Approved Food - general discussion thread

tricki1

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

obviously you have never been in business, let alone seen a MEGA growth over night...

i can see, and know waht Dan is going through as my business has gone through the roof, and i have had to employ more staff, and sometimes even though you employ more people you actually take a step back in productivity or picking, and packing in Dan's case. until a routine has been established...

he prob only had a little area where he done is packing, now he prob needs a vast area to pack and store the orders ready to go out... i have spoken to Dan on various occasion, yes due to blips with my order...etc.. and he is a genuine guy.. to you honestly think a crook would refund you ...i think NOT..

so i stand by my statement...

Concur with this and other posters - it was fine charging on the same day get order when he was small and got a few orders. Then came the rush, and in the confusion, chaos and all the rest he forgot that he needed to charge 24 hours before sending out the order because he always was able to before. Hell, with the numbers of orders he must have had to process, Im surprised he remembers his name :rotfl:

I'm not sure if its actually illegal without reading up on consumer law (and Im sorry, but my motivation has its limits) but staying within the policies of google when its dealing with his money would be wise, so if he's strayed, its better he finds out now than when google cuts him off.

mdecker_london

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

obviously you have never been in business, let alone seen a MEGA growth over night...

i can see, and know waht Dan is going through as my business has gone through the roof, and i have had to employ more staff, and sometimes even though you employ more people you actually take a step back in productivity or picking, and packing in Dan's case. until a routine has been established...

he prob only had a little area where he done is packing, now he prob needs a vast area to pack and store the orders ready to go out... i have spoken to Dan on various occasion, yes due to blips with my order...etc.. and he is a genuine guy.. to you honestly think a crook would refund you ...i think NOT..

so i stand by my statement...

Now you're telling me I've never been in business? That would strike some as being both patronising *and* judgemental!

And, while your engaging tale about the rise and rise of your own business is fascinating to read about, as are your excuses for this vendor, this is not the place to do it - people simply want accurate information about the quality of this vendor.

And that means, in my opinion, the most *useful* posts here are ones that tell about the customer experience.

tricki1

mdecker_london wrote: »

Approved Foods send you a copy of *their* Google checkout records instead of a proper invoice (e.g. it's the complete Google order record with biro all over it where the picker does the packing/refunds). Have a look on your own 'invoice' included in the box and you'll see what I mean.

I don't think there's a dispute that people are getting charged in full on the day they place their order - I see two other posters had this experience.

Whether you excuse such behaviour as 'an oversight due to pressure' or not, it's still (at best) incompetent.

I've spent a disproportionate amount of time on what is, at the end of the day, an insignificant bit of shopping - so I'm not going to spend more time phoning and emailing anyone to complain. What I *will* do is write of my experience here on MSE, so that others can make their own judgement on whether ordering food from AF is a good idea or not.

lol never thought of looking at paper invoice :doh:Can tell i spend a lot of time on the internet can't you. Agree with you its a mistake that needs sorting, as I say though I feel it would have been better to have contacted the company first. I'm not going to argue with you about it though - its just my opinion and at least now that you have got people here to recognise it is a problem, someone at AF will now pick it up and get something done.

Mistymaid

Right ... my most recent experience.

Ordered a couple of weeks ago, just got refund through ... for postage, but not saying any items not available.

Expecting dispatch in a couple of days (if it follows the other 2 orders) and from then delivery will take about a week.

Looks like being around 3 weeks or so in total.

jaytin

I have ordered from hundreds of online retailers in the last 10 years, I don't care whether they are a huge international company or a small business run from someone's garage. I do not expect to get charged for items until they have them in stock and they are being packed. Like a lot of people here I have not complained about AF taking payment long before dispatch, to Google, or to anyone else. I realise Dan has had a lot of problems, but if in 6 months time this kind of thing is still happening then maybe that would be unacceptable. Also I would like to point out that when I said 'people' had orders that 'went without a hitch' I was not referring to anyone in particular so I have no idea why anyone would assume I was.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

mdecker_london wrote: »

Now you're telling me I've never been in business? That would strike some as being both patronising *and* judgemental!

And, while your engaging tale about the rise and rise of your own business is fascinating to read about, as are your excuses for this vendor, this is not the place to do it - people simply want accurate information about the quality of this vendor.

And that means, in my opinion, the most *useful* posts here are ones that tell about the customer experience.

obviously as you would know exactly what Dan is going through....

We get the message you are unhappy.. ok just dont order off Dan again.... end of really simple as a pimple really.....

everyone who has been reading this thread... ( plus the old one) has known there has been a time issue with the orders getting out, it is also on his website... so hayho.. if you didnt like it you could have cancelled your order....after you found out the time delay....

as for the card payment and the time diff in delivery.... then this you should have taken up with Dan..... as by the looks of things,, things are getting on track for Dan now... and there isnt so much of a time delay, so this shouldnt be an issue in the future

Smashing

The issue is not the wait, it's the fact that orders are seemingly being processed in a random manner rather than as they come in and the complete lack of contact regarding what is going on with the orders.

Oh, and the stock control method clearly isn't working.

mdecker_london

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

obviously as you would know exactly what Dan is going through....

We get the message you are unhappy.. ok just dont order off Dan again.... end of really simple as a pimple really.....

everyone who has been reading this thread... ( plus the old one) has known there has been a time issue with the orders getting out, it is also on his website... so hayho.. if you didnt like it you could have cancelled your order....after you found out the time delay....

as for the card payment and the time diff in delivery.... then this you should have taken up with Dan..... as by the looks of things,, things are getting on track for Dan now... and there isnt so much of a time delay, so this shouldnt be an issue in the future

Again -

1. I did not hear about AF via MSE, therefore I was unaware of this thread or any other one. MSE is not the centre of the universe - and the vendor should have been emailing customers direct, rather than use this forum as a conduit.

2. This is entirely a mess of the vendor's making - he failed to take the correct steps when it became clear he could not fulfil orders within a reasonable time period, and was taking money for items he knew he didn't have in stock.

3. It was NOT on the website when I ordered that there would be a two week delay (which of course was really three weeks), even though the vendor knew on 17th January that he would be unable to progress the huge number of orders he had taken on 16th January.

4. I had waited for nearly two weeks before finding this forum, and I took the advice given here and chased up my order. Yes, upon reflection, I should have cancelled and put it down to experience but I thought the substitution process would be smooth. Silly me.

4. At the time mine and others' money was taken, the vendor knew (or at best should have known) that he didn't have those items to sell, and would in any case be unable to fulfil orders within a reasonable period.


And again, spare me the judgements - I haven't been telling people here that they 'should' do this or 'should' do that, or 'could have' done this or that, so perhaps you could reciprocate?

COOLTRIKERCHICK

obviously YOU are not sparing the judgements either as you called Dan a crook...

with the volume of orders coming into his email box.... i dont think anyone could have gauged what was ordered.. until they actually got to getting round to picking the order.. so how the heck can they give a refund until the order was actually taken from the order tray ready to be picked and packed... bare in mind the orders were coming in their thousands....he was prob frantically trying to get more stock as well to forfill these orders....

and the way you have condemed this mans as being a crook, he couldnt do right for doing wrong... which ever way you look at it...

mcallister1

mdecker_london wrote: »

Again -

1. I did not hear about AF via MSE, therefore I was unaware of this thread or any other one. MSE is not the centre of the universe - and the vendor should have been emailing customers direct, rather than use this forum as a conduit.

4. I had waited for nearly two weeks before finding this forum, and I took the advice given here and chased up my order. Yes, upon reflection, I should have cancelled and put it down to experience but I thought the substitution process would be smooth. Silly me.

You are right that the experience of ordering for people who had been on the forum was quite different and inferior from how it would have been for those who saw the site in the papers. And in part that is where the arguments come from between you and others on the site who feel they have been communicated with properly because AF came onto the forum to post. As a result some of us feel invested in the business even though our only investment has been lots of time on the thread and possibly too much time spent ordering stuff from him.
I really think that the discussion between you and cooltrikerchick- who I would also have quoted if I knew how to do that- is going nowhere.
You are clearly very unhappy with AF and have every right to be so. You have identified a problem with the way they are dealing with the payments which seems wrong- although it is likely that it is not deliberate, more a result of being overwhelmed-and you are entitled to raise it. Because of the way some others on the site have felt invested in AF over the last few weeks, they have reacted defensively. Its up to you both ,of course, but unless either of you has something new to say, maybe its time to give the argument a rest- your comments will stand on the thread and people can see them.