Broscommon

Update: Giving them they 5th star back, since they aded back the "Sort By" function. Thank you.

Excellent company and products, decent delivery (mostly form eastern europe), with very few glitches over the year.
Only giving them 4 stars instead of 5 because they removed the "Sort By" function.
Clumsy attempt to boost sales.
People will still buy what they want, but AUTODOC just want to give them more hassle, to "reward" their loyal customs.

Fantastic product delivered promptly.
Sadly I discovered the exact same product at a 40% discount in my local Screwfix, the following week. Nevertheless, Bathshack rocks!

Update (one star):
AliExpress CS "resolved" my case:
Option (a) Return the cart wheel and refund (I should pay the €33,49 for postage). Note: the cost of my purchase was €28.50
Option (b) No refund.

AliExpress CS blatantly ignores that their vendor is misleading their buyers with deliberately fraudulent images and description.
What is the most fraudulent: The Vendor (Shop1104390288) retains they 4.8 out of 5 rating despite all 1 star reviews.
Clear Racketeering scheme.
Small minded - short term business view.

Learnt my lesson. In the future, I will only order from TEMU.

Initial Review (2 Stars).
AliExpress (formerly known as Ali Baba - and the 40...) used to be reliable enough in the past. And scams were rare and dealt with by their Customer Care. Recently scams became the norm. I ordered a kayak trolley, only to receive a single plastic wheel a month later. Soon I discovered that other customers fell for the exact same bamboozling ad.

Easy process, extremely fast and professional response from David Sheridan, positive and straight forward outcome.

Bought plenty from halfords over 20+ years.
giving them two stars for removing the Sort By button on their website. To keep you on longer than you need to, at any cost. Another dumb and greedy technique borrowed from the tech world. Not smart. Not clever. Not helpful to their esteemed customers.

We recently used Priceline.com to book three different stays in Portugal, over 7 days trip:
- Olhão (ref # 4957100652) 3 x nights
- Lisbon (ref # 4656103366) 3 x nights
- Faro (ref # 4615415107) 1 x night.

On each booking I specifically asked for rooms suitable for 2 adults + 1 child (specifying her age).
I.e. rooms for minimum 3 guests.

Upon selecting and paying for the above rooms, I received confirmations for the rooms (quadruple rooms, double twin rooms, suites etc) BUT stragely, the confirmations only mentioned max. occupancy 2 x adults.

With my rooms booked, paid and confirmed by Priceline.com, we remained assured everything was Ok.

Needless to say, when we arrived at the hotel operators confirmed they had only seen the 2 adults reservations only. And NOT from Priceline.com but from Bookings.com.

To add to the confusion, some of my reservation confirmation emails (self check-in instructions with door codes and PINs etc) did arrive from Bookings.com...
No reasonable Explanation, just confusion.
But my Bookings.com account itself didn't show that I had made any reservation into any of these properties....

To make it worse, all the PINS and door padlock codes provided in the emails by Priceline.com and Bookings.com, were wrong, as it turned out when we arrived in front of the locked doors of the properties in Portugal.
Many frustrating phone calls later (i.e. international calls), we got the local operators to resend us instructions with correct codes and directions.

Sadly, we were charged extra for our child (the 3rd person, as they put it), despite carefully booking for 3 in the first place.

The nice rooms we booked on Priceline.com appeared entirely different in reality (usually an obvious downgdrade, uglier, noisier, with less mod-cons, lower specs), as the images are "generic samples only" as the vendors later explained....

The worst of all on Priceline.com, is their inapt communications. The website doesn't even provide the InMail function, to communicate with the hotel operator, even after full payment. They provide a dim-witted chatbot, who can only reconfirm the information already written in the confirmation email. For anything else it tells you should contact the hotel - which is impossible since they don't have an InMail function. Only by calling them on long distance phone numbers... Pointless in this day and age, with all bookings done online.

Shame.

Conclusion: Half baked website, owned by Booking.com , the big monopoly holder, leading to frustrating disasters when arriving at the property and left to wait outside, with a narky tired toddler, to desperately try and get in touch with the self-chekin accommodation operators.

Avoid Priceline.com if you want to avoid a horrible experience.

Bidding process was very clear and straight forward. Despite the complicated procedure (mainly caused by my finance), BidX1 staff were supportive all the way, from before the bid until long after. Isabelle and her immediate team were very helpful, particularly navigating our interactions with the seller's legal team.

Declan K. was exceptionally helpful over the phone and email, despite I probably sounded like an irate, impatient, hyped up @55. He retained a professional yet jolly tone, managed my two inquiries effectively and without being phased, one of the nicest Customer Support interactions I had in a long while. I hope he gets promoted and teaches the more junior colleagues the fine art of bedside manners. Win win for all parties.

It works Ok when we manage to get the shared license going.
The only annoying part is the pushy version upgrade - which in my case managed to self install, without any admin authorisation.
A headache to revert bac to the older version, involving IT admin clearance etc.

Yet another SCAM website, disguised as dhl, asking for a "modest" customs clearance payment. Stay clear off.

100% Scam.
Yet another fraud gang shamelessly posting on Facebook, whose fraud watch teenagers are as inactive as ever

Case reference: 2513997070
Stripe Payments Europe Ltd, an electronic Money Institution regulated in Ireland under the CBI Banc Ceannais na hÉireann pose as a legit payments platform but they authorise VISA payments to just about anyone who is willing for pay them a few dollars, with virtually no due diligence, nor checks of their legal validity or commercial registrations.
Recently I got scammed by a fraudulent retail website during Black Friday (accurately cloning a major well known brand), and I got charged on my VISA, with legit verification methods, seemingly via Stripe.com.
As soon as I completed the payment, a dazzling sequence of false signals followed - really well orchestrated by the fraudulent gangsters (my order was confirmed by entirely random network of new and unheard of domains such as longrDOTcom, etc, false customers service emails, false tracking numbers, false delivery notifications from China), but... in reality nothing was delivered to me.
When my bank contested the fraudulent charge, Stripe.com rejected the refund, because, in their words, I paid and I received the products or service.

Even in their own documentation STRIPE provided vendor website domain names that don't open, are illicit, and blocked for breaking standard security protocols...

Pathetic for a company of such calibre to be complicit with the thieves.

Despite the strong and clear evidence that their "partners" were fraudulent gangsters, Stripe chose to insist that the transaction and payment were 100% legit.

Awful bank, poorest customer service - Total amateurs, PTSB's main priorities is to prove their Customers that they are always wrong.

After banking with PTSB for 20 + years, it has become obvious that their standards are in a catastrophic free fall down spiral...
In the last 3 years, there have been numerous blunders caused by PTSB.
To only name one, I lodged a cheque (from a Govt. institution) and it took 4 weeks to be cleared - when at the teller desk I was assured it will be only 4 days.
When logging complaints with PTSB's own CS, they took three weeks to investigate and reply to me that was nothing wrong with PTSB service, which was "as per standard procedure".

Now, perplexingly, they decided to close my accounts, no explanation, as if I am some dr8gl0rd or local smugl3r. Neve been in overdraft, never bounced any payments. No rational conversation is possible with PTSB.
Disappointing at all levels.

100% SCAM. Yes, I got sn00kered again - based on a Facebook ad... when Will I learn?
Going through the painful process of transaction reversal.
Question to TrustPilot: How do fraudulent scamming sites get 2.8 out of 5 when all reviews give 1 star?????

Got Internet only with Pure, for a full year, going into the 13th month (when they raise the monthly fee) - impossible however to log into my account.
Even if my password was saved into the password manager, somehow it's not auto filling.
Clicked on "Having trouble logging in. Click Here!" - only to open this sticky popup saying "Please check your email to ensure you have received your login credentials...". Bit frustrat1ng...
However, when calling Pure Tel. Customer Service: 100% Surprise!
They have one of the nicest and most helpful CS I have encountered in years. Thank Ciara!

100% SCAM.
This site is connected to a network of scam websites, that appear around sales frenzied times (ie Halloween, Black Friday, New Year Sales, Christmas etc).
A false clone of a legit retailer (Lidl Ireland) caught me off-guard, ordered tools during Black Friday, then they charged me under this longr[.]com.
Now I am chasing with the antifraud department of my bank - long frustrating process.

100 % SCAM.
Part of an elaborate Chinese scheme, that makes fake websites that appear credible, cloning known brands (Parkside / Lidl or Sportsdirect.com to mention only two), advertised on legit platforms, like Facebook, extremely well put together, that appear like mushrooms around Black Friday or post Christmas sales.

If you wonder: why go to the lengths of providing a FAKE TRACKING? Because with delivery tracking updates customers gain trust and buy again, before they figure out one month later, that their Chinese delivery will never arrive.

Despite my confidence that I can detect scams with my eyes closed, I fell for the scam twice in one month - the two mentioned above.

17Track showed the delivery progress (albeit in Chinese, which I needed to copy&paste in Google translate), looking like a legit delivery from legit Chinese companies such as Aliexpress or Temu. A month later , 17Track showed that my parcel was delivered to my door , on the 28.12.2024. False. Fake delivery.

The other false delivery is still in progress with 17Track, as if it slowly goes through custom clearance etc etc....

Scam sc*m are getting more and more sophisticated.

Not all that proud of myself. A good yet expensive lesson - next time I will need to open my eyes.

100% Scam, I got caught, fell for it, and lost €133. Not proud. But the guys are pros...

LIDL France was skilfully used on the site - then all booking confirmation emails came from a dodgy address something like support [@] bestvipservice.com. it was the first flag but too late.

Perplexingly a few days later, they even sent me a 17Track tracking number, with all tracking info in Chinesse, which eventually showed that my order was delivered to my door on the 28th December.... False. Nothing was ever delivered.

Total thieves.

[Order #112257-33734286]

Excellent practice of architects and engineers, they helped me out with my new home project - albeit a rather quirky design - better than I have envisaged it. They were casual and easy to deal with, but proved true professionals, designing from scratch and supported me all the way through to planning permission and tendering my construction. I will highly recommend working with them to friends and family. They seem to care and take full responsibility to see their clients projects through.

Updated: the remaining tyres arrived today, took a couple of weeks, delayed by storm Darragh.
Feedback: Customer Care staff needs improved communication, serious training.

Previous review: I ordered and paid 4 x tyres on 2nd December. On the 8th of December I received only 2 x tyres (via DPD who dropped them and ran). This is half of my order. So far no explanation, no communication, nor solution.
Am I going to fail my NCT because of you?
What are you doing Grip500?

_______________________________________________
PS. Total confusion regarding Grip500 order numbers:
On My payment confirmation email from Grip500.ie : Order no: 26791912
But Also
Order No: IE-1224-00104

Tracking numbers
05308800276738
05308800276740
On delivery leaflet : Order No 2410806570