Missy Gotty

I used to admire Ocado for posting negative reviews so you can get what seemed to be real feedback from customers about their products. You could also post reviews regardless of star rating directly to their website with policing.

However, recently they changed their policy. From my experience you can no longer post negative reviews. I tried to when I disliked a product, but now reviews have to be approved by Ocado before being posted. My review was never published, although there was no reason for it not to be as my comments were only about the product, taste texture etc.

Ocado are consistently removing old negative reviews. Also, Ocado repeatedly claim that products they have been selling for years are 'Brand New' to the website, and by doing so they wipe out all the previous reviews good & bad, by creating a new product page. Now that they are no longer allowing negative reviews, it's very common to see highly rated reviews on a lot of their products that previously had some negative reviews going back years.

It could be the case that Ocado are specifically blocking me from posting reviews. I have not received any feedback from Ocado as to why my reviews are not being posted.

Another issue with Ocado is that they regularly overcharge you for carrier bags. Ocado charge you 10p per bag. They 'predict' how many they might use for the order instead of accurately charging you for how many used. So you might be charged for 10 bags but you only received 6 with your order. 9 out of 10 times they overcharge me. I am constantly sending emails to get refunded. Also, when you hand back the carrier bags to the driver for a refund, you have to check that the driver has refunded the correct amount because they often under-refund you. Sometimes the drivers just forget/can't be bothered to refund you for returned carrier bags, so you have to send further emails to get refunded. All of this is very time consuming.

You may think it is an insignificant amount, but if you are overcharged every week, imagine how much money has been syphoned out of your bank account by the end of the year. Personally, I redeemed about £25 back from Ocado last year just from monitoring my carrier bags.

Many times I have experienced missing, out of date and damaged items also. It would be nice if I didn't have to constantly & repeatedly check for all these issues every time I ordered from Ocado.

23.05.25 Ebay telephone rep lied about forwarding my query to the back office, saying someone will get back to me in 2 days. No response. Queried again 01.08.25. The rep first said she has no evidence that I had a telephone conversation with the rep, and nothing was sent to the back office. When I told her I had written evidence of the conversation, and told her where the find the evidence on her systems, all of a sudden she could find the records.

Rep told me the issue cannot be resolved even though I was told it could. I put in a complaint but the rep said she can only make a complaint on my behalf and could not give me a copy of the complaint, therefore I don't know what she actually wrote, and I have no record of the complaint being sent. I'm guessing I'm not going to get a response to this either. Contacting Ebay customer services has been a huge waste of time.

Bought a JML Chillmax cooling gel pad pillow to keep me cool during the night in Summer. Used it for about a week, stored it away clean and dry, only to find that it was covered in mould and smelly when I went to use it again. Judging from the other reviews, it is very common for this product to go mouldy and smelly. Therefore, definitely a waste of money. I will not be buying this brand again.

I contacted Criterion to get a valuation on an item. Valerie immediately showed interest. I specifically asked if they sold this item and Valerie confirmed "yes" they have sold these items in the past and told me to send them pictures, which I did. The response from Harriet was incredibly rude saying "We are an auction house" and do not sell this item. They clearly confirmed that they did prior to asking me to send them pictures!

I can understand why most of Criterion's reviews are 1 Star. Best to avoid any dealings with this company, they are a waste of time.

16.04.25 update in response to Criterions message:

The microwave IS an antique. One of the first microwaves ever made, why else would I be contacting you? If you were unable to sell this antique then you would have informed me straight away during my intial telephone enquiry with you. But you didn't.

I was very clear from the start that the item was an antique microwave. However, not only did you CONFIRM that you CAN handle and sell this item, but that you have sold antique microwaves in the past, AND can arrange for the collection of the antique microwave to be delivered to your premises for sale at your auction! You then gave me your direct email address, taking pains to make sure I recorded the address correctly, and requested that I send you pictures.

Imagine my surprise and upset when I received your two lined extremely rude email response saying you don't sell this item, with no explanation as to why you have been needlesly stringing me along, wasting my time. Please do not try to patronize me.

I made an enquiry via email as I was thinking of buying a product from Ocushield. I decided I would buy it at a later date. However, 2 days later I received a marketing email even though I did not sign up to their newsletter. I emailed them immediately, and asked them to remove my email from their marketing lists. Rep Pooja replied saying that they removed me and I would not receive emails from them again. 5 days later I received the exact same marketing email again. Another 5 days later same email. Ocushield has repeatedly told me they have removed me from their emails and don't know why I am still receiving them. There are also no unsubscribe links or options to unsubscribe on these emails.

I am not a fan of being bombarded by marketing emails, especially ones I did not agree to receive and can't unsubscribe from. Due to this I will never buy from Ocushield. I should have paid attention to the fact that Trustpilot flagged a warning that this company has breached their guidelines and are being misleading.

Update 12.05.25: In response to my 1 star review Ocushield asked me to contact them. I was in communication with Amin who assured me I will not receive marketing emails anymore, and I no longer do. I am still concerned with how the company sent me unsolicited marketing emails in the first place, but I recognise that the company dealt with the issue immediately and in a responsible manner, so I have raised my rating to 3 stars.

I waited all morning for my package to be delivered but no-one rang my doorbell. When I checked the Shop app it showed that my package had been delivered but there was no package at my front door! I checked the delivery picture and it shows the open front door to my building. Instead of the DPD driver delivering my package to my address, he opened the door to my building and left it in the hallway for anyone to take. I ran down to get it but there was no package. The driver was too lazy to walk up a flight of stairs and knock on my door to give it to me!

I ordered (#116513) a large batch of broth from Freja which was supposed to be delivered 07.01.25, but the DPD driver did not deliver my package and it is now missing.

I contacted Freja customer service who quickly got back to me and were very helpful. They kindly offered to replace the order. I have now received the replacement.

I'm a first time customer to SLS & found that buying from them is problematic & very frustrating. I tried to purchase x2 100% linen bedding sets during their 40% off sale. I wouldn't buy for more than that price as I consider them to be too expensive. One colour was partially in stock & the other colour was confirmed to arrive in stock in a day or two. But it didn't arrive until after the sale finished (about 6 days later) despite staff constantly telling me it would arrive before the end of sale. I bought one set but found that it sheds badly, the bed sheet is extremely baggy (which is uncomfortable to sleep on) & my quilt swims in the baggy quilt cover (despite buying the correct size).

There is also a problem with their nightwear sizing. I bought several different coloured cami's in the same size, only to find that 12-14 actually comes in 2 different sizes. Several were sewn differently & fitted too tight, while others fit fine. When I spoke to staff they said that these cami's were made in 2 different factories & made to two different sizes but 'within the margin of their accepted measurements', causing two different sizes for 12-14. Since they don't state this on their website & I don't know which colours were produced from the factory which actually fit me, it's been a big waste of my time ordering & sending back items which I consider to be faulty, because it should be one standard size.

Update 29.12.24: I (delicate) washed the linen duvet set for the first time following the care instructions exactly, only to find that it was faulty. The material was so weak it came out with a number of tears in the duvet cover. I contacted the manager who said that this sometimes happens in the manufacturing process & there's no knowing which batch it will affect. To their credit SLS replaced my duvet set. I'm hoping there are no problems with the new set. But based on what they told me, you're basically gambling when you buy linen from SLS as you won't know whether it will be a faulty batch or not. I didn't see any mention of this on their website.

I sent Wakingherbs an email in 'June 24' enquiring about a product I was keen to buy. I also asked them why when I add a product to the basket it will say "spend £26.71" more to get free shipping, then when I add that amount, it will say I have to spend £97 more for free shipping? This appears to be a scam.

Customer service rep Rene initially replied to my email saying they will look into it, then never got back to me. I sent them two more reminder emails over time. In 'July' Rene told me that they "lost track" of their emails and would get back to me next week. It's now 'September' and still no reply.

Additionally their site is plagued with technical issues when converting to different currencies and languages. Checkout always ends up in Dutch despite making the order in English. It's annoying and ends up being a big waste of time.

I will not be purchasing from Wakingherbs, and I wouldn't recommend anyone else does either. Their website is very poor and their customer service never answer queries.

Update 04.09.24: Wakingherbs Rene emailed me saying they did not respond to my 3 emails for over 4 months because they were busy! They also said "Regarding the free shipping, it applies to the UK for orders over $150". Note that they quoted USD not GBP! Nowhere on their website does it state this. Also when I checked their website again today, with 'nothing in my basket', it states I need to spend an odd number of £26.71 for free shipping. (It has been saying that for over 4 months, nothing has changed). When I added products worth £30, it states that "shipping is free"! Obviously the information Rene is giving me is not accurate nor true.

On top of that, they still didn't answer my question about the product. This website is a joke. Avoid!

Royal Mail delivery people failed to deliver my package, instead reporting that I was not home when I was. These were blatant false reports because I was home sick and I wasted two days in a row waiting for delivery. As the postman did not turn up for my deliveries, they did not leave a missed delivery card so I was not able to request a redelivery that way. RM would not let me request a redelivery online, I just got an error message and there was no tracking information. RM did not respond to a written complaint, and it is impossible to get hold of RM over the phone. 11 days later and I am still struggling to get hold of them to get my parcel.

I ordered from Hampstead Tea 27.06.24 with 48 hour delivery. However, Royal Mail did not deliver my parcel, I just received emails from RM saying they attempted delivery but I wasn't home. I DEFINITELY was ill at home and wasted two days in a row waiting for my delivery. As the delivery person didn't turn up, no missed delivery card was left so couldn't request a redelivery that way. I got an error message every time I tried to action a redelivery via the RM website. RM are impossible to get hold of on the phone and they did not respond to my written complaint regarding this. It's now 11.07.24 and I still have not received my order.

I contacted Hampstead Tea via email 02.07.24 after experiencing a recent heart attack, and asked them for help with my delivery, but I didn't receive a reply until 08.07.24. I confirmed I was still waiting for my order, then rep Olivia offered me a replacement order to be sent via DPD, said they would retrieve the original order back from RM, and asked me to confirm the new DPD delivery date. I confirmed 13.07.24. Then Olivia replied saying that Hampstead Tea would NOT now give me the replacement order, and that it's not their fault RM didn't deliver! They blatantly lied to me! If they offered a replacement then they should honor it instead of making excuses. I am now left with no help whatsoever from Hampstead Tea despite ordering directly from them, and still struggling to get RM to respond and deliver my package.

If this is how Hampstead Tea treats their customers, I don't see why I should order from them ever again!

I have been shopping with SB for many years. I recently bought 3 items from SB. Due to an error on their website I was not able to buy all 3 items together. One item had to be bought separately and I was charged delivery costs when it would have been free delivery. I contacted customer services and they said that they would refund the delivery costs.

I received one of the items today 19.06.24. However, when Evri delivered it, the package was completely open and it absolutely stunk! It literally stunk out my house it was so bad. I had to leave the package outside and open up all the windows to try and air it out.

I am extremely disgusted and angry that it was sent to me in that condition. I'm also angry that SB persist in using Evri when they are notoriously bad at delivering packages. I usually have my orders sent to my local store to pick up so I don't have to deal with Evri's constant delivery issues, but they suddenly closed the branch down. I don't think I will be buying from SB again. I have requested a refund.

Update 20.06.24: Sent SB order info they requested.

I brought 3 scent bags to get rid of moths, but they don't work, I still had moths in the areas I placed the bags, despite regularly crushing the bags as advised.

CD customer service is also lacking. I made an enquiry and it took weeks for them to answer a simple question, mainly because the rep sent my question to management and they did not respond to their own rep! The rep repeatedly asked for the same information I sent them too, showing lack of attention to detail.

Also, CD do not state on their website when products are out of stock. I only found out an item was out of stock when I enquired about it with customer service who told me it was on back order, but they were still accepting orders online without informing customers.

Really poor brand and overly expensive in my opinion. You can buy similar products for half the price with the same ingredients, with double the amounts they are selling. Won't be buying again.

Update 13.06.24: CD has requested I verify I am a legitimate customer. I sent them my order number. As CD requested, I sent them an email also including my order number.

My experience as someone who is not an Olio Volunteer, but a private individual who has given thousands of pounds worth of free food away on the Olio app over many years since Olio first started.

Firstly, the Olio app has been plagued with continuous technical issues since day one.  It's been about 9 years and Oilo still have the same fault issues it's had from the beginning.  I have reported them several times and responded to the weekly surveys they like to push on the app, but no-one responds and the issues are never fixed.  The app often stops working during arranged collections, I have to cancel them because I am not able to communicate with the collectors.

So if you use the app expect continuous technical issues.  My listings never post properly.  Even if you set up the listing correctly, once you post it you have to go back and edit it again because the app will add pics you deleted, post pics in the wrong order, change information you've written as well as changing listing times.  Expect the process of listing on the app to be very frustrating and take double the amount of time it should.

Once my listings have gone live 90% of the people requesting are time wasters.  People will request & not show up, expect you to post the items to them, manipulate the system so multiple friends & family members with different accounts collect for the same person/family despite stated restrictions, arrive extremely late without apologising or informing you, some are very abusive & aggressive in which Olio do nothing about apart from telling you to block them on the app, and a lot of people are just extremely rude. Only 10% are actual genuine people who can be relied upon to collect on time without problems and often show gratitude.  

Due to these issues, I end up blocking huge amounts of people.  However, the same people will just open up multiple accounts under different names to try and gain access to your listings again, so you have to re-block them over and over.  It is extremely stressful dealing with large amounts of negative people like this all the time, which can affect your health & wellbeing.

The Oilo forum is supposed to be a 'safe' place to ask questions, get advice etc, however, it is mostly just a place for trolls and toxic people complaining and putting down other people.

Olio's stance for the most part, has always been that Olio volunteers are allowed to keep 10% of collections but must give away the rest. From my experience lots of volunteers keep the majority of the collections and post the minimum, or make it very difficult for people to collect i.e. having a collection time of only 15 minutes making it almost impossible for anyone to collect, thus in the end keeping all or the majority of the collection.  Collecting from volunteers is often problematic and it appears Olio do nothing to enforce their rules.  Also recently, Olio have stated that volunteers can keep 100% of all the collections from Boots.  What happened to their rules for always sharing with people?  I thought that was the whole point of the app, to stop food waste and share the food with people other than their volunteers.

Lastly, when you reach out for help, want to report issues or just have questions for customer services, I have found their response often extremely negative, unhelpful, passive aggressive and unpleasant.  You often get a cut and paste response without them even reading the email, so you have to send further emails to get an answer to your questions you ask. But most of the time they don't answer questions and don't resolve issues.  It is not worth contacting them.

It is a shame that it is so difficult, problematic and extremely stressful to give away on the Olio app.  I have stopped giving away free food via Olio now.  I do not recommend it, and due to all the issues with the app and customer services, I will not be supporting Olio going forward.

I am not happy that after less than 14 months after buying a Velvetiser it just stopped working for no obvious reason.  14 months is such a short time for an appliance like this to completely fail, after minimal use and only 2 months out of warranty.  I've noted that another reviewer's Velvetiser also stopped working at the 14 month mark, which suggests it is manufactured that way.  

The power does not come on at all.  There is only one troubleshoot you can try from the HC website and that didn't work. HC have advised that I will most likely have to purchase another machine, with discount.  But I feel especially as Hotel Chocolat is supposed to be a quality brand, and the fact that it is made by Dualit, this product should last for much longer than 14 months, and I should not have to fork out money to buy new one!

I ordered twice and both times there were significant delivery issues. The first time only 1 of the 2 boxes were delivered. No communication from Actiph. I had to chase them to find out that a box had been damaged in transit, and I had to chase again to find out when the replacement would be delivered. More issues with the second order which resulted in a complaint to Actiph. I sent the complaint addressed to the Manager 2 weeks ago, no-one bothered to reply.

Update 15.02.24 in reply to Actiph Water's response:

No-one from Actiph Water has contacted me since, especially since you have not requested my email address nor my order details, so that's a lie! Also your response doesn't excuse the fact that I still had to chase you repeatedly for a second delivery date once I informed you that my order was missing.

Why do customers have to contact you about missing/faulty deliveries? As an internet based business you should be checking orders have arrived safely, contacting customers if not. It seems you are happy to take our money but don't care if we receive the goods. Judging by the numerous bad reviews, missing and broken Actiph packages happen all the time. Why would you employ a delivery service who regularly break your products and don't tell you about it?

Also from research, I've discovered that your method of creating ionised water is not good and there are better options out there.

I do not recommend Actiph Water, they obviously don't care about their customers.

Further to my earlier update in light of Actiph's response 16.02.24:

So you admit that you received my complaint but still chose to ignore it. This firmly falls into the 'don't care' category.

What do you call a company who keep saying they have contacted you when they have not? Nothing in my spam folder. I have not received notification of a refund either...... I think that fully justifies my use of the word 'liar'.

Twice I've changed the delivery date via DPD systems on the day of delivery, as I wasn't going to be home. The drivers just turned up anyway.

One of the drivers put my goods in an unsafe place then walked up 2 flights of stairs, took a picture of a neighbour's door and claimed that he gave the delivery to my neighbour! The picture did not have my large boxes in front of it and when I spoke to that neighbour he confirmed he did not take in my packages.

When you follow DPD's complaints procedure and calI the telephone number provided, you can't get through to a live person. There's only an automated message saying choose option 1 for delivery option. When you choose 1, it states that your delivery will be made to your neighbour without giving you the option to choose, and when I don't have a delivery to be made!

You can't complain via email, and when I complained via chat, the rep just denied that they did anything wrong and tried to say that their systems must of had an error and that the issue was my fault! I had to repeatedly state about 10 times that I would like a written response from the manager. The rep said he will escalate my complaint, but when I asked for a confirmation of that via email, the rep refused and said "take a screenshot"! I doubt I will get a response.

DPD are just as bad as Evri now. I will avoid using them in the future.

I ordered expensive vitamins from Landys Chemist only to find that they arrived faulty/damaged with already opened boxes! I complained to Landys and Michela (who I assume is the manager) refused to replace them. Michela told me they 'don't replace' faulty goods which according to other reviews is a lie. The manager said they will give me 'credit points' instead of a full refund which they have to do by Law with faulty goods! I had to 'tell them' to send me a free returns label for a return and refund. They acted like they had already discussed this option with me, which they had not. They also did not inform me in their return instructions, that I needed to add order details inside my parcel upon return. I only found this out when I double checked their T&C's before sending it back. This was most likely their attempt to get their goods back but not refund me. They did not inform me when they received the returned goods,
they did not inform me when they finally refunded me and they did not apologise for sending me faulty products.

Extremely poor customer service and obviously bad quality goods. Landys Chemist cannot be trusted judging by how they behaved. I do not recommend anyone buys from Landys Chemist, I certainly won't be purchasing from them ever again.

Update 11.01.24: I sent Landys my order number as requested.

Further update 11.01.24 after Landys's response:

The definition of a faulty goods according to UK law is as follows:
-broken or damaged ('not of satisfactory quality')
-unusable (‘not fit for purpose’)
-not what was advertised or doesn’t match the seller’s description

All of the above descriptions of a faulty item fit exactly what I received from Landys Chemist as they full well know because I sent pictures and of course sent the faulty items back. All four boxes were bashed in on the edges and the sides and caved in on the middle of the boxes. One box was partially open and another box was COMPLETELY opened. As I advised Landys (via email & sent pics), the products were also packed in a very bad way which would have caused damage to all the boxes anyway. This is not satisfactory quality, it is not as described and they cannot be used, therefore 100% faulty. Furthermore, at no time did Landys Chemist tell me that a refund was offered as a goodwill gesture.

Nothing about my review is dishonest or deceptive, it's pure facts. I have provided pictorial evidence and have email evidence. It appears Landys Chemist are the ones being dishonest and deceptive here, nonetheless I wish them all the best.

Very shady company who make a big deal about protecting reviewers, but don't take any action once authors breach their policies.

An author posted a message threatening me on Goodreads when I gave a justified one star review on their book. Goodreads have a policy against this but they took no action against the author. Goodreads told me to repeatedly send in my complaint 4 times (without explaining why I had to do this, surely one submission is sufficient) but didn't bother to reply to any of them, just ignored me.

I had a horrible experience at the Angel Islington store. Two teenage looking staff were extremely rude, disrespectful and kept giving me dirty looks during my purchase of about £40, even though I was friendly towards them. They didn't know how to process my VIP discount code, kept making excuses why they couldn't do it and kept saying it is not possible to process. This delayed me at the till a very long time. In the end I had to instruct them how to process it which literally took seconds. I was in the store for nearly 30 mins instead of the 2 mins it would have normally taken with no customers at the till. It was an incredible waste of my time on a very busy day. They gave no apology.

I made a formal complaint to Hotel Chocolate 24.11.23 A rep requested copies of my receipts which I sent. Got an automotive reply saying they will respond in 48 hours and never heard from them since.

I also sent an email requesting my VIP card which I never received when I became a member and didn't receive a reply to that either.

I was a loyal customer for many years and a VIP member, but I will not be buying from Hotel Chocolat again.