MSE News: OFT to investigate Groupon over advertising breaches 2 December 2011 at 12:46PM in Discount codes & vouchers 23 replies 4.8K views

Former_MSE_Helen

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"Daily deals site Groupon has been referred to the Office of Fair Trading, after the site repeatedly broke rules ..."

Read the full story:

OFT to investigate Groupon over advertising breaches

Kushan

My wife bought something from Groupon a few months ago, I think it was a voucher for a cardigan or something. Over a month later, it hadn't arrived and emails to groupon were generally met with a "Go talk to the shop the voucher was for, it's not our issue". The seller in question never once replied to our emails.

Groupon had a habit of just not replying as well, multiple disputes had to be filed and even posting on their Facebook wall just to get a response out of them.

The Wife then said she'd file a paypal complaint if Groupon didn't either give her a refund or get the item shipped to her from the seller. Groupon replied saying that they would sort it immediately, but still hadn't sorted it by the time the paypal dispute window had closed.

Eventually, we managed to get our money back but we're still out of pocket for the P&P, since that was from the seller and not Groupon.

Absolute nightmare, will not be using Groupon ever again.

Chickabee

I've used Groupon quite a few times over the last year and so far (touch wood) i haven't had any problems whatsoever.
I've got some very good deals from Groupon and GrabOne, but i think it depends upon what you buy.

Narc

I wonder in how many cases the service/product is actually the same for groupon voucher holders as actual customers.

Laurabeth38

I have been royally done over by Groupon in the last 6 months. I will never ever be using them again.

stoneman

I use Groupon lots of times, and have found that when there is a problem with the service of the participating company Groupon have always dealt with it promptly, even to the pint of giving me credit for a voucher that timed out on me.
Only today I phoned them because I received a faulty head camera, emails and phone calls to the company over the past 4 weeks have fallen on deaf ears. Last week Groupon emailed them and they still failed to respond. Today I have received a full refund back onto my CC including postage costs, all thanks to Groupon.

DelBoyPhil

I have bought a couple of things with groupon and the deals are never as good. The amount of times I tried to use the voucher and the person says NO we dont deal with groupon now but took the groupon code of me when I booked with them.

BTW Groupon like to offer a refund in a form off a CREDIT. tell them to foff

mirrorimage0

ive used around 8 different deals with them for childrens days out and weekends away and so far touch wood ive never had a problem with them

CindyT

I have used groupon and other similar voucher sites quite a few times and saved a fortune on hairdressing - but I have never purchased a 'product' from them and to be honest wouldn't feel confident doing it now.

I think sometimes their t&c are a bit on the hidden side (although they are visible) and have cancelled one voucher as I missed a 'minimum spend' term in their t&c and got a refund pretty quickly.

What amazes me is that some companies don't put a cap on their offers if they know at a certain point they can't meet demand.

KxMx

CindyT wrote: »

I have used groupon and other similar voucher sites quite a few times and saved a fortune on hairdressing - but I have never purchased a 'product' from them and to be honest wouldn't feel confident doing it now.

I think sometimes their t&c are a bit on the hidden side (although they are visible) and have cancelled one voucher as I missed a 'minimum spend' term in their t&c and got a refund pretty quickly.

What amazes me is that some companies don't put a cap on their offers if they know at a certain point they can't meet demand.

I have heard compaines say Groupon breaks agreements on how many can be sold.

And I have heard Groupon state they only sell the amount instructed by the retailer.

So who do you believe lol?

slex0r

I've purchased three or four Groupons for meals at restaurants with no problems until recently. We went to a restaurant where I had called to book a table, stating that I had a Groupon voucher to use. When we got to the restaurant, they told us they were no longer accepting the vouchers. They explained that Groupon 'relisted' their offer despite the agreement to post it only once.

Many customers were coming in with new vouchers that the restaurant had not agreed to providing.

Initially, they refused to use our voucher, and told us to sort out a refund with Groupon, but rather than lose our custom they decided to honour it. I was very grateful for them doing so, and emailed Groupon immediately when we got home requesting that they resolve the issue with this restaurant.

I was hoping they'd give us some sort of credit to our account merely for the inconvenience (I didn't request this), but they gave us a full refund - at the expense of the restaurant!

I felt completely guilty for ripping off the restaurant unintentionally. My husband and I took three of our friends to the restaurant a couple weeks later hoping to make up for their loss in some way.

I'm in two minds about Groupon. They do save us quite a lot of money on meals, but at the expense of many small, independent restaurants...