Team Buy nightmares?

[loopdokter]

Has anyone out there had any good experiences with Team Buy? Everything I'm coming across seems to be negative. I purchased two things via their site around the same time frame and one arrived 2 months late, whist the other is still 'in transit'.

I spoke with the same person on the phone twice, trying to resolve my issues and he was nothing short of rude.

I've already filed a complaint with the BBB about the no show item, but heard nothing in regard to that. I have emailed them again to ask for a refund, but have yet to hear back. My next step will be to call my credit card company and push for a refund due to services not rendered.

Has anyone had any experiences with them? I will obviously never use their site again. My experiences with Groupon have been wonderful. It's like night and day.

 

[Ho||yw0oD]

Not sure if this is your first time seeking remediation through BBB. I have gone through them twice and with desired results both times. One time it was with a shady Mexican company and I still got a good resolution. So, good call on BBB.

 

[awwnaw]

I have a friend who purchased services for a cleaning company and they went out of business 1 month later. Zero retribution (or even acknowledgment) from Team Buy. So at the very least poor customer service, and they'll take anyone to do a deal with. She also tried to contact them repeatedly and got no reply. Someone only acknowledged her after she posted on their Fb page.

My experience was annoying but no financial repercussions--could not unsubscribe from their stupid eBlast. After two weeks of hitting the button every time I got an email, I finally emailed them with screen grabs of my account profile (indicating I was not subscribing to any) then the next weeks worth of blasts in my inbox. (one would assume a email based product might have a sophisticated email platform. Guess not) Crickets. Finally found someone senior on LinkedIn and emailed them. Gave me the customer service general email... Did the same thing. Dude said he'd take care of it. Week passed. Still the same, and when he finally responded he said 'oh sorry, I was on holidays'. So the learning here is no one gives a fuck about customer service inquiries, and they go on vacay without someone picking up manning the inbox.

 

[unique2100]

Bought Oral B "COMPATIBLE" replacement tooth brush heads. So first off it took 12 weeks to get them and when they come they arent compatible they are fakes. So I email them and say wtf I was fine with off brand replacement tooth brush heads but these arent off brand they are fucking fake and I want my money back because not only are they fake they are shitty and they break mad easy. Basically they told me too bad. So I figure before I get Visa to reverse the charges Ill confirm they are fake I email Oral B with pictures and info showing the team buy ad and pics of the counterfit merch. Oral B tells me that they are allowed to open any email attachments. So I send them imgur links and they tell me they arent allowed to open links either. WTF Im trying to help your company out by outing a seller of fake products, then Oral B tells me to take physical pictures adn snail mail them in. Umm fuck you no. So basically I called Visa and they reversed the charges. Team buy is shit.

 

[KickIT]

Teambuy went on Dragon's Den and made a deal with Robert. At the deal signing, the Teambuy guys brought in their adviser, some MBA professor who questioned Robert and his lack of MBA pedigree. Robert told them all to fuck off and pulled out of the deal.

 

[loopdokter]

Yeah, I haven't come across anything good about them on the Internet. That said, people tend not to talk about how good things are, only the bad.

I'm just fed up with them. I've had the displeasure of dealing with the same 'customer service' (that's putting it lightly) person twice over the phone. He was so incredibly rude and indignant that I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him on the other side - the dick! His whole strategy seemed to be blaming the mail when it's been over two months since the item was 'purchased'. At least with my previous item they provided me with a tracking number - but only after contacting them.

As someone who has in the past, worked in customer service/support, I couldn't believe my ears.

Groupon however, couldn't have gone more out of the way to help me out with refunding my credit card due to a purchasing error that was admittedly my fault. A simple email was sent, replied to within 5 hours and then without further questions asked or discourse, my card was refunded back. My emails to TeamBuy have gone unanswered or they claim they've never received them. Of course, they make you do this off of their site so there's no record of you having sent the email.

BBB seems to have a high number of complaints for them as well.

 

[rawd]

I have a friend who purchased services for a cleaning company and they went out of business 1 month later. Zero retribution (or even acknowledgment) from Team Buy.

My wife was just telling me on the weekend how she thinks companies that are planning to shutdown are doing this as a last minute cash grab. There must be some legal loophole or something

She was telling me that there was a spa/salon near our place that had a big Groupon thing and they closed up shop a month later. She almost went in on it but never ended up doing it. Neither of us have ever purchased anything from those team buy sites, but this is making me stay away even more.

 

[sianspherica]

I haven't had Teambuy issues, but I would definitely NOT use Buytopia again.

 

[ravinjunkie]

Used it for last minute hotel discount and fitness classe. I also bought a Lou Dawg discount coupon a couple of years ago. Try not to buy products off these websites, I guess. Dealfind is also bs for refunds. I believe livingsocial and maybe groupon have the best return policy.

 

[Blysspluss]

We've had good luck from livingsocial. Not touched any others, actually.

 

[loopdokter]

My wife was just telling me on the weekend how she thinks companies that are planning to shutdown are doing this as a last minute cash grab. There must be some legal loophole or something

I think a lot of businesses do these types of deals in an effort to increase business, but then realize that most people end up just going in for the one time because it was such a good deal - thereby defeating the purpose of it in the first place and negating profits.

Or at least, that's what I read about a recent article on how Groupon et. al bring returns to the actual companies that use them. This is why I can foresee a struggling business using deals like these in a sort of 'last ditch' effort to obtain new business, when in fact it's their business model/marketing that needs fixing.

 

[Bacchus]

We've done great buys through Groupon and LivingSocial.

We've had awful results with Dealfind and teambuy. The worst was a purchase of Keds for my GF this summer. The buy was in the spring, and was supposed to ship in 4 weeks. There was a bunch of fuckery - and we didnt get the shoes until November... They refused to give a refund, during the 6 months that we waited for the product. Summer shoes arent very good in the winter. :\

 

[rawd]

I think a lot of businesses do these types of deals in an effort to increase business, but then realize that most people end up just going in for the one time because it was such a good deal - thereby defeating the purpose of it in the first place and negating profits.

Or at least, that's what I read about a recent article on how Groupon et. al bring returns to the actual companies that use them. This is why I can foresee a struggling business using deals like these in a sort of 'last ditch' effort to obtain new business, when in fact it's their business model/marketing that needs fixing.

Makes sense

 

[Wiseman]

I think a lot of businesses do these types of deals in an effort to increase business, but then realize that most people end up just going in for the one time because it was such a good deal - thereby defeating the purpose of it in the first place and negating profits.

Or at least, that's what I read about a recent article on how Groupon et. al bring returns to the actual companies that use them. This is why I can foresee a struggling business using deals like these in a sort of 'last ditch' effort to obtain new business, when in fact it's their business model/marketing that needs fixing.

I think most of the benefit businesses will see from these deals are one-time buys and not an increase in repeat customers. But this should still be positive towards your bottom line as long as you get an increase in volume that makes up for the reduced margins you have to take on the deals.

Here is an example an executive of my company used:

He has a store he goes to a lot that dells only Dutch products (He's Dutch). Most of his customers aren't really internet savvy so the likelyhood they hadknowledge of the deal and used it is pretty low. He had a deal on Groupon that brought a ton of business for essentially one day. None of those customers came back and his margins were much lower than normal but it was all business he would not have received otherwise so it was positive for his bottom line.

 

[awwnaw]

^not to mention redemption. Much like GC's, not all the purchases are used by the time they expire.

 

[Wiseman]

Also that!

Any business expecting any kind of trailing lift in regular business from redeemers is fooling themselves.

 

[WestsideWax]

As someone who's using Groupon from the merchant end, I have to disagree. I haven't done any firm calculations, but with around 35% of our coupons redeemed, I'm guessing we've had a rebooking rate somewhere in the range of 15-20%. We looked at the service as a means to get paid to advertise to a demographic we otherwise wouldn't be able to easily and affordably access, and kept our fingers crossed that we'd garner at least a few new regulars.

My feeling is that these coupon sites work well if you're offering a service (shiatsu, in our case), not so much if you're offering hard product. If your service is good (we have 100% positive feedback ) and your non-discounted rates are reasonable, then chances are that people will rebook. With hard goods, most people will swoop in once for the bargain, never to be seen or heard from again. Pretty sure attempting the latter in hopes of generating repeat business is what prompts most Groupon merchant sob stories.

 

[[- FuNKtiOn -]]

Team Buy now owns Dealfind (as of about a week and a half ago), so if you think you had problems getting Dealfind refunds before, good luck now.

Now as for the industry, as someone who worked in the industry for a bit I can give this insight... The whole value prop is bring a first time customer in and impress them and they will return. This is why for service based industries like maid service, massages, carpet cleaners, personal trainers, etc can all benefit since they aren't really losing any material costs, simply their labour. The risk for the buyer is that they sell so many vouchers that they don't have the time to service them all for months down the road.
Any non-redemption just helps make up for the fact they've discounted their product and even given the deal company probably 40-50% of it.

For the online product deals, basically wholesalers and retailers are selling bulk product to make up for the discounted rate, but again, sometimes the deal outsells the quantity of the product available which again, only negatively effects the buyer and not the seller, so they'll continue to do it over and over again. Not to mention quite often they are cheap knock off made versions of actual products in a lot of cases.

Personally I really only bought restaurant vouchers as I'm all about trying new restaurants, and even those are becoming less frequent because even though most restaurants still made money, the coupon cutter crowd wouldn't tip well and wait staff would get sick of them being brought to the restaurant.

 

[Sal De Ban]

I still wake up in cold sweats because my glass tupperware was shipped a week late

 

[unique2100]

Had many great Groupon experiences.

 

[kmsmith]

My feeling is that these coupon sites work well if you're offering a service (shiatsu, in our case), not so much if you're offering hard product. If your service is good (we have 100% positive feedback ) and your non-discounted rates are reasonable, then chances are that people will rebook. With hard goods, most people will swoop in once for the bargain, never to be seen or heard from again. Pretty sure attempting the latter in hopes of generating repeat business is what prompts most Groupon merchant sob stories.

I think, westside, you have hit the nail on the head here. My wife and I have had a couple great experiences with Groupon, including getting 200 dollars of great meat from a local butcher for 80 bucks. The service and cuts from this butcher were amazing, so we now go to them frequently. Certainly more expensive than the norm, which is why we hadn't gone there before, but after being drawn in by the Groupon, we now have no issue paying their premium prices for what we feel is a premium product. Without Groupon, we never would have known. Good marketing.

One that left us scratching our heads was a new restaurant in town. Offered 20 dollar groupons for 65 dollars worth of food at the restaurant. This makes sense, if you are any good at all. However, as it turns out, the restaurant was plagued by what we felt was horrible service with essentially pub food with no real "wow" factor at all. Not BAD food, per se, but certainly not enough to go back and pay full price. And I am certain that was their ploy....Having just started up, give away a few meals, get noticed, and the word of mouth will spread. I guess we left feeling as though the owners were delusional about the service and food they were offering. In this case, I think this fell squarely under the poor business model/marketing that loopdokter spoke of.

 

[Bacchus]

Personally I really only bought restaurant vouchers as I'm all about trying new restaurants, and even those are becoming less frequent because even though most restaurants still made money, the coupon cutter crowd wouldn't tip well and wait staff would get sick of them being brought to the restaurant.

The last Groupon restaurant voucher we bought was for 5th Element. We made a reservation. When we got there, we told her we had a reservation, but we were told that the only place we could sit was beside the door. There was another table along the wall which was unoccupied. We asked if we could have that seat and she told us No.

She sits us down, and two people come in the door. She asks if they have a reservation. they say no, and she seats them in that spot. We're a little confused and irritated, but continue to wait.

We waited 20 minutes, and still didn't get a menu, let alone a glass of water. So, we grabbed our bags and went elsewhere.


If this is the kind of service that Groupon vendors provide - then no wonder they're on groupon.

 

[videotronic]

yeah thats totally it. you hit it on the head for sure. one useless hostess who was hungover/tired/coked up/PMS-ing is totally the reason why all groupon vendors are on groupon.

 

[kmsmith]

I think it is pretty clear that Groupon can work. New eyeballs, new asses in the seats, new customers. If I were starting a new business, and I was worth my salt, I would 100 per cent sign up for it. I (and apparently Bacchus as well) was just astounded to find that restaurant owners were so obtuse as to think that their restaurant was something worth "showcasing", or a place I would willingly spend my money again.

 

[Dialog]

The woman who cuts my hair said that, at her old salon, she could eventually tell Living Social people from Groupons by looking at them.