Peter Bird

My sister needs a mobility scooter due to knee problems impacting her ability to walk. Having researched it, and tried a couple on recent holidays, she was tempted by a scooter in excess of £500 sold by this disgrace of a company. The advertisement clearly states it is transportable and implies it will fit in a car. Implicit within this is the notion that to get it into the car, you don't need either a Volvo 940, muscles like Big Daddy and the technical skills of a star of Big Bang Theory. Oddly, the company seems not to recognise that most people in their seventies or more, who need a mobility scooter, probably drive a small car. Physical strength is also often not a particular feature of users either, and clambering in the back to take out seats every time you want to use it is also a no-no for most. So when the scooter arrives, not only will it not fit in the back of her small Kia, but she cannot even get it out of the box and has to get a neighbour to do this for her. Rather than graciously taking the scooter back, and advising my sister on an alternative, this appalling company has and is doing everything in its power to make it difficult to resolve the problem. Unfortunately, or in the interests of the no doubt many other unhappy customers. fortunately they have picked the wrong adversary. Anyway, strongest advice is steer clear of them. Chances are it will be out of business soon, unless it changes its ways.

It is the premise under which you operate which is unforgiveable, and should be legislated away. A water company - yes, those august bodies interested solely in profit who will happily pump endless sewage into the rivers and seas rather than slightly reduce the dividends to their shareholders - alleges, completely falsely, that we have missed several payments. We pay by DD, and have NEVER missed a payment. However, there is a long lasting fault with the way in which said company measures our usage, and whilst they too are polite (like you) they never do anything about it. Yet your operation systems mean that you believe the water company without even bothering to check with the customer, whose lifestyle you have hampered and shamed, falsely. You do not even inform the customer that you hold this untrue information about them. It is unforgivable. Yes your staff listened and were polite, and some way down the line might even rectify the issue, but it is too late, the harm has been done.

My recent experiences considerably differ to the majority of comments on here. About 9 months ago I took my runaround to the kiosk in Milton Keynes. The helpful lady assessed, and offered a price within a couple of hundred of the online figure. I couldn't sell there and then, but she assured me that would be no problem when I went back a couple of days later. Unfortunately, she was gone and the new 'salesman' was highly aggressive and said that he needed to review the car again, and he wouold get sacked if he matched the figure I had been offered. He offered 25% less. I didn't take it. Several months later I tried to sell our main car. I was offered a lowish figure on line, but booked the appointment. After waiting 40 minutes the customer inside the kiosk came out, and told me he had finished. I went in, to be shouted at by the rude, scruffy young man, who basically kicked me out (I'm 60, well dressed and extremely unthreatening). Then, I went with the same car a couple of months later, after they increased their online offer. This was £13600 approx. Less than I wanted but worth a look. The agent was very pleasant, assessed the car, and told me he could offer £12200, which was a 'good price'. When I questioned the drop, he became quite aggressive, and pushy, showed me 'book' prices, which I pointed out were considerably above his offer. He said he had to drop it, in case 'they couldn't sell straight away...' Not my problem. In the end I took it CarWow, took the photos, it went online two days' later, sold for the reserve price of £14000 and the money, with no fees charged, was in my account within a few hours.

Positive - quite helpful when needed and communicated regularly.
Got a good price, £1800 (about 16%) more than We Buy Any Car, plus your staff are pleasant and helpful, not aggressive and dismissive, as was my experience with WBAC. Unlike WBAC there were no charges at all, and the money (from the dealer) was in our account within a few hours. The process was easy, and did not require travelling to either a dealer or one of those hot and horrible, plus slightly threatening, kiosks run by your rivals.

Less good, on two occasions you urged me to drop the price in order to secure a quick sale. Firstly, by reducing the reserve price, and secondly by urging me to accept an offer lower than our reserve price. We were keen, rightly it turned out, to stick with our reserve, and did get this just before the auction ended.

We booked a holiday to Italy. It was very important, my wife had just experienced a family tragedy, the sort you read about but think must be exaggerated until it happens to your loved one, and we all desperately needed a break. We booked a hire car with Rentalcars.com - please, never, never use this company or their parent company, Booking.com - but our flight was delayed on the tarmac at Stansted. Of course, by then we had no access to paperwork, couldn't make a call and could not contact the hire company, but they had our flight number so we were not worried. We arrived maybe an hour late, and headed to the hire kiosk - it was Drivalia (never trust these either) and among the twenty or so outlets, all busy with queues of presumably delayed passengers, we saw ours was empty. Literally, bar a sign saying that the agent had 'gone' and to phone a number. We did, several times over the next sixty minutes or so (we tried every other kiosk, but none had spare cars), but it was never answered. Finally, the agent appeared. His first response was an almost comic double take that he should have customers waiting. When I said we'd come to collect our vehicle, he said 'Impossible!' I showed him our voucher, and he looked non-plussed, before checking the clock and telling me we were late, so he had released the vehicle to another customer. (Actually, we're pretty sure he was lying. There's an hour's grace, apparently, and if we were later than an hour, it was only just. He'd never have found a customer without a car and completed paperwork from scratch in the time. We're pretty sure Rentalcars.com cocked up. Ryanair had cancelled our flight, and we'd had to rebook plane and car about ten days before. They took our money, sent our confirmation, but we're fairly confident that they forgot to forward the booking. Or maybe Drivalia made the mistake, whatever, we'd paid in full and our contract was with Rentalcars.com.) The agent then turned extremely aggressive, and I was pretty angry myself. He shrugged his shoulders, turned, and exited the kiosk through the back door. We had to get a taxi into Bologna to a hotel, and by now it was too late at night to find somewhere to eat (other than a friendly takeaway). We made a last minute new booking*, which was massively more expensive, got a taxi back to the airport to collect the vehicle the following day. Of course, after six months of trying, Rentalcars.com still refuse to refund the money. (We're pretty sure they're transgressing consumer rights legislation around fair terms in contracts, and reasonable care in providing a service, but they don't care.) They also, interestingly, refuse to participate in an Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) programme, stating that they deal with disputes (ie, from our experience, reject them) themselves. What a disgraceful company, what a bunch of charlatans. It can hardly be a surprise to them, dealing with airport car hires, that sometimes flights get delayed at the last minute, making it impossible to contact the hire company. But this excuse of an enterprise are quite happy to fleece their customers, and provide effectively zero customer service. Fortunately, the rest of the holiday was terrific. We stayed in the most beautiful villa in the mountains two hours south of Bologna, (Property 86391 on SimplyOwners, and run by Mike and Sheila Duda - the views are to die for, and the pool breathtaking, but don't book it in May because we want it) and had a lovely time. Yet our experience with Rentalcars.com has left the bitterest taste in our mouths. You might deduce from the single star that although appalling, there were some redeeming features with Rentalcars.com. Trust me, there aren't (from our experience), and if we could have clicked on a minus figure, we would have done. The matter is now with trading standards, so we hope they will act.
*PS - we were unlucky; the new car was with Sixt, and again we had a problem (being told at the kiosk our insurance was inadequate). Desperate to get to the villa and with a long drive ahead, I just paid up. When we got home, we checked the insurance and did not need it. Sixt repaid the extra sum fully and without argument within a week. I know which company I'll be using in future.

Bought a ticket for Arsenal v Brighton. (Trying to get one through the club, even for a member such as myself, is nowadays effectively impossible. They don't seem to care). Carefully picked out a ticket in a block I was happy with. When I got to the stadium, discovered the ticket sent was vastly different to the one I had bought, and the details of which had been sent to me. Instead of on the halfway line, front of Upper Tier, I was ticket in a corner, high up in the away end. This was through offside seats. Complained, and they replied, tried to fob me off with a free ticket, but when I tried to take that up, they said they had no seats for the game. Nonsense. Complained to Stub Hub, initially they said they could not help, but when I got serious the agent was great. Organised a full refund for the purchase price of the ticket, and paid into my account rapidly.

Fixed the problem, came when he said he would, pleasant engineer. However, so expensive. Only needed the dispenser drawer replacing, and that ended up well over £200 and almost as much as a new machine. Not sure if that is the company's fault, or that Hotpoint charge well into three figures for a bit of plastic which costs 30p to manufacture.

Shocking. Booked an MOT. All set up, receipt sent and money taken. Then got a very curt email telling me they had cancelled the appointment. No reason, no offer of return of money, no recognition that we had a contract they have to honour. Rang and spoke to the rudest, most aggressive person I've ever had deal with me. Not interested. At all. Said I had been refunded. That was a lie then and is still a lie now. Eventually agreed because it was a Sunday to find me an alternative today. Guess what? Not a dicky bird. Emailed a complaint and a resolution. Found I had been given the wrong address. It was passed on but still no reply.
Now they have £40 of mine. I have no MOT and cannot get another one that is convenient and on time. The most shocking service I have ever experienced.

OK - as my review below shows, NCP got it badly wrong. They did, in the end, though sort the problem out, and compensated me for my loss and inconvenience. Fair dinkum to them for that.
What a shame it is not possible to leave 0 stars. We went to the theatre in Leicester, 90 miles from home, and I pre-booked the Rutland Centre NCP car park. It cost £11.80. I showed the QR code and we got in OK, but the reader did not recognise the code when we tried to leave. An attendant came across (the car park was packed, being adjacent to the theatre, and everybody was leaving) He said I would have to pay, although at the gate it was £6.95, nearly £5 cheaper than pre-booking! I tried to get a refund from NCP. I am still trying. Firstly I completed an online form. Several days later I had heard nothing, not even an acknowledgement. I tried Live Chat, the first two days I got as far as the Bot telling me it would contact me to a live person. Several hours later, I got emails saying I had ended the chat. Finally, on the third day, I got through to a real person. Two hours later, there was no progress whatsover. Although I had receipt numbers and reference numbers, and the payments are shown on my banking APPs, NCP refused to accept I had made a payment. They wanted me to send screen shots of everything, something technically well beyond me. In the end I was told to phone the Customer Service team, this automatically advised me to contact Live Chat, but I waited for many, many minutes, then NCP just cut the call off. I never got through. Meanwhile, live chat apparently put me through to the refund team. Except it didn't. They just asked for the same information and said I would have to wait until the original contact form was answered. It then turned out the form did not request the right information anyway. The person I spoke to on live chat refused to do anything, was quite off hand (actually, obstinate) and point blank refused to pass on their complaints procedure, insisting that he would pass on any complaint. I tried the NCP website, but could not find their complaint's policy on that either. In the end, I have spent maybe three to four hours trying to recoup the £11.80 NCP took from me without providing the service I purchased, still have got nowhere, and feel I have wasted my time.

We recently had a small disaster. A flood led to our entire flooring downstairs being ripped out. The mess in which we were left was indescribable. We purchased our new flooring from Carpet Right and waited for it to arrive. It was due April, but then we got a message to say much would not arrive until August earliest.
We contacted FlooringSupplies.co.uk and spoke with Alex Nunn. He was superb. He located enough of the missing flooring for us to complete our floor, advised us what else we needed, came up with a great price and organised delivery.
Then, when we discovered that we needed less from his company, happily changed the order at the last minute.
The flooring arrived on time, and is now down and we are almost back to normal. This was great customer service. We are very grateful.

Do not go to this company. We switched recently. They lost our direct debit details, then 'fined' us £20 and threatened debt collectors within two days of sending us our statement. Almost impossible to get through to them. Do not answer phones, and
the 'chat' experience was dreadful. Up to twenty minutes between responses. No indication that they were still there, not even a request to hold. Finally, they send a solution - by email. This was late Sat PM. Not only do they not do what they promise, but by Monday am, they have fined me £20 again and the whole process restarts. The worst customer care I have ever experienced. And that is saying something these days.

What a shambles. What a misleading, dishonest company this is. Avoid it at all costs. Yes, they said, broadband will DEFINITELY work on your property. Until the fitter saw a tree in the way. Not our tree, one on a neighbouring property. The fitter said he would leave the large and instrusive dish up to see if we could get the tree trimmed. We couldn't. Heard nothing more. Having been told by the fitter that they would collect the dish, they now won't, Konnect are not interested. Very hard to contact Konnect. We sent several emails, finally got a reply. They said we had to keep the dish, although it is connected to nothing. They would not refund the £50 we paid upfront. They would charge us £240 if we did not return the large box of other equipment left behind. We asked for their complaints procedure. They refused to give it. Still ongoing fight.

I ended up with a good deal, but the process was difficult. A lot of cars advertised on Carwow turn out not to be available at the price quoted. So if you have the time, it is worth the pain. The notion that the advertised price is the best one simply is untrue. Every car I queried - and it was many because I was unsure what I wanted - was subsequently reduced in price - often by thousands.

It found me the cheapest option; quite a painful process, though.

Generally I find Just Park good, but booked a space for Saturday 1st May. Very unclear pictures, and when I reached the location according to the Sat Nav details the entrance was closed and gated. Also, didn't say it was inside (by about 50 feet) the Congestion Charge Zone, so not only did I pay for the parking, but also had the congestion charge cost, plus the following cost of finding a car park that was open. Ended up late for an important meeting. Costly error on the part of Just Park

Oh dear. Following my five star review of the process to getting a Konnect broadband connection when it was finally delivered it failed to work at all. Apparently, the agent who told me it was 'guaranteed' if we had satellite TV had never heard of things called trees. It was several weeks and at least four bookings (two by Konnect which were completely erroneous) before the satellite fitter arrived, put the extremely obtrusive dish up and told me that he'd just wasted his time. PS - if you need to phone Konnect, choose option 3 - it's the only one I ever managed to get answered.

My wife booked flowers for her mum for Mothers' Day, booked the date etc and paid through the nose for the privilege. Got a message on the Saturday saying flowers would be delivered that day...not what she'd paid for. Contacted customer services, who said it was sorted and would be delivered on Sunday as planned and paid for. They were delivered on the Saturday afternoon. Wife rang customer services - no email option. No reply. Rang several times Eventually got through, spoke to same person who had originally promised the error was corrected. Made to wait for more than half an hour 'for investigation' then transferred, no word why, to the bank. Tried online chat but it cut off. Appalling, atrocious service for something very important. With lockdown, hasn't seen her elderly and unwell mum since the summer. This was very important to her. The failure of M and S to meet their obligations and then the appalling service afterwards has shocked us. What has happened to this once fine institution?