PW

I've dealt with Scarpa / Mountain Boot Company for many years and bought numerous pairs of boots & shoes.
Impeccable customer service (always) and their aftersales is the best i've ever experienced.
Special mention to Robert Birtles on my latest transaction where I ordered the wrong size (thought Euro 44 was 10 not 9.5) and the refund process was seamless due to him.
Fantastic product too by the way (Scarpa).

I have no idea why NWBS get such poor reviews.
My experience has always been 5* plus since switching to them 18 months ago.
Fantastic branch network.
Excellent customer service, online, in branch and on the telephone.
Very competitive rates, currently a market leading 5% 18 month fix up to £10K.
And let’s not forget the yearly £100 "Fairer share" bonus and recent additional £50 bonus payment (x2 for us), received.
I switched to NW after 47 years with (the now dismal) HSBC.
I've found them absolutely brilliant to bank with.
Here’s to the next 47 years with Nationwide!

This is my first ever experience of S&S investing and AJ Bell put me at ease immediately.
Their advisor (Jack), was informative and patient throughout our chat.
I look forward to more dealings with them.

My wife rolled into this branch with an obvious puncture and told that they couldn't look at it that day and did she want to book it in!!
We'd both been trying to call their contact number all morning but they NEVER picked up once.
She drives a car with no spare and we live 40 minutes away. All they offered was air in the tyre and to come back the next day.
She's a nurse working at an Altrincham medical centre and had no way of getting home.
She accepted the offer of air and went to another Altrincham dealer who fitted a new tyre immediately.
Very poor service KwikFit.... VERY POOR INDEED!!!

I’m baffled by all of the negativity directed at Nationwide Building Society.
I’ve just completed a switch from HSBC (who I’d been with since 1979!) and the switch has been seamless.
Apart from the very welcome £200.00 switch offer, the service received both online and in my local branch (something very few banks offer nowerdays), has been exemplary.
Highly recommended.

I recently bought a roofbox package deal, comprising Yakima whisper roof bars and a Kamei Husky 330 roof box.
The instructions provided with the bars were poor (not the retailers fault), but luckily there's plenty of info available on YouTube.
I wasn't convinced that the fuittings supplied with the roofbox were correct so rang the helpline and they were brilliant, explaining that everything WAS there, I just hadn't realised it!
All in all a great experience dealing with them amd fantasic products.
Can't recommend them enough.

This is my second review of Raisin to offer readers an honest report of my experience since opening my account with them in October last year.
I’m completely bewildered at all the negativity posted about them and urge you to ignore these reviews and give them a go.
I’ve just opened my 5th fixed bond product with them today and as always, the process has been simple, straightforward and quick.
The accounts I’ve opened are all between 6 months and 2 years with extremely competitive interest rates compared with other banks.
I’ve taken advantage of a couple of bonus offers and been paid out quickly in both instances.
Whenever I’ve called Customer Services I’ve always managed to speak with a member of staff within 10 minutes of calling and found them to be polite, helpful and accommodating.
Emailed messages are somewhat slow (over a week), but if it’s THAT important, ring them!!
All in all, I plan to stay with Raisin for the foreseeable future and continue to invest as & when I have money to spare.
Bravo Raisin.
👏

I found ‘Raisin’ by accident whilst on the Martin Lewis MSE website exploring my saving options.
I already had some money deposited in an active ISA, aswell as a smaller amount in a regular savings account, but the interest rate (of 0.60%) just wasn’t earning me enough to consider keeping the investment going. ISAs just don’t have the financial appeal anymore to ‘smaller savers’ because you don’t pay tax on any interest earned now anyway, so it really does pay to shop around.
😉👍
After considering the NUMEROUS Raisin options, I opted to open a 2yr fixed rate bond with £17,000 @ 1.50% (Sharia estimated profit account), which should earn me around £514 over the 24 month period and I also opened a 6 month fixed rate bond (Sharia estimated profit account) with £5,350 @ .86%, (so the smaller amount wasn’t tied up for too long and in 6 months time I’ll have a bit of money freed up to see what offers are around at that time and can I add to it with any additional savings I’ve accrued, to increase my future investment opportunities).
🍾🥂💷
Both product options were way better than the 0.60% i’d been invested in, with the Marcus ISA.
💷👍
Raisin do offer better rates of interest (currently up to 2%), but this would mean tying your capital up for 5 years which in my opinion is far too long for such a low rate.

A couple of Raisin criticisms resulting in a 4 star review and not 5 star though; 🤔

1. I wish Raisin offered an easy access savings account that you could open with any amount and use as you wish….. Raisins only options are £1000 min opening accounts (an amount you have to have deposited at all times) and you can only make additional deposits in min sums of £500.
The interest rate on their easy access accounts aren’t that great either, so I’ve kept a smaller amount (£1200) in my existing Marcus savings account @ 0.60%, which I can access at ANY time with ANY transaction (in or out), with no penalties or restrictions, so it’s much more ‘user friendly’ for regular depositors of smaller monetary amounts and better than the (currently) best Raisin rate of 0.45% complete with the unattractive and restrictive account conditions.

2. I’d much rather see MONTHLY interest being accrued to my investments, as opposed to the full amount earned being paid on maturity.
I like to see my savings working for me as opposed to the initially invested figure staying at the same amount for the full product duration (often years!)
This unchanging figure over the full investment duration with no ‘visible’ monthly progress, doesn’t incentivise or excite me enough to jump into additional investments on other products being offered.
👎
Other than that though, I’d absolutely recommend Raisin to anyone reading this who has a few quid to invest (for set / locked in periods) and looking for some decent’ish’ term returns from the interest rates offered.
👍💷
Oh and Raisin paid me my £50 opening bonus a week or so after opening my first account, aswell as them paying another £10 bonus for any other accounts opened with £5k and above (max 5).
💷👏💷
Lastly, Raisin customer service is great too (in my experience), despite what some other negative reviews state on here.
On the two occasions I’ve called I’ve been treat with friendliness and absolute courtesy by each of the more than helpful Raisin team members.
🤝

I booked a first class return ticket from Crewe to London Euston.
Complaint number one. I was not given the option of reserving a seat. Fine if the train is quiet, but I’d be livid if I paid first class prices and had to stand for three hours.
Complaint number two. I was not informed that the train had no catering facilities. At all. Not even a coffee machine. First class usually includes refreshments. Not with this shambolic company. I couldn’t even pay for a coffee so my 3.5hr journey was awful.
Complaint number three. Dirty, shabby & very worn seats. A disgrace.
I will never use this train company again and urge anyone reading this to take notice and buy your tickets from someone else.

I purchased a pair of Altura Night Vision gloves approximately two years ago from Go Outdoors.
The gloves were put away and not used until recently because I already had winter gloves at the time of purchase and bought ahead when I saw the gloves and liked them.
The gloves are unfortunately unusable with the slightest hint of perspiration inside the finger area, if you need to take them off mid-ride.
Once you’ve taken them off your hands, it is virtually impossible to put them back in your hands until they dry out.
Altura were totally dismissive of my complaint and insist that you contact the original point of purchase to deal with the complaint.
Go Outdoors do not have details of my purchase and without the receipt cannot help.
The person I spoke to at Altura was lovely and only following Altura company policy.
I’d have expected Altura to have taken a bit more pride in their product and allowed me to return the gloves for inspection because they are faulty. But no. Not interested. Basically I’ve wasted £30.00.
As a result I will not use Altura again and would never recommend them.
Such a shame because I thought they were a decent company. Obviously not.