GrouponReviews 5,287

Groupon offer some nice deals, but if anything goes wrong with the event you pay for then you are stuck. They won't offer you any refund of any kind, they will blame the company with whom you had your experience, will take for ever to respond, and will simply deflect you with nonsense. For instance, if the groupon is purchased as a gift then they will deny any need to act as your are not the account holder. In addition, as the groupon voucher is purchased from Groupon - you cannot obtain any refund etc from the company (spa, hotel, whatever) that caused you the initial problem. So, in conclusion, Groupon are a very low quality company offering cheap buyer beware deals. I would not go anywhere near ever again.

I am a business owner - a sole proprietor massage therapist - about to run a groupon deal. I have had nothing but good experiences so far with them. They contacted me quickly, have been very responsive and helpful, and are getting my deal up and running in record time. I suppose it's easier for a merchant offering a service over one who sells physical goods - I'm not losing a dime by running this deal, rather just making less money for my time but in return I'm getting exposure I need and know I will take care of my clients and encourage them to continue returning. It's probably not for everyone, but I'm really looking forward to the new clients this deal will bring my way.

I joined ideeli a while ago and also sent invitations to my husband and my mother-in-law. Both of them placed orders, and while they did not receive the merchandise in a very timely fashion - both were satisfied with their purchases. Last week I placed an order with ideeli and received a a confirmation receipt. The next day I got an e-mail from ideeli saying my order had been cancelled due to "fraud". No explanation, just a curt, rather rude e-mail notice accusing me of fraud! When I inquired via e-mail I was told that there were 3 accounts at my address (yes, there ARE 3 people that live at my home...) and that was fraudulent practice. I sent an e-mail back explaining the circumstances and never received a reply. I think it is very bad customer service to just send an e-mail cancelling an order and accusing the customer of "fraud". I will cancel all three of our accounts and continue to use sites that have excellent customer service such as Rue La La and MyHabit. Al 3 of us that live at the same address are allowed to have acccounts - and believe me, we use them frequently. I will NEVER use ideeli, or refer to them again. Oh, and by the way... I found the item I tried to purchase from them (and they cancelled) at a much better price with free shipping on another site! UPDATE**I thought I would e-mail ideeli customer service one more time to give them a chance to make things right. Sent them an in depth e-mail describing my experience. I got back a one-line response... Thanks for contacting us, we'll cancel your accounts... No apology or attempt to retain me as a customer, yikes! With service like this (and sites that review it), I doubt they will be around to alienate customers for much longer!

Their merchants are really aiming to loose customers even before having them!
Besides some scammers, like PEARL NATIONAL, others just take a month or more to conclude the transaction and send you the items you ordered (EXTREME FLIERS & mygadgetsandgifts).
The PEARL NATIONAL situation is serious though: I've spent £90 for a stupid teeth withening session, but these people have disappeared before I could take my session. And it has been impossible even for Groupon to reach them apparently.
But yet, after more than 1 month, I'm still waiting the decency from Groupon to refund me. I. E. Customer service is pretty bad!
They have sure lost a good client... and everyone else I can tell my story too!

GROUPON makes deals with merchants and then leaves them hanging after they have collected their monies from unsuspecting customers. They do a terrible job of explaining to unsuspecting customers the "actual deal" that they (GROUPON) made with the merchant. Most merchants only get 25% of the take and are left to provide extra customer support to answer the myriad of questions generated by the deal... Most businesses can not survive with that small margin. GROUPON refuses to send reminder emails re-stating the terms of the deal and the proper procedure to receive your 50% (or plus) discount. Customers then retaliate against the business unaware of the "actual" deal that was made with the merchant. Expect a class action lawsuit against GROUPON in the near future!

I have ordered a product through groupon called the Magic Decanter which is a red wine airator thing to apparently make red wine taste better.
I ordered it over a month ago now and I still haven't received it. I've contacted the Magic Decanter company and no response. I've emailed Groupon twice and no response, I've phoned numerous times and NO ONE ANSWERS!

Their customer service is APPALLING.

How do i go about getting my money back and reporting these two outrageous, money grabbing companies that need to be shut down?

If anyone can help or has had a similar experience, please let me know.

I ve made a purchase from the Belgian branch of Groupon ( a toy for my nephew). As it was not delivered, I called the customer service. I was told that I had to wait 21 working days. After waiting and still not getting delivered, I called them again. This time, I was told that the legal delay for getting a refund (2 weeks in belgiumP) had expired. Now they are not even answering me emails. Groupon stole approx. 100 USD from me. I intend to sue them..

I've had several Groupon deals cancelled on me, not to mention miss selling. I was bought a Kite Surfing Lesson, thankfully I called a head and the person running it confirmed it was flying a kite on the beach and I would go nowhere near the water. He said if I was interested in Kite Surfing I should save my money and do the full lesson! I've spend hours complaining to and about Groupon but they seem to be protected and nothing major has happened even though their own social media links are full of complaints. If you want a laugh send them an email complaining and then post on their Facebook page your issue. They will reply via Facebook within 30mins offering a tailored service to fix the problem and all you have to do is drop them an email. After two weeks of playing the game I never actually got an email just the promise in an open social media environment that they would help! I wonder why!

Groupon is an amazing idea but when you speak to retailers they say the deals are never realistic and they are forced to offer massive discounts that they know are unsustainable. In their T&Cs if you offer a groupon deal they can't offer another deal to any other customer! Yeah right, like Groupon have that much control over the world! I've experience twice myself that they have over sold deals and broken T&Cs only to blame the other company, I'm happy to send round all my evidence to people.

Great idea, run by idiots and unfortunately it looks like they are slowly doing more harm than good with their antics. As with other comments its only until you mention trading standards that they sit up and listen, I've also found that if you tell them that a colleague agreed and you have email confirmation they never check and do what you want otherwise you get a "computer says no" answer!

Personally they have a good idea but are just thick, stupid and conmen! Why over sell the deals, why lie to customers and why don't they solve the issues rather than worrying about their image on social media sites!

I'm writing this minutes after receiving my package. I have to admit, I was extremely skeptical of my transaction after reading this site last week. I had a full order placed in the shopping cart and then chose to abandon it after reading numerous bad reviews. BUT, a few days later I found two items that were must-haves and I was willing to take my own risk.

I order a sweater that I've always wanted, and boots that I've owned previously but wore them to the brim! I was even more skeptical because my order would be non-returnable--fearing that something could be wrong with the product since I subjected myself to read multiple bad reviews.

BUT ALAS! Items shipped in 6 days... I'm wearing them... no explosions yet. The boots fit differently than the ones I owned last year (which makes me speculate maybe Ideeli gets the WOMP overstock of brands) but that's okay. The sweater is warm and stylish.

All in all, I've had a great experience. I enjoy their website, I think graphically it has a better lay-out than Rue La La. I will definitely shop there again.

I've spent over $1500 on nearly 40 items over the last year from Ideeli. The more I deal with them, the less satisfied I am.

To begin, the site has a lot of label overlap with other sites like Hautelook, but without the value. You can expect to pay at least 30-50% more for the same item at Ideeli. Also, there's a lot of redundancy. I've seen items regurgitated several times over the course of a few weeks with little to no price change.

Quality control is horrible from site presentation to shipping and customer service. I could go into a lot of detail concerning the fidelity of the images on the web-site (color, sizing, etc.), packaging (ripped, destroyed packages really; inadequate tape; bundling items to skim on shipping charges; dumping to Post Office for delivery; high $10 initial shipping charge), slow response to e-mail inquiries, failure to respond accurately to return requests, inadequate inspection of merchandise for sale (like delivering pink underwear that's described and shown as very red), damaged items, wrong items, mis-labled items.

In particular, my last return involved several of the above issues all rolled into a prime example of how poorly this company executes. I ended up paying $40 in shipping for return items that didn't fit, were damaged, or not what I ordered.

The bottom line is that this company doesn't measure up to the competition, and there's no reason to do business with them. Once my store credit is used, I'll be adding them to the spam filter.

Generally have good experiences here, I buy somewhat often from here. Recently had a negative experience - I bought a wool winter coat. Waited about a month for it to be delivered, shipping times always take forever! When I got it I tried it on, it fit great, decided I wanted to keep it, so I cut the tags off and hung it up.
First time I wore it, the buttons popped off. So I sewed them back on and continued to wear it. Two weeks later, more buttons pop off.
I understand the occasional mishap, but there's no reason a $130 coat should be so flimsy and falling apart when it's brand new.
Contacted customer service to see if it was possible to return due to poor quality. Was given a $15 voucher to buy my own buttons! WTF?
Now I look like a bum wearing a coat with mismatched buttons that is supposedly designer and of the highest quality...
I will think twice about purchasing anything from them from now on.

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've purchased and used 8 Groupons. Six went very well. GrouponNow is awesome and introduced me to a great new lunch spot. The two that didn't go perfectly were not Groupon's fault, one was with Full Circle Farm in Seattle (not a great company/merchant) and the other was the Old Navy Groupon (this was my fault - I didn't read the fine print before purchasing).

Reading the other reviews on this site inspired me to write this review... There seems to be a trend of people with only one review posting similar negative experiences, which makes me suspicious. For those of you posting negative reviews because you didn't read the fine print - please take this as a lesson learned, on the internet text is how merchants communicate important things to you. The policies of a coupon are important, so there is no one to blame but yourself if you chose to purchase before reading!

Groupon and almost every other daily deal site out there takes a size-able cut of revenue brought in from the offer (approx. 50%). If this is offensive to you as a buyer, then show your support by visiting the merchant and paying full price, daily deal sites are not for you. If you are a merchant and you cannot afford this offering, then don't offer a Groupon. It always blows my mind when merchants report after the fact how much money they lost... of course it cost you money to run a Groupon, it's a marketing expense. If you are a super small business owner that knows more about what you're selling than running a business, skip Groupon, skip Living Social, skip paid online marketing. You should never embark on any marketing venture that you haven't pumped the numbers for FIRST. Complaining about the numbers after the fact, is kind of like a student not studying for a test, failing, and then blaming his teacher for his/her failure. And you can't blame the sales person either. As a business owner, if you do not have the will to say no to a sales person when you know they are selling something that you don't need, then you are in big trouble.

This is the worst online shopping portal i have ever seen. I ordered 3 items and that too one month back and its not yet received. However the estimated shipping date in the beginning itself was too far from the date of my purchase. Now they have even crossed their own deadline without even informing me. Also be very careful when you are buying some stuff from Ideeli becoz if you want to refund the item back, they will not return your money rather they will store the same in store credit of Ideeli acct, so now u will suffer again purchase something from them.