Elaine Maxwell

Have always rated Octopus highly for customer service, and this morning just confirmed that. Got through on phone with minimum delay, after app and online- chat didn’t work. They sorted out reduction in direct debit payment due in 6 days without any fuss. Of course my view may change if it doesn’t happen but fingers crossed

Went to a parking site in Lancaster run by the company yesterday before catching a train. None of my text messages were delivered, and did not have enough time before catching train to download and log on via app etc. have tried this morning with no success. I have also attempted to contact the owner of the site but the email address I found for them is not recognised. Also attempted to use app to pay after the event which appears to be allowed in some cases - again, no success. I have contacted Parkonomy via their contact sheet online but no answer yet and the phone number gives no access to talk to a human and there seems to be no web chat facility.
All of this leaves me extremely concerned. The car isa hire car so they will get any penalty notice, charge me an additional fee for dealing with it, and then forward sometime later to my address in Spain, where past experience tells me it will take several weeks to arrive, incurring yet more penalties.
Having seen reports from other people, I have absolutely zero faith this company will do anything to sort out the problem, preferring to leave everything to their automated system designed to increase revenue at the expenses of customers. I have no objection to paying what is due, but object strongly to being forced to pay extortionate amounts because their system does not work. As this car is a hire car, I may not even have the option of leaving to Parkonomy to chase through the courts

Following further correspondence from Parkonomy I attempted to follow their system again - still no success. Fortunately the owner of the site was at the car park this morning so I was able to pay direct,avoiding the risk of an elevated penalty notice.

Not only are their prices very good, but they rapidly sorted out a problem for me when I realised I had stupidly booked a train for an hour later than I intended, with only a small administrative charge. This included replies within a couple of hours even in the evening. After years of dealing with other train companies which are very happy to grab the most they can this was a great change.

I nearly always buy my bedding from Soak and Sleep. High quality goods at a reasonable price.

Despite what they maintained in response to my original post, they have failed to refund the annual subscription to their family search element. Basically they replied on trustpilot within 1 day to an adverse report and have then failed to do anything significant. After a fairly bullying telephone call while I was out shopping they made it clear that the most they could offer was a £28.40 refund on their grossly overpriced package which I did not want and have not used.
I have responded to this twice but heard nothing.
Basically I am still convinced this advert constitutes a misrepresentation of the true position and is unlawful under English law. In addition, despite their statements to the contrary, I never received any confirmation of my contract when I initially signed up.
Do not fall for any statements they may make on trustpilot - they’ll say whatever they think will improve their image but then fail to follow through. It is evident from Trustpilot that my experience has been mirrored by many others, yet instead of changing their website information to clarify matters and avoid misunderstandings, they continue. The inevitable conclusion I draw from this is that they are actively aiming to mislead.

I am deeply concerned about this company. I ordered the testing kit on 26 June as I wanted to see my ethnic and regional origins. As part of this, I was enrolled in their one month “free trial” to be able to find possible links with other people who may be related. I was not particularly concerned about this as it is not my main interest. I sent off my sample but am still awaiting the results. In the meantime it has been one month since my original order went in and I received an email on Saturday evening 27th July to say that as the one month had expired, they had now charged £114 for a further years subscription - non-cancellable and non-refundable. I have attempted to email them but received no reply and I have found it impossible to find proper contact details for customer services on their website. In addition I cannot find details of the complaints process.

I have still not got my DNA results and the “free trial” term is a total misrepresentation. It cannot be a trial if I do not have the information which would enable me to see if I have any interest in this package. Unfortunately I paid for this on my debit card so am unable to get my money back without raising a dispute which in turn requires me to go through what appears to be a non-existent complaints process. I feel scammed!

I ordered the phone through the Spanish subsidiary as I am currently in Spain but my account appears to be U.K. based. Product arrived without problems but now having significant difficulty with receiving payment for trading in old phone. I keep receiving emails requesting that I update my personal and banking information on my account but when I go into the account all seems in order. I have now given them bank details three additional times with two different bank account numbers, but still no payment. They are also asking for my “social security number” -something which doesn’t exist for U.K. citizens. If they want my NationalInsurance number they need to specify this. It seems impossible to contact a human on any chat system and the queries from drop down lists do not necessarily match the problem. I hate. To think how they would deal with matters if I have a problem with the new phone

I have to say I must be in the running for idiot of the year if I am still expecting this company to sort out the problems they have caused. I ordered an esim on 18 February and tried to transfer my old O2 number to it. None of the three QR codes sent with the esim seemed to work despite calling Lyca several times. Eventually Lyca returned the money to me - although they did not inform me of this. I just assumed I had a jinxed esim code so bought a new one over a week ago. Since then I have spent over 4 hours on the phone to Lyca mobile trying to get my old number transferred to the new correct one. After a couple of calls I was told that my old number had been transferred to the invalid Lyca sim so still on a Lyca mobile number but one which did not work! I get a different answer on what needs to happen each time I call and on one occasion was told that the information I had given earlier did not pass security checks despite being identical to the information given every other time I have been asked.

I would give up and simply accept the new number if it were not for the fact that I have had the old one for nearly 30 years, and it is used by numerous financial and government bodies for their two factor authenticion systems so the hassle of changing numbers at this time is enormous. I have already had to cancel a telephone doctor's appoijnhtment as I could not be sure that I would have a functioning esim or what the number would be.
Each time I am told it is being "escalated" but this means nothing just like their statements that "they are very sorry for the inconveience". I feel very sorry for the customer service staff as they must have an extremely unpleasant time of it.

I can now report that my old number has now been transferred so I have upped my score from 1* to 2* - with some reluctance. I have spent over 4 hours chasing this and if I were to charge them for my time an inconvenience based on my old charge out rate before I retired they would have been in for a very big bill, Byut I have to say that if they give me anything like the problems in actual mobile service that others have had I will definitely jump ship taking my number with me

I tried to buy an eim from Lycamobile. After three different attempts and several calls to customer services with a promise to “escalate”as well as an email to customer services, I realised they had simply given up when I received a refund of my payment. I decided that there was possibly a jinxed qr sim code somewhere, so started again from scratch. This time the qr card worked but the form to fill in to transfer my number failed to submit properly. So back to customer services who said they were having trouble with this but said he would inout the information himself. I’m pretty sure this was dine as I got an email from my previous provider saying they were sorry to see me go and the number would be transferred that day. Two days later my original provider is still showing as the supplier, I can’t call out or use the internet and if anyone calls me they get the Lycamobile messaging service! So clearly some part of it has been done but not the vital bits connecting to me! So I call customer services again using my Spanish simcard at God knows what cost, wait 20 minutes to be get the usual rubbish welcoming me as a customer, with repeated platitudes about how sorry they are and told to use a couple of * codes to sort it out. I explained these did not work and I just get an error code if I try them. She said she would “escalate” again which will take a further 24-48 hours. Meanwhile I am without a UK number and can’t go back to my old provider on the relatively advantageous contract I had before. I suspect the positive reviews on this site are manufactured to counteract the bad reviews. I will report back on the outcome but am not holding my breath. Just dreading what this whole fiasco will cost me with my Spanish sim ( as I am bow in the UK) or what I will now to to pay to go back to my old provider

They screwed up the information they needed to give to HMRC when they lost the contract with BAESystems, back in the summer, and are still screwing it up so now losing hundreds of pounds just before Christmas. Perhaps we need to start examining the contract between BAE and Equiniti to see whether we have rights as third parties??

I am one of those affected when Mercer took over administration of the BAE pensions in September, with confusing references given to HMRC potentially leading to all pensions being charged twice to tax. They were very pleasant on the telephone once I got through, but useless at correspondence. Their website platform is also not without its faults.
It seems from looking at the HMRC website that this problem has been addressed, but Mercer didn’t think it worthwhile informing me (and presumably thousands of others) that this had happened. Looking at the events I think that the most likely cause was that the previous administrators failed to inform HMRC that they were no longer paying our pensions. If this is the case, Mercer could have gained a lot of goodwill by writing to all affected explaining what had happened and how it was going to be corrected. It would have taken no more than 10 minutes to draft such a standard letter and the work of seconds to run it through their IT system saving me and others much anxiety. But they don’t seem to have the basic business acumen and sense of customer service to do this. I don’t hold out much hope for how the rest of this is going to run

Tried to register my Spanish car for ULEZ as clearly falls within exempted category. Got to end when asked for photo of vehicle registration document. Took photo which was saved almost inevitably as jpeg, only to discover had to be a csv file. Why on earth?? Tried to convert it but nothing worked. No proper information on website, no ability to contact via website as did not yet have reference number. This company can clearly track all details of my car to Spain as fined me when I inadvertently went over a toll bridge last year! Have always hated these bloodsuckers but now even more

Jury is out at the moment but signs are not good. When I got to the car rental village at Manchester airport, there was no sign of Firefly so I had to call on the number given on my booking form, which turned out to be for Hertz. Despite it being unlawful since June 2014 to require customers to use a premium rate number, and a requirement on all document to tell prospective customers and callers what the call rate would be if it was not a standard call, there was only a premium rate number and no information on call rates. It was only after I had signed the agreement and got a new document that I saw I had been forced to dial a premium rate number and given details of the cost.

To make matters worse there is significant damage to the bodywork, some of which was rusty so had clearly been there for some time. I took photos and went back to the agent who told me that I would receive an email straightaway setting out any damage and could report the problems then. I have not received an email yet and am expecting significant problems.

Still no response from them despite putting in my claim for luggage delay nearly three weeks ago. When I phoned to complain - and finally got through - they said someone would phone. Needless to say this didn’t happen so I called again, and they said they would mark it as urgent. I did receive a missed call on 8 August while I was in the bath, with no caller id. It went off just as I staggered out of the bath and there has been no further attempt. My earlier view still stands - their main desire is to grab money, not provide a service. The high satisfaction ratings on trustpilot are nearly all for the ease with which someone could enter into the contract and pay money, not get the benefits for which they contracted

I use the site but am very wary of the accuracy if I see a company with only a mass of 5* reviews and all the rest 1*. I recently reviewed a company which was like this as I wanted to leave a 1* rating. I then had to verify my dealings with the company which I did with some difficulty as I had not received an invoice. After my verification was accepted, I looked at the latest 50 or so 5* reviews. Nearly all of them were left by someone who had only one review to their name. Of the few that had more reviews, they were all, without failure, more 5* reviews, leading me to suspect the reviewer had received some payment or benefit. Needless to say, none of these were “verified” as that only happens when the company being reviewed requests it and funnily enough, a company getting a 5* review never requests this but always does if you write a bad review! It’s quite a bit of hassle providing the verification, and if you don’t, your review is removed so I suspect that the number of 1* stars is probably way over what it seems on the site.
So in short, I’ll continue to use trustpilot, but be even more sceptical of the 5* reviews unless I can see evidence they are legitimate.

Quite the worst company I have experienced and my dealings with them are not just confined to the last two weeks when they lost my baggage by failing to load it at Manchester airport, and then failing to unload it on my return. Total chaos, no useful information and I am left doubting whether I will see my case again. I always had a low opinion of them from pat dealings, but now they have sunk to the abysmal level

Definitely feels like a scam. System itself didn’t work. Unsubscribe button didn’t work either so I emailed them straightaway and received an automated reply stating they would respond within 2 working days. 5working days later they charged me 49€ - I had been in Spain at the time.
I note that there are a suspiciously large number of 5* reviews on this site, nearly all of which are from reviewers who have only submitted on review. Everything else is a 1*. No doubt after this review, another large number of 5* reviews will appear. Trading standards will be my next step if they do not refund my subscription

I was reluctant to use Randox because of their association with dodgy government contracts/Owen Patterson etc. But needed rapid turn round test as only going to be in U.K. for a few days. Unfortunately couldn’t use Collinson for this as they don’t seem to do the test which Govt was requiring in these circs. Great shame as I’ve had a good experience with them in the past. So I overcame my distaste for Randox and booked test at Manchester airport. I then needed to cancel as unable to travel. I emailed my cancellation and used their contact form well within the cancellation period allowed for full refund but have had absolutely no reply. No ability to contact by phone either. Crap service from crap company and will have to use chargeback with bank to get my money back. This confirms all my suspicions about this company

I was reluctant to use Randox because of their association with dodgy government contracts/Owen Patterson etc. But needed rapid turn round test as only going to be in U.K. for a few days. Unfortunately couldn’t use Collinson for this as they don’t seem to do the test which Govt was requiring in these circs. Great shame as I’ve had a good experience with them in the past. So I overcame my distaste for Randox and booked test at Manchester airport. I then needed to cancel as unable to travel. I emailed my cancellation and used their contact form well within the cancellation period allowed for full refund but have had absolutely no reply. No ability to contact by phone either. Crap service from crap company and will have to use chargeback with bank to get my money back. This confirms all my suspicions about this company