recently I have experienced another way in which companies can repress negative reviews. I purchased a mattress from a well known firm (who also sell the product direct) through an intermediary retailer. I was less than satisfied with the product and left a review on their website. They challenged the review on the grounds that I was not a direct customer even though my review was clearly about their product. Trust Pilot sided with them and offered to move my review to the retailer’s site. I declined as clearly if you want to know about a product you are going to go to the manufacturers profile.

Although this makes little sense it would not I think be such a problem were it the case that positive reviews from intermediaries sales are also excluded from manufacturers profiles. Somehow I cannot imagine manufacturers objecting to positive reviews and insisting that they are placed on retailers profiles where they will have little value. This gives further reason to believe that Trust Pilot’s business model has the effect of inflating overall ratings.

I repeatedly asked Trust Pilot to tell me what measures they have in place to ensure that both positive and negative reviews are treated in the same way. No reply was forthcoming. Instead I had to repeatedly endure pages of corporate babble about how committed they are to balance and equal treatment. Yeah right.