IdentityDirect.co.uk reviews

I attempted to order 2 books from IdentityDirect yesterday. I had a 20% off coupon code that expired that day (10/31/11). The page that requested the coupon code indicated that it was accepted and showed my 20% discount being taken. However, on my "order review" page, the coupon was missing and I was being charged full price. Thus began my journey with customer service.

1) I called and spoke with Mark. He told me that this sometimes happens with coupon codes and that I should go ahead and submit the order. He assured me that the 20% off would be taken off in my confirmation order which I would receive in an hour. I took his word for it and did this. He did say it could take up to 3 hours for my order to appear in their system, and, of course, their office closed in 3 hours. Since my coupon code expired THAT DAY, I expressed this as a concern and he said it would not be an issue.

2) My confirmation email came immediately and did not include the 20% off so I called customer service and spoke with Derek. Derek told me it would take 10 minutes for the order to appear in the system and to call back then.

3) I waited 20 minutes and called back and spoke with Earnest. Earnest told me that it would take until the next morning for the order to appear in the system. He told me that whoever told me 10 minutes was "just trying to get me off the phone." Nice, huh? He gave me his direct number and told me that if I called first thing the next day (8:00 AM Central time), he would give me 30% off for my trouble.

4) At 8:20 AM the next day, I called Earnest's direct number... which, of course, was the wrong number. I can't swear that it wasn't an error in how I wrote it down, but with the rest of my experience, I'm pretty sure he gave me a phony number.

5) I called the regular customer service center and spoke with a woman (not sure of the name). She originally told me that Earnest was not available. I explained the situation and was put on hold for a long time. She finally came back and told me that they were willing to give me the 20% off but indicated that they were doing me a favor because the coupon code had expired the day before. She told me that there was a "miscommunication" about the 30% off from Earnest - NO THERE WAS NOT. I am 100% confident that is what he told me, so I asked to speak to a supervisor.

6) I then spoke with a supervisor, Kristen. She told me that she had spoken to Earnest and that he said he only promised me the 20% off. Again, this is an outright LIE. I was so furious at this point that I just cancelled the order.

We'll see if the order actually ends up being cancelled. I have not received a confirmation yet, and, after the rest of this experience, I can see them just sending it and charging me full price anyway.

BEWARE!

Ordered child's personalised music box and christmas ball. These were never delivered. They re-ordered it again - still no delivery. Excuses ranges from 'it was posted in New Zealand/Australia' or 'Royal Mail should have delivered it by now'. Still waiting for a refund of my money.
I am thinking this company can't cope with the number of orders they get or they are scamming people.

I am wondering if this is a way to get credit card and identity information. I ordered from them a children's book with my nephew's name and city and state in it. This was 2 months ago and on November 11, they sent an email stating that the book had been sent to the printers. Today, December 12, I received an email stating that the order had been cancelled and no explanation was given.