Kevin C.

I recently swtiched energy supppliers from Electric Ireland to Glowpower, a new entry iinto the energy supply market in Ireland (Australian Company). A decision I have seriously regretted ever since.

Since I have signed up, every single bill I have received has been wildly innacurate despite having supplied meter readings. On one occassion, they were trying to charge me almost €1000 where my average monthly bill is about €80.00.

I contacted 4 different people in the company over a 3 week period before it was resolved. Each time I explained in detail the issue. Each time I was told it would be resolved. On 3 occassions they did not resolve it and sent me the same €1000 bill again. Only after I requested a complaint number and threatened to escalate to the regulator was I able to get it resolved. I made this request twice before a manager contacted me. I was still not issued with a complaint number.

I contacted the regulator to request advice as the company were not following their own procedures and would not issue me with a complaint number. All they did was tell me what the procedurte was which I was aware of. I clearly asked for advice on what to do when the company were refusing to follow their own procedures. So the staff member in the Regulators office did not either read my email correctly or misunderstood it.

With all that said. It is not worth all the agro. I just have to double check my bills each month and continue to correct them.

My advice is to stay away and stick to the established providers. Less likely to have issues and more likely to find it easier to resolve issues.

Update April 2021 (End of 12 month contract)
Having now come to the end of my time with Glowpower, I have decided to switch providers. The reasons are simple. While I did not experience any more overcharging, I did get seriously underestimated bills which can be just as bad as you can get hit with a massive bill when your not expecting it. I continued to submit my meter readings every month to keep on top of this as I did not trust them. The lack of trust and 2 price increases over the 12 months which means they are no longer competitive leaves with no other choice.

I have just cancelled one of my orders as the item was not in stock and it would have led to me waiting an extra month waiting for my product. I have to say though, Terry the customer rep was great and all went well in that respect and I promptly received my refund.
The 2 biggest issues with Gearbest are 1) The usability/functionality of the website and 2) The ability to contact customer support in a timely manner.

Firstly the website. There are way too many glitches. Click on an Icon and you are taken somewhere else. Logging in is an issue. Tracking your items mostly does not work. Sometimes it does but not often. If an item is not in stock the buyer should be told before making the purchase, simple really. I tried to communicate these issues to the reps but all they kept asking was to send screen grabs. Screen grabs will not show you the issues I talking about! It is not my job to show you the issues with your site. Just get a couple of your employees to sit and work with the system for a while as if they were a customer. Easy. They get paid for their time, I do not. In professional terms it is called "testing".

Secondly, contacting the customer support is a joke. A lot of these websites seem to be investing in AI technology or bots to use an other term. All it is is an automated version of the FAQ page which on most oh these sites is terrible anyway. You need to know how to speak to the bot to get any kind of reasonable response. Mostly, it is just groundhog day. Way to much time and effort required. When I finally got in touch with a person they didn't even answer the questions asked and answered questions I didn't ask. Then they repeat the same request to send screen grabs. Screen grabs do not work in my case as they will not show you the problems I have highlighted. Again, too much time required and not my responsibility.

For these reasons I cannot trust a site that cannot even get the basics right and do not understand that all us buyers want to do is make a purchase, receive it and then forget about Gearbest until our next purchase. No customer wants to get bogged down in a quagmire of communication that is not being listened to in the first place.

In summary, I will not be making any more purchase with Gearbest for the foreseeable future. I will be watching and checking to see if the issues mentioned get fixed. The site has potential, good value items and some good features but it falls down with the basics. Your website is your store, if it doesn't work right, your store doesn't work right.

I love Ebay, I spend hours on it almost every day. However, I am going to give my 2 cents worth on the downsides. Their website could be drastically improved. There are a lot of issues with searching for items.

For example I live in Ireland but when I search for items with shipping to Ireland items that won't ship come up in the search. This slows my search drastically. It is very easy to get caught out on shipping too. When you are doing your search items have a shipping cost at the bottom of the add. When you click into the ad this could change drastically. Also the shipping charges are very often excessively high. I can almost always beat there prices as a private consumer with a courier than they charge and by quite a margin.

When purchasing more than one item from a seller, the price for shipping often goes up at the same rate. This is sharp practice in my opinion. I also take issue with navigating the after sales/customer service side of things. It is very frustrating and you would need to go on a course to figure it all out.

All in all, I am happy with Ebay. I cannot wait until they extend the full buyer protection beyond Pay Pal. A very welcome development indeed.

I love the concept of Pay Pal. They make online purchasing, making payments or just sending funds very easy and almost hassle free. Where they let them selves down is the customer service end and I suspect some not so straight up practices like withholding money from hitting your account etc. Navigating the complaints process is difficult and you would nearly need to do a 1 day course to figure it out. I would love to see some real and viable competition to them however as competition drives improvement, as well as choice for consumers. I would also like to see more transparency & oversight. There are some real horror stories online which prevents me from leaving any funds in my account.

I can't speak highly enough. Always great prices and fantastic choice. Their website works like a dream and they are constantly updating and improving it. Shipping is fast and everything is extremely well packaged. The chances of something getting damaged during the shipping process is truly minimised.

Where Thomann truly shine is the after sales customer support and the pre sale advice & after sales advice. After reading other reviews, I decided this had to be said. I have had issues with Thomann, but not many. I am in Ireland & they are in Germany. When you are shopping that distance away there is always potential for issues to arise. You could be unlucky and receive a faulty product, a product can get damaged in shipping or you can get sent the wrong item. These issues are however the responsibilty of the supplier to resolve. To date I have had all of these issues arise and on each occassion they dealt with with minimal effort all within the 30 day guarantee. Simply complete the return form and you are sent a return shipping label. You do not even have to give a reason but I feel it is helpful if you do.

It is important to factor in the time involved in dealing with these issues. They take time to resolve. It takes 4/5 days for me to receive a purchase. If I need to rteturn a product I need to allow the same time and add a few days to process the refund or the replacement shippng. So in total a return should take about 7 or 8 days to resolve. A return for a replacement around 14 or 15 days at most. I always consider this a possibility before I buy and accept it.

Another very important factor to consider is warranty repairs. You need to send the product back to them which takes time. Most likely you will have to carry the burden of the return shipping. Thankfully, to date, I have not had to do this.

Another thing I like is that Thomann post all reviews on products good or bad and they remain there for all to see. I always use this as a guide to purchasing products as most of the reviewers are thorough and detailed. However, I have noticed that on this particular site, their customer service rep only acknowledges and repsonds to 5 star reviews. I think this is bad practice. Either respond to all or to none!

Consumers need to understand, be prepared for and accept that issues will inevitably arise when ordering online and have the necessary patience to see it through. The question then remains how well do Thomann live up to their promise(s) & resolve your issue(s). They have every time with me. If patience is an issue then find a local shop/dealer and trade with them.