Healthy Living Direct

dnd23

Just a warning to anyone considering purchasing goods from this company via catalogue or online.

Apart from the terrible customer service, delivery and return issues, ever since I bought a pair of Comfort Shoes for my elderly mother online, I have been bombarded with spam and physical junk mail.

I receive a different style of brochure every week packed with leaflets for offers, faux scratch cards and guaranteed winning prize draws. Today I received two separate envelopes with brochures - printed on the same material, with similar content, with different company names. Along with these came the usual prize draw con "You have won £25,000 in a Prize Draw. Step forward and claim the £25,000" As many of the items in their brochures and flyers are aimed at elderly people you can tell they are preying on the vulnerable. Quack Arthritis Pills, Funeral Insurance, Mobility Furniture, Disability Showers etc etc

PLEASE, PLEASE give it a lot of consideration before purchasing anything from this company. If you do, prepare for your address to be sold on and for the junkmail bombardment to start. I have lived at my current address for 6 years and only since ordering one item from this company have I started to receive constant junkmail. And TONS of it! My email that I used to register is now seeing more spam than ever before.

BEWARE of HEALTHY LIVING DIRECT, FOOT FRIENDLY, HOUSEWARES DIRECT et al. All the catalogues are registered at the same address Wadsworth Road, Driffield YO25 9DJ.

They are preying on the elderly.

Be_Happy

I agree entirely with this. After buying once I've been bombarded with catalogues with all sorts of different names, but usually same contents. If I see Driffield, Yorks on the envelope I now shred the letter with my name on it and the rest goes in the recycle bin.

Judging by the time my order actually took to come, I don't think they have the goods in stock, but buy in to meet orders.

Footiefella

THIS COMPANY TRADES AS: All The Very Best; Healthy Living Direct; Bits & Pieces UK; Foot Friendly; Garden Ability; Inspired Choices; Housewares Direct
I wish I had read these posts before placing an order with them on December 10th 2012. The order was promised delivery within 10 days...It's January 23rd 2013 today and still nothing has arrived (that's 44 days now!)

A letter from them on January 8th (29 days after ordering online) said the goods were out of stock. I have phoned them today and they said I should have been advised at the time of ordering they were not in stock hmmm. Well, at least they told me only a month after ordering. Today I have asked for a full refund, they have said it will take 72 hours to reach my credit card, but as I paid with a credit card then at least I have some potection.

These products and catalogues are aimed at elderly people and fewer of them have credit cards and still pay by cheque and money order. Not great when dealing with a company like this!

DO NOT CALL THEIR 0871 ‘helpline or customer services line’ at 10p per minute this is just another rip off from this company. The only reason you need to call them is to find out why your order is so late, so they are in effect charging you for not delivering! To access their landline and avoid call charges, CALL 01377 232330

Singleton

Hi.
It seems that it is also impossible to get details removed from their database.
There is a form (hidden on the inside of the envelope) with options to send to the database manager. I have sent back several of these - have also phoned them direct and e-mailed them and have received assurances that the details have been removed ("but allow 6 weeks to filter through the system...").
Despite that they are still coming - any ideas how to tackle what I understand is probably their non-compliance of data protection rules?

cherie1122

We ordered something ages ago and they took the money but never sent the goods. It took ages to get a refund and even longer to stop their emails and catalogues arriving.

Definitely a company to avoid!

walter-wilson_2

ordered goods
paid for goods
received goods
no problem

Hippychris

After a month of contacting Healthy Living Direct asking them to honer their legal obligation to stop sending me unsolicited mail I have now put a complaint in to the Information Commissioners Office for misuse of personal data. They are obliged to stop sending to you if you demand it.. and you can sue for costs if they do not. But start by making the complaint, the more people that do the more likely the ICO will decide there is a problem and fine them

Delaw

I ordered two items online from Healthy Living Direct a few months ago and had to e-mail them two weeks later as my order had not been delivered.
A few days later I received a reply from them informing me that one of the items was out of stock and they had no idea when it would be in stock again, they didn't even have the common decency to apologise. I cancelled that item, demanded a refund (which I eventually received) and asked them to send me the other item.
On May 6th, 2016 I received an e-mail informing me that the second item had been dispatched by courier but of course it never arrived and I decided to cancel the order..............Well, I'm still waiting for a cheque from them. Their excuse for refunding me by cheque is that they had to reissue the order (A lie, as they never issued it in the first place)
Healthy Living Direct is nothing but a con.

Mikey_K

Similarly hacked off by these & other businesses.

Served Barclaycard a notice to stop pointing out we would in future levy a £25 "service charge" for them to access our letter-box. It worked, 2 £25 cheques as there were 2 seperate residents being hassled, the local Air Ambulance & RNLI benefited as a consequence.

We're adopting this policy to all junk mailers as of now, we'll see how it goes with Healthy Living Direct.

Mikey K

AAWUK

My address was bombarded with catalogues targeted at a previous and deceased occupant by Kingstown Associates. The titles included:

Affordable Choices;
Housewares Direct;
All The Very Best;
Gardenability;
Fashion Friendly;
Healthy Living Direct.

There was at least one mailing per week, and sometimes two different titles on one day. These quite thick A5 packages were covered with messages such as ‘Private and confidential information enclosed’, ‘By official invitation only’, ‘Please do not bend’, ‘Payment request voucher’, ‘Your urgent attention required’, ‘Your immediate attention required’, ‘Deposit notification’ and anything else to make the package look more important and official than it really was.

On all packages, the return address was PO Box 98, Driffield, YO25 9WX. The non reply-paid envelopes, for ordering, had the address Wadsworth Road, Driffield, YO25 9DJ.

There also seems to be a website called Inspired Choices.

I returned several junk mailings marked with ‘addressee deceased’ but this had no effect. Eventually I noticed that a form was sneakily printed on the inside of the main envelope in which the catalogues, and all the additional advertising inserts, were received. It had to be filled in and returned, at my own cost, i.e. I had to provide my own stamp and envelope, and returned to the ‘Database Manager’ at the YO25 9DJ address. As a precaution it’s probably best to include the form, and the address and reference number part of the covering letter that they request, for all the catalogue titles that they send out. Given their very poor reputation, I imagine that if you don’t do this, they will cynically use it as an excuse to only cease sending the specific titles that you’ve completed the form for. After three weeks, the mailings ended.

Coincidentally, my father says he had a similar problem with a company that, although he could not remember the name, sounded so similar it can only have been Kingstown Associates. His solution to the problem was to put several of the catalogue packages in a large envelope such that it would just fit through a letter box. Of course he put the address on but didn’t put a stamp on it. That also stopped the junk mailings, because the recipient would have to pay the postage and an additional fee!

I am just about to put about two month’s worth of mailings from Kingstown in my recycling – it’s quite a bulky pile.