Bert Conibear

Excellent service. David came next day from Truro was brilliant. Thoroughly recommend.

Love the products in general. Needed a replacement for one item, Taylor helped us out in getting the right replacement promptly dispatched. Recommend them.

Used shiney a few times, highly recommend. Excellent at what they do and always reliable.

Great service. Prompt, communicative, 10/10.

Few issues with the software a couple months after installation but the customer support was excellent. Managed to solve some of the problem quickly over the phone, rest took a bit of back and forth over email as well as making use of the online AI systems, but all in all it was a very well managed system. Happy with the products and service.

Excellent course. Learnt some valuable information, most drivers could do with this as a refresher every few years or so.

Muhammed sorted the issue right away. Been a smooth transition to Octopus, hopefully the right choice moving forward.

Very responsive and doing their best to deliver quickly. I ordered these only just a couple of days before a match. I dropped the team an email asking if they could get them in the post ASAP, and they responded quickly saying they'd get them out on next-day. Superb.

I ordered a round pole to fit in a round pole holder (also ordered from Primrose). It cost £60-odd quid, then they sent me a square post...

I've told them this via email and an online contact form, but they haven't replied after three days.

Impressed by the service. Clicked thru an IG ad because I know a lot of people my age have life insurance and I don't, then they called me back.

Polite, efficient, candid — v easy to get life insurance set up and for a seemingly reasonable price (that said, I'd say I'm a pretty easy cover given my health is in good nick).

Don't have experience of other firms, but I'd still recommend Tom, can't imagine others could do it better.

I might regret saying this if the tax man questions my return… but I don’t think I will. Crypto tax calculator seems like a really robust bit of software. Picks up all transactions across main exchanges, metamask, even OpenSea. Thankfully — the numbers seemed to align with my calculations on simpler CGT disposals. And when it came to my 200+ Eth transactions, it looks like it has reconciled them all. I checked out Koinly, but this one felt the simplest. Even if you have to correct buy prices (or make similar adjustments), it’s straightforward. Highly recommend based on my first return’s experience.

The item was time-sensitive as it is a filter for a mechanical ventilation unit.

That's why I needed an update on the estimated arrival time when my package didn't show, so I contacted the vendor several times.

In the first instance, they said the delivery time would be 3-5 working days (that would have meant the item turned up last Thursday).

To double-check it would arrive, I contacted the team on Thursday PM (as there was still no sign), and was told I would receive a call by yesterday at the latest to confirm the whereabouts of the package (the customer support reps cannot access the system that gives details of deliveries. They can only escalate the issue to the head office).

I did not receive a call, so I phoned the vendor again.

This time, I spoke to Lucy Rix who once again said she would raise the issue with head office. But this time, I was told there was no way to give a timeline as to when I should expect a response.

I twice tried to raise my concerns and was twice told to wait for a call — without yet receiving one — so I am no closer to knowing the whereabouts of my package (or if/when it will actually turn up).

Disappointing as I ordered from this company once before and they were very timely with their delivery.

I will have to look elsewhere moving forward, which is annoying as I will have to buy these filters a couple of times a year.

Really sharp. Guy turned up, tidied up western powers messy job, showed me how it worked, then odd he went.

Best experience I’ve had with an electricity company.

We bought an Elica extractor fan from Fab in mid-2020. Unfortunately, once we'd installed the hood, we noticed a defect that meant the hood sat at an awkward angle.

When we contacted Fab, they referred us on to the manufacturer, which was fair enough. Unfortunately, Elica's UK customer support is some of the worst I've ever encountered.

And the next six months resulted in endless back-and-forth as Elica UK (otherwise known as DR Cooker Hoods) did everything in their power not to resolve the situation.

Thankfully, Fab showed courtesy and patience (long after mine had worn out). And following a few more months of them chasing Elica's local team in Italy, we finally received a new cooker hood, sorting the issue.

Sure, receiving a defective product is frustrating, but it's not really the supplier's fault. And the fact that Fab worked so hard (and for so long) to help us resolve the situation is a credit to the business.

When you receive this level of customer support, you know you're dealing with a company that really wants to deliver outstanding service, no matter the circumstance.

All credit to Fab: I'd certainly recommend them based on my experience.

Super quick delivery. Wetsuit sizing guide was spot on. Delighted.

We bought a retractable mesh dog gate from Big Ralph a few weeks ago. Sadly, I didn't come to Trustpilot first as I would have known to look elsewhere, but hey ho.

Either way — the 15-day shipping date suggests Big Ralph simply acts as a middle-man, taking your money before getting a random supplier to ship their product to you (from what country, who knows).

That setup is fine if the product is good and the instructions are in readable English, but.

Our gate turned up with different hook attachments to those advertised, and they are not fit-for-purpose. But what's more frustrating is the product itself doesn't have any instructions of how to put up (it just has a barely understandable translated product description).

The reason I suggest this is a dropshipping store is that the support line is just a random mobile number, not very professional.

And when you call it, then text it, no-one replies or picks up, also not professional.

So we sent an email, asking for a response and saying we'd post on Trustpilot if one was not forthcoming and, again, no response.

So here we are.

Fair play to anyone for setting up a business. But if you do, make sure your products are good (or at least, they arrive as shown on your website) and that you offer a degree of customer support when the product isn't quite right.

Big Ralph doesn't do either, so you'd be better off buying from a reputable brand that is a similar cost and likely much better quality.

Lesson learned.

Case in point: Their Twitter account, which the company still links to on their website, does not even exist.
——
My Experience:

Since merging with (or being taken over by) SSE, Spark has downsized their team to such an extent that they are unable to resolve issues.

Here's my example.

I moved house on 6th January (23 days ago), which should have prompted a final bill, then generated a refund to be paid into my bank account (given my energy usage, this would be in the region of £200).

My account said there was a problem generating this bill.

I rang on the 13th of January and spoke with a gentleman named Vishal. He apologised, escalated the issue and confirmed his technical team would resolve it within 3-5 days.

Then....

— 5 days later, still the same issue, so on 20th of January, I spoke with a gentleman named Sachin Goendal
— He said the same: escalate and 3-5 days to resolve; I said I wanted to speak to his line manager, who he said would call me within 48 hours
— No-one called me, so I called again on 22nd of January
— Same rigamarole, promised a call by line manager within 48-hours, again, no call, no resolution.
— Today, 29th of January, I spoke with a lady named Tash Enaidoo. She said exactly the same and said there was nothing else Spark can do to move this along.

Worse, during this process, I was told that owing to cuts following the merger/takeover, there are no longer enough resources to handle the expanding volume of complaints.

You can see from all the recent reviews of Spark Energy the company is now broken. If you're with them, you're probably OK.

If you're thinking about using them, do not.

When it comes to leave, good luck.

On 18th December, TalkTalk was supposed to activate our internet connection at a new property.

Two OpenReach engineers arrived to do the work, did what they could but advised it would take another day before they could activate the connection on TT's behalf.

Two days passed, no engineer showed, so we called TalkTalk. TalkTalk apologised for the delay, scheduled another engineer to arrive on 23rd December, so we waited.

On the 23rd December, no engineer showed up (and TalkTalk didn't alert us that they wouldn't). We called again, spoke to a gentleman named Collin who assured us he would resolve the issue, arrange an engineer, escalate our complaint to the CEO's deparment and shadow our case until it was resolved.

As part of the chat, he also sorted an engineer visit for the 29th of December.

For some unknown reason, an engineer knocked on our door on the 24th of December. This was unscheduled, and TalkTalk did not tell us this would happen.

Our spirits lifted. However, they sank just as quickly as the engineer said he didn't know why he was there, the line was not yet active and TalkTalk should have sorted an engineer to activate the line before his visit.

So, time to wait for Collin to come through for us on the 29th of December. But as we might have guessed, no engineer arrived on the 29th, TalkTalk didn't tell us why and, when we finally got through to an off-shore service agent, we were told they had no record of a scheduled visit.

Huh? But there 'was nothing they could do' aside from schedule a call with complaints and book another engineer visit.

We've actually had 4 callbacks scheduled with the complaints department. And NOT ONCE has a member of their team contacted us.

Every time, we have had to contact them. That is despite four missed engineer visits and an escalation on our original complaint.

Things have now come to a head as on 5th January, a TalkTalk employee named Stacey White (based in South Africa) booked us our fifth engineer appointment for 7th of January.

I explained the difficulties we've had and asked her to guarantee this visit would go ahead. She said she would try.

We called TalkTalk one day later to check the visit for the 7th was on track, only to be told TalkTalk had CANCELLED OUR ORDER — and this was without ever contacting us.

To be clear: we would not have known our account had been cancelled had we not decided to chase an engineer visit.

Major internet providers sign up to an industry-standard that offers compensation to customers when the provider fails to deliver the service.

— TalkTalk are 20 days overdue in delivering internet. The daily compensation is £5 per day, so £100.

— TalkTalk have cancelled 5 engineer appointments. The compensation per cancelled appointment is £25, so £125.

All in, TalkTalk would owe us £225 if we continued to try to get them to set up our account.

It now feels they're doing everything in their power to get us to go to another provider so that they do not have to pay any compensation.

Moreover, in claiming we cancelled our account, I wouldn't be surprised if they use this as a way out of paying compensation.

No matter what's going on in the world, this is no way to run a company.

I am truly disgusted by the way every line manager has dealt with our concern, the lack of response from the 'CEO Complaints Team' and the lack of communication when it's come to multiple issues and cancellations.

Bear in mind: we are two young parents who work from home — with a young child whom we have to keep stimulated.

I really hope Tristia Harrison is embarrassed by her company.

From Twitter, I can see we are not the only family struggling to get the company to provide any support — let alone offer an actual resolution.

(Side-note, given Karl's response: I have tried Twitter, phone calls and every channel under the sun — they have all been as useless as the last, offering spineless apologies like the one you see below).

I’ve always been impressed with A-plan — this time was no different.

Helpful, knowledgable and sorted a reasonable vote in very little time. Easy as you could hope for.

We have a newborn at home, which is pretty tiring work. Thankfully, Ziggy has his new cavernous Collared Creatures cave bed to bury his head into. So, while the rest of the household is slowly losing its mind in the madness, Ziggy is getting the most peaceful nights sleep he’s ever known 🤣