LivingSocial UK

I ordered two fruit fusion drinks bottles from livingsocial approximately 3 weeks ago, one in blue and one green. When they arrived, my immediate thought before even opening them was 'this will be interesting' as they were in completely different packaging, and one was well wrapped whilst the other was open at one end and could easily have fallen out. Upon opening, they had clearly come from different suppliers, as the bottles were both blue (didn't really matter) and were completely different styles - one in the style I ordered, and one very much different and not one that u would have chosen. I rang livingsocial to explain, and request a replacement bottle for the one in the style I did not order... then spent the next few days on corresponding between living social and a supplier. Neither would admit fault, and wanted me to send the wrong bottle back at MY cost... why? Not my fault they sent the wrong bottle. When I complained again, I was once again fobbed off and have not been waiting for a repose for over a week now... clearly it's not going to come! Don't touch them with a barge pole... happy to take ownership of taking your money, but when there's an issue, they are well and truly missing in action!

I have bought some good deals from Living Social, but also others when I have felt cheated. On Sun. 8 May I bought a deal for a restaurant in the City where I live. It said valid until 12 August. OK, that sounded fine but when I came to print off the voucher and the email, it said valid between 3 and 12 May at the top and the email said VALIDATE NOW in bold letters. As this was a Sunday, I could not get in touch with Living Social. I sent them an email which has still not been replied to. The restaurant could not explain. On Mon. 9 May, I phoned Living Social and asked for an explanation. I was told that although the voucher is valid until 12 August, the booking must be made before 12 May. I then tried phoning the restaurant to make a booking and it was closed. Time is creeping on and I fear that I may lose the right to use the voucher and my money. How sneaky is all this!
Update: I have since managed to contact the restaurant on the evening of 10 May and made a booking for 27 May. They would not take my voucher no. And said that it was okay to just bring it along on 27 May. I have now had a response to my email to Living Social and again they are saying that I must validate the voucher by 12 May, but can use it up until 12 August. What happens if I turn up at the restaurant and they will not honour the voucher?

Ordered trainers through living social. They took weeks to arrive and were not the item I had ordered. Contacted customer services. Returns procedure complicated, involved having to send them a scan of the item received before they would look into it. Despite the retailer having clearly sent out wrong item I only received £25.00 back, not the £32.95 I had paid. Would not use living social again. You get the impression that refunds are made difficult in the hope that you won't bother and would keep items you dont want.

I've used LivingSocial occasionally over about three years. Things have gone smoothly on about three occasions - the rest of the time there has always been some problem or other.

Firstly, the website is very unstable. Often, when you click on an interesting deal and then click through to "buy", the panel that is supposed to give you the discount code simply fails to appear - the text tells you to click on the code, but neither the panel nor the code is there. Sometimes I've just given up, but sometimes the deal has been so interesting that I've persisted, going back to the ad and clicking through to the 'buy' page time and time again. After many tries, the code at last appears and allows you to proceed to the purchase page. No, my computer is NOT faulty (as one LS customer service agent declared) - it works perfectly on all other online purchase sites.

Secondly, on two previous occasions the merchant has not recognised the LivingSocial deal and has charged me his full retail price on my credit card. On one occasion LivingSocial arranged for a refund, on another they said the problem was between me and the merchant and Living Social could not help me. My credit card company got me a refund, saying that they had a long history of problems with that merchant and were no longer accepting his business. So why was LS doing business with the merchant?

In spite of this poor history I recently made one last try, because the offered deal was so good. It was a deal for a TOTAL WHITE teeth whitening kit, normally about £80 - £90, for £16 plus £4.95 postage. Again, it took me several tries to bring up the LS site page with a discount code panel, but eventually it appeared. The next day I received an emailed invoice from the merchant for the postage which was immediately deducted from my credit card account. I received the product OK, a couple of days later, but two weeks later £79.95 was deducted from my credit card account. I immediately emailed LivingSocial who emailed a reply saying they didn't accept emailed complaints and that I must phone their customer service - difficult for me because my vocal cords are paralysed (as I had said in my email to them).

I phoned as requested and was told by a very snotty (female) "customer service (!)" agent that it was not their problem and I had to call the merchant. I phoned TOTALWHITE who said that they had no knowledge of any such discount offer and my order had been treated as a normal transaction at their usual price and terms. I phoned LivingSocial again, this time to find a much more sympathetic (male) agent who took all my details and promised to investigate the problem, to sort it out. And to email me back. Guess what? Nothing further.

I've given up, life is too short to spend hours on the phone or at the keyboard sorting out these problems - which, of course, is what these soulless internet scam artists count on. But I'm putting LivingSocial on my blocked address list and telling as many people as I can - DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS (DIS)ORGANISATION. Like the man said "If it seems too good to be true, it is." Don't buy, don't get caught.

I booked a VIP Studio Recording Party for my Daughters 9th Birthday advertised at rrp £100.

When we turned up the recording studio was closed, we waited 15 mins for the man to turn up after 3 phone calls. He smelt of alcohol with glazed eyes and seemed knackered. We even thought he had gone to sleep at one point during the session.

The studio smelt of weed at which the recorder sprayed air freshner around the studio.

There were no lyrics provided for the children and no advance warning of this, Me and my husband were told to download the words on our phones for the children.

Given that it was my daughters birthday the producer never even wished her happy birthday. He said about 10 words in the whole session.

And surprise surprise I never received a disc from the studio of the children singing even after chasing.

On ringing living social, I was not even offered a full refund. I was offered £10 credit on my account, as if I would ever buy anything from them again!

My daughters birthday was ruined by this company and it's something we cannot get back!

Beware when purchasing from this company on special occasions.

Deal sounded too good to be true... and it was! Whisky tasting set advertised as 5 miniature bottles, but received 5 test-tubes of what may be whisky. Certainly not the unusual nice gift that I was expecting for my dad for Christmas. Living Social took no responsibility for their exaggerated advertising. This is gross misrepresentation. They told me to deal with the company direct, taking no responsibility whatsoever.
Have been let down by 'deals' before, so I should have learned my lesson. I wont be buying from them ever again.

The following is a slightly altered (for clarity only) extract from the last of a long series of e-mails I have exchanged with Living Social re. A pair of flip flops I purchased 29 days ago through this group discount site from Beauty Fit (UK), which never arrived. I think it speaks for itself.

"In order for your fine print to accurately represent the T & C of our contract it should state:
"Please allow 14 days for delivery of the product from the date of redemption of the voucher. If however, your product is not delivered by the merchant within this period despite multiple attempts by you to resolve the problem directly with the merchant, the merchant not being contactable by telephone because it does not not answer it and does not accept voicemail and not replying to e-mails re. Refunds whilst also lying to you twice about the date of delivery and most, importantly, never sending the product, we will send you repeated fob off e-mails in reply to your complaint about the merchant we chose to represent. Then, if you persist in your complaint, we will eventually pay lip service to sorting the problem out with the merchant but then do nothing except send you factually incorrect, self justifying e-mails, explaining that it is not our problem that you are out of pocket owing to the at best shoddy business practices of our merchant. Finally, when we have decided that you are indeed something of a nuisance, we will offer you credit to purchase items on our website, rather than actually offer you a full refund including the additional shipment and delivery costs."

NEVER USE LIVING SOCIAL.

My wife bought a flight lesson from a company called barefootdays (www.barefootdays.co.uk). She bought the voucher from livingsocial (https://www.livingsocial.com/).
Well, barefootdays cancelled the lesson because of bad weather asking us to provide alternative dates. We did but they never got back to us, after a few exchanges of emails and eventually they said that the offer was no longer available and we could get a refund from livingsocial. We therefore contacted Livingsocial but they declined to refund us on the basis that it had passed more than one year since we bought the voucher. Both companies refer to each other for the refund, but the net result is that they cancelled the service that we paid for and both refuse to reimburse us.
I hope that sharing this experience will prevent other customers repeating the same appalling experience. I really feel being robbed!

I bought voucher 2nd November Fireworks Special: 19:30 to 23:15 - Group o f 4 adults. I download the voucher and printed straight way. On 2nd we turned up to get on the board and the boat's stuff (very rude) told us that is wrong boat and probably next one will be ours. So we were waiting 0,5h for next boat which wasn't ours as well. So we came back home. On next day I have checked my email box. (I couldn't do this earlier because my laptop broke) and I saw email from livingsocial - my voucher has been cancelled. Reason: The cancellation affects all the tickets sold including the Family Halloween Cruises on all dates, and the Halloween and Fireworks Buffet Cruise on all dates. They gave us money back... but We lost time, money, and temper... NEVER AGAIN.

I've seen this voucher deal for diamond bangle £19 pound instead of £63 pound. I've registered it on social deal my card. Didnt go through at that time and later when I saw my bank account £19 pound been taken by livingSocial. I was forced to buy that coupon. So I did. It's been now one month I've not recieved my bangle. Despite my several contact with the bangle company. They dispatched it they said its a non signature item keep eye on your door. They didnt say how long, look like rest of your life. Contact livingSocial they said contact that company. Well it was you who took my money from my bank account, you are the one selling or robbed me so u r who should be responsible. I'm going to contact office of fair trading.