Johnnyblue

Order and delivery of the greenhouse was fine but the construction was an absolute nightmare. The instructions and illustrations appear to have been written by two idiots who've never met and don't speak the same language. Half the parts you receive aren't numbered so you'll waste an afternoon numbering them yourself but then some parts aren't numbered in the instructions either so you'll waste more time again. Overall, I felt like I wasted so much time trying to interpret the drawings when all I needed was a bird's eye view of a section or joint. In addition, I had to drill out the holes in 8 pieces that the manufacturer had failed to punch out. The nuts and bolts are a very poor standard and half a dozen or more nuts just jammed halfway and could not be screwed or unscrewed and the bolts had to be snapped off. After that's happened a couple of times your heart's in your mouth every time you have to connect a nut and bolt. The window vent is also very poor quality, ill fitting and the handle has rough, sharp edges. Finally, the large panes of safety glass seemed like a good idea but I realise now that if any break they're going to be very expensive to replace and difficult to source locally.

I bought mine in the sale with twenty per cent off and put it together myself over the course of several days so for me the price was about right for the quality. If I'd paid full price and hired someone for a week to construct it for me it would've been very overpriced. Basically, the greenhouse seems okay but the terrible instruction manual and the poor level of workmanship on some parts has left me feeling very little goodwill towards this company and I would not use them again.

I thought Tesco insurance was bad but M&S insurance are even worse. My wife has just cancelled her car insurance, which was due to end in 3 months time, and has had to pay a £50.00 cancellation fee. I'm pretty sure that once upon a time, not so many years ago, there were no cancellation fees if you needed to cancel your insurance but banks and insurers have found a new way of gouging their customers.

Sold my vehicle and Tesco charged me £40.00 to cancel my insurance, which seems excessive to me. Unlikely to insure with them again.

I wanted to get a quote to insure my wife's car but the website is constantly unavailable. Considering it's an online only business and the problems seem to have been going on for several days this is very, very poor. We already have house insurance with them and were intending to insure both our cars but it looks like they've lost our business and overall it must be costing them a fortune.

Staff were friendly, helpful and efficient and completed the job in the quoted time. We had two new rear tyres and it took an hour so we took the dogs for a walk in a nearby park.

Booked to have 2 tyres fitted on the 29th November. Sometime after 3pm on the 28th I received an email saying delivery of the tyres to the fitters was delayed and to rebook. No problems when I did, however...my wife and I are both retired so it wasn't an issue but if we'd both still been working it could've been very inconvenient as the nearest garage is 15 miles away and the whole thing, including the drive, took 2-3 hours. The garage that fitted the tyres was very good, friendly, helpful and efficient.

Just renewed with them. Premium went up by 25% from first year to second but it was still the cheapest quote I found. Everything was very easy and straightforward. Thankfully, haven't had to claim so only 4 stars but looking to get a quote for the cars when they need renewing.

We have a Purista bean to cup machine. After about 18 months the electronic programming system started malfunctioning and wouldn't make coffee so we had it repaired under guarantee, which due to Christmas took about 6 weeks. However, the "repair" simply amounted to cleaning it and replacing the brewing unit and unsurprisingly four weeks later it's started malfunctioning again but this time it's out of guarantee. Were we just unlucky? Well, maybe but if you take a look at the Melitta site they have a lot of refurbished machines for sale, and that's presumably just the ones that've been returned as faulty within a couple of weeks or so and been "repaired". Its unreliability aside it's really not a suitable machine if you live in a hard water area as it goes through water filters very quickly and needs cleaning and descaling about every couple of weeks, so it's very expensive to run, and given how unreliable it is that just seems like a waste of money in the end.

I bought a toilet seat that had a faulty locking mechanism that meant it wouldn't stay fixed to the toilet. As they have no contact number for retail customers I had to email Victorian Plumbing. It then took them over a month and over twenty more emails between us before I received a replacement. Okay, obviously I'm happy Dave Peel finally sorted the problem but unless the company is selling shedloads of faulty products I don't understand the economics of it all. Had I been able to phone the company and explain my problem it could have been sorted out there and then by one person. Instead, I've had to engage with three different people and send a video of the problem three times by Wetransfer, which VP pays for, all of which has been a waste of their time and mine. UPDATE; This whole saga went on for so long that I've only just noticed that they sent me the wrong blxxdy colour but I just can't be bothered to go through another month's exchange of emails to change it.

Excellent service as usual. Paul, our regular driver, is always on time and friendly and helpful. Particularly like the ability to track our orders.

Ordered and paid for a mattress in store and was given a delivery date for a month later. 3 days before delivery was due we received a text confirming date and delivery time between 7am and 1pm. At 11:45am on the day of delivery received a phone call saying that the mattress wasn't on the van, wasn't in stock and wouldn't be delivered. Tried to phone customer services but no one answered and no one called us back. The following day we received a text saying delivery wouldn't be for another 3 weeks on a day that was not convenient to us. After spending 20 minutes hanging on the phone to customer services without anyone answering decided to cancel our order and get a refund. Having read other reviews here I didn't trust the company to fulfil their second delivery date and their failure to ever answer the phone meant I didn't trust them to sort any future problems out. We bought our previous mattress from Bensons and drove 20 miles to buy from the same branch again but I would never shop with them in future. I genuinely feel sorry for the shop staff who obviously do their best but are let down by those who're supposed to be supporting them.

I bought a 3 year old XC60 2 years ago with 65,000 miles on the clock. Since then we've only done approx 10,000 miles, but have had to replace the clutch amongst other things and have spent over two thousand pounds on repairs. In addition there have been 3 recalls in the last 2 years for what seem to be quite serious issues, the latest coming a week after I've just had it serviced by our Volvo dealer. Volvo are supposed to be a premium brand but I wish I'd kept my old Mondeo estate, which was far more reliable, just as comfortable, and a far better drive. If this car had a British badge on the front people would be screaming from the rooftops about how badly it's manufactured but I'd never buy a Volvo again and would not recommend.

Insured a car with the AA for one year for an introductory price of £165 and did not make a claim, but the renewal price was £285. I told them I wasn't going to renew and they immediately offered to reduce the price by £60 - standard behaviour for many insurance companies but I expected better from the AA. I wouldn't have objected to something like a 10% increase, or even more if I'd made a claim, but I wouldn't renew with any company that tries to gouge its existing customers. Instead I insured with Tesco's for under £200 so the AA has lost at least that much and a customer who in 50 years of owning motorcycles and cars has never made a claim. Well done you.

Dreadful company trading on its past reputation. We bought a car from Carbase in Bristol (avoid like the plague as I'm pretty sure most of their 5 star reviews are fake), which had supposedly been, and I quote, "rigorously tested and inspected to the RAC Buysure Standard", which covered everything from minor scuffs and stains to serious mechanical and safety issues. Despite this claim the car had a large scratch on the tailgate (fixed before collection), a faulty rear seatbelt (not fixed as not discovered for some time), did not have the claimed FSH (3rd service missing), was not valeted and only had one key, not the claimed 2 (at £250 a key) - all of which had been missed by the RAC despite them issuing a certificate claiming the car had been thoroughly checked. We used Carbase because it is an RAC Approved Dealer, but I suspect the RAC salesman just hands them a wodge of pre-ticked forms to pass onto gullible customers like us. Don't be taken in; their main interest is selling overpriced breakdown and insurance cover.

This 4 star rating is for their online service, which I have found to be very good as long as you know what you are after. Everything I've ordered has been delivered on time, undamaged, and at a competitive price. Unfortunately, in store, badly trained staff are happy to lie to your face to get a sale so it's best to do your research before you go in there

Over the last five years we have ordered several items including a cooker, washing machine and fridge freezer from ao.com. All have been delivered on time, undamaged and at a competitive price. Their call centre, which is in the UK, is excellent and on the odd occasion when I've needed to contact them has been very helpful and friendly. Very happy to recommend.

We have an AEG cordless stick vacuum. After 15 months use it has suddenly started to vibrate and has got a lot louder. A part is obviously failing and will need to be replaced. Really poor. 15 months ago the price was £399 but I see it has since been reduced to £199, which is still too much given the poor quality and begs the question why it was so expensive in the first place.

We also have an £800 AEG double oven cooker, which has needed repairing twice in 3 years. The first time was shortly after purchase as a part was faulty and took 3 months to replace. The second time the top oven/grill was shorting out and blowing the fuses in the rest of the kitchen.
My experience of AEG products is that they are unreliable and very overpriced. My experience of Electrolux customer service is equally poor. I would never buy a product from AEG or Electrolux again and would never recommend.

We bought a car from Carbase and it's okay but the service we received was pretty poor. We drove 50 miles to be told we could only test drive one vehicle because they were too busy, but in the 4 hours we were there most of the sales people were just sat around chatting. Our salesman was clueless and claimed the car came with 2 keys (£250 each) but we were only given one and had to fight to get money to buy another. The RAC should be ashamed of themselves considering the state of our vehicle after their so called check; they not only managed to miss a large scratch on the tailgate (fixed before purchase) but also a rear seatbelt that didn't work.
Despite claims they valeted the car the exterior was filthy and the driver's footwell was still dirty from our test drive 10 days before we picked it up.
Main thing though is I strongly doubt the many 5 star reviews are genuine.
UPDATE: Managed approx. 8,000 miles over 18 months before it needed a new clutch at 70,000 miles - cost £1,500. Very poor. Won't be using Carbase again.

This is a further update to my review of the AEG double oven cooker which we bought in 2018, which cost £900 but is the worst cooker we have ever owned. From new we had a faulty thermostat in the top oven/grill, which took 3 months to fix - this has now been followed up by a new fault that repeatedly tripped the electric for all the kitchen sockets. It turns out that moisture was shorting out a connection in the grill. According to the engineer who fixed it, the moisture is a result of the condensation created because AEG advise that the top oven door is kept shut when grilling food! The engineer suggested that because of this it is likely to be a recurring fault.
Unfortunately, like a lot of German manufacturers, AEG is living on a reputation that is 10 years out of date. Now very poor design and cheap substandard parts manufactured in China combine to make vastly overpriced and unreliable products.

I made the mistake of believing the many positive reviews for this company and bought a waterproof jacket. Apart from the fact that after 5 months it's no longer waterproof, everything about it is second rate. The zips are pathetic, the cuffs far too tight and worst of all it's unbelievably hot to wear even in cold weather. In warm and wet weather, pretty much British weather for half the year, it's unbearable. I've hardly worn it since I bought it because of this, but after a 30 minute walk in the rain today I got home to find wet patches all over my shirt. Really poor quality. Avoid.