Mrs Mc

Extremely poor and unprofessional experience.

We initially wanted to arrange a test drive with Omoda Bromley (Atlas Revive), but even this proved unnecessarily difficult. Calls went unanswered, online chat received no response, and after multiple attempts over the course of two weeks, including contact forms and follow-ups…we finally managed to get something arranged as one of us went into the dealership, even then no note of our name or number was taken!
The whole process felt disorganised and inconsistent from the outset.
When I arrived for the test drive, despite being early and clearly acknowledged by several staff, and salesperson being told I’d arrived, after 20 mins I had to go over and prompt the salesperson myself. The process was very informal—no real paperwork, just a photocopy of a driving licence, which felt unusual compared to other dealerships.
After the test drive, we were presented with an offer as part of a promotion and price was fair so due to time constraints, we agreed and paid a deposit.

However, the real issue came afterwards.
Upon reviewing the paperwork, I noticed there were no terms and conditions provided, despite signing a document that explicitly stated we were agreeing to them. When I queried this, I was told by the salesperson that it was “above his pay grade” and that he couldn’t explain what the terms actually were. This is completely unacceptable when committing to purchase a £36k vehicle.
Attempts to resolve this were equally frustrating. Emails went unanswered, and requests for a manager to call back were unresponded. We ultimately had to attend the dealership in person to cancel the order and recover our deposit.
While the GM was polite and transparent, even he acknowledged that there were no agreed terms and conditions in place, and that the business was still trying to source or create them. Customers were effectively being asked to sign agreements to terms that do not exist.
This raises serious concerns about professionalism, compliance, and basic business practices. The lack of structure, communication, and legal clarity made it impossible for us to proceed.

We have since cancelled and would not recommend this dealership based on our experience.

I had high hopes when I came across this company, as they offer coffee bags and coffee pods that seemed perfect for client gifting in my business.

Before placing an order, I contacted them to clarify their gift service, specifically whether invoices would be included with gift deliveries, as we did not want clients receiving them. They replied (after a couple of days) confirming that no invoices would be sent, only a note from the sender, which reassured me.
I went ahead and ordered a gift box of coffee bags for a client. However, after delivery, we heard nothing from the client and I followed up, they told me they weren’t sure who the gift was from, as no clear note had been included. This completely defeated the purpose of sending a thoughtful client gift.

Around the same time, I placed a second order for coffee pots during a Mother’s Day promotion. When these arrived, I checked the contents before gifting and was disappointed to find the gift message had been typed upside down on a compliment slip. It looked careless and unprofessional.

I raised this feedback with the company, but unfortunately received no response at all.
Overall, the product idea is good, but the execution of their gift service is very poor. For a business that promotes gifting, attention to detail is crucial and sadly, this was lacking at every stage!

There is a lot of competition out there but these companies that use fulfilment centres have no way of knowing if the quality control is there this is something that I highly recommend Artisan looks into.

I would give zero stars if that were an option.
After completing an online shop with Sainsbury’s, I noticed the amount charged to my card was over 10% higher than the confirmed checkout total. There were no variable-weight items involved, and substitutions only accounted for a £1.70 difference. On closer inspection, I found that 11 items with Nectar prices had been charged at full price when scanned.
Customer service initially confirmed this was due to a system glitch and assured me a refund would be processed. However, I later received an email stating that refunds would only be issued via e-voucher…effectively forcing customers to shop with Sainsbury’s again to recover money they were wrongly charged!

This is completely unacceptable. I had explicitly requested a refund back to my original payment method.
When I followed up, the response was dismissive and unhelpful. It was clear the issue was widespread, yet no meaningful resolution was offered.
This incident was the final straw after several weeks of poor service, including:
Deliveries arriving up to four hours late, with requests to collect from a depot not even local to me
Repeatedly receiving damaged items like squashed bread and rolls
An entire delivery of frozen goods going missing, later returned after being incorrectly distributed among other customers!

I escalated the matter directly to the CEO’s office and received a £20 goodwill payment, which was processed quickly. While that gesture was appreciated, it does not make up for the repeated inconvenience, poor service, and fundamentally flawed handling of a serious overcharging issue.
As a result, I have cancelled my Delivery Saver and will not be shopping with Sainsbury’s again.
Extremely disappointing experience from start to finish.

Audi Leicester
We were in the process of buying an E Tron S that was coming up to be a 3years old and 2 weeks left on manufacturing warranty, this was via another deal via another dealer. Our intuition was to get the car checked, an Audi Leicester worth 30 minutes away so we arranged for the car to go into them. Firstly trying to make contact with anyone at this dealership on the phone is almost impossible, the automated system will only literally allow you to speak to sales, you were forced to use WhatsApp to communicate with the service desk. They are slow, don’t answer the questions correct correctly, and it’s a painful process until the Service agent calls you. Via this call, we were given the history of the car which was not great, and booked it in for a seasonal health check. I had assumed (wrongly) the conversation on WhatsApp could be continued the date though it was in the workshop but no, you are back to the automated system. The report was emailed over to us with the video and all was not good. One of the batteries needed replacing, and a cost of £500 we were unable to get an answer as to why this was not covered under the manufacturers warranty.

On top of this, we were unable to get an invoice, we kept being sent one that was sat on their SharePoint. Then we started getting phone calls and emails following up on Customer Service. There was even a call that ask us how the car valet was…. Well, I couldn’t answer, cause I never got to see the car cause we never bought it. Then an email saying how they strive for five star review reviews and if there’s any issues contact Ben at Synter, no response. Four days later they attempted again to send the invoice yet again attached to their share point.

Seriously Audi, you need to sort out your Customer Experience, from not explaining why something wasn’t covered under a manufacturers warranty to making it really impossible to talk to a human, it’s not an experience that I’ve been wanting to repeat again in a hurry.

My experience with HSBC was a mixed one, which is why I’m leaving a three-star review.
Last Friday I used the mobile app to pay in a cheque. I assumed I would see it pending the next day, but when I checked on Saturday there was no sign of it. I contacted the in-app chat and spoke with Marwa. Unfortunately the support I received wasn’t very helpful. I was asked to confirm the account (even though it’s the only one I have) and was advised to delete the app and try scanning the cheque again. This didn’t make sense and every attempt to scan the cheque again resulted in an error.
At no point was I told an important detail …that cheques paid in on a Friday may not appear until the end of the next working day midnight. Because I wasn’t given that information, I spent around 90 minutes trying different things and eventually paid the cheque into another HSBC-group account instead.
By Monday the money appeared in my HSBC account, which was confusing. On Tuesday the other deposit appeared and was then reversed because the cheque had been stopped. The whole situation could have been avoided if the correct information had been provided in the first place.
I raised a complaint because the experience was frustrating and clearly something had gone wrong. The complaint handler I later spoke to was excellent, she reviewed the chat transcript and acknowledged that several steps taken during the original support conversation were incorrect. The case was resolved with £75 compensation, which I appreciated.
So while I’m grateful for how the complaint was ultimately handled, the initial chat support clearly needs better training to prevent customers from having the same experience.

Just replying to social media team response, firstly thank you. I think the complaint process will follow through to individuals manager to discuss 1-2-1 and retrain then, so no further help needed, I've every confidence that the process will conclude as it should. Thank you 😊

I discovered Difference Coffee Company while searching for a premium coffee gift and came across their Blue Mountain Nespresso-compatible pods. I ordered 10 capsules for my husband’s upcoming 50th birthday. I did hesitate at first as they’re definitely on the pricey side, but authentic Blue Mountain coffee always comes at a premium.
The order arrived just two days later and the presentation really impressed me. The pods come in a beautiful gifting box with a truly premium feel – it looks like a very special product.
They’re actually coming with us to St Lucia where my husband will open them on holiday for his birthday. If the coffee tastes as good as it looks, they’ll absolutely be worth every penny.
Great first impression and I’d definitely order from Difference Coffee Company again.

Gosh, I’ve never written so many 1-star reviews in one week, and this won’t be the last. Yesterday alone I had to open two complaints, one of them with NatWest.
Yesterday I woke up to an SMS saying I had not paid my £35 direct debit. I was baffled, because on 21/02 I had checked that the direct debit mandate (DDM) was in place. I had noticed something odd at on 19/2 as there were suddenly two live DDMs on my account. One showed no money drawn, and the other was active and had paid my February statement payment.
Because of this, I cancelled the new one and assumed the original mandate was still in place. To be safe, I also contacted them via chat 21/2 and was told everything was fine and the mandate was active.
After receiving the SMS, I called NatWest. The adviser said he couldn’t access my online chat conversation and simply told me to pay the amount and set up a new DDM. There was no explanation and no apology.
I then called First Direct (my bank) and was told that I had cancelled the new mandate NatWest had suddenly created on 19/02 but that NatWest themselves had cancelled the existing mandate that was actually taking payments on 25/02.
At that point I raised a complaint, as my entire morning had been taken up trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
Initially they tried to fob me off without properly investigating, but eventually a complaint was opened. Then today I started receiving messages about someone else’s complaint:
“Hi Jamie, I am looking at your complaint and can see we have not reversed your direct debit. Therefore your NatWest payment has been successfully paid. Please confirm my understanding of your complaint is correct…”
My name is not Jamie, and that isn’t my complaint.
Eventually I received a response about my actual complaint. They admitted that they had been setting up new DDMs for customers without informing them and changing the reference ID. I cancelled the new one they created without telling me, and they then cancelled the existing live one on the 25th …again without informing me.
My complaint was upheld and I was told I would receive £50 compensation.

I’m disgusted that they can set up and cancel direct debits without telling customers, which can easily cause missed or late payments.

I’ve been a mortgage customer for over a decade and the mortgage team have always been excellent, but the credit card team has really let them down. I suspect this chaos may be related to the takeover of Sainsbury’s Bank credit card accounts without enough properly trained staff to manage it.
Once my 0% period is over, I won’t be using this account again.

I was looking for a personalised Mother’s Day vase and came across Personalised Gift Shop, a lovely family-run business. I actually ended up ordering two vases and a personalised glass for an upcoming 50th birthday.

The prices were fantastic and they had so many options ,exactly what we were looking for. Everything was truly personalised and easy to order.
We placed the order on Saturday, it was engraved and dispatched on Monday, and arrived on Tuesday as expected with next-day delivery. Absolutely fantastic service.
We’re delighted with everything and can’t wait to give the vases with their bouquets on Mother’s Day, we know the mums will love them! I know there are some negative reviews but couriers often cause the issues and the retailers get the brunt of it, so maybe take the negative ones as bad luck and see the good ones shine through.

I will be using these again later in the year for gifts. 100% recommended by us.

I ordered a £40 egift card online, and received an email confirming and I awaited for an email to come of the egift card, I selected the animated 'Limited edition' Butterfly card. nothing came. If you login you can 'share' the card but it is a link, a glitchy one that works only if you are signed into a zara account too, no card at all.

i jumped on a chat but it was useless, asked me for my address, I said why you dont have that anyway, then a registration number...looking in account there was no such thing, so I pressed refund...received no email about refund. The chat agent said it will take 10-14 days... I said I just want an email confirmation but they said sorry for inconvenience and will pass feedback on and ended the chat.

For some bizarre reason people like Zara egift cards and they always bring drama as e cards never arrive... so I hate buying them and now i am going to probably end up fighting for a refund back as I have no email evidence other than a chat to get this sorted.

Come on Zara, you need to work on customer experience here...its very poor

Prompt dispatch, good customer service and so far we are loving the products. I have even just recommended to a friend who has thinning hair since given birth.

Recommended for sure

Would you pay a deposit to “Test Drive” a car, and buy it by not test driving it? ?

Would you buy a car (albeit a demo) that is filthy inside & out, human hair on dash, greasy finger prints on leather dash, black dirty hand prints on the hand visa and inner roof… thinking it looks attractive??

Oh yes well it’s the expectation here…especially if you are dealing with David here.

We were asked to pay a refundable deposit to ensure they didn’t sell car overnight when we enquired Saturday afternoon… we drive 90 mins next day to go see and “drive it” and whilst commuting we get called twice whilst driving there by the hi .

The demo car was filthy inside and out…

The sales guy walks out with a yellow duster and tries to rub bird poo off the bonnet but failed the task….them we were asked are you ready to take it for a spin around the block to be told to get in…whilst the sales person drives it!

We Wanted to get answers to our questions….only to be told ”we can discuss next week when you come and pick it up??”

Seriously does no one in the motor trade have any morals these days… excuses like well you only reserved a test drive yesterday afternoon… when you opened at 10am and had over 2 hours to clean it….is not good enough.


We got our refund and left…the salesman was rather shirty with us…but still had the audacity to leave a voicemail two days later still trying to sell the vehicle to us!

What he successfully did was demonstrated why you don’t buy a demo car or any second hand car from them… so we purchased a brand new version of the car…with a dealership with better customer service!
11/3 Response to the response, it would not take much to work out the salesperson I name, the deposit to test drive was made saturday (last weekend) and incident happened sunday (same weekend). We do not want to waste anymore of our time on this.

I stumbled across this brand on John Lewis and we bought 2 hand luggage cabin bags, one cream other black. They arrived and were so poor with finish, strands of unfinished cotton, double stitching, sharp edges, we returned them. I then bought one online in the cream at Dunelm thinking it would be better,..it went straight back. So we thought buy direct… exactly the same, poorly finished, threads hanging off stitching everywhere.

I emailed to complain sent loads of photos with circles clearly marking all the imperfections and ask for 2 labels for a return or if they had other solutions, I was insulted by an offer to get 25% off buying 1 more item from them! Then sent me a survey to ask how the customer service agent dealt with query…needless to say she got the lowest score!

I declined and then was offered 30% to keep them by another agent but I had to send 1 SHORT video of both. So to hold camera in your hand steady, talk, whilst filming and be able to turn bags over keeping to capture all issues was impossible…the videos were too long and bounced back, then I split video back & front on each and it went through … Any yet then they again asked for ONE SHORT video on both by WhatsApp…I did that, then was ghosted and they’ve ignore my emails since.

I chased today and no reply …heard nothing. For a UK company your customer service quite frankly is worse than offshore support. Your quality is non existent.

I’ll be doing a PayPal chargeback claim now to get a refund…and I’m still not paying for postage to return faulty goods to you.

RESPONSE TO THEIR RESPONSE- I have sent you the order ID #IT364839, do not expect everyone to use Social media to contact you, how about the team just uses the email ticket system to reply to emails instead. Last agent was Ashlea!

I will start off by saying the reason for the title really should be disgraceful Customer Service but it’s hard to put Customer Service into the sentence because there is no Customer Service. Now the first thing I say is that we don’t frequently shop here because they’re not local to us particularly and at the moment I don’t live near a store. However, on Sunday we happen to be passing and I said let’s pop in and get some meat, I spent £70 on various Meet purchases amongst there was two packets of 500 g lean minced chicken which was going to be used today to make fresh chicken burgers. The meat is dated eat before the 6th of March today being the 4th of March. I thought that they’d be absolutely, until I opened the First packet and the stench was absolutely disgusting, just the smell of dead animals which is basically what meat is.. but the smell of it being Off was disgusting.

I found the telephone number Online called Customer Service. She took me through the whole drama of collecting barcodes , and then said take it back to a store to get a refund. No customer resolution whatsoever other than take it back to a store. I’d explained that I didn’t live near a store and actually at the moment I don’t have a car even if I wanted to, but also we all know that Aldi stores do not have anybody in Customer Service because the role doesn’t exist. The only people that you get to speak to interact with other people on the details and that’s if you’re lucky and you find a store that actually has somebody on the tills and it’s not self-service only.

She repeatedly was quite rude to be frank with you saying I keep telling you go back to the store you have 60 days going with a receipt and take photos of the meat if you’re not gonna go back straight away with it, I explained that I’m not likely to do this and she had no interest whatsoever and then proceeded to say is there anything else that I can help you with today? That was the end of the conversation.

Aldi your Customer Service is absolutely horrendously poor and again you’re another organisation a retailer that is outsourced it’s Customer Service to South Africa. It seemed. Maybe if you had some UK citizens employed in the jobs they might do a much better job, but to not be willing to even compensate a customer when you’re selling off meat, which is actually illegal dare I say is an absolute disgrace.

I think over the past decades I’ve only had one reason to call Aldi before and that’s because you check out operator overcharged me by 6 litres of oat milk I know it was issued a Customer credit voucher or something like that online as a refund so maybe you need to consider going back to such a thing if you want to keep your customers. I can see here that only in past weeks that you do issue vouchers as refunds so I’m dumbfounded to be told you don’t!

The customer service email has also been deactivated as you get a reply saying
Hello,
Thank you for contacting Aldi Customer Services.
Please be advised this mailbox is no longer in use.
Please refer any enquiries to our Help Centre;


There is NO customer service here Aldi.

We had a rather unpleasant Customer experience with this company at the Gatwick branch, that led to us having to chase down a refund for over a week which was still waiting to appear back in our account.

For starters, they misled the consumer and still are by saying that they are offering a business contract hire deal for Jaecoo and they’re not an even when we flagged this inaccuracy a few weeks ago they’re still advertising it.

Then we were invited to do a test drive and arrived 10 minutes early as requested to find the showroom was shut and we had to go next door and whilst waiting over half an hour to be seen to and another half an hour waiting for the paperwork to be done on the Laptop we found another card that we were interested in , so we changed our minds and decided that we would consider buying a super hybrid, the price that was given to us was the price that was an event price and to secure it we were asked to leave a deposit, we asked for for the quotation with the discount to be sent over to us by email ASAP and we asked for 15 minutes to go away and have a look at the taxation and how it would affect us financially. We were told that we didn’t have their time of 15 minutes because they were closing in 20 minutes. So we agreed that the refund would be refundable if we found that the car was not suitable for taxation purposes. We never received the quotation despite actually email him before we even left the site to help make our final decision and come the morning we had managed to do some research and decided to pull out of the purchase. Meanwhile that same evening, we were sent emails alluding to the fact that we made a purchase… yeah we hadn’t. We hadn’t seen a quotation let alone a contract, and any trust that we had in the salesperson had been taken away because he did not send over the quotation to us in the first place despite us chasing him, he sent this the following day and said he was busy with another customer to gone 5 o’clock. Which actually meant that we could’ve actually taken the 15 minutes that we requested to make the right decision and not gone through any of this drama at all.

We then agreed that the refund would be put through and then a week later when it hadn’t actually appears in our account we got told that he’s never done a refund before and he didn’t know what the process was but now he does and now he would process it. Sadly I’d already started posting reviews by the point that we got an email to say that the refund have been processed and that is because although my email clearly said to him that he needed to email me and my husband he emailed address addressing the email to me but sent it to my husband’s account, which we only found by accident when searching for some other data like that evening.


So the reason that I give Marshall’s two stars is because *1 you get told to arrive 10 minutes early for a test drive , then you have nobody available to help you when you do arrive
*2 you were told to attend a showroom where you’re buying the brand car and then because of an event you get told to go to another showroom next door.
*3then you attend the event and then you find out that there’s a lack of personnel able to deal with you and you’re waiting around for over an hour for a test drive.
*4 you can’t get a quotation emailed to you and we’ve gone through two rounds of having to consider 0% finance options under personal finance before deciding still wanting to do a cash transaction… which is alien to them
*5 you’re told the price given to you is an event price only feeling obligated to leave a deposit just to secure that price in case the car is right and we want to buy
*6 for being told that the refund is fully refundable to them find yourself chasing by email over and over and have a multiple conversations just the refund processed back to your account
*7 being told that Omoda doesn’t offer the government grant of £3750 in any of their dealerships, to having contacted three dealerships who were willing to sell us the car with the EV discount… which ultimately cost them a sale, because we bought another dealership.

I have been a loyal John Lewis customer for absolutely decades and they have often been are one place that we would go online to buy what we thought was guaranteed quality products. On the 28th of February I ordered 2 IT luggage bags, they were sent individually as two piece order via DPD. The bags arrived and the quality was poor.( not JLP fault) I went to return them and was given one QR code yet I had two different boxes, I called Customer Service and eventually got through to someone in what I thought was a foreign call Centre and he couldn’t understand English and even when I specified I needed two labels and they were to be Evri returns via our local store, he sent through two labels that were for Waitrose and partners returns. Stupidly, I didn’t check this before trying to log two boxes half the size of me into the village, to find the QR code did not work and by the time I got back, I’d re-hurt my back from a previous injury that I was only a day out of recovery on.

I had to call Customer Service again and request a Collection) this time from our home address and was told I could only have one label! So I’ve had to try to take these parcels together to create one parcel and I’m awaiting now Collection). John Lewis, you need to sort out, if you want to outsource that’s absolutely understanding because you need to save money but you need properly train stuff and you need systems that actually either send parcels that are all part of one order in one box making them easier to return, all you need to be able to send two labels and not just for people who are able to return items to your Waitrose store stores!

We use these guys as local in Kent and we try to support local businesses but if you are buying in volume their prices are pretty much the best. The dispatch is usually slick and arrives within 2 days but on our last order it was not sent out as quick but as soon as I called the team to follow up I hadn't seen a dispatch yet order was placed day before, she called the warehouse and it arrived next door.

We needed to do a refund on one order (we placed 2 recently) and initially getting a RTA code took 3 calls but the lady who took the last call was brilliant making sure it arrived before she hung up. The refund it took about a week to come back after delivery with a nice apology. So we highly recommend them.

Stumbled across the company as they are trying to say our car has HPI outstanding and was salvaged…. Absolutely BS 🤬 we paid a SIX figure number CASH for our car a few years back and it’s NEVER had a single accident let alone been in salvage category…andthe only thing they got right was changed licence plates as we own 3 private plates!

Do NOT trust them! Or pay £10.95 for a dud report!

I’m surprised there’s no other reviews on this company yet, which says a lot!

I just want to make people aware that you need to be careful when you’re buying them because they will try to lock you and it seems to a three month subscription service which is automatically taken from your payment card. What is wrong with the Services that they do not contact you in advance to remind you that they are going to process a subscription (That’s if you remember that you even subscribed?) the next thing you find out is when you get a receipt in your inbox saying PayPal has processed the payment shortly followed by an email that says thanks to the order.

Every company that once a subscription service usually contacts their customer to allow them to skip or delay or cancel their order if necessary, but not this site. Sadly, this subscription was no good to me because I had a reaction to the goods that they sent, not their fault as it is for herb but I had totally forgotten that I had signed up to a subscription when I had obviously made the purchase or I didn’t realise.

We’ve been using this company for many years and my husband won’t use any other brand of supplements, although that they are a bit on the expensive side he is very sure that they do help his arthritis when he buys the chondroitin and the glucosamine capsules.

What you can rely on from Chris Team is that it’s always a quick dispatch in fact only towards the backend of yesterday did I order some chondroitin and I was amazed to see that they were here this morning before 11 am. You really couldn’t ask for better than this they’re even quicker than Amazon Prime🙌🏼

They did not ask for this review. I just had to do it for them because they’re consistently good with their Service.😃

This is a review for Bromley who are probably too scared to have their own profile, but hopefully the new GM will change that.
I want to begin by acknowledging Imran and Sarim for eventually ensuring our £500 deposit was refunded. That said, this does not take away from what was, overall, a very stressful and concerning experience.

We visited JEMCA’s Bromley dealership to view a vehicle, despite having had a poor experience there the year before. The car we were interested in was due to be moved to another dealership the following day, which created pressure to leave a deposit so we could return at the weekend to test drive it.

We later decided to proceed with a £500 refundable deposit on the clear understanding that we would only move forward with the purchase if the car was satisfactory after the test drive. The vehicle was priced at £33,500 and was the highest specification model, which made it particularly appealing as I am in the process of returning to driving after a long period of rehabilitation.

Our first concern arose when, after paying the deposit, we received paperwork stating there was a £2,000 credit card limit, meaning the remaining £31,500 would need to be paid in cash within seven days. This had not been disclosed beforehand.

During the test drive, the car was tightly parked and we were sent off after a brief walk-around. When we returned and viewed the vehicle in daylight, we discovered a severely buckled alloy wheel and a slashed tyre, rendering the car unroadworthy. We also found damage (a hard to spot dent) to the front passenger wing that appeared to have been pulled out but not properly repaired or repainted.

This raised concerns about potential hidden impact or stress damage, especially given the vehicle had only 4,400 miles on the clock. The overall condition of the alloys also suggested the car had not been well cared for, despite being used as a demo vehicle.

After the weekend, we requested our £500 deposit back. We were told repairs would be made and that we had “one last chance” to proceed. We declined and were promised a refund within five days.

The refund was not processed within that timeframe. We were later told this was because the bank details were “in the wrong name,” which was contradicted by the email trail. No one from the accounts team contacted us to clarify this, which prolonged the situation unnecessarily.

Additionally, the lack of response to phone calls, emails, and voicemails, including from management was extremely frustrating, particularly in a sales and customer service environment.

While we appreciate Sarim’s efforts to improve the dealership experience and resolve the matter in the end, the combination of pressure selling, lack of transparency around payment terms, presenting an unroadworthy vehicle for test driving, and delays in issuing a refundable deposit left us with a very negative overall impression.

My advice to others is to inspect any vehicle thoroughly, ensure all payment terms are clearly documented, and use a credit card for deposits where possible for added protection.