AA Connected

I bought their slippers, and though they were not right for me, the customer service before and after purchase was excellent.

The wasteful part of writing this review is that I know that those at the top of this company do not care about anything other than the money flowing in, often to the detriment of the care going out as far as pet owners are concerned. Judging by the poor rating on here they certainly wont read these reviews and don’t take them seriously. They are above us all it seems.

Linnaeus Group and those who own / run it are nothing short of corporate raiders. Grabbing a stake of the over £2 billion worth of UK business, buying out Vet practices and stripping them of anything that may get in the way of making money. Perhaps they have ‘Greed is Good’ blazoned across the wall of the CEO’s office just to remind everyone. From my experience this ‘So what’ attitude seems to filter down to the vet practices that they buy out. A big enough issue with the industry formula that the CMA are looking into the way all these corporations run their business’s. Their corporate greed is obvious and harmful, where going to the vets is nothing short of most of us emptying our bank accounts. Those who are unable to afford their overpriced and often extortionate fees and extras will only be in a position where the pets suffer in one way or another. Put down or given for adoption. Which in my eyes questions their ethics in the veterinary business.

My pet needs a monthly medication. Judging by the last bill £220 per month. Obviously the insurance won't pay for it. I am told ‘well you can buy it online and inject the pet yourself. Great thank you :/ an inexperienced nurse I suddenly become.

I go on line. The injection portion of the meds i need are approximately £85 for 2 vials. This company Charge £95 but only give you one vial, even if the receipt I receive tells me I should get 2. Not getting what’s on the receipt is blatant stealing. They want to charge £100 extra per month just so that a nurse can inject my pet, plus of course their ‘fee’. That is one expensive visit for a minutes worth of time. For the pleasure of me buying it on line, for someone to print out a prescription and for a vet to sign it, another couple of minutes spent, that would cost £22. That at 5 minutes time spent printing and signing comes out to is £264 per hour of work. If only everyone was as fortunate.

Then there were the pills I need. Gabapentin. A human medication that for some reason has a price explosion when the vets get a hold of it. Searching on line for pets I immediately found a price of 0.06p a pill. That for the 60 I was prescribed is £3.60. That was for 100mg. I need 50mg. Clearly further searches and phone call will give me what I need. The practice changed me a whopping £50.94 plus they only gave me 60 though the pack amount is 250.

I’ll forget about the £28 for Synulox as hopefully my dog wont need that every month.

In total I got a bill for £219.80 much of it pure greed and taking advantage of the fact that we love our animals and to fight these issues means they will not deal with you in the future. Complain and be banned.

I attempted to write to the CEO. CEO’s who do not care are made impossible to intentionally reach. I received a reply from an employee whose job no doubt is to fend of annoying complaining customers that stop the CEO from counting money that they have made that morning. I get referred ‘back’ to the vet, who had already referred me on to the company who owns them. An intentional to and fro to make our lives hell, knowing we’ll probably give up.

This corporation are beyond Greedy, they are irreverent. It seems to be typical of what we as pet owners are made to suffer. BTW the veterinary practice in question that they own is Lida Vets in Newmarket. And though I have no issue with the vet per se, as one is as good as another in these cases, I do have an issue that they too have ignored my complaint. They mockingly do not bother to contact me as I was told they would do by Linnaeus. I’d say given this, they too do not care about animals or my pets future care, over the amounts of money they are more than happy to charge. Affordable or not.

Their slipper quality control is bad. I’ve had my felt slippers for a little over a year. indoor use only (Of course they’re slippers). Washed once in cold water (outer only) back is frayed completely. With normal (daily) wear the cork inner part on both skippers have cracked across the front. I guess they’re for show, not for use :)

On the other side, i’ve had a pair of Birkenstock shoes that have lasted a very long time.

Not a company to buy slippers from i’d say.

I often visit the Fordham Garden centre. Being a gardening novice I rely heavily on the expertise of the gardening staff. All of whom are very helpful. When my questions are too in depth then Jason the plant manager, is not only very knowledgable, but very helpful and generous with his time.

If I have criticism it’s that I feel the department staff, especially the plant manager, are stretched thinly. 1 or 2 extra staff would help.

Given the helpful attitude it’s my garden centre of choice.

In reply.

Aside from, if you had any real care you would have called me to discuss this, by not doing so face to face so to speak, clearly shows your lack of care / concern.

I'd say;

No Animal Unfriendly... the issue was not dental. Aside from the fact that there was more than one issue, eroded bone tissue above a canine in the jaw is not dental. There was no rotten tooth to cause this. Though of course, with your arrogant desire not to payout and the lack of concern and greed attached, which you show plenty of, you can use anything near a tooth as a get out clause. As you are doing in this case.

There is obviously a problem with this as I will not pay the hospital and neither will you. So it'll end up in court. What a silly place for anything to end up though it will at least have your legal department in use.

Another thought is that; If I as a customer, have an issue with something and you were honourable as a company you would also contact the RVC to try and deal with this. YOU would look into it. Instead, you wash your hands of the whole thing. You are God to yourselves deciding what you want, how you want, and to hell with everyone else. The story of many corporations on the planet sadly. In this Animal Unfriendly are the worst of the worst insurance companies. Saying that in a whole industry that is not very honourable is saying something.

In any industry it isn't the 'good' reviews that matter, whereby you have no other choice than to pay out, it's the justified negative reviews that you intentionally don't look into properly as a reason not to pay out. As in this one.

Have a nice day employee. Not so those who decide these issue at Animal Unfriendly.

The review stands, and hopefully it will have some impact on who does and does not use your insurance service.

The Original review:

This company as with most insurance companies, are quick to take your money, raising premiums more than double for no good cause, other than greed perhaps. (mine is currently £85 per month, up from £45)

However, when someone attempts to make a claim Animal Friends (?) scour the vets information for anything and everything that they can use as a get out clause, to give them an excuse to pay out absolutely nothing on a claim.

My dog was referred on to the RVC. Big mistake. There I was thinking that because they are a college that their prices would be fair. After all they are already making a killing from all the students right? Wrong. They are a company in much the same as any referrals, based on profit coming in. Someone will pay so hey, let's charge an unjustified fortune. (This no matter how genuine individual vets may be in their desire to help animals). But to the pet owners... we are just the source of as much income as they can get.

My dog had two scans for two separate issues.

However, apparently, magically, Animal Friends took it down to one denominator so that they could use their get out of jail free card. Hey one issue is near teeth, let's use that as a blanket and say it's Dental work! (even if it's not). Yeah Great...

Wrong... of course, but now here I am stuck between two powerful entities, all sweet and honey pie on their side, undoubtably lawyered up to ensure all the get out clauses are found, and it's an argument between this schmuck here, left trying to get what's fair and proper vs two entities who don't really care about much other than how much money they can screw. I will of course be the loser. Small fools always are.

In my personal opinion, the triangle of vets / referrals / insurance companies live off one another in a way that I think is a scam.

So if you're on here thinking about buying pet insurance. should I? shouldn't I? My opinion is, don't. It's doubtful if you will ever recoup the amount you pay in. And those premiums will keep going up and up and up. They always win... animals and owners do not.

I'm stopping my insurance as of today because, when push come to shove, Animal friends they're not.

Sadly it's no wonder so many animals are to be found for adoption. No good will in the world can fight against the walls that are put up between vets, insurance companies and referrals. And sadly again, the ones that suffer in the long run are the animals.

an update.

I have updated to 3 stars, though some of the help deserved 4 and in this CEWE did manage to fix the issue and eventually there was communication between them and I. So in the end all was good. In all of this it is always better that these issues didn't arise and enough troubleshooting is done before software is released. I also hope that their IT dept. has looked into it so that whatever the issue was doesn't trouble other people.

In all of this, the end result, the books were of a good quality. Not as inexpensive as some but hey...

the original review.

4 weeks working on a book, offline on my computer using their software. I'm ready to upload to order and in the process their system corrupted the file. The file is now unusable. There is no not even their logo on that file. It is unable to be opened with their downloaded software or anything else. 4 weeks editing totally wasted. Customer service unable to put me through to someone who may have helped in some way. Not the employees fault, but it's another company set up to be unhelpful beyond a basic service. Instead of dealing with it at that time, at my convenience, I was asked to send an email for someone to call me, at their convenience. Who knows what I'll be doing at that time... not great all around.

I will have to start again. Not sure why it should be CEWE when there are a plethora of companies out there, good and bad, all doing the same thing.

Update:

CEWE's way of dealing with this? Not a call as I was assured would happen, but an email asking me to 'share some photos, so that they can help me properly'!??! Properly? Not, please send the corrupt file so that someone can investigate it, but photos, jpgs. all of which are fine.

Atrocious customer service but typical of companies who pretend to offer good service but use it only as a front for advertising leading on to taking your money.

Given the mess and the fact I now have to redo all I have done, with zero practical help from CEWE, this company aren't worth dealing with and I've downgraded this company to one star.

Award winning software is not good if it corrupts a file, even once.

A company is not a thoughtful or responsible company if they remain silent when things go wrong.

CEWE are that company it seems.

Just another Atrocious company where greed trumps any kind of care or customer service. Look around, the planet is falling apart with this kind of attitude.

Their wait times are atrocious, over an hour. Their overseas customer service do not seem to care, (they take that lead from their UK office no doubt). Accident claims go on and on...over 6 months. A company who do not seem to bat for their customers but for themselves, wanting to shut down an issue over helping a customer. And all this with rising insurance costs that cannot be justified. 80% higher and more, in one year!

Again I have attempted to have virgin, because for a moment, they were the least expensive, however their, customer service and organisational skills are 'so' bad that I have again decided to cancel my installation yet again and go elsewhere.

In this process Virgin have sent out 5 lots of employees. all but the first needlessly, wasting my time and theirs. The left hand do not know what the right is doing. Their surveyors prior to the installation date were not good or thorough which has resulted in a great waste of time. All the employees were misinformed as to what they could and couldn't do with Open Reach facilities. Virgin are absolutely useless

The real issue for customers wanting media is that 'all' the media companies seem to be atrocious where customer service is concerned ... It's obvious that no one at the top of any of these companies cares for anything other than the huge pay packages they have. Seems to be 'especially' true of Virgin where they do not even allow you to speak to a manager to resolve an issue. They promise a call back within a time period, that never arrives. Wait times on their phones are extremely long. Considering they are off shore agency's one would at least expect them to employ more people. Instead they know that a customer has no other option that to wait.

Absolutely atrocious.

As a postscript. when I did attempt to cancel my order the agency Virgin uses wouldn't listen, continually talked about a free 2 months. After telling them 5 x that I wanted to cancel service I had to show annoyance. Only then did they agree to cancel my order...

Virgin here's a suggestion. Become organised. Show you care and listen. To keep customers / potential customers happy and want to be with you, that might be a good start.

The product may be good however, customer service is not.

Every time I order something it is delayed. Whenever I call the overseas support team, they have absolutely no idea what is going on with an order. 3 calls and 3 x they say... it'll arrive tomorrow, no have a clue as to when it's arriving. Invariably it doesn't arrive the next day.

If I were CEO of Adidas, sitting at the top counting my money, I'd shake up customer care / services and whoever organises that part of the corporation because clearly, they are doing a terrible job!

Adidas tells us that 'impossible is nothing'. That is not true where customer service is concerned.

From now on I'll try Nike, apparently they 'just do it'

Even before I have 'officially' joined I realise how bad their service is.

Virgin media have different customer care centres all over the world that can't seem to deal with things efficiently or in a way that is organised and helpful. (Being polite and 'pretending' to care is not the same as good customer service). Simple questions asked by me are either misunderstood, misinterpreted or ignored in a way that gives an answer. Their answer is to repeat the same thing over and over again hoping that I'll give up (which I eventually did). 4 times I was given the wrong information today. Along the way the customer service centres around the world, no matter the location, refuse to put you in contact with the people that will actually do the work to get people connected, here in the UK. They expect customers to allow people onto their property, into their building, without giving any idea of how they are going to do the job, we should just allow them to do 'whatever'. Add to that, the installation has just been delayed by 6 weeks. 10 weeks of waiting around for virgin media to get their act together (if they ever will). The customer does not seem to matter. I guess the attitude is, there's always another one around the corner. Even BT is better then Virgin... and let me say, that is saying something. because BT are truly atrocious. But then again, so are Virgin Media by my experience. I will be looking for another service provider.

Update: Again, when I attempted to speak to someone last Friday, 10 March, to ask the same simple question that 'only' a hands on team could answer here in the uk, that employee couldn't answer the question so felt that hanging up the phone was the best thing to do.

Today I eventually called again to cancel my service. Finally someone who was coherent and helpful though whatever he could have / would have done to put me in touch with the UK hands on installation team was all too little, too late. The delayed installation date did not matter, it was 'how' they were going to install it into my home. Of course only those who will do the work could answer that.

I've now cancelled my installation.

Again, Virgin customer service is atrocious. Stay clear or hope you do not need to call them.

With no easy way to;

contact the company.

Change personal or pay settings.

To rectify the fact you send confirmation emails to an old email, despite having changed it.

With the company obviously retaining information that they shouldn’t.

To delete information.

One should question the integrity of this company.

Amazing that two different tech support reps can have differing knowledge of the products that they are supposed to be trained on.

I attempted to change the Sonos system I have so that I could use it with a Mesh system, connected to the router. Apparently Sonos products are unable to do this without a major hoohaa. And god forbid a Sonos employee who is apparently in the know, would actually want to help you through the issue. Customers? Who are they!

This explanation, that Sonos do not work automatically and easily with a mesh system was in contrast to first tech person I spent over an hour with, who never mentioned the issue. After an hour on the phone with him I had to eventually get on with other things. Hence my second call today. With the second rep on trying to ascertain if it was a 'Sonos' issue, he gave me no answer, his solution was to hang up and make the issue go away.

Obviously I do not know what the issue is or the answer is, which is why I took the time to call customer service in the first place, hoping for simplicity and helpfulness but hey... it seems they have differing views, ways and knowledge of dealing with issues.

Oh and forget about being passed on to a manager... they avoid customers like the plague.

So what's the solution?

For me it's to sell the Sonos system and add to the other system I have that works flawlessly and easily with the HEOS app on my phone. No issues there. Mesh or otherwise.

So to answer my own question posed to the Sonos rep, yes it's a Sonos issue!

Anyone thinking of a Sonos system? I'd advise that you do your research, there are better working, more cared for systems out there that sound just as good and often better. A company where hopefully the customer service ethos is a little more than iterating 'it's not us it's you.

Anyone want to buy a cheap Sonos system?

Though I have had issues in the past with damage to a product that was the fault of John Lewis, and on that occasion was resolved appallingly by John Lewis, for me as a customer, On this occasion that was absolutely not the case. There seems to be a huge difference between customer service on line, where even at the CEO level it is sent over to a resolution team who are unrealistic, and in shop service.

I bought a product from John Lewis Cambridge that arrived damaged, though this time not the fault of John Lewis. It had to be replaced. Then came atrocious service by the delivery company prolonging the negative experience, again it arrived damaged. Who knows who was to blame directly but it clearly wasn't John Lewis. However, in Store Cambridge could not have been more helpful, understanding and realistic. They did the right thing in dealing with this issue in an excellent way. Again I believe it was because it was bought in store and not on line. There seems to be a world of difference between on line customer service and in store customer service.

Thank you John Lewis Cambridge for doing the right thing. It ensures a returning customer.

I have had deliveries by DPD in the past that went as a delivery should. It isn’t rocket science. Yesterday and today was a different matter. Last Monday an item that was delivered arrived damaged. It’s a little unclear as to who was responsible, the manufacturer or DPD. Either way I needed to return the item and get a replacement.

That new delivery / old collection was supposed to happen yesterday. I was given an 11.09 / 12.09 delivery time. As I was tracking it from the app I could see that I was delivery number 11 (later that changed to delivery 10) . The driver was on delivery 8, then 9 then… nothing. I could see that the van had gone out of the area where I lived and getting farther away. After 3 hours I called DPD. No one was helpful. The usual, we don’t know / we can't help. After pushing I eventually received a call from the Peterborough depot. All they could tell me was that the tracker handset wasn’t working (though I could see the van moving away) and the driver wasn’t picking up his phone. ‘He can’t whilst he is driving’ was their only answer, ignoring the logic that once he had stopped seeing the depot had called as an employee should have (especially if his tracker handset was broken, which didn’t really wash) replied to messages. DPD insisted on repeating the same excuse. I spoke to the depot twice, to DPD other departments several times. They assured me more than once that whatever happened the package ‘would’ be delivered today (yesterday). It wasn’t. By 7.30pm I assumed they weren’t delivering. I wasn’t happy at being lied to and given the runaround and wasting a day relying on an unreliable company. At about 9.30pm I reached notification that it would be delivered today (Saturday).

Today again, I was given a delivery time slot. Some time between 11.23 and 12.23. I was 86 to be delivered. At 11.25 the driver was at delivery 64. It kept creeping up, getting closer until it got to delivery 73. This was at 12.27 then again, much like yesterday the update / tracking ability stopped. Coincidence? Doubtful. At 13.43 knowing that there was an issue and the driver had again missed this delivery I called DPD wanting to lodge a complaint. Not possible. DPD keep you so contained in their complaints process that they make sure nothing happens. They simply do not care. At about 14.10 I received a message telling me that the package would be delivered by 4:23pm. At 16.02 I got another message telling me that another driver would be delivering between 15.55 and 16.55. (yes another driver / another van which brings up all sorts of questions). At 16.28 I received another message saying: ‘sorry we missed you. Your driver E...... Won’t be back today but we’ll be back Sun 2 October with your parcel’. Along with that was a photograph. Totally wrong house with totally the wrong house number. Not even the street I live on. They don't even pretend to care.

So far, in one way or another, I have spent 3 long days waiting fro DPD to do their job to a level of competence we should all expect. They expect me to wait for a 4th day. It’s a Sunday. I doubt they will arrive tomorrow and if they do come will they be at the right address? Will I be waiting, twice bitten etc. So probably not. Again, DPD simply do not care.

The issue is that anyone at the top on the corporate side of things don’t care either. They collect their huge incomes and do not have time to run a company in an efficient thoughtful way. If they did care about service, they would not make it an impossibility to reach them.

Here is a company owned by a huge French corporation miles away passing on control to the UK office who deliver service in a very bad way.

DPD may work when it works but when it doesn’t, they do not care and walk away from any responsibility. Along the way they will lie and make someone’s life more than difficult just because they’re in control and they can.

Update from DPD Sunday: Received a message at 10.40am: 'your parcel has been delayed due to an unexpected issue in your area. your estimated delivery date is Monday 3rd October'.

Well... there's a surprise.

Update Monday. Finally arrived. Wasted days. no apology nothing. DPDo what we want, how we want to and you don't matter, we're still making money!

The problem with this company is that they do not serve all areas and fail to advertise that, or tell anyone until the last minutes.

This company sends texts / emails / booking numbers to make it look as if they are on top of things when in reality, it's an algorithm that has no knowledge or mess of the bad situation they can put people in. Just another internet company with a call centre somewhere, dreamed up by someone whose main motivation is certainly not service. An attitude that is selfish and thoughtless and all too prevalent, no matter the size of the company. It's a typical 'we couldn't care less' attitude by a company who gamble on other peoples situations and when they do not deliver do not care about the consequences to others.

A company is only as good as the bad service it gives. Then when they are at fault, how they attempt to rectify their wrongdoing. In this case it was a phone call a day before a van was supposed to arrive, to say, in as many words, 'we can't deliver, tough!'

Update:

Because of my complaint this company came back to me. They found a driver from another area and paid the difference that would be needed for the extra distance the driver would have to come. The driver himself was courteous, helpful and understanding of the previous issues with the company.

Having sourced another driver from another area, in that way the company made good and hence my rating is now 3 stars, up from 1.

Hopefully in the future Myconstructor will not book a job that they cannot fulfil.