Vikingdirect.ie

I needed some stamps quickly and was very reluctant to travel to the post office and mix with others because of rife Coronavirus in the area and both my wife's and my increased vulnerability. So, I searched online and this company featured as a solution. The extra cost for expedited postage, €5 for something less than a postcard, seemed excessive, but I felt it was worth it... NO, it wasn't! More than a month later I'm still trying to get a refund for a delivery that never arrived and have spent hours corresponding with robotic foreign support staff who simply tell me again and again that there are delays and it's not their fault! Firstly, after ordering, I learned that, even though I had chosen an Irish site, the product (Irish stamps) was to be sent from the UK, and with a small tax added "because of Brexit". I also received with the order confirmation a note to say that 24 hour delivery may not be possible during the pandemic and I may have to wait 72 hours. After 5 days I had received nothing and no updates. So I contacted support (not easy using the web form that cannot be submitted unless you add a valid invoice number that is not the same as the order number and is not available in your account in the web site, it can only be found buried in an email message that was sent when the order was placed). I was told to wait, there were delays. I waited a total of two weeks and noticed that my account on the web site stated that the order had been delivered... strange, as I had received nothing and any time I had tried to use the supplied tracking reference number I only received an error. I contacted support, who said no, package was in transit and just delayed. I said enough is enough please cancel. They said OK you will have your refund in 9-14 days. Meanwhile I ordered the stamps online from AnPost (why did I not do this to begin with I do not know). I got 30 stamps for €2 less than the 20 I ordered from Viking and they arrived next working day. 15 days after being told I would get the refund from Viking, I contacted them again. I got a sorry tale about them not having received the package back and so could not refund me. I got other messages from support apologising for the delay in delivery of stamps explaining that there were problems with the Irish warehouse and so they had to ship from UK, and Brexit and pandemic were causing delays... blah blah. I told them they did not need the returned item to refund what I had paid for more than one month earlier but had never received. Meanwhile my account on the web site still indicated that the item had been delivered. The tracking code was also now working and the detailed view showed that the package had never left the UK and had been on its way back to the source for 3 weeks but was continually being returned to the same mailing node in England. What a mess this company is in. What an abysmal support function with zero empathy for staff and either no case notes for support staff to share or else no ability of support staff to read and understand the English language. And always blaming their logistics partners is appalling. I have now been told *again* that the order has been cancelled and I should receive a refund in 14 days, six weeks after the order date... if it happens! In my opinion this company has only caused me a lot of precious wasted time. Someone should shut them down, they are not functioning competently. ————