Mike Gledhill

BluePillow is just a clickbait scam website.

If I search for hotels, BluePillow's prices are often highlighted as being one of the lowest, and their website claims that the prices included taxes and fees.

Then you click on their link only to discover, ah, they've taken me to Agoda, whose prices don't include taxes and fees.... so they're actually more expensive.

Pure clickbait trash.

And it's annoying you can't ask Google to not include their fake prices.

The short version: I ordered an expensive (788 CHF) monitor from InterDiscount and have never received a Swiss power cable for it.

The long version:
15.05.26 I ordered a 788 CHF Dell Monitor from InterDiscount.
18.05.26 The monitor arrived, with only a German power cable. I emailed InterDiscount, asking if they could either send me a power cable or, even better, if I could pick one up from one of their Zurich HB stores.
20.05.26 InterDiscount replied, saying they posted a power cable to me yesterday. It's now 9 days later, nothing has arrived.
22.05.26 I asked InterDiscount why their website still says no one has reviewed this monitor - I have !! They claim that my review will appear once it's been reviewed. It's a week later. Nothing's changed.
29.05.26 I emailed InterDiscount again, just to let them know that, despite their promises, I have never received a Swiss power cable from them, and they still haven't published my review of this monitor.

Lesson learned....

Next time, I will shop at digitec instead. They have free next day delivery, Swiss plugs ARE included, aswell as great customer service, and they are honest enough to *always* publish their customer's comments.

InterDiscount.... you are dreadful. Oh, and your confirmation emails have a Reply-To email address containing "sevice.interdiscount.ch". Yes, "sevice". If you try to email that address, it bounces back. Fix your spelling mistakes....

(And yes, I know it's meant to be spelt SERVICE.interdiscount.ch, I'm just pointing out how unprofessional their "customer sevice" is...)

Lets face it, here in Switzerland, we have a love-hate relationship with Uber.

Regular taxis are crazy expensive. Some Uber drivers are fantastic and friendly. Others are dreadful.

Uber as a company has chosen to *REMOVE* the option to rate your drivers.

Previously, if you had bad service, you could leave a review. Now, that's gone, and all you're left with is the option to Tip them or not. So, they've made the customer experience much worse.

Yesterday, we pre-booked an Uber. This is interesting, as Uber deliberately bumps up the price when you do this... but they don't tell you who the driver will be.

In our case, the driver was 10 minutes late, and - because it was pre-booked - we weren't even able to track him on a map, to see if he was even coming.

So, drivers aside, Uber themselves have made themselves and their app much less customer friendly.

Placed an order on 11/3/26. It's now 13/4/26. Their website doesn't even say it's on the way, just "In progress"

Seriously ? A month later....?!

Never, ever again...

Timeline:

11/3/26: Placed an order with DeinDeal for some Benetton goods. The confirmation email stated "Dispatch is scheduled between: 02/04/2026 and 08/04/2026"
13/4/26: Emailed DeinDeal, demanding a refund on my order. Their website showed it hadn't even been sent yet.
15/4/26: Reply from DeinDeal, apologising, "we should have informed you in advance that the delivery of your order would be delayed", and asking me to verify if I wanted to cancel the order.
15/4/26: Emailed DeinDeal, telling them I've already answered that question. Yes! Time's up ! I want a refund !
18/4/26: No reply from DeinDeal, so I emailed them again. Their website *still* says this order is "In Progress", with an estimated shipping date of "02.04.2026 - 08.04.2026".
21/4/26: Still no reply from DeinDeal.
23/4/26: Out of desperation, I posted a public message on LinkedIn addressed to the DeinDeal CEO, to tell him my order hasn't even been dispatched, and that the DeinDeal customer services refuse to answer me. I emailed DeinDeal customer services to tell them that I'd contacted him.
27/4/26: Still absolutely no reply from DeinDeal.
28/4/26: The CEO of DeinDeal actually took the time to reply to my public complaint on LinkedIn, apologised for their level of customer service and said he'd look into my issue.
28/4/26: I emailed the DeinDeal "info" and "support" customer service emails, with screenshots of the chat with the CEO, to warn them that I have now taken this to their CEO.
29/4/26: STILL no reply and certainly no apologies from the DeinDeal support staff, but I got an automated email to confirm that my order - which had never been shipped - had finally been cancelled, and refunded.


Potential customers...
THIS is the level of customer service you can expect from DeinDeal.

Stick to Galaxus (next day delivery, you can see what's in stock, and they have amazing customer service)

My thanks to the DeinDeal CEO for getting involved, but seriously, you need different staff.

This wasn't just a "logistics issue". I've worked in retail, mistakes happen, I can accept that.
This was down to non-existent customer services, not even willing to acknowledge a mistake, or apologise.

DeinDeal is Swiss customer services at it's absolute worst.
You've been warned.

Insanely bad customer service. In the end, I repeatedly had to request for them to close my account, but they could never quite do it.

Eventually, I did it myself using their website, but even then, I had a balance of 0 CHF, but they wouldn't let me submit the form unless I gave my full bank details and address for them to.... errrr... refund the remaining balance to me.

And even then, when I cut'n'pasted my IBAN number into the form, it didn't recognise it. I had to delete the final number and manually re-type it in. The address was fully filled in, but I had error messages everywhere saying "This field is mandatory", even though the textboxes had text in them.

I did tell Swissquote about my issues, with a screenshot showing my problems and, as expected, I didn't even get a reply.

Dreadful (non-existant) customer service.

Just a little insider's tip: if you have a Coop Hello Family card, check out the Coop Hello Family website.

When you sign up for a Baloise car insurance costing 600 CHF or more, using the Coop link, they'll send you a 300 CHF Coop voucher. Woof !

Oh, I have a love-hate relationship with Udemy.

On the one hand, yes, they have great courses, with stupidly high prices, simply so they can claim to have "90% off" and now the same courses are just $15 each. Fine, it's an old sales technique, very obvious, and ridiculously done.

But, when you actually buy a course, and go onto their website, are they like Netflix ? Are they there saying "Okay, do you want to keep watching your course ?"

No, their website bombards you with adverts about other courses, "Let's start learning" - again, about other courses, rather than having the obvious "Keep watching" section ready to go.

It's all about Sales, rather than user friendliness.

Yeah, time to go back to Pluralsight.

They shouldn't be rewarding loyalty with Spam.

Spam-spam-spam-spam-spam.

One other thing to the developers. Get out of your office, and try watching a Udemy video on a train, with intermittent reception.

Netflix and the streamers understand this... they'll pause, and once internet reception resumes, you can continue normally.

And if you try to watch the same video on another device later, sometimes it'll let you continue where you left off, sometimes, it'll continue from where you were yesterday .

It's a mess.

Oh, this insurance company is bad. Really bad.

I've lived in Switzerland for 19 years. I've had car insurance every year, and I've never made a single claim. Ever.

In England, I would have a "No-claims bonus" which I could transfer from company to company, and they would recognise this as being proof that I'm a low-risk client.

In Switzerland, it's the opposite.

Last year, Helvetia charged me 641 CHF for my car insurance. Since then, I've made no claims. Yet this year, it's 100 CHF more expensive.

But it gets worse.

I signed up for my car insurance with them in January 2025 for one year.

Three months later, in April 2025, they quietly sent me a new document, saying, actually, I was tied in to this contract for THREE years. I'm sorry, WHAT ?!!

In November 2025, they eventually sent me a Premium statement for 2026, which was too high, so I asked to cancel, but their dreadful customer services said, nope, you needed to give three months notice.

So... you need to give 3 months notice, but Helvetia themselves won't tell you how much the next year's policy will be until about 6 weeks before the end of the year...?!

Is this even legal ? Next year, they could send me an invoice with a Dr Evil statement asking for one miiiiilion CHFs...

They are truly a dreadful company.
Stay (very) far away.
You've been warned.

I've sent a letter to their CEO to complain.
I'll update my review if/when he replies.

I've been with Sunrise for many years now. I had big issues with the disastrous customer service from their child company Yallo, but Sunrise themselves have been okay.

My only issue is with Sunrise's pricing.

Salt, who we all hate here in Switzerland (usually for a very good reason), has one standard pricing. One. For everyone. Always.

Sunrise seems to have a different pricing model depending on the time of month and weather.

So, if you're considering going for a Sunrise abo, a few tips:

1. It's currently November 2025. For Sunrise, I pay 30.49 CHF for Up Mobile L (unlimited mobile data throughout CH & Europe) and 41.70 CHF for Up Home L (phone + 2.5Gb internet + TV). Now go and compare those figures to the Abos on the Sunrise website.

2. If you're interested in a Sunrise abo, and it says you'll get a "free" Samsung TV or gift... go and bang your head against a wall, and compare their Abo prices to what I'm paying.

3. Black Friday is on 26/11/25. They always do decent offers, and deliberately bump up their regular Abo prices beforehand, so they can proudly announce they're giving 70-80% off for Black Friday. It's the oldest con in the book.

4. If you DO want a Sunrise abo, or if your existing Abo is about to expire, DON'T use their website.. telephone them. Ring them, and tell them you're off to Salt, and will be paying Salt's regular prices of 24.99 CHF for unlimited CH & EU mobile data, and 39.95 CHF for superfast Fibre-Internet+TV+phone. Watch them as they miraculously find an offer, to make sure they don't lose you as a customer... usually with some BS about them"needing to get it approved by a manager though".

5. Oh, and for the love of God, don't ever sign up to buy a "free" phone from Sunrise, linked to a 24-month Mobile Ago. Right now, they're offering a Galaxy S25 Ultra for free ! Free, damn it !! Oh, but their starting abo (including unlimited CH & EU data) is 77.95 CHF a month, for a minimum of 24 months. So, compared to my Sunrise mobile abo, you'll be paying 1,139 CHF more than me over those 2 years. That.... that doesn't sound very "free", for a phone that costs 854 CHF from digitec, does it ?

6. If you work for UBS, checkout the Sunrise offers on the UBS intranet. For mobile abos, they're amazing, but for home internet, meh... they're pretty rubbish.

Please... Sunrise... one price.
Give us one, applicable-for-all-customers, price.

Price aside, I'm perfectly happy with my Sunrise service. The 5G Mobile really isn't brilliant, particularly around Swiss Bahnhofs, but the rest is absolutely fine.

Ah, Martin Lewis would be proud of me.

I've never been a fan of Bristol Airport. The charge a ridiculous £7-per-hour for drop-off fees, only have *one* taxi firm having a monopoly to operate there, the rental car companies are now a bus-ride away (so all customers arrive at the desk at the same time)... the place is a cash cow.

But, in October 2025, they have got a bit better. The Airport Flyer bus service cost me just £25 return for a Family Ticket, the new public transport terminal is brilliant, the security machines, where you are now allowed to take upto 2 litres of liquid & don't have to remove tablets/laptops anymore... that's pretty impressive.

Downsides: there's still only one place to buy a beer before flying (Brigg & Stow), and they're hopelessly slow. Oh, they have an "Express Lane" but it was closed, so there's always long queues.

And, I said it many years ago, the airport desperately needs more seats.

Bought a SIM card, registered, it said it was trying to send an SMS to verify the phone number, but it never arrived. Over and over again.

It went in the bin. Went to Three, bought a SIM, it worked straight away.

Apparently, I'm far from being the only person with this issue.

Lesson learned.

It does what it says on the can. It's free, it's got a fairly good app. And it works fine with Samsung Pay.

What I didn't like... is that I chose to sign up for their "8.50 CHF travel insurance".

Their website claims that this would cover "if you miss your connecting flight due to [...] the exclusive fault of the first airline, the insurance covers the additional costs for continuing the journey"

This simply isn't true.

I had an EasyJet flight from Porto to Paris, then onto Bangkok.

The EasyJet flight was cancelled with just 9 hours notice. EasyJet claimed that it was an "exceptional issue" because of air traffic control. And because of that, Neon said my travel insurance doesn't cover it.

What ?! I had to pay an additional 950 CHF for a new flight, I sent them all the receipts, and there was nothing I could've done to prevent this. How does travel insurance not cover THIS ?! What's even the point of travel insurance, if stuff like this isn't covered ?!

Oh, I completely understand that every insurance policy has it's exclusions, but when you are refused even 1 CHF of compensation, then the Neon website proudly claims to provide cover for your exact situation, you can't help but to be angry. This is fraud.

So, apart from this blatant fraud, yeah, Neon isn't bad.

Yuh is better though. ;-)

I tried to request a callback twice, to talk about moving the health insurance for myself and my daughter to SWICA. No response.

I chatted with a salesguy at the Pink Ribbon run, and he gave me his card.

With him, I did get a 30-minute call, but there were red flags. At the end of the call, he asked me some questions for the policy, I answered, but he put in other answers.

eg "Do you drink alcohol ?" I answered, yes, I'm English (?) so yes, sometimes. On the form, he wrote that I never drink alcohol.

eg "What is the weight of your daughter ?" I told him, 45kg. He said "I'll write 50kg, just so it doesn't raise any issues." I told him, no, that's lying.. please write 45kg.

And then.. I got a follow-up email from him asking if I'd checked the Policy document, first at 12.07am on a Saturday morning.... then at 10.07pm on a Monday night (?!!!!)

At this point, I emailed him, and copied in the SWICA helpdesk, to raise my concerns, and saying I was going elsewhere.

Once again... absolutely no response.

I *work* in insurance, I know how these companies sometimes use what you've put in your form to escape from paying for health issues.

The experience I had with SWICA was fraudulent.
And I wasn't even a customer yet !

Avoid.

(Two months later.)

Absolutely no response from SWICA, either directly on TrustPilot about this review, or from the email I sent to their customer services. Yeah... apparently, this is the level of service you should expect from them....

They have good deals, but oh my God, once they have your email address, you're locked in for good.

They are spamming me several times a day, and their unsubscribe function is useless. The emails just keep coming.

The problem seems to be, they get around the "one-click unsubscribe" as they pretend to be different Groupons per UK city.

I have never been to Maidstone, I have no plans to go there, but the current email just says I've unsubscribed from Maidstone offers.

Their website does have an "unsubscribe from all Groupon emails" hyperlink... but using it makes no difference.

No ! I want to unsubscribe from all spam.
Dreadful company.

I'm giving Yuh a 5-star review because I think their app, friendliness and customer service is excellent.

But (as a web and app developer myself), they also deserve 1-star for their upgrade policy.

I've been using Yuh on my Samsung S24+ for over a year, all good, everything fine... then today, it must have quietly installed an upgrade and suddenly, it has no idea who I am.

This is... software development at it's worst.

Yes, it just took me 1-2 minutes to get back into Yuh (and I even got an email to confirm that "now" I'm allowed to use Yuh on this, errr, "new device"). It's not new. Nothing's changed.

This is 2025. There are so many scams and spams, and people falsely pretending to be your bank, etc...

Having a new app upgrade should *never* result in a user thinking the app has never seen them before on their device. It blatantly opens the doors for scammers.

5-star service.
1-star upgrading policy.

Guys... you're awesome. But, do better.

Oh, and one other thing to (genuinely) thank Yuh for: when you have an issue, Yuh has an EMAIL ADDRESS you can contact them on.

No, I didn't say they have an incredibly annoying and useless "Bot" that some CFO has said will save the company money and increase customer satisfaction. (NordVPN, I'm looking at you. And many other Swiss companies.)

They have an email address.
And they're responsive.

Many companies have forgotten how "quietly important" this feature is.

Oh, I desperately wish I could post a photo with this review. You need to see this.

One thing NordVPN doesn't make clear when you're signing up, is that when you install the Windows application IT WON'T LET YOU install the app onto your laptop, unless you agree to it ALSO installing the Browser Extension (which, according to Chrome, would let them "read & change all your data on all websites" and "change your privacy-related settings")

(If you untick the box, to say that you don't want to install the browser extension, the overall "Install" button becomes disabled, so you can't install anything.)

Are you kidding me ?!

They take my money, I subscribe to their VPN subscription, but they won't let me install this on my Windows 11 laptop, unless I give them - deep breath - "full access to all my data on all websites ?"

You've been warned, people.
You've been warned.
Thank God Chrome lets me decide to block this extension that I didn't ever want.

One other really - REALLY - weird thing is that NordVPN is the only company where you subscribe, you pay the money, they send you an email confirmation.... but no absolutely order number, customer number or invoice number.

I've had to go onto their website, type in my name, email address *again* (even though I'm already logged into their website) and request an invoice download.

And even then, you get an invoice number, but no customer number or order number.

If you're going to use a VPN, you expect professionalism and transparency.

NordVPN is the opposite.

Insiders tip: NordVPN has offers everywhere. QuidCo is currently offering 90% (!!) cashback on any (new) subscriptions, TopCashback is offering 34%. Never, ever, pay full price...

What an absolutely dreadful website.

All I want to do is move from GoDaddy to another hosting platform.

SquareSpace has a great looking website, but refuses to actually disclose it's pricing anywhere.

I made the huge mistake of asking it's "Squarespace Assistant" bot which was about as helpful as my ex-wife after a bottle of rosé.

It just redirected me to a page saying that it has "Fair pricing with no hidden fees"... it shows what's included, but no pricing.

And if you try to use Contract Us to ask them directly... you just get the dumb Bot.

This is website hosting at it's absolute worst.

I really have a love-hate relationship with Groupon.

Sometimes, you can find absolutely amazing offers on there. I recently purchased a 12-month subscription to (almost) all UK newspapers for £18. That's crazy cheap.

The bad side: I've used this voucher, I'm happily reading newspapers, but Groupon keeps sending me emails reminding me to use the voucher. I've used it !

They provide no "unsubscribe" option on the emails, no support email address to contact.. no way to escape the spam. And I can't block emails from Groupon as I do actually want emails from them, when I buy something.

The website does have a "Contact us" hyperlink, but again, no option to email them, or beg them to stop spamming me.

They also annoy customers by tracking what you've looked at and spamming them to remind them to go back and finish purchasing. Again, no option is given to unsubscribe from this spam.

Great offers, but they're the worst spammers on the internet.

Oh, and their website is often sooooo slow.

Oh, this is an impressive website, for all the wrong reasons.

I go onto the homepage, I tell it I want to go to Milan, I tell it I want a hotel from August 1st to 3rd, I click on "Find a Room", and it randomly decides to change the end date to August 2nd. Yeah, it does that a lot.

The website shows that it uses Google to identify the place "Milan", but then only shows hotels dead in the absolute centre of Milan. There's no option to look for, say, hotels near Milan train station. So you're limited to a tiny selection of the most expensive hotels in the centre of Milan.

And, bizarrely, when it's showing it's (limited) list of Milan hotel choices, if I click on my name on the header bar, the "End date" switches back to August 2nd again, and it changes the map from Milan to London for no reason whatsoever.

I've logged into the site, it shows me my name in the top-right, yet still shows me "Join Secret Stays Club today" popups, and asks me to log in.

Worst of all, the prices are dismal, and the range of hotels is absolutely tiny compared to Google, Expedia, Booking.com, etc. I've yet to see one deal which is worth investigating.

The search results themselves look terrible, far from the professional look of any the third-party Hotel sites and apps. And certainly no useful features like reading reviews from previous hotel guests.

Bottom line: Secret Stays is impressive for attempting to charge an annual fee for providing a service which is worse (and more expensive) than all of the free third-party Hotel websites. And Google itself.

This isn't the greatest business model.....

This really feels like someone's school project, rather than a professional website, worth subscribing to.

Also, it's VERY suspicious that all of the TrustPilot reviews of this website are either 1-star, or 5-stars. Are those 5-star reviews (which all claim they've saved money) genuine...?

And before you start believing those 5-star reviews of Secret Stays, have a look at the history of those reviewers. Right now, on 31/7/25, almost ALL of them have only ever reviewed two companies: Secret Stays... and Secret Stays Flights.... and ALL OF THEM gave both companies 5-stars. And they're reviewed nothing else. Do these reviews sound genuine to you...?

Insider tip: if you want to find cheap hotels, subscribe (for free) to QuidCo or TopCashback, book through the regular third-party travel websites, and you'll get a chunk of cash back again.

I signed up for Cornercard credit cards in June 2025, and the website was all in English... oh, except for the sections about insurance, which, inexplicably, they only displayed in Italian.

I write software for a living, so I sent them screenshots, and they didn't seem to care less.

"Since we are in Switzerland we do unfortunately not provide all application forms in English, therefore some documents were in another language. However, our Call Center agents are delighted to assist you in English if you have any problems in understanding or in filling out the application."

Are they even legally allowed to ask a customer to sign a legal document which is partly in a language they don't understand ?

Anyway, I received the cards, but noticed they'd charged me 2 CHF for receiving paper bills.

I emailed them to say that (a) I hadn't received any paper bills (b) in your app, I have specifically said that I want to receive my bills by email.

Once again, they cheerfully replied back, explaining to me how to request my bills by email. Which I'd already told them was the current setting.

(Sigh.)

I've cut up my credit cards and am sending them back.

Seriously, these people are too dumb to be running a financial company.

(Two days later.)

Still no reply from CornerCard to my email, asking why I was sent a paper bill, when this option was unticked in their app.

Oh, but they've sent me a letter confirming that they've canceled my credit cards.

No explanation, no apology. Just a cancelation, so I just blew 57 CHF for a year's subscription for two credit cards I never got to use.

I'll say it again... this company is too dumb to trust with your finances, and THIS is their level of customer service. And that's when you sign up for their Gold cards (!!)

You've been warned.

Final update:

Cornercard did refund me for the full amount (the annual charge for the credit cards and for the paper bill, which I hadn't requested).

They didn't ever email me, justify their behavior, apologise, or admit they'd made a simple mistake.

As I've said.. you've been warned. I'm relieved to be rid of them.