Rich

I cancelled my direct debit and account on 16/07/26 via a verbal phone call, where I clearly asked for the service to be cancelled. Despite this, some deliveries continued and I was later chased for a "failed payment" — via a text message sent on 30/7/26 apparently my cancellation was never logged, yet they managed to stop deliveries almost immediately once the direct debit was pulled. Says a lot about what they actually pay attention to.

I was then told they'd switched systems, and that I supposedly owed different amounts on two different platforms (£2.34 on the old one, £9 something on the other new one) — despite this being entirely their internal issue, not mine.

Today (31/07/26) I spoke to two different agents. The first talked over me repeatedly, wouldn't let me finish a sentence, and promised to email an itemised invoice — which, unsurprisingly, has not arrived. The second agent I asked to pull the outgoing recorded call from 16/07/26 at 15:01, where I verbally cancelled the account, so they could listen for themselves rather than take my word for it. I also asked for the account to be settled using the card they had on file — only to be told by the two agents they don't actually keep cards on file, despite an agent previously telling me they did and agreeing to bill it.

To top it off, this company has no published email address and no contact form, meaning any dispute has to go through a phone call with agents who talk over you and don't follow through on promises. For a company handling billing and direct debits, that's a serious red flag.

Cancelling a direct debit is about as clear a signal as you can give that you no longer want a service. The fact that this seemed to "confuse" them, while they were quick enough to chase non-payment, speaks for itself.

Proceed with extreme caution.

I had the misfortune of taking a call from a Yell agent named James Williams, and honestly, it was one of those “why did I bother” moments.

Right at the start, I asked him plainly if this was an upsell call. He said no. By the end, he’s talking about making an “investment”. Translation: yes, it was an upsell and probably ££££ per month

Then came the nonsense about my IVR phone system. He claimed that having an automated menu “might put customers off”. I explained — very clearly — that it doesn’t. We use it to cut down on bot spam and connect genuine callers directly to the right person. We run three businesses from the same number without issue. No one’s ever complained. But he still tried to argue the point, badly.

He started the call by “checking” my SEO presence, claiming I wasn’t showing up for my main search terms. That’s odd, because I rank just fine. He tried to back it up by saying he was using a VPN and private browsing — as if that magically makes him more accurate than Google Search Console, or bing webmasters itself. Then out came his beloved “fatrank” tool — a laughable third-party site that doesn’t use legitimate search data. He treated it like gospel truth, while ignoring the actual metrics that matter.

He even tried to dig for my search terms and SEO setup, clearly fishing for data rather than offering help. The whole thing felt less like a consultation and more like a clumsy attempt to reverse-engineer my SEO strategy.

It’s the same flavour of rubbish I heard the last time Yell called — when they tried to flog me a “London presence” package. Basically a PO box and a fake West End number for £150 a month, supposedly to make the business “more marketable”. What that actually does is wreck your local SEO by messing up your NAP (Name, Address, Phone) consistency. It’s an SEO killer dressed up as a prestige offer.

To top it off, I vividly remember their previous so-called “consultation”, full of scary-looking traffic light charts — green, amber, red — designed to make you panic. It’s meaningless visual fluff. They even told me then that my site wasn’t GDPR compliant, which it absolutely is. I mentioned this to James, and even he admitted, “that shouldn’t have happened.”

And to finish the farce, he claimed my business wasn’t visible on Alexa — even though it clearly is, along with Grok, Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity, even Siri finds it no issue! So either his tools are broken, or he was just winging it.

After the call, I sent him an email with proof that my business does rank well, but of course, I got no reply — which tells you everything you need to know. I don’t need to justify myself to a company that’s been sued multiple times for failed campaigns, bad contracts, and broken promises. I personally know at least six business owners who’ve had legal battles with Yell over exactly that.

I’ve been in web design and SEO for a long time so far back as "link exchanges". I know what good practice looks like — and this wasn’t it. The whole thing was misleading, uninformed, and frankly insulting to anyone who knows even the basics of digital marketing.

If this is what Yell calls “expert advice”, you’re better off trusting your own data, your own website, and your own instincts.

In summary: pushy sales disguised as a consultation, clueless advice, and no real value. Yell wasted my time, my patience, and an entire afternoon. Avoid them like the plague.

Really good people and great support always solved issues promptly for us even set up SSL when we struggled to do it.

Unfortunately we had to leave due to slow server speeds affecting page rank I think the servers are over subscribed.


They are quite slow for Wordpress in the serving time and we moved to self hosted and pagerank jumped considerably however we wouldn’t have an issue moving back to them if they sorted the speed out and gave us a bit more for the money we ended up with 5 mailboxes max and couldn’t add any more though we tried to work out why?

The plan we had was for 10 plus the web space was a bit limited and only being able to have 2 databases.

Support is great can’t fault it but the speed+package vs price was what made us leave.

Uptime = 100% with them never had an outage just slow for us.

They did randomly bill my for hosting an SSL for a domain they no longer hold but they were quick to sort that out for me so again top notch support!

Sad to leave but we have our reasons why.

Claude started out strong – slick interface, good memory, a touch more emotional nuance than some of its rivals. But lately? It's like the lights are on but no one's home.

Let’s talk limits – because my god, the limits. You barely scratch the surface of anything remotely in-depth and it throws a tantrum. "This conversation has reached its cap." What cap? I barely got through the foreplay and it’s already rolling over to go to sleep. Every slightly long task needs constant nudging: “please continue”, “please continue again”, and then “oh no, it’s forgotten what we were doing entirely”. Rinse and repeat until your will to live starts buffering.

And it’s gotten worse, not better. Over the past month it's gone from “useful assistant” to “forgetful intern with amnesia and a post-it note attention span”. It might slightly edge ChatGPT on recalling short-term details mid-thread, but only just – and certainly not consistently. Don’t expect continuity, tone control, or any real coherence if you ask it to continue anything longer than a few paragraphs. It’s like its long-term memory’s running on Windows ME.

Then there’s the push for the Max plan. Let’s be honest: if you're going to slap limits all over your service like a Victorian chaperone, don’t have the audacity to upsell more of the same. Because here’s the kicker – it’s not even clear whether it’s a greed problem or a scale problem. Either way, the result is the same: users being short-changed.

And the kicker? Sometimes it feels intentional. Like it’s designed to self-destruct halfway through. You watch it derail halfway into a task like it suddenly forgot how language works. You’d think it was being tested for how quickly it could disappoint.
Verdict:

Claude is starting to feel more like a prototype than a product. Great potential — but hobbled by arbitrary constraints, bizarre forgetfulness, and a user experience that screams "we're not ready for this many users." Avoid unless you like interruptions and heartbreak

Our experience with Energas has been nothing short of a nightmare, despite what should have been a straightforward transition from Gas Direct. Right from the start, the service has been plagued by errors and unexpected costs.

Initially, we received three bottles, one of which was incorrect. On top of that, one of the 50L bottles arrived with a pressure of less than 230 BAR, which was completely unacceptable. After raising the issue, they sent a replacement, but this bottle only measured 195 BAR. Though we accepted it, considering it was close to the 200 BAR we required, it was far from ideal.

To make matters worse, about a week later, we received an invoice with over £160 in charges! Shocked, I contacted the Hucknall branch to question the fees, as they seemed completely unreasonable. They did issue a £19 credit for the wrong bottle, which we appreciated, but the handling and shipping charges still amounted to more than £70—this was the main reason we questioned the bill in the first place.

A week has passed since my initial complaint, and I’m still waiting for a clear answer or any resolution. This level of service is unacceptable, and I’m not willing to pay for their mistakes, especially when I’m supposed to be charged only £15 for delivery. Until this is resolved fairly, I won’t be paying a penny more.

If you’re considering Energas, be prepared for a lack of accountability and endless frustration. What should have been a smooth process has instead been riddled with errors, hidden charges, and poor customer service.

I recently visited Specsavers Newark and, initially, had a less-than-ideal experience. I felt things could have been managed much better, and I left feeling frustrated. However, Lucy soon stepped in, and everything turned around from there. She took complete ownership of my situation, treating me with the utmost care and attention – I honestly felt like royalty!

Lucy managed every aspect of my visit personally. She arranged my eye test, guided me through selecting frames, and took the time to explain the available offers. Given my earlier experience, she even offered me an exclusive deal, which was a wonderful gesture. Her personalised service transformed my visit, making it one of the best experiences I’ve ever had at Specsavers. I’m now very happy with both my new glasses and sunglasses.

Thank you, Lucy, for turning things around!

Purchased an Xtrons octa-core one for my s class worked brilliant since November 2022 it’s now 24 of June 2023 and fails to boot. It’s now stuck on the Xtrons screen and doesn’t move any further. I’ve emailed Xtrons three or four times and currently get no response.

UPDATE: finally got an email back 4 days later from mario with a firmware link, and a heartfelt apology for not replying quickly. it turned out it corrupted the firmware, so far its working again with post a further update when i know it is fully working as it was. It was saying it could not start hotspot on the CarPlay app so I have had to get in touch with Xtrons again.

Second update: Xtrons sent us a shiney new headunit after we got back from holiday they were very patient with us as we needed it for sat nav. We simply sent our old one back and as soon as they got it they sent the new one out. There have been no issues so far with the new one. Communication was slow to start with but once we established a communication line things were dealt with real fast! I’m definitely a satisfied customer.

There is a lot of negative reviews about this company some of which can relate to my experience however purchasing was easy. I had a question about changing the size of a clock from 500mm to 750 which they responded a day later with the answer telling me they couldn’t do it which led me to believe they don’t actually manufacture these like they imply on the site. Choosing colours is not bespoke or custom it is determined in my mind as options, bespoke or custom means you can change the size material etc. I also sell homeware and this where my website is clear about it! We don’t sell anything we can’t alter to make larger or smaller or even change the finish.

They also have a Union Jack on the website implying they are in the uk but they’re not. The clocks and probably all their wares come from France in a box branded jolie harmonie. Which I think Amy’s deco resells.

On the website it looks like they make the wares from 5mm acrylic when they don’t as it’s 3mm however it’s no big deal for me just means it has less substance. I got my clock half price and I’m glad as it’s worth no more than that. Fitting was easy instructions were clear and template was great.

Takes about a week and a half to arrive from France.

The thing with folksy is they're quite happy to Bill you for sold listings when sales happen but rarely do they happen on this platform. Their pricing structure is ridiculous. Though the support is largely good it's not worth paying ten percent of sales to them.

The website is way to basic to demand that fee. Their listing variations just dont work! Not for my line of business no variation for colours, size or anything thats common.

You can only have five photos, no videos, there is no option to advertise your products or pay to feature them.

Their newsletter is the best bit...I've seen on multiple occasions that if you were willing to do everything they say in it to allegedly boost your sales all your doing is funneling traffic to their site and helping them out not helping you. If you read carefully you will see what I see it's all about them and their site not about your products or sales.


I remember emailing them before I started selling with them and they gave me a bunch of stats about organic searches which is simply not true.

I've been on there for a few years and guess how many sales I've had?...two...you'll get lots of Views on your items but no one will buy them because it's just bots crawling the site not real people.

The buyers when they eventually come are absolutely lovely people who are a simply a pleasure to deal with.

They're pushing stripe payment method currently. Now what they don't tell you is there is a lot of rules and regs in the UK about taking card payment and some of it is very daunting. Stripe is simply not worth the bother as you are responsible for fraudulent transactions and keeping card details safe. They don't tell you this. PayPal is simply faster and everyone knows what it is!

The only way to boost your items is by using the monthly tags which half the time don't work or just don't fit your items. If you get it wrong they will block you from doing it. There is no option to promote your products at all. Their home page is full of stuff they have sat there and chosen to put on the front page best part is its all biased toward twee cottagey stuff. It's just all about making you work hard to use their system for nothing when you should be concentrating on making your items. They also won't feature your items if you have photos that aren't sharp or look like it's all twee and la di dah.

The best bit right now is these local leaders where you arrange local craft meetings or something at what appears to be your expense and no pay or commission while all the time promoting their service and site.

Look at the banners bit they actually provide banners and things for your website or blog, why would I do that? Why would I drive traffic to their site from mine? Best part is shove Google AdWords on your site and you'll actually get paid for the ad space! Folksy pay nothing! I mean as if I would!

All in all if you want to cough up money every month for no sales while advertising and promoting their platform, I would say that you re-evaluate your business and platforms. I'm experienced selling on eBay, Etsy, my own posh website as well as other lesser known platforms. I can definitely say that 98 percent of my sales come from eBay and folksy is too demanding and a waste of time!