LocalFlavor

Don't fall for their Games, and antics. I had a horrible experience last year when I bought two $15 gift cards for $30 worth of food and a month and a half later when I went to use them they would not except them. First embarrassment than anger, then I had to buy everything full retail which was not in my budget. They should have not only refunded my money which eventually they did but they should have given me another gift card free of charge for the embarrassment and hassle of having to deal with A gift card that is not excepted because they screwed up and kept selling them after their contract was canceled. I spoke to the regional manager of Newks and he instructed me that they canceled their contract in July of last year and I bought my coupons in October. So somebody scamming somebody and I guess they wanted to hold my money along with everyone else's money in hopes that I may not use the coupon and it will expire. That is an underhanded snake in the grass move and I won't let it happen again. I will not use Local flavor until I understand that they are not scamming me and using certain antics like selling me a gift card that is not going to be able to be used in hopes that I will not try to use it and it will expire and they'll make their money on me regardless. It's not a good way to do business. No one has reached out to me after I sent an email with the problem all they did was refund the amount of the two gift cards and that's it thanks for embarrassing me in front of tons of people that I do business with. Never again

They do not stand behind their deals. And are rude about it. When a merchant refuses to honor, their response is "Tough."

Local Flavor deserves each and every one of the poor, poor, poor, poor reviews that have been posted about them!

I purchased three Local Flavor certificates for a pizza restaurant I really like. One was to expire at the end of this month and the other two sometime in the future. I learned that the restaurant was temporarily closed due to do some remodeling and would not be open until after one of my certificates expired. I left several voicemail messages and never had a call back. I sent them an email and explained the situation and indicated that I had 3 certificates for the restaurant and that I wanted to get my money back for ONE of the certificates... the one expiring during the time the restaurant was going to be closed. The idiot CANCELLED all 3 of the certificates! I blew a gasket and explained that THEY had obviously had not read my email asking them to refund me for just the one certificate and that since it was THEIR error, I needed the other 2 certificates re-instated. The representative (Jackie K.) became quite rude in our communications and told me that once cancelled they cannot reinstate a certificate and I will need to buy new ones. Unfortunately the restaurant is no longer selling them because they have had nothing but problems dealing with Local Flavor, so I am SOL. I will NEVER buy from them again.

This is one of those pay-for-discount sites like Groupon - you pay them up front for a "deal" that's worth more than what you paid, which gives you a certificate to present to a participating merchant. You might pay $20 and receive $30 at a local restaurant, for example. The risk is that the merchant might go out of business before you show up to redeem your certificate, in which case you've lost your money.

Except it's not supposed to work that way - the actual money you invested in the certificate is supposed to be refundable in such a case (in the example above, you should get your original $20 back from the company who runs the site). Risk-free, right?

So I took advantage of a LocalFlavor "sale" and purchased a "deal" for a reduced up-front cost. The restaurant, however, went out of business, and I contacted LocalFlavor, who offered me a refund of my out-of-pocket cost in one of two forms: either a credit-card refund or a site credit. The credit-card refund, she explained, would take weeks to process (really? And why is that?), whereas the site credit would be instant. I opted for the latter, so I could use my credit to take advantage of another "sale" that was in progress, and get myself another great deal.

But it was never explained that the so-called "site credit" is not a credit at all - it's a coupon to be redeemed on the LocalFlavor site. A coupon that is Not Combinable With Any Other Offer (such as their sale.). The "credit" is therefore worthless -- it's equal to the value of coupons that LocalFlavor regularly offers subscribers. LocalFlavor pushed me into foregoing the credit-card refund in favor of accepting the worthless "site credit" and now says there's nothing I can do about it.

Well, there's one thing I can do about it - I can warn people not to get ripped off like I did!