Thomas

Patreon deleted my account without warning after 6 years of no issues. An appeal pointing out the flaws in the Trust and Safety team's justification of the account deletion was reviewed and dismissed with no attempt to engage in the arguments I made appealing their decision.

With Patreon not addressing the substance of my objections, the deletion becomes entirely arbitrary - something that should worry anyone considering using this platform to fund their projects. This is extremely poor treatment of content creators, regardless of how you might feel about censorship and acceptable content policies.

The bus operators at Bourg St Maurice would not let us on without the ticket even though I was logged in to the Altibus website and showed them my booking details - but the website didn’t work properly and we didn’t get the correct ticket emailed to us. We managed to bluff our way on by showing a ticket that had the correct time but wrong date. There was no obvious way to generate a new ticket when logged in to the site.

Encountered a fundraiser from Inside Success outside Holborn tube station in London today.

He was a young man, polite, showed me one of their magazines and asked for a donation but didn’t object when I declined saying I would look them up online.

Hard to justify donating here given the negative publicity on this CIC. Why don’t they just incorporate as a charity and do things the standard way?

It took three attempts for Argos/Habitat to deliver a small item (a Christmas tree decoration). As I wasn’t at home for the first two delivery attempts, I tried to amend the delivery instructions on the order. But the Argos website isn’t set up to allow this at all. I tried to do this via the customer support agent on the website. They were not able to help with this. They could not even cancel the order and reorder it as it was already scheduled for delivery. It needed to be escalated to another team and would have taken more time. Not worth it for such a small order.

It was finally delivered on the third attempt. I’m told the delivery driver was quite surly and threw his hands up in frustration when told that my partner would come down to the door to collect the item.

But the irony is, the difference between the standard delivery price (£4) and a timed delivery slot (£6) was only £2. If Argos/Habitat had made the cost of both options the same, I could have picked a timed slot that would have avoided the two failed deliveries, and saved the delivery service money in labour and fuel costs.

Failed deliveries also show up in the website as if you’ve returned an item, although you don’t get charged extra for this. This looks like a hack job by the website development team and doesn’t promote confidence in the ordering system.

Some business process review is needed to improve the customer experience here.

My LinkedIn account was hacked on 5 August 2024. The hacker logged in from Hanoi in Vietnam and changed my password, added their phone number and email address.

Day 1. I report the hack to LinkedIn customer support and regain access to the account after verifying my ID (via a third party service). This took 3 hours. OK. But why didn't LinkedIn prevent access in the first place by asking if the suspicious login from Vietnam should be approved? A lot of other sites have this feature. Anyway, I set up 2FA to block further unauthorised access. Fine.

Day 2. LinkedIn have manually removed the hacker's phone number from my account. The hacker's email address is still associated with my account. I ask customer support to remove it. For some reason they cannot. It gets escalated to the Technical Escalations and Engineering team for investigation. No timeframe for a resolution.

Day 13. I request an update. The hacker's email address is still on the account and I can't remove it.

Day 15. LinkedIn respond saying the same thing as before, that the issue has been escalated and there is no timeframe for a resolution. Meaning the only thing preventing the hacker from taking back control of the account is the 2FA - and this has been the case for two weeks.

This is appalling service.

Update: Day 20. The hacker’s email address is finally removed from my account.

We had a good run with Katkin but have cancelled our subscription because the new packaging is simply less user-friendly than the previous plastic trays.

The new packaging is harder to open (although you can avoid using scissors if you carefully peel it at one corner). It’s messier and can’t be cleaned out easily for recycling - which has to be in soft plastic recycling e.g. at Co-op shops. The old packaging was mostly kerbside recyclable.

It’s sufficiently annoying to use that we are going to switch to another supplier.

The food itself is pretty good and improved our cat’s health and coat. Price point was good.

Update: Katkin reached out by phone to discuss the issues above and offered a refund on the last box purchased.

I had Udemy access via my employer. Udemy abruptly suspended our employer's account, ignoring a request to extend access to individual employees for three months on a case by case basis. This is unacceptably poor customer support.

I used the victim support Live Chat service to discuss a racist hate crime that happened to me on Friday 09/09/2022 in Bow, East London and which I reported to the Metropolitan Police.

Victim Support listened and provided a sympathetic ear. This is better than nothing and I did feel better afterwards, but I was disappointed by the very limited scope of the service. The only thing they can really provide is emotional support. They cannot discuss the specifics of your case or the workings of the legal system. In fact, I was concerned that my Live Chat support person did not seem to know what I meant by “private prosecution”.

I would not use them again as I feel that they mainly exist to move victims’ attitude and understanding of the crime they have experienced to a position of accepting the outcome of any police response. This is not necessarily intentional, but arises from the limited scope of the service. It would be better to provide a true victim support service in terms of advising on how to navigate the police investigation process and court system.

New customers to Zoom by Ocado. Last week's grocery shop was fine. This week, plenty of problems.
1. We placed an order around 12pm for delivery between 5pm and 6pm. Ocado missed the delivery slot and then cancelled the order without any explanation (it just says 'courier issue or you requested to cancel' in the app).
2. It's not possible to place orders after 10pm, so we can't issue a replacement order. How hard can it be to take orders in advance for delivery the next day?
3. They use Mention-Me for their referral discount promotion. That site is not working properly and not generating a referral.
So far, a bad impression.

Received a telemarketing call from an agent representing Bitluna.net. Offered £25 voucher if I join their trading platform, trade for a week, making 3 trades of a certain value. Not possible to take that £25 out before then.
This looks like a cryptocurrency scam. Google search for this company suggests it's a Ponzi scheme. The bitluna.net website lacks detail. No Financial Services Compensation Scheme protection. No information on who owns the site, who runs the exchange, or anything you would expect from a reputable company. The FAQ page doesn't exist. Best to avoid this company at all costs.

Encountered this company's marketing material inside a print magazine I subscribe to, where "10 free lines" were offered as a reward for being a loyal reader.

This company has been investigated by Tony Hetherington from ThisIsMoney (you can search for the articles from 2018).

The National Lottery operator may refuse to pay out if you play using a commercial syndicate such as this one (they told ThisIsMoney that doing this is against the National Lottery's rules). Even if the Lottery does pay out, you are better off buying your own tickets - because the syndicates are so big and the number of tickets the company buys is much less than the amount the syndicate members are putting in!

Not quite a scam, as it seems to be legal to have this kind of business model, but not something anyone would reasonably benefit from. Stay away!

Missed train from Madrid Puerta de Atocha to Seville due to difficult access to station as pedestrian, need for security check (not mentioned anywhere) and departure gate closed 2 minutes before train time.
Staff not helpful at all in this situation. No help at service counter. Have to buy a new ticket from the ticket sales office for the next train. The sales office is poorly signposted so ended up waiting for 40 minutes in the wrong queue. Total delay to journey will be two hours - all after arriving a minute late.
All of this would be avoided if you could make seat reservations online.
This is really bad service for 2022.

We receive these every year and enjoy going to see shows with them. But the implementation of these is extremely poor and we don’t see any improvement over the years. Only a handful of theatres accept these at point of sale when booking online. The vast majority don’t, so you have to make bookings in person (inconvenient) or over the phone (at extra cost). Tickets can sell out quickly so this also creates a risk-reward payoff. Very consumer unfriendly. On this occasion, we tried to use ours with The Bridge Theatre. The theatre got confused over whether they could be applied retroactively and changed their minds about using these tokens against an existing transaction! In the past, I was only able to use them against an NT booking by booking over the phone (which cost extra).

The obvious solution to all this is for TheatreTokens to take on all the admin on behalf of every theatre. There should be an API that integrates with all theatre booking systems and makes sure the right amount is debited from the card balance and no-one goes into negative balance. Until these tokens are accepted widely online, it’s difficult to recommend that anybody buy them as gifts as all you’re doing is creating an admin headache for the person that you gift them to.

Good service. We received the day 2 self test kits just before day 0. Kit was easy to use. The only thing I would change is that the booking reference is hard to find. It should be linked to the kit on Oncologica’s system so that you don’t need to look it up in your inbox.
£25 for a test kit that is basically the same thing as the free NHS lateral flow tests is expensive although Oncologica are one of the cheaper providers. It feels like we are only paying for the provision of a booking reference that can be put on a passenger locator form. The fault for this lies with the UK government, though.

From reading a lot of the reviews and from our experience, Biogroup is clearly inundated with complaints due to some kind of systemic blockage at their laboratory. The responsible thing to do would be to limit taking new orders until all issues are resolved.

My partner and I booked several tests with Biogroup over the last month: Fit to Fly, Day 2 and 8 Home Kits, and Same Day Test to Release. The Fit to Fly tests were done and reported promptly. The Day 2 results were collected and posted to Biogroup on Day 1, received on Day 4 and reported on Day 4 in my case, Day 5 in my partner’s case only after chasing up at their Shoreditch testing site. The Test to Release results came back the same day in my case but the day after in my partner’s case, which meant we had to rearrange plans and spent 2 hours on Day 6 morning chasing up by phone. I considered going in person to the Shoreditch site and to their Megalab in Shepherd’s Bush to follow up in person today. Fortunately we are not one of the many customers who have missed flights etc. The delay in getting my partner’s results constitutes a failure to deliver according to the same-day service they described and we expect a refund based on what was actually delivered.

Biogroup are not yet UKAS accredited and our experience gives us little confidence in their operations going forwards. We recommend other dissatisfied customers contact UKAS (ref: 22139) to express concerns and/or DHSC.

As a former business analyst/consultant it saddens me to see Biogroup failing to properly address the crisis they appear to be facing at the moment especially given their track record as a large French laboratory testing company with the resources to do things properly. I would recommend the following action plan to company management to get a grip on the situation:
1. Temporarily pause new orders until the blockage at the lab is resolved.
2. We suspect the blockage is at the level of where the results are reviewed and reported - more staff/resources need to be deployed here to tackle the backlog of late results.
3. Issue an apology to customers and commit to refunds/compensation for those affected by delays.
4. Customer service staff/testing site receptionist staff need to be given access to the results system in order to expedite queries from customers.
5. Ideally the lab should be able to issue provisional results in an automated way with formally signed results sent out later. This would help affected customers avoid missing flights in some cases.

A few other notes:
1. The Shoreditch testing site has a misleading photo on their Google listing which makes it look like a clinic. I have reported this photo to Google.
2. Best practice would be not to let patients handle the test tubes after speaking to the receptionist at the Shoreditch site.

Eye test was done competently. OCT scan worth doing but not well explained. Prices for frames can be high but I think this is due to lack of competition in the manufacturing of glasses frames. Went to collect prescription glasses after two weeks but staff couldn’t find my glasses. Had to be sent to me via post (staff member on phone said they use DX which has a terrible reputation as courier, but in the end they used Royal Mail). Happy with glasses in the end, but these operational issues could be improved.

Poor corporate practices and lack of customer service at a new ATF gym in London.
Good points:
+ Gym equipment was new.
+ Not at all crowded.
+ Staff generally friendly.

Bad points:
- Gym refused to send me a blank copy of the membership contract for me to read prior to joining. Had to read the entire contract at the time I wanted to sign up.
- Old-fashioned six-month minimum contract unless you negotiate a special arrangement with the gym manager.
- Grounds for leaving the contract if you move house are very limited as long as there is a gym within a ridiculously large distance from your new address.
- Expensive compared to competitors.
- Gym debited my account for two months in error without informing me.
- When trying to rectify the above issue, was told that the gym manager cannot process debit card refunds (even though they gave me a refund when I cancelled my contract during the cooling off period). Told to contact my bank to obtain the refund (inconvenient).
- ATF sent automatic 'your account is in arrears' emails to you me via their software platform Clubwise, after I stopped my direct debit. This part of the business process needs improvement as well.

In all, this is not a company I can trust with my money. Avoid.

Snap.HR didn't help much with my job search. It was more trouble than it was worth.
Upon initially signing up, the staff at Snap.HR were very reluctant to post my profile, despite me having my own contractor company and offering services comparable to mid-level market research and consultancy roles. I had to call them and point out that I was applying for a specific role on their platform which suited my background.
The only other contact I had from Snap.HR was them calling to ask if a company (which interviewed me later) had contacted me through the platform or not, in order for them to police the use of their platform by employers.

Upwork's freelancer rejection policy is unreasonable, arbitrary and unacceptable.

- No warning when you set up a profile on Upwork that you might not be allowed to actually find work on their "marketplace".
- Rejection email does not provide any real reason for getting a rejection from Upwork. All it says is "admission is highly competitive as Upwork receives more than 10,000 freelancer registrations daily. To help ensure that the freelancers we accept have the best chance at finding opportunities on our platform, we can only accept a small percentage of those who want to join."
- Without hiring experts in the contract/freelance market to vet applications (and paying them competitive rates!), it's not possible for Upwork to rationally select the 'best' freelancers for the site.
- Don't waste your valuable time signing up to Upwork. Look for contracts on other platforms.

We needed to add an extra van the day before moving. All sorted out easily on the phone. Everything was moved efficiently with no damage. Good value for money.