Jess M.

LivingSocial and its deals are great until you have an issue and seek customer service. Unfortunately, this has been my experience over a half a dozen times in the past few years, so I don't think I've had a fluke experience. I honestly believe it's part of their business format.

This is the second time in about 5 years that I have attempted to take advantage of the Me + 3 Deal offered by LivingSocial. It's also the second time it hasn't worked. And the 2nd time that LivingSocial has tried to say "too bad" instead of recognizing the intent and assisting in resolving the issue.

To be fair, there was user error involved both times. The first time we tried, I was actually on a food tour of DC with a friend on a LivingSocial offer. While on the tour, we met another couple and started talking about a new LivingSocial deal for the tasting experience at Rogue 24. Despite being strangers up until that point, we decided to all go in on the deal together, to take advantage of the Me + 3 Deal on a LivingSocial deal that was still $100 at discount. The other couple used my link to purchase their deal, but purchased both of their deals together, not realizing it had to be 4 separate credit cards. I called LivingSocial immediately, was able to give them the purchaser names and purchase dates of all 4 purchases, and explained the situation. They pointed out the error, at which point I asked them if they could grant the deal anyway, or if we could transfer the funds for one of the deals to another credit card, but they refused. Their solution was to instead offer to refund us the deals altogether, and just have us not visit Rogue 24. Odd? I thought so. Instead of giving us 4 deals for the price of 3 ($300 total) under the Me + 3 Deal, they preferred to return all our money and keep $0. Lesson learned during this experience: make sure to ALWAYS use 4 credit cards to purchase the 4 deals.

Fast forward a few years, and a friend and I purchased a Skydiving Deal through LivingSocial... again an expensive deal still at $159 at discount. My friend successfully purchased his deal using my personal email link (we had discussed doing this ahead of time in case we had other friends want to join us later so we could take advantage of the Me + 3) and I got the confirmation email. We purchased our deals in February 2016. It wasn't until June 2016 that we convinced two other friends to join us, primarily because we said that we could recoup some of the costs when a 4th person purchased the deal.

When the 3rd and 4th purchased their deals, I was concerned that I did not get the same confirmation email that they had purchased deals using my link, and I called LivingSocial a few days later to ask them about it. I made a point of calling immediately because I knew we had a 7 day window to request a refund on these deals if we were not going to receive the Me + 3 deal. When I spoke to the customer service representative, she said it can take up to 30 days to process the refund. I said that was fine, but did it also take up to 30 days to get the email confirmation that a friend had purchased their deal using my link, because I had received the first email confirmation back in February almost immediately, and here it had been 2-3 days already. She said yes, and to just wait 30 days. I expressed further concern that 30 days would put me outside my window of being able to do anything about it, and she reassured me the issue was just that it needed time to process.

Not surprisingly, the email confirmations never came, and never did the $159 discount. I called back in August, and attempted to email them. And called again on September 20.

The representative, Lauren, was polite throughout our call, but was providing me incorrect information. She kept claiming that after purchasing their deals, my friends would also have to "register" and after much back and forth of me asking her what they had to register for, she said a LivingSocial account. I told her that they all had LivingSocial accounts, and had all successfully purchased their SkyDiving deals using their LivingSocial accounts as I had all of their purchase dates AND voucher numbers. So I kindly told her she was mistaken and this was not the issue.

She then proceeded to assess the situation further and provide a new response, reading a comment that was apparently entered into my account from a previous call. I told her that the comment was incorrect and nobody had informed me they were entering such a comment, and again after much back and forth, she realized she was reviewing comments related to my first Me + 3 issue back in 2012 or 2013 (she told me the comments didn't have dates on them).

I finally interrupted and told her AGAIN that I was concerned the issue was that I had provided the wrong link to my friends, a link FROM LivingSocial in my email from LivingSocial, but varying slightly from another link in another email saying this is your personal link. She then agreed that yes, that was the issue, but that it was required that that link be used.

I reiterated that I understood that, but that was why I had called in June (June 7 I believe it was - I have it in my records) within 7 days of purchase so that, if we had made such an error, we could request a refund and either repurchase using the correct link, or just not have our 4th friend join us, as they could not afford the full $159 deal.

After some additional back and forth, Lauren asked me to send an email with the names, voucher numbers, purchase dates, and any other supporting documentation to their customer support email, and gave me a Case # to use as the Subject line when I submitted. I sent that email on September 20. And I still have not heard anything back by email, phone, or otherwise from LivingSocial.

I have spent over $3000 on LivingSocial deals over the past 4 years, and obviously enjoy many of the deals they offer. However, my experience with Customer Service has never been pleasant. As with other reviewers on this website who requested refunds after having trouble contacting vendors or being refused service by vendors, I have also faced a lot of pushback from LivingSocial in offering these refunds. And furthermore, when they do offer the refund finally, they always try to give me DealBucks instead.

If they are unable to resolve this latest Me +3 issue for me in a very timely manner, I, unfortunately, will be shutting down my LivingSocial account, and spreading the word to my friends encouraging them to do the same. Groupon, Travelzoo, and many other sites out there offer comparable deals and much better customer service. And after years working in the customer service industry myself, I appreciate and fully believe that customer service makes or breaks a business.