Groupon

My problem with Groupon is that they manipulate the list pricing to exaggerate your supposed saving to make the deal look better than it really is. Take one of their latest listings for a refurbished 10'' Motorola HD Xoom Tablet with a list price as $600. Unfortunately for any potential buyer, the actual list price for a NEW 10'' Motorola HD Xoom Tablet, on Motorola's site, is $499 for a NEW tablet. The list price for a refurbished tablet, on Motorola's site, is only $279! So THE ACTUAL SAVINGS is only $20. I sent an Email to them exposing this and they replied with this,
"Sorry for any confusion. It is never our intention to mislead anyone about the value of a Groupon.
The value and discount percentage listed on each deal reflect the regular full price for that product or service. If the business offers other temporary discounts or decides to change their standard pricing after their deal is featured, the relative savings and value might change.
Unfortunately, we cannot foresee or control these changes. That said, we work very hard to make sure that the deals we feature are the best in town."
I responded to their response to point out again that the problem is that the list price posted isn't for the same refurbished product that they are offering a discount for, it's for a new product; but they don't seem to have a problem with that.

I took a trip to California and purchased a hotel room via Groupon. Upon arriving and having some issues with logging into my account, I found out that not only had it been flagged and deactivated, but the hotel reservation had been cancelled without any form of notification to me. On top of that, the hotel I had reserved at was completely booked with no rooms available. As I tried to figure out where I would be staying (I was already in California), I first spoke with a customer service representative whom said there was nothing that could be done. She then put me on the phone with her supervisor who was extremely careless and completely uncooperative. After wasting well over an hour on the phone, her response was that she could send me a list of the other hotels available on Groupon for the days needed, and that I could try finding another place to stay. But to make up for having no place to go, helping me by creating a list I could easily search myself, and after asking several times how she could help me, she offered $30 in Groupon Bucks. I spent well over $900 (it was refunded, but still without informing me) and I was offered $30 in Groupon Bucks I am very disappointed in my experience. I hope this is not a reflection of Groupons customer service and I hope I will be contacted to rectify the situation. Next time I am travelling, I certainly wont be using Groupon!

Since i have had 2 write a TERRIBLE review because FFY is Awful, I wanted 2 write about companies that hav been great.
GROUPON has been great 2 me. Even if there was a SMALL concern they IMMEDIATELY just gave me a REFUND! I DIDNT EVEN ASK FOR A REFUND!
This is an actual companies that GETS it! That is, if your CS is terrible, then your company us terrible & hopefully fails.
I always praise reps AND THEIR BOSSES@ Groupon

I thought this site was awesome, UNTIL, I had to return an oder. Finally had to callmy credit card company and disput the charge. Thank goodnes I am an excellent credit card customer and Mastercard values its customers not like ideeli. I ordered two dresses, didnt like them, got a return label, sent them back. Got an email stating one dress was credited. After many many LIVE CHATs ( because there is no phone number) I still cant get a credit. They say only one item was in the box. No one wil cal and i gt a canned response every live chat. Never agaain. WARNING! If a site does not have a live customer suuport number where you can place orders and talkto a human do not use them. And do not order anything that you ar enot certain you will keep!

I had 299.36 in my account. I opened Groupon and my account is empty, all history gone! Noone at Groupon responds to the problem. Im going to the Attny General now! Groupon is a thieving nightmare!

Groupon customer service is completely powerless. I received an email inviting me to join their select membership today. It was a one day offer, where they would give you 50% off one item if you joined for six months. So I joined, and was not able to get the 50% off no matter what I did. So I decided to contact customer service. I don't know what the heck is going on, But you can't call Groupon, you have to wait for them to call you back, and he can take hours. When someone does finally call, They tell you your problem is fixed, when it is not. I emailed twice, I chatted with someone three times, And I made two phone calls where I had to wait for someone to call me back. The second call kept me on the phone so long the call finally dropped. I received an email from one of these customer service reps telling me that because I had already use the 50% off coupon I couldn't use it again! But I never used it because it never worked! So I finally got a hold of someone on the chat and demanded that they cancel my membership since they did not fulfill the agreement of the membership, and they wasted half my day trying to get this fixed. I am a very long time customer of the Groupon. I've spent a lot of money with that site, but I've now erased the app from my phone, and unsubscribed from all of their emails. I can't believe they treat long-term customers this way. I cannot recommend Groupon any longer

Contrary to what some people have written I've had no problems with Groupon thus far. I purchased two Groupons for 1/2 off and didn't use them for several months. Groupon even emailed me twice to remind me to use them.

So last week we took a friend to The Wine Cellar of Eustis (Florida) with one of the Groupons and we had a great time, first class service, awesome food & drinks and even had great conversation with the owner of the place who was tending bar at the time. He was very receptive and pleasant and his waitress was well informed of the Groupon certificate and how it worked. We could not have asked for better service and the owner even sent over a complimentary spinach/artichoke dip w/ crackers for us to try.

So in the end it was a win-win, as we will most definitely go back there and the owner now has 3 of us to spread the good news to our friends and neighbors. And for you skeptics... this is not a new business, nor is it a dump. By the time we left the place was full of regular visitors who were there to eat, drink & hear the live music with rave reviews.

I purchased a hotel room on Groupon for the Ramada in Glenwood springs. When I looked up the Ramada to find directions I found out that the business was permanently closed. I drove over to the hotel and it was no longer in business and was taken over by another hotel. I was not able to redeem the Groupon so I immediately contacted Groupon customer support and explained the situation. I send pictures of the hotel that was now there, pictures of the website saying it was permanently closed and pictures of the Groupon they advertised for the Ramada. It took them forever to get back to me and when they did they told me that there was nothing they could do. They also told me that if I contacted them sooner they could have done something but I have proof that I contacted them immediately. They told me for weeks that they were working on the issue and would get back to me but I constantly had to contact them. They are very rude and do not care about their customers at all. Do not trust Groupon getaways.

Groupon asked for my review of the customer service I received this is my response to Groupon and futher explains my nightmare with finally receiving my refund. This is my exact response to their survey:

After ten different persons responding to my one request for return of my funds for a service that I could not receive by the salon owner I finally received my refund. Instead of one person responding to my request I kept getting a different response from different people as if Groupon has no coordination amongst its customer service reps. I was told I had not followed the rule to request within 3 days, which I had done. Groupon's lack of coordination and delay in responding to its customers immediately led to this nightmare! I have used and purchased many items and one major service from a vendor who charged me twice for the same service, after I was in her office and ready for the procedure. I will NEVER use GROUPON again! Your customer service is horrible, and if I had not refused to accept your denial for my refund, and contacted the FTC I would have had to accept your Groupon Credit, which I did not want. It is GROUPON's deceptive way of not losing money. A customer should never be forced to accept credit for a service that they have paid for and cannot receive because of the vendor not the customer. I am not sure how you have managed to stay in business with these types of policies and your poor customer service. One thing is for sure I will not be helping you stay in business.

As a consumer, I think it's a useful site, and I've personally purchased 3 groupons. I, incidentally, have not used any of them so far. I wonder how many groupons are purchased and never actually redeemed.

As a small business owner, I think it's a ripoff. I was contacted originally back in 2009 before the Boston site launched. I negotiated a deal where they would take 10% of the groupon. It still seemed complex for the business I run, so I didn't do it at the time. Now I learned they take 50% of the groupon deal and I'm appalled. It's not even worth it to offer a deal anymore. It's a genius idea and I wish I had thought of it... but as previous posters have said, they take the money and run. They don't field complaints, they're hard to get in contact with, they are greedy (look to the recent GAP national groupon).

I foresee the Groupon culture shifting largely toward medium and large businesses, because those are the businesses who can handle a large volume of groupons. The more groupons they can sell at a higher price per day, the higher the profit.

I had previously used Groupon and it worked fine. Recently I purchased a local deal on eye exam and glasses for $89, but when I tried to redeem it a time the optometry they told me the code isn't working. We tried several times and still it didn't work. So I ended up having to pay for the eye exam with my insurance and not get glasses. I emailed Groupon later to look into the issue, but they were not helpful at all. They told me a refund is not possible for a purchase after 3 days, and credit for Groupon cannot be offered either. Their system had a glitch that cause my Groupon not being redeemable at the time, that isn't my fault. I am not just trying to return this Groupon for no reason other than no wanting to use it, I and only asking for a refund or credit only because the code was flawed and I couldn't use it when I needed it like I wanted to. I can never trust Groupon and purchase with them again, because who knows when my Groupon would not be redeemable. I am not going to waste more money to test my luck. Use Groupon with caution.

I purchased Diode Laser Hair Remove on 2/13/12. Just received email today that I apparently did not "respond" to an email sent from Groupon asking me to update this order and it was being cancelled. I called customer service and was told that the laser had not been FDA approved and I could have received a substitute one but I apparently did not respond in the time limit that was set forth in an email I I supposedly received Feb 28th explaining this. I looked back through all my emails, my junk folders, deleted folders and inbox and there was no email sent from Groupon stating that there was anything wrong with the order. I asked if I could still be sent the substitute laser and was told "NO" - I had missed the deadline sent in this fictitious email sent to me. I am extremely disappointed in Groupon. This is NOT good customer service. Good customer service would have been making sure I received a substitute product and was happy with my purchase and experience with Groupon. In a time when Groupon is being copied by many other similar type companies, it is a shame that they are not choosing to stand out from the rest by providing excellent customer service.

I reserved Great wolf lodge at Williamsburg, VA. The night I stay should be May 15. I am supposed to check in on May 15 and check out on May 16. Before I check out on May 16, I can play in the water park. I called Great wolf lodge on May 5 and found out that on May 16 the water park will be closed. They said basically Groupon didn't tell me this before I book. I asked Great wolf lodge to switch the day from May 15 to May 14. Great wolf lodge said they can't, because they already sold the rooms to Groupon and there is one room available on May 14. Great wolf lodge told me to call Groupon to switch the day. Groupon basically told me they can't do anything. They can't switch the day and the promotion is expired. The only thing I can do is to cancel the reservation. But everything is already planned. This is for my daughter's birthday and kids are so excited about it. I ended with canceling the reservation. This is ridiculous!

I will probably not buy anything from Groupon after this. I don't know whose fault is and who can solve this problem, Groupon or Great wolf lodge. Why can't Groupon work with Great wolf lodge to solve this problem? I am definitely not the only one get affected by this.