Warning - Brew It Yourself (aka The Online Shopping Co)

Markle

Beamer525 wrote: »

Just found this on their forum from a member, seems they are now refunding customers who have not even asked for a refund.

"Hey OHC, i placed an order on the 24/2/12 and some items were out of stock ect so i patiently waited for my delivery which was supposed to be dispatched today but instead on my account information it said that my order had been refunded, i couldnt work out the reason as to why plus i hadnt requested any of my order to be cancelled/refunded. id really appreciate a reply as to why this has happened, my order number is 1119085"

Maybe TS have got hold of them at last.

Hey everyone i started the post on their forum the other day(which has now been removed) im shocked in finding out that they're doing the same thing to so many people. After reading loads of threads from so many people on here and other forums i cant get over this company and the games they play. I have had a few orders with them over the last year and tbh i have received my orders up until the last one, i placed 2 orders in jan and they took pretty much a month each to be sent out BUT i did get them now with my last order along with most other people has been cancelled and waiting on a refund, i went into my bank today to question if i can start a charge back but the woman told me to wait 10 days to see if it comes through and if not then i can continue with my charge back.if anyone does receive a payment from them please update on here and let us all know.

Chris_Heath_2

On the 18th of December 2011, I purchased 9 homebrew kits and paid the £113.07 I was advised that delivery usually took between 3 to 5 days. An online Order Status page would allow me to track my order. My order status was updated every 3 days stating that some of the items I had ordered were unavailable. This status change continued for over a month, until eventually on the 23rd of January 2012 I decided to email them to ask that my order be cancelled. Within the hour I recieved an email stating that my order was indeed cancelled and that I would recieve a refund of £113.07 back to my card within 10 days.
I recieved my February Credit Card statement on the 11th of February which did not have the refund on. I once again contacted them via the Contact Us page on their site, to which they replied that " Your enquiry has been passed on to the appropriate person". I assumed that this would then be sorted out. On the 10th of March 2012 I recieved my March Credit Card statement which showed that the refund still had not been recieved. I emailed them on the 10th, 12th & 14th of March asking for them to contact me immediately to resolve this issue. As of today (16th) I have not yet recieved any correspondance whatsoever.
I have just been in contact with my credit card issuer who put me through to their disputes department. They asked that I forward any email I have recieved from them stating that my order had been cancelled. They said they now will contact them and await their response, they have 10 days to resolve the refund or a Chargeback will be issued and my money refunded.
Brilliant ! and even better - The Homebrew Company even get charged a Chargeback fee for this, which kinda makes me happy too!
I advise everybody to do the same, as I doubt any of you who have had your orders cancelled will have actually been refunded.
I too replied to a message post on their forum yesterday, and low and behold, it has now been removed and my memership deleted - Shame!

Velleity

I just went on there to see if they were still taking orders.

Put a handful of items on, went to checkout and got the following message:

"

There has been an error contacting Sagepay

We are currently unable to process your payment

Please try later"

Perhaps just a glitch, so may try later. If not, this is very interesting.


Vin

Pinto1593

Beamer525 wrote: »

Read your post on their forum (although now removed), perhaps that was the best way to order 1 or 2 items at a time.

Good luck with refund let us know how you get on.

Oh yeah did you get a warning or ban ( in true BIY style) for starting such on offensive and abusive thread ?

Will do

Suprisingly no threats or bans followed up - guessing what I said wasnt inflamtory enough :rotfl:

Looks like sagepay have followed up on what they said and suspended his merchant services because of the levels of complaints - get your chargebacks in folks, the end it seems is nigh !

Beamer525

Bottom line is if they supplied the stuff they advertise that is in stock things would not have got to where they are today.I just think Damon thought his company was much bigger than it was and maybe trying to squeeze out other online brewing company's.
Shame really because it was well layed out website easy to use etc, but the sheer lack of customer service was as proved the downfall.You just cannot advertise things that you can't supply within a few days in this day and age.

I see now respected members are now distancing themselves from their forum and many negative posts are lasting longer then normal.

Just another observation all mods (3 of them)on the forum I believe are the same person ie Damon, if you click on their names they only have like 1 post each, now if you are a mod i'm sure you would amass more posts on supposedly the biggest brewing forum in Europe.

I do like the beer base thing though, the best thing to come from this place.

Good luck all with regards to refunds, let us know how you get on.

Poster1

Hi, just a message of hope to everyone who has has their money taken by this outfit, I had exactly the same experience, order status changed to refunded but no money credited to my account. I faxed all order updates and e mails to my bank on 15 th march and a recorded delivery letter to the company address that arrived on the 16 th requesting immediate refund and mentioning small claims court and trading standards. I got the refund credited today (17 th). My advice would be to not expect anything from them through the website, go straight to your bank, you should be coverered by visa debit or credit card. Good luck, I'll be much more vigilant when ordering home brew stuff online in the future cos I'm sure this guy will resurface again at some point.

hanoi

My experience is similar. I complained to my bank about a transaction in December and was refunded shortly after supplying copies of order statuses etc. I advise anyone still owed money to take screen shots or prints of pages in their account in case the records (or web site) should disappear.

Pinto1593

My refund has also been credited to my bank, something I wasnt expecting tbh - but a pleasent surprise all the same.

toxiccat

My refund has also been credited to my bank account today, wish i could close my account with BIY......:)

kondormid

Good news, I now use an online homebrew shop that I see a few of us are using. I usually get my order sent out the same day or next day from them. This time it didn't get sent on the 2nd day so I thought I would phone (yes a company with a phone number and a real shop) and got told it was being sent out on the 3rd day.

The man on the other side appolagised for the slight delay but said they have got a lot busier and are going to have to take on more staff to help deal with the increased orders.

Now thats the difference between dealing with a real company and a company that just takes pre orders. With brew it yourself their standard response was "we never said we would send it out fast", with this other online homebrew shop the reply is "we are taking on more staff".

What excellent news though that out of all of this mess people are going to get jobs from it in these hard times. Why couldn't brew it yourself have taken this attitude?