Stephen F.

Another company sending out unsolicited emails that clog up your inbox. Please stop this desperate practice of trying to cold call people into giving you business.

Another company sending out unsolicited emails that clog up your inbox. Please stop this desperate practice of trying to cold call people into giving you business.

A reasonably priced source of vitamins that they claim are GMO free (I have my doubts as there doesn't seem to be any certification anywhere on the website or on the product labelling). Fairly quick shipping.

The main pain has been endless spam emailing on a daily basis (20 spam emails in the last week!), even after unsubscribing several times. I've had to resort to spam-filtering their email address because it's such a nuisance.

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MY RATINGS:

5 STARS PLUS! = Exceptional, with an unusually high standard of quality/ workmanship/ service/ communication, and zero problems. Highly recommended.

5 Stars = Great quality/ service/ value for money, with minimal problems. I would recommend.
4 Stars = Very good, and I would use again
3 Stars = Average, with room for improvement
2 Stars = Poor service or goods. I do not recommend.
1 Star = Gross incompetence/ dishonesty/ negligence. Stay away; the worst of the worst.

Excellent customer service from this company. I placed an order only to discover that the problem I was trying to fix required a completely different solution. I asked for a refund and the company were just as courteous and friendly in providing the refund as they were in taking the original order. This is how business should be conducted. I'll definitely use them again.

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MY RATINGS:

5 STARS PLUS! = Exceptional, with an unusually high standard of quality/ workmanship/ service/ communication, and zero problems. Highly recommended.

5 Stars = Great quality/ service/ value for money, with minimal problems. I would recommend.
4 Stars = Very good, and I would use again
3 Stars = Average, with room for improvement
2 Stars = Poor service or goods. I do not recommend.
1 Star = Gross incompetence/ dishonesty/ negligence. Stay away; the worst of the worst.

I'm grateful to Scottish Water, who responded fairly quickly to the over-flowing/ blocked drain on our property adjacent to the street. I fully expected the usual corporate refusal of responsibility that is so common today. So was very, pleasantly surprised at Scottish Water's efforts. Courteous emails and friendly, helpful workers who came out on two occasions to address the problem.

The only feedback I would offer is for the managers of the drainage workers to treat them with more respect. I overheard a phone call one of the guys had with his manager and it sounded as if these guys are not very well treated or valued.

Other than that: a big thank you to Scottish Water.

Three are a horrible company to deal with. In the last three months there have been outages and unavailable mobile service three times, each lasting several hours. Each time I've had to buy a third party sim card to cover Three's lack of service, in addition to paying the Three contract.

I've been unable to use the app, despite several attempts to get Three to fix the problem. To move from my old contract to a new one Three told me that to keep my old Three number I had to buy a third party sim card, transfer my number out, and then transfer it back into Three! I complained about all this, and they offered me £10. I'm now forced to seek a fair settlement via the Ombudsman. All I want to do is leave the 2 year contract I'm tied into, but without penalty, so that I can try to find a more reliable service.

UPDATE: The complaint to the ombudsman resulted in Three giving me £60 credit.

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MY RATINGS:

5 STARS PLUS! = Exceptional, with an unusually high standard of quality/ workmanship/ service/ communication, and zero problems. Highly recommended.

5 Stars = Great quality/ service/ value for money, with minimal problems. I would recommend.
4 Stars = Very good, and I would use again
3 Stars = Average, with room for improvement
2 Stars = Poor service or goods. I do not recommend.
1 Star = Gross incompetence/ dishonesty/ negligence. Stay away; the worst of the worst.

Really disappointed to learn today that Grahams are giving up on producing organic dairy. It's hard enough to find anything that is organic in supermarkets, apart from the token few items that mainstream supermarkets stock. But discontinuing organic items when farming around the world is under deliberate attack from governments is unconscionable. Farmers should be investing more in organics, not less. That means the public and governments should be investing more to keep organics alive. 'Organic', after all, only means 'uncorrupted by poison'.

Excellent website and organisation seeking to challenge the unethical rollout of 5G mobile telecommunications technology, which is untested. Pulsed microwaves are known to damage DNA, cause cancer and a multitude of other problems. The website is a crowd-funded legal campaign against the illegality of deploying dangerous microwave technology on the public.

Look up presentations by people like Barry Trower, microwave weapons expert, and others who have accumulated vast amounts of research evidence produced from as early as the 1950s, proving that pulsed microwaves, including wifi, cause cancer.

Good online source of organics, with country of origin stated for each item, helping us avoid places where standards are not guaranteed e.g. China. Prices are ok. In a world where natural food (and farming) is being destroyed y the likes of the World Economic Forum and their minions in governments around the globe, organic food is the last hope of sanity in an insane world.

Main downside is the checkout experience, which wouldn't allow me to pay by creidt card or to login. The BWFO 'cash' scheme and VIP scheme also proved unreliable, and the BWFO cash promised in one transaction was not logged onto my account, nor useable for further transactions.

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MY RATINGS:

5 STARS PLUS! = Exceptional, with an unusually high standard of quality/ workmanship/ service/ communication, and zero problems. Highly recommended.

5 Stars = Great quality/ service/ value for money, with minimal problems. I would recommend.
4 Stars = Very good, and I would use again
3 Stars = Average, with room for improvement
2 Stars = Poor service or goods. I do not recommend.
1 Star = Gross incompetence/ dishonesty/ negligence. Stay away; the worst of the worst.

We're a bit sick of being ripped off at Sainsbury's and have thrown in the towel now after paying way over the odds for basic shopping each week. Compared with other supermarkets and online retailers we'll be saving a good percentage off the already extortionate shopping bill each week. They sell batteries at the RRP we discovered at the checkout, where you can get the same items around 40% cheaper. Organic items are very often limited and out of stock when we go there.

I used Trustpilot for years until I became weary of the continual badgering and withdrawal of my reviews because vendors weren't happy with a negative rating. Trustpilot's system is seriously flawed because you can post a review and then be asked for 'evidence' of purchase or engagement with a company months or a year or so after posting the review. Unless you keep your review evidence in a file somewhere, this can mean legitimate reviews are deleted. Sitejabber's system of allowing you to upload a copy of a receipt, email or invoice etc at the time of writing the review is far better. It means you can be done with the review at the point of writing it, because the evidence is there.

Trustpilot also appears to be incentivised to bias reviews in favour of companies who pay them. I say 'appears' based on the trends I've seen in review ratings for extremely bad companies that have high ratings on Trustpilot and very low ratings everywhere else. This is also borne out by my direct personal experience of having legitimate reviews censored by them. Another downside is their way of calculating overall review scores, based on the rate of submission of reviews. This means that a good business that has only 5 star reviews, but which doesn't have a high frequency of review submissions, has a lower overall score than a business with a lot of review submissions. This creates an unfair bias against small businesses and sole traders, whilst favouring bigger companies and corporations. A small business with only 5 star ratings ends up with a score of 4.3 instead of 5, for example.

Very laborious and frustrating application process for a Business Account. I was on the verge of giving up due to the endless questions about which countries I would be trading with etc. Literally, the moment I decided to go to Monzo, Starling approved my application (this took about a week).

The app is simple and easy to use. And so far it's been problem-free. I opened a personal account in about 2 minutes via the app (easy no doubt due to the fact that I'd already survived the torture the first time). Let's hope Starling proves to be better and more ethical than Barclays, and more competent than Nationwide.

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MY RATINGS:

5 STARS PLUS! = Exceptional, with an unusually high standard of quality/ workmanship/ service/ communication, and zero problems. Highly recommended.

5 Stars = Great quality/ service/ value for money, with minimal problems. I would recommend.
4 Stars = Very good, and I would use again
3 Stars = Average, with room for improvement
2 Stars = Poor service or goods. I do not recommend.
1 Star = Gross incompetence/ dishonesty/ negligence. Stay away; the worst of the worst.

I applied to the Nationwide twice today. My credit score is excellent. On both occasions I went through the whole online process of having my credit checked and submitting photos of my ID. On both occasions I was sent an email that said 'we weren't able to open your account - please reapply'. I can't imagine who's running the Nationwide, but this is so incompetent and I've seen it as sufficient warning to move onto another bank.

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MY RATINGS:

5 STARS PLUS! = Exceptional, with an unusually high standard of quality/ workmanship/ service/ communication, and zero problems. Highly recommended.

5 Stars = Great quality/ service/ value for money, with minimal problems. I would recommend.
4 Stars = Very good, and I would use again
3 Stars = Average, with room for improvement
2 Stars = Poor service or goods. I do not recommend.
1 Star = Gross incompetence/ dishonesty/ negligence. Stay away; the worst of the worst.

I discovered that Barclays supports Israeli Apartheid and so decided to switch out of my account with them today. They have a good banking app, but is there any excuse for investing your money in a bank that holds over £1 billion in shares, and provides over £3 billion in loans and underwriting to 9 companies whose weapons, components, and military technology have been used in Israel's armed violence against Palestinians?

I bought a used Bravewood bass recently and am very impressed by the build quality and relic work on it. I also own Fender Custom Shop instruments and the quality of the Bravewood is easily as good as, if not better than, the CS. Definitely a keeper.

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MY RATINGS:

5 STARS PLUS! = Exceptional, with an unusually high standard of quality/ workmanship/ service/ communication, and zero problems. Highly recommended.

5 Stars = Great quality/ service/ value for money, with minimal problems. I would recommend.
4 Stars = Very good, and I would use again
3 Stars = Average, with room for improvement
2 Stars = Poor service or goods. I do not recommend.
1 Star = Gross incompetence/ dishonesty/ negligence. Stay away; the worst of the worst.

This is an excellent test site to help you determine the speed of your internet connection. It helped me confirm the difference between two different SIM cards that were allegedly connected to the same network provider (Three) but the speed of each card was radically different.

One of the worst courier services in the world in my opinion. They are not customer-friendly and are repeatedly incompetent. The latest experience involved waiting in all day for a delivery, then suddenly the tracking said the parcel was being returned to the depot, only two hours before scheduled delivery. The excuse was 'insuffiient address' when the parcel had all the correct details on the address label. Over half an hour to get through their stupid telephone menu to speak to an equally unhelpful agent who shed no light on the problem.
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MY RATINGS:

5 STARS PLUS! = Exceptional, with an unusually high standard of quality/ workmanship/ service/ communication, and zero problems. Highly recommended.

5 Stars = Great quality/ service/ value for money, with minimal problems. I would recommend.
4 Stars = Very good, and I would use again
3 Stars = Average, with room for improvement
2 Stars = Poor service or goods. I do not recommend.
1 Star = Gross incompetence/ dishonesty/ negligence. Stay away; the worst of the worst.

Bought an item from onbuy.com and have been plagued by emails ever since. There seems to be no way to unsubscribe (not that I remember subscribing in the first place). Spammers.

I switched from Three to IDmobile who use Three's network allegedly. Download speeds went from 137 Mbs to 11 Mbs with IDmobile under the exact same conditions swapping the Three SIM card to the IDmobile SIM card and back again several times.

Tried to sort this out via IDmobile's website but, as usual with these companies, they offer extremely weak, limited and hard to access support and now I'm going to cancel on Monday as I'm within the 14 day cooling off period apparently.

I'm so disgusted with companies like this. I'm giving 1 due to the service and hassle experienced. After hours of frustration I managed to return the contract due to being within the 14 day cooling off period. I did this via Live Chat. They then sent me a bill for £1.96 after telling me there was nothing at all to pay.

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MY RATINGS:

5 STARS PLUS! = Exceptional, with an unusually high standard of quality/ workmanship/ service/ communication, and zero problems. Highly recommended.

5 Stars = Great quality/ service/ value for money, with minimal problems. I would recommend.
4 Stars = Very good, and I would use again
3 Stars = Average, with room for improvement
2 Stars = Poor service or goods. I do not recommend.
1 Star = Gross incompetence/ dishonesty/ negligence. Stay away; the worst of the worst.

This is a good service that gave me a very quick online quote for scrapping my old car. The site is an agent for scrap dealers around the country and the dealer contacted me as per the site promise within 24 hours. The car was collected today and, again as promised, I was paid the agreed amount within a few hours.

There was a moderate degree of uncertainty about this process. The 'guaranteed price' isn't exactly clear as to how it is guaranteed and what this means for the customer's rights. I've read claims by other customers that they have not been paid the amount promised. This uncertainty/ anxiety until I was paid is the only reason I haven't given 5 stars on this occasion. Making the guarantee explicit would help reassure customers I think. Otherwise, the service is good, reliable and upfront.

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MY RATINGS:

5 STARS PLUS! = Exceptional, with an unusually high standard of quality/ workmanship/ service/ communication, and zero problems. Highly recommended.

5 Stars = Great quality/ service/ value for money, with minimal problems. I would recommend.
4 Stars = Very good, and I would use again
3 Stars = Average, with room for improvement
2 Stars = Poor service or goods. I do not recommend.
1 Star = Gross incompetence/ dishonesty/ negligence. Stay away; the worst of the worst.