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Gareth J.

2
Level 2 Contributor
Cheshire, UK

Contributor Level

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1,430

10 Reviews by Gareth

  • Terraonion Web

1/28/19

During the expansion of my games room, I had decided that I wanted to get a Neo Geo system.

I'd actually wanted a Neo Geo for a long time but had been put off by the crazy prices of the games, with some going for over £1,000 each! When I learned that an Everdrive-like cartridge had recently been made available for the system though, I decided it was time to jump in.

I purchased the NeoSD for the AES from Terraonion on the 11th of January which was a Friday. I then continued to browse forums and discussion groups for information on what else I should pick up the eventual result of which was that I actually decided to get an MVS instead.

I contacted Terraonion the next day on the Saturday to ask them to please cancel the order as I had decided to get the MVS rather than the AES.

I didn't actually tell them this as I saw no need to, but my plan was that once the order was cancelled I would place another order for the MVS version of their cartridge.

I heard nothing back from Terraonion all day Saturday, and I heard nothing on Sunday either.

On Monday the 14th, I received a rather snotty email from Terraonion telling me that it was not possible to cancel an order once it had been made, and that I would have known that had I read their terms and conditions:

As per our terms and conditions, once an order is submitted it cannot be cancelled and refunded. When you placed your order there was a checkmark box and link to the terms that you agreed to. If you had any questions about those you should have emailed us after reading them and prior to submitting your order.
- Todd, Terraonion.

In addition, I was notified that my order was dispatched.

It seemed that Terraonion chose to ship an order that the buyer had cancelled two days prior even though he clearly didn't want it, rather than cancel the order and issue a refund.

I guess they banked on me deciding not to return the item and keeping it (maybe I'd love it too much or think return shipping was too expensive?) so that they could keep my money.

Of course I know my consumer rights so I informed Todd that their plan to force me to keep an item I clearly didn't want wasn't going to work because I would simply refuse to accept the delivery. The item would be returned to them by the courier and they would end up having to refund me anyway.

Also, because of the way he had handled this case, I told Todd about my original plan but that I had now decided not to purchase the MVS version of the card from them and would instead get it used from eBay so as not to support a business with such practices.

On Tuesday the 15th, UPS turned up at my door with the package. As promised, I refused delivery. The UPS guy confirmed that it would be sent back to the merchant.

Refusing delivery means the item was never in my possession, which means it was never my responsibility.

By Tuesday the 22nd, I still hadn't received my refund so I emailed Terraonion for an update. They replied with a short note to say that it had not yet arrived. Given that it had arrived with me in a day, I wasn't sure I believed that it hadn't arrived back with them in 7 days so I responded.

In my response I asked why it was taking so long to get back to them and why I was being made to wait so long for my refund given that the item never actually came into my possession. I pointed out that this was not a return where they had to inspect the contents of the package it was being returned to them by their trusted courier as an unopened package that had been refused by the recipient and to which they had tracking information.

Terraonion did not respond.

The next day, Wednesday the 23rd, I emailed them again and told them that I was going to give them until the end of the week to issue the refund and that if they did not, I would initiate chargeback proceedings through my credit card.

The chargeback facility is a service provided by credit card companies to ensure that buyers are never left out of pocket by rogue sellers. Whether purchased items don't match the seller's description or if they don't even arrive at all, chargebacks allow the buyer to reclaim their money. There are fees associated with this though which the seller is liable for, and being subjected to a chargeback means a cost for the seller of anything between 1-2x the cost of the item itself. On a £400+ item, that's not an insignificant cost.

As such, a chargeback wasn't something I took lightly since it was never my intention to inflict such charges on the company, but I'd be damned if I was just going to let them ignore me and keep my money.

Unbelievably, two further days passed without response from Terraonion and Friday the 25th arrived. It was like they wanted to incur chargeback fees! I was left with no choice but to file a chargeback claim against the company, which is now in progress.

In Summary

Terraonion have a really terrible attitude.

Telling a customer who cancelled an order a full 2 days before it was dispatched that they were going to be sent the item regardless because cancellations are "not allowed" is just poor.

Even if there was some law in Spain that said orders cannot be cancelled under any circumstances (there isn't), then they could have reminded me of my consumer rights and advised me to simply refuse to accept the delivery. They didn't. Instead, they referred me to their terms and conditions which supposedly said orders couldn't be cancelled. I say supposedly because I didn't bother reading them because it's irrelevant what they say since they cannot supersede consumer law anyway.

Over TWO WEEKS after I cancelled my order for an item that was never in my possession, I am still waiting for my refund.

I was forced to go to my credit card company and to initiate chargeback proceedings against Terraonion to recover my money.

Update #1

I posted the above to the Terraonion support forums (complete with a link back to here) at the same time this post went live. By the next day, the post had been removed (thankfully not before it had been viewed many times) and without any kind of response from Terraonion. They didn't message me on the forums, they didn't post a comment on here and they didn't reply to my last email.

It's clear then that Terraonion are seeing these posts and are fully aware of the situation, yet they are not taking any steps to rectify it and the last communication I received from them was that email on the 22nd.

I re-posted the deleted post to their forum. I thought it would be interesting to see if they continued to censor me or if they would decide to deal with this situation in the manner in which they should have in the beginning and issue my refund.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given their behaviour to date, they deleted the 2nd post too. And this time they also deleted my account, preventing me from posting it again.

This is the type of people I'm dealing with here.

Update #2

Shortly after this review went online, Terraonion wrote to me and told me they would refund the cost of the card itself but not the cost of the shipping. So despite the fact that their broken procedures had led to them shipping an item 2 days after it had been cancelled, they wanted me to pay for that.

I told them more than once that this was unacceptable but they didn't seem to get it. I even explained to them in an almost paint-by-numbers fashion how it is not the customer's fault if a company's processes are so broken that it can lead to them dispatching items that were cancelled 2 days prior. So far, I'm still trying to make them understand this.

Unbelievably though, the focus of their responses to me is that they are unhappy that they are receiving emails from the reviews sites to which I am posting reviews! Yes, you read that right. I've been forced to post negative reviews on a company that is just completely clueless on customer service, and their number 1 focus is not how to make the situation right, but to stop getting emails from those reviews sites.

You couldn't make it up.

  • UberUpload

5/29/19

I had found an archive hosted on UberUpload that I was interested in downloading. As usual, I tried the free links first only to find that the speeds were poor and the downloads kept dropping out after approximately half way through.

I was sucked in by the advertising that promised unlimited download speeds and bandwidth, and signed up for a so-called "premium" account with the 1 month deal for $11.99.

Unfortunately, the service didn't improve and the speeds continued to be unusable, with a 1gb file estimated to take 2 days to download - and that was only when the connection actually succeeded, as I was more often provided with "download quota exceeded" errors when initiating the download.

I tried logged out and back in. I tried clearing my cache. I tried using a download manager. Nothing made any difference.

I sent the helpdesk a message which, 2 days later still has not replied.

I found a representative on Reddit (/u/UberUpload) and this guy actually responded. However, it quickly became clear that this person wasn't the most honest.

First he/she claimed that everything was fine on the site and there were no problems. Apparently they tried logging in as me and were getting uncapped 20mbit/s.

When I provided a screenshot of my download progressing at 5kbit/s, they said it must be my connection - despite the fact that I had already told them that I had ruled out my connection. So I provided another screenshot showing a download from another site at just under 80mbit/s.

This representative then claimed to have found a problem on the site which they had reported, and said I could either have a refund or wait for the problem to be resolved and that I would receive a week's free service in compentation.

By this time I was done with the site. Not only was the service terrible but I felt I couldn't believe a word this representative was saying. So I chose the refund.

I have not heard anything from the representative since - not even despite having sent them additional messages. I have received no refund.

I've opened a claim on PayPal and am now posting reviews on this unprofessional, amateurish company and their inferior services. Avoid. Use an alternative.

  • Gray Weddings

11/3/18

Update:

It appears that Edward Gray, the person who made our experience with Gray Weddings so utterly painful, has another company: Jackson & Gray. They don't have a review on here yet but they do have a couple (both 1 star) over at Wedding Wire.

Perhaps this is why Edward told us that he was winding down Gray Weddings?

I cannot imagine that your experience would be any different with Jackson & Gray as it would be with Gray Weddings so I'd avoid them both - as well as any others where Edward Gray is involved. Do your research - you have been warned!

Original Review:

If all you want is to know whether you should use their services, the short answer is most
Definitely no. They are by far the worst service providers I have ever had the misfortune of using - for anything - ever.

We had to wait almost a year to get our videos despite persistent chasing, during which time we were subjected to a wide array of bizarre excuses. Edward in particular seems to have a different excuse for everything, none of which actually make any sense. By the end of our experience I couldn't believe a word the guy said.

Gray Weddings repeatedly ignored our requests for updates, and yet when I sent an enquiry from a fake email account they responded immediately! And when I revealed my
True identity they complimented me on my "clever way of getting through"! Why should a paying customer need to come up with a "clever way of getting through"?

Once they have your money, they don't care. They are all about getting new business. And they like to get your money out of you as quickly as possible with "special once-only"
Offers... except of course these offers are made over and over. It might be because they want to buy a drone (which I'm yet to see), because they're changing address or because they're seeking investment with some new business plan - but in all cases they just want to part you with your money as quickly as possible to make it harder for you to pull out when their poor service is uncovered.

Unfortunately the full review is too long to post here because I included email exchanges with Edward that show exactly how terrible the service was. Check out my blog at gareth.uk where the whole sorry story is detailed.

Service
Value
  • Dreamstime

6/23/22

I've been subscribed to Dreamstime for about a year now, and in that time have cancelled my subscription twice only to renew it again after they sent me a discount offer.

First, the good.

Dreamstime has a wide selection of the types of images that I like.

Content discovery is also pretty good due to the fact that on each image they will also provide more images of the same kind, more images featuring that model/location and more images from the photographer.

Those two combined mean that I have downloaded a lot of images from the site over my subscription period.

Now the bad.

As I said, I've cancelled twice in that time only to be tempted back by slashed prices. Why? Because the site is INCREDIBLY frustrating to use and although they claim that feedback is important, I've raised my concerns with them on multiple occasions and nothing has changed.

If you view too many photos in a short period of time when just using the site at a casual pace, it will suddenly decide that you must be a bot and it will present you with a page where you must hold down your finger on a button for a period of time to prove that you are a human.

But this test often doesn't work, failing to return you to the site. It just hangs there. Refresh the page and you have to start all over again. Try another image instead and you have to try all over again. I've done the test 5 times in a row and it still wouldn't let me back in.

The real kicker is that it does this even for logged-in users with active subscriptions and hundreds of downloads available on their account! Lol!

If I've paid for 500+ images every month, why would it even matter if I was using a bot to download them? As long as I'm just downloading the images I've already paid for, who cares how I do it, right?

Except I'm not even using a bot to download images - I'm just casually opening images in tabs, viewing them and then deciding if I want to download them or not. Like a normal human would do.

Even for the short period of time that you are able to view and download images before the site decides that you are a bot and locks you out, the downloads are incredibly slow. You hit the download button and then have to wait 3-5 seconds for the site to finally decide to give you the file. Multiply that across however many images you have in your download allocation for that month and that is a LOT of waiting around looking at loading spinners.

I've saved a list of the images that I want to check out and I am slowly working my way through the images every month. Once I've checked them all out, I plan to cancel my membership for a third and final time purely because of how frustrating and terrible the user experience is.

Service
Quality
  • Burningrubbertoycompany

8/18/21

Burning Rubber Toy Company (BRTC) sells diecast models to kids and collectors around the world. They do so mostly from a store on eBay.

You'd think they'd learn how to use their primary point of sales but apparently this is beyond their abilities: if you try putting together an order that consists of more than a single model, you then have to email them with a list of the cars you want so that they can put together a custom listing for you (!), in order for them to apply the necessary shipping discount.

What everyone else in the world does is simply set up rules via eBay's simple templating system that applies such discounts automatically, allowing a seamless transaction for all involve. Not so with BRTC.

The fact that BRTC does it manually means that you can wait several days for this custom listing to be created, during which time some of the models you wanted to purchase have already been purchased individually by someone else.

BRTC will happily blame eBay and "bugs" in their system for this, even though it's clearly incompetence on their part. And as I discovered, if you cancel an order because some of the key models that you wanted have been snatched by someone else during the several days that you were waiting for them to create this custom listing for you, they respond like so:

"You [...] seem like you're a real class act so consider yourself blocked we don't ever want to do business with someone like you again we should've known better. You're freaking clueless about business by the time I was five years old I knew more about business than you ever will your entire life thanks for wasting our time"

I believe this communication is from Paul Meck, the seemingly clueless individual who proclaims himself "king" of BTRC on his LinkedIn profile.

If you're in the market for diecast models, there are far more competent suppliers that provide a much better service who are much more deserving of your money.

Tip for consumers:
Avoid Burning Rubber Toy Company. There are plenty of alternatives that will provide a much better service.

  • Bumpandbabes

6/24/22

I ordered a child seat that was for sale on the website on the 15th of June.

On the 18th of June, I noted that I hadn't received any kind of dispatch notification or any other kind of update, so I checked the website. My order was showing as having been placed, and nothing beyond that.

I emailed to ask for the status of the order, given that I had expected the order to have been dispatched by now, 3 days after it was placed.

The next day I received a phone call from a lady who advised that the seat was no longer available from the manufacturer. She didn't explain why the seat was still available to order on the website, given that they had no stock of it, but she said she could send me an alternative which was the newer type of the same chair, which apparently was available to them.

She was polite and apologetic, so I accepted the offer and waited for the dispatch notice.

No such notice came. On the 23rd, I emailed again to ask about my order.

On the 24th, having received no reply to my email, I called again. This time I spoke to someone else who I got the strong sense couldn't really be arsed. She claimed to have emailed me about the order that morning, though I had no email in my inbox or spam folder. She then mumbled something about having been trying to get hold of the supplier who hadn't replied to her, which immediately rang alarm bells for me and so I cancelled the order.

There was no apology for messing me around, for the delays, for the wasted time or for not getting back to me.

The last thing she said was that "the manager is in a meeting at the moment but I'll leave a note so that they can refund you once they get out", and make of that what you will.

Having wasted nearly 2 weeks waiting for this chair when I could have bought it somewhere else and be using it by now, needless to say I won't be shopping at BumpAndBabes again.

Tip for consumers:
Go to John Lewis instead.

  • Incitynow.co.uk

4/10/20

Trustee Property Ltd. a. k. A. InCityNow a. K. a. Oracle Estates took over the management of one of our properties at the end of 2017, through a company called Trustee Property Ltd. The company comprised of Sharif Miah and Parvez Ahmed, both of whom are from Oldham. We dealt exclusively with Parvez who seemed very professional, and for a while things were running without issue but then suddenly Parvez left the business.

Sharif continued to pay rent on time but in every other way was setting off alarm bells left, right and centre. By now we had also signed over another property to Trustee Property Ltd. but Sharif was allowing insurance to lapse and council tax to go unpaid - which we had to chase him for repeatedly.

The bombshell came one day when he text to ask if we could send him our bank details as he had dissolved his company "on the advice of his accountant" and needed to pay us from a different account. With all the other warnings that he had set off over the last few weeks, dissolving the company that was contracted to manage our properties without any warning at all was the last straw. Conveniently enough, this action also voided our contract as it was explicitly listed as a prohibited action. Sharif also failed to come up with an alternative contract within an alloted time, voiding the contract a 2nd time over.

We got out. We took back the properties and changed the locks. Sharif protested but it was too late as his own actions had voided the contract between us, and this and many other actions (or inactions) beforehand had destroyed our trust and faith in him.

Three days later I received a call from Salford Council claiming that Sharif had a tenant on an AST at one of the properties. He hadn't mentioned her once, not even when we spoke on the phone as I was taking back the properties. This claim seemed unrealistic as the property she was supposedly renting had Booking.com reviews on it from just a couple of months before, during a time she claimed to be living there. Also, while I was there changing the locks, there were no signs at all of someone living there - nothing in the fridge, nothing in the cupboards. However Salford Council stated that with a signed AST, I would have to let her back in. There was no way to prove however that the AST hadn't just been printed and signed that day.

Thankfully the AST was due to expire in just 14 days' time, and this "tenant" of Sharif's assured us that she would be moving out of the property on or even before that date. On the date she was due to move out, the tenant claimed that she had contracted Covid-19 and had been told to stay put in our property, but that she could not pay rent as she had already paid rent and a deposit to a landlord who she could no longer contact.

Of course, none of this seemed true, but with a signed AST that would now default to a rolling monthly contract and claims of Covid-19, we obtained a Section 21 notice "just in case" while taking her at her word that she would be moving out once her isolation was over in 2 weeks.

Her isolation is now over and the tenant is claiming that she still cannot reach this landlord. The tenant has so far refused to contact the police nor the council to report this landlord, even though if he is real and has really taken rent and a deposit, refusing her entry to this other property is illegal.

The tenant has shown no interest in paying rent - neither reduced rent nor deferred rent. She has an entitled demeanour and talks to me like she is doing me a favour by refusing to engage on the subject of rent.

But what is really odd here is that she claims to be discussing everything with Sharif who has expressed glee via text message that she continues to stay at the property without paying rent, which leads me to suspect that they may be in this together.

I would therefore suggest that you stay away from Sharif Miah of InCityNow or Oracle Estates.

Tip for consumers:
Avoid at all costs.

Products used:
Property Management.

  • Oracleestates.co.uk

4/10/20

Trustee Property Ltd. a. k. A. InCityNow a. K. a. Oracle Estates took over the management of one of our properties at the end of 2017, through a company called Trustee Property Ltd. The company comprised of Sharif Miah and Parvez Ahmed, both of whom are from Oldham. We dealt exclusively with Parvez who seemed very professional, and for a while things were running without issue but then suddenly Parvez left the business.

Sharif continued to pay rent on time but in every other way was setting off alarm bells left, right and centre. By now we had also signed over another property to Trustee Property Ltd. but Sharif was allowing insurance to lapse and council tax to go unpaid - which we had to chase him for repeatedly.

The bombshell came one day when he text to ask if we could send him our bank details as he had dissolved his company "on the advice of his accountant" and needed to pay us from a different account. With all the other warnings that he had set off over the last few weeks, dissolving the company that was contracted to manage our properties without any warning at all was the last straw. Conveniently enough, this action also voided our contract as it was explicitly listed as a prohibited action. Sharif also failed to come up with an alternative contract within an alloted time, voiding the contract a 2nd time over.

We got out. We took back the properties and changed the locks. Sharif protested but it was too late as his own actions had voided the contract between us, and this and many other actions (or inactions) beforehand had destroyed our trust and faith in him.

Three days later I received a call from Salford Council claiming that Sharif had a tenant on an AST at one of the properties. He hadn't mentioned her once, not even when we spoke on the phone as I was taking back the properties. This claim seemed unrealistic as the property she was supposedly renting had Booking.com reviews on it from just a couple of months before, during a time she claimed to be living there. Also, while I was there changing the locks, there were no signs at all of someone living there - nothing in the fridge, nothing in the cupboards. However Salford Council stated that with a signed AST, I would have to let her back in. There was no way to prove however that the AST hadn't just been printed and signed that day.

Thankfully the AST was due to expire in just 14 days' time, and this "tenant" of Sharif's assured us that she would be moving out of the property on or even before that date. On the date she was due to move out, the tenant claimed that she had contracted Covid-19 and had been told to stay put in our property, but that she could not pay rent as she had already paid rent and a deposit to a landlord who she could no longer contact.

Of course, none of this seemed true, but with a signed AST that would now default to a rolling monthly contract and claims of Covid-19, we obtained a Section 21 notice "just in case" while taking her at her word that she would be moving out once her isolation was over in 2 weeks.

Her isolation is now over and the tenant is claiming that she still cannot reach this landlord. The tenant has so far refused to contact the police nor the council to report this landlord, even though if he is real and has really taken rent and a deposit, refusing her entry to this other property is illegal.

The tenant has shown no interest in paying rent - neither reduced rent nor deferred rent. She has an entitled demeanour and talks to me like she is doing me a favour by refusing to engage on the subject of rent.

But what is really odd here is that she claims to be discussing everything with Sharif who has expressed glee via text message that she continues to stay at the property without paying rent, which leads me to suspect that they may be in this together.

I would therefore suggest that you stay away from Sharif Miah of InCityNow or Oracle Estates.

  • Realty Management

8/5/19

These guys took over the management of my apartment building last year.

Since the start I've been a proactive property owner, maintaining my property to a good standard and paying all my bills on time.

Yesterday I had an enquiry about a possible leak from the apartment. As it was a Sunday and they were closed, I emailed them.

Today at 2pm I still hadn't heard anything back despite the issue obviously being important so I called.

They claimed not to have received the email and I had to explain two or three times when the email was sent and to which address. They just couldn't seem to wrap their head around this for some reason. Eventually I was transferred to a Mr James Coote who was responsible for the property so I set about asking him the questions I'd asked in the email.

Immediately the guy became aggressive and confrontational, threatening me with having to gain entry into the apartment to fix a leak if there was one and having all associated costs sent to me.

But I hadn't said I didn't want to fix the leak - I just wanted to know whether they had any options - like using the caretaker - to ensure there actually was a leak before I went ahead and paid £70+ for a plumber to come out which I don't think was an unreasonable request.

I ended up hanging up on him because he clearly had no interest in working with me here to get this issue resolved. I wouldn't bother calling them for anything again, and they've lost my support with any issues they may face with the development or its occupants.

  • Gamekool

3/2/17

I placed an order for 2x R4 Wood cards. They supposedly had 1700+ in stock.

3 weeks passed and my order was still "pending" so I cancelled and bought them elsewhere.

It took 2 emails and 48 hours for the order to finally be cancelled.

There was not even an apology.

I certainly wouldn't waste my time ordering from them again.

Gareth Has Earned 10 Votes

Gareth J.'s review of Gray Weddings earned 2 Very Helpful votes

Gareth J.'s review of UberUpload earned 2 Very Helpful votes

Gareth J.'s review of Terraonion Web earned 4 Very Helpful votes

Gareth J.'s review of Dreamstime earned a Very Helpful vote

Gareth J.'s review of burningrubbertoycompany.com earned a Very Helpful vote

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