Horror stories from customers' reviews of all Group Buying companies

Lmickminh on 14/06/2013 - 09:22

Having heaps and heaps of problems in getting refund (still not yet resolved!) from a holiday deal where the merchant wouldn't honour the voucher, my investigation found out so many horror stories from other victims all over Australia

Below is the list of all registered Group Buying companies in Australia as shown in the ADMA (Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising) Web site http://www.adma.com.au - Followed by the customers' reviews for all of them.

You can see the extremely high number of "Terrible" entries which dominate the reviews.

Please do yourself a favour by browsing through the reviews to read the horror stories as experienced by other victims.

I have set my email system to spam all advertising emails from these shonky operators.

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From ADMA:

What can I do if I have a problem with a Group Buying company?
If you have a problem with a Group Buying company then the first thing you should do is contact them and try to resolve the issue with them.

The contact details of Group Buying companies that are signatories to the Australian Group Buying Code of Conduct are
Company Contact Details

Cudo www.cudo.com.au/help or [email protected]

Deals.com.au www.deals.com.au/info/contact-us

Jump On It [email protected] or phone 1800 586 766

Living Social [email protected] or phone 1800 548 762

Groupon [email protected] or www.groupon.com.au/contact

Ouffer www.ouffer.com/support or [email protected]

Our Deal [email protected]

Scoopon helpcenter.scoopon.com.au

Spreets [email protected]

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REVIEWS (Extremely bad!!):

Cudo Reviews: 1.8 / 5 from 192 reviews
http://www.productreview.com.au/p/cudo.html
Excellent: 29 Good: 8 OK: 2 Bad: 12 Terrible: 141

Groupon Reviews: 1.3 / 5 from 201 reviews
http://www.productreview.com.au/p/groupon.html
Excellent: 9 Good: 4 OK: 2 Bad: 7 Terrible: 179

Ouffer Reviews: 1.2 / 5 from 200 reviews
http://www.productreview.com.au/p/ouffer.html
Excellent: 4 Good: 5 OK: 2 Bad: 5 Terrible: 184

Our Deal Reviews: 3.0 / 5 from 281 reviews
http://www.productreview.com.au/p/our-deal.html
Excellent: 115 Good: 26 OK: 6 Bad: 3 Terrible: 132

Scoopon Reviews: 1.5 / 5 from 165 reviews
http://www.productreview.com.au/p/scoopon.html
Excellent: 9 Good: 7 OK: 6 Bad: 12 Terrible: 131

Spreets Reviews: 1.3 / 5 from 95 reviews
http://www.productreview.com.au/p/spreets.html
Excellent: 3 Good: 3 OK: 2 Bad: 7 Terrible: 80

Deals.com.au Reviews: 1.6 / 5 from 30 reviews
http://www.productreview.com.au/p/deals-com-au.html
Excellent: 3 Good: 2 OK: 0 Bad: 1 Terrible: 24

Jump On It Reviews: 1.5 / 5 from 13 reviews
http://www.productreview.com.au/p/jump-on-it.html
Excellent: 1 Good: 0 OK: 1 Bad: 0 Terrible: 11

LivingSocial Reviews: 1.5 / 5 from 120 reviews
http://www.productreview.com.au/p/livingsocial.html
Excellent: 7 Good: 6 OK: 1 Bad: 11 Terrible: 95

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  CyberMurning on 14/06/2013 - 09:32

  +3

  just buy cheap stuffs from group buying (dont buy something like $2000 holiday package eventho it says 99% discount~!).
  therefore the risk is minimal.

  get something like $5 frozen yogurt, or $1 hungry jacks

• 

  one man clan on 14/06/2013 - 10:32

  +6

  I hear that many of these sites are struggling. It's a terrible, abusive business model, and frankly I can't wait till they are all gone.

• 

  Smulder on 14/06/2013 - 11:10

  I have bought multiple items from all the deal sites listed, and have never had a single problem with any of them.

  I think people would be much more likely to post a review after a bad experience than a good one, so the reviews are probably skewed heavily in the negative direction.

  Still, no doubt people have been scammed. Though I always think it is quite easy to tell which deals are legitimate and which are likely to end in tears.

• 

  user27 on 14/06/2013 - 13:42

  you can also check out www.perthgroupbuy.com which does the same, but hasn't been updated very recently.

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  kwaker on 15/06/2013 - 08:36

  Had some good experiences mostly good. Had some bad:
  Ouffer japanese restaurant got there and they would not accept vouch. Ouffer refunded me after a month (tried to give me credit then paypal making me pay fees) but im still out taxi cost.

  Groupon sushi voucher. The restaurant terms were phone booking must be made. Groupon knew they were not answering their phones but did not refund customers until requested.

  Eroo bought some vouchers reffered friends to go with me. They screwed alot of people over and would not hono refferal credit so they went down the drain

  I had scoopin voucher for jetboat sydney. They put me with schoolkids who spent the whole time pretending to vomit making everyone sick. Would never recommend jetboating again thanks to that.

  I dont think that they have any deals that are great enough to warrant the risk and put up with vendors who dont want to accept the vouchers.