Boards Deals scam

RoundyMooney

"He says "Customers are still waiting three months on for their bean bags, if they still can't fulfill current orders how can they fulfill new ones?"
Seems quite elementary, but yet again someone passionate about 'customer service' is attempted to make excuses for none."

Waiting for them to come from China, most likely. Most of these entities order direct from the factory and have the goods shipped direct to the end purchaser. It's how they roll. Add in one shiny website and that's about the substance of it. Subtract the site, and you have a business methodology for thousands of eBay sellers. For years now.

Jeez, I have no sales background and it's as obvious as it gets! The point of contact is most likely via a mobile number or email only-that's a sure indicator if so. Wonder if these companies (naming none in particular) have a tax clearance certificate?

IITYWYBMAD

Wibbs wrote: »

Apologies if I'm missing something and maybe I'm picking it up wrong, but I'm kinda seeing the positives here...

How many Boardsdeals have gone through since the inception of this separate company*? Probably 100's. I don't know but I assume it's quite a large figure? 3 crappy/dodgy deals seems like a pretty tiny figure to me set against that. Plus those three deals were jumped on and outed by the community, so the biggest check and balance of all, the community of users ability to deal with this has clearly worked.

That's pretty cool IMHO. Even if tomorrow Daft drafted in trained monkeys to work the levers, the community would note and call for the guff to be deleted PDQ.


*I do agree with others on this point, it may be technically separate, but unlike Adverts.ie, it's namechecking this community to it's advantage.

That's probably all true, and I don't really think that that's the issue here. I don't know, but a quick glance of the numbers would indicate that there is a lot of product passed through the system, and when compared against the forum on this site there seems to be few issues. So, yea tip the cap well done.

But what I think is the issue here is nothing got to do with the perceived success or the performance of the boardsdeals site, but how an issue is dealt with and the responsibilities of people involved to the users of boards.ie.

It should not matter if there have been 1, 3 or 10 issues, in many thousands of deals. What needs to be addressed is what happens when there is an issue, who deals with it and how is it dealt with.

The cacophony of opinion is actually deafening, and imo, is actually muddying the waters from the real point of this thread.

seamus

User Friendly wrote: »

as the 1st thing i noticed when i clicked the link was there was no landline,just a mobile phone on the web page

Off topic, but just for reference, many businesses are increasingly using a mobile provider for their main business "landline". So you still have someone sitting at a desk with a big desk phone, but it uses a "mobile" number for incoming and outgoing calls.
It's no longer an indicator of a one-man operation out of the back of a van.

Oryx

There's talk here about customer service and what it means. Anyone can be brilliant at customer service when things go right. That's easy. It's when things go wrong, as they have in the cases here, that you see whether boardsdeals can pull off good service. And I'm not so sure they can. I'm not seeing much evidence of it.

But as a boards user who isnt interested in deals, why do I care? Well, because my initial impression of what they were doing was a plus for the users of boards. A kickback to the boards population. Pretty naive, huh? We are simply marketing fodder. Which wont matter but for the fact that whatever muck hits them, may well drain down here. Poor standards and bad press there, will inevitably reflect here.

darraghdoyle

Tragedy wrote: »

So you're not disagreeing with me

Ah, so you did read my posts then. Good. Thanks. I do hope you get the resolution here you're looking for I was never attacking you or your posts - all I asked you for was a clarification on one comment and your resolution for this. The rest was just general commentary on the entire thread. My apologies that you seem to think it's personally motivated.

IITYWYBMAD wrote:

But what I think is the issue here is nothing got to do with the perceived success or the performance of the boardsdeals site, but how an issue is dealt with and the responsibilities of people involved to the users of boards.ie.

It should not matter if there have been 1, 3 or 10 issues, in many thousands of deals. What needs to be addressed is what happens when there is an issue, who deals with it and how is it dealt with.

Well said. I wish that's what I'd said succinctly rather than being seen to be just belligerently argumentative, rather than explanatory and constructive.

OldGoat

Oryx wrote: »

There's talk here about customer service and what it means. Anyone can be brilliant at customer service when things go right. That's easy. It's when things go wrong, as they have in the cases here, that you see whether boardsdeals can pull off good service. And I'm not so sure they can. I'm not seeing much evidence of it.

Just to balance this with a personal anecdote, I had an issue with a deal, entirely my fault and I stood to lose €80. The customer service crew played a blinder on my behalf and everything got sorted out.

Wibbs

OldGoat wrote: »

Just to balance this with a personal anecdote, I had an issue with a deal, entirely my fault and I stood to lose €80. The customer service crew played a blinder on my behalf and everything got sorted out.

There is always the problem that bad news travels a lot faster and in a louder voice to boot. You could have thousands of smooth transactions, hundreds of good customer service examples like yours, but the few bad calls get the attention. Human nature and all that. That doesn't mean you ignore the bad calls though, particularly if there's an actual pattern.

Don't get me wrong I do see the points raised, but is this a general thing when stuff goes bad, a malaise or lack of customer care, or more of a one off?

Oryx

When I was training (I have a diploma in Retail Jewellery dontcha know;) ) I remember one of the lines from the customer service part:

A customer treated well wont tell anyone. A customer treated badly will tell everyone.

I think the statistic on it was an unhappy customer will tell at least 12 others about their experience. And this was pre internet chat Worth bearing in mind.

Commissioner Gordon

Hi Folks,

Thanks for waiting for me to get back to you on this thread. I'll try to address each issue individually.

Deal Quality
We do quality control all deals before they go onto the site to ensure that deals meet our usual (high) standard. We've developed a check-list to try and catch things ranging from spelling mistakes, to dodgy images, to ensuring our contracts are with the right legal entity etc. Our check-list is continually being added to and updated as we learn from deals that don't go entirely to plan and as we get feedback from Boards and BoardsDeals members.

For example, we learnt from one early hotel deal that we need to be careful when dealing with hotels that they understand the difference between "Subject to availability" and "Limited availability". As a result of the Ionic Bands deal, we'll be more careful in future to make sure that we don't explicitly make any claims about products that we can't independently verify.

As a result of this bracelet deal, in an effort to avoid any confusion, we'll be updating our quality controls to make sure that we know in advance if a merchant is operating two or more sites, if they are retailing the same or similar products at varying prices, and what the reasons for the price discrepancy are.

We are currently running 40+ deals per month. Whilst this volume of deals isn't an excuse for sub-par quality, I hope that you'll appreciate that the BoardsDeals team works hard in an extremely fast-moving and competitive environment to ensure that deals meet our high standards.

Bracelet Deal
We've received the following from OwnU, which should answer some of the queries raised in this thread.

"In answer to your query, we do source products from a variety of different manufacturers and factories. As a consequence, some of the products we import are of a far superior quality and finish than others, which is why it may appear that we offer similar items at different prices, through a selection of our different online stores. The same image may be used to illustrate bracelets of the same design across our different online presences, however the manufacture, quality and finish of the individual range of items sold through our different stores is reflected in the prices."

One other point to note is regarding the beanbags. We originally signed this deal before Christmas, but decided not to run it as we'd run the risk of disappointing people who's purchased it as a Christmas present; at that stage the merchant could not guarantee pre-Christmas delivery. We have been in touch with them since Christmas and they've assured us that the products we've sold will be shipped on time and that they'll provide us with courier tracking numbers for each delivery. If this turns out not to be the case we'll contact purchasers and notify them of the situation. Apparently they sold over 50,000 units before Christmas with another deal site in the UK, which is the main reason why they were overwhelmed.

Feedback on Deals
Finally, whilst we don't mind criticism of a business decision that we make, and whilst we welcome your feedback on any of our deals, Boards doesn't permit or tolerate abuse of any other member. This includes members of any of the teams that make Boards.ie run - ranging from the paid employees here in the office to the Moderators who volunteer their time to make this place what it is. Dav, Emma and I think some of the comments on this thread are out of line; in future we'll act on them as they fall squarely within the "no personal abuse" guidelines. Again we don't mind criticism of our deals, our business decisions and our customer service, but there's no cause to be abusive to anyone to make your point.

Whilst I'm at it, can I just say that Niamh does an excellent job for BoardsDeals - from copy-writing right through to dealing with merchants and customers. She manages to keep a level head in the face of some extremely abusive emails, PMs and calls and I personally think she adds a lot to the Boards/BoardsDeals community. Any posts that Niamh has made have been intended to help the community and to explain our deals.

It's also worth noting that BoardsDeals is managed entirely by the office staff and so outside the remit of the Admin and Mod team; obviously however we welcome their feedback and thoughts also. It's probably easier to keep BoardsDeals related feedback in the BoardsDeals forum - and will probably result in a faster response - however it's unclear sometimes as to whether it's a BoardsDeals or feedback issue.

Boards Brand
We place a lot of value in the Boards.ie "brand" and in strength of the community. From the feedback we've received here and in the BoardsDeals Experiences forum it's clear that many of our members do too. With that in mind, I think it's a little unfair to suggest that we're willing to allow the brand and community to be damaged in the name of making "a quick buck". We've put a lot of hard work into making BoardsDeals a success, and whilst there's always work to be done, we know that it owes a lot to the community and appreciate it as a "customer focus group" as mentioned earlier. You can't buy the sort of goodwill Boards.ie generates, it makes no sense for us to take any action which threatens that and we'd never do anything intentional to damage it.

In over a year of operation, we've had almost 550 deals - out of that number we've only had 5-6 that caused us any major problems. I know that we may not always get everything right, but we do try to bring great deals to the community and to make sure that the fulfilment meets our customers' expectations.

Thanks for your help for taking the time to read this post.
Gordon

P. Breathnach

Thanks, Gordon.

There is a point that I think still needs to be addressed: the announcement of each deal takes the form of a post from Niamh. It is obvious to me that most or all of the content of the post is supplied by the firm offering the deal, but posting their words under Niamh's name takes all of the description and the claims made onto Boards Deal's table. Where a contentious claim is made for a product or service, it can erode trust in the Boards brand.

ToadVine

Commissioner Gordon wrote: »

Bracelet Deal
We've received the following from OwnU, which should answer some of the queries raised in this thread.

"In answer to your query, we do source products from a variety of different manufacturers and factories. As a consequence, some of the products we import are of a far superior quality and finish than others, which is why it may appear that we offer similar items at different prices, through a selection of our different online stores. The same image may be used to illustrate bracelets of the same design across our different online presences, however the manufacture, quality and finish of the individual range of items sold through our different stores is reflected in the prices."

This looks like a duck and walks like a duck ...

Have you independent proof of this "far superior quality" or are you willing to accept OwnU's word? Bearing in mind they use the "same image" and all ...




/snipped/

--amadeus--

My first "proper" job was flogging ad space over the phone. It was horrible & I hated every minute of it but one of the places I worked was the customer magazine for a major UK bank / building society. The sales staff saw the magazine readers as a sales pitch and the magazine as the avenue to access that commodity. And that's what we sold and that's what people bought.

But the bank saw the magazine as an important method of communicating with thier customers and of enhancing thier brand. So every month a marketing rep went through the copy of every single ad due for publication and rejected any that they felt didn't fit the ethos, no matter how valuable the ad was. I lost count of how often I had to phone people who had paid full rate card for a full page and tell them that we would be refunding the money. And I missed plenty of targets because of it.

What's the point?

That short term gains can be damaging in the long term. There needs to be someone with no financial or other stake in the process vetting the deals because otherwise poor quality can be passed. I am not getting a sense from any of the "internal" posts that a proper independent review is done, rather that a checklist is signed off on. And anyone with a background in quality knows that signing a checklist and checking the quality aren't the same thing.

I don't know why but the reply above kind of leaves me feeling a bit cold. A bit "yes yes yes, whatever, we hear you, we won't do it again". It's the response of a business to a customer rather than the response of one community member to another. And that's fine, but as Oryx said it's perhaps not what we expected.

And 5 - 6 deals from 550 is roughly 1% failure rate (and with 3 in short succession I would suggest that rate is a lot higher recently). With a deal a day 6 days a week 52 weeks of the year you'll be dealing with 3 - 4 storms like this a year. That's possibly one a quarter, each highly visible and ranking well on a google search. Are you happy with that level of QC?

TouchingVirus

--amadeus-- wrote: »

And 5 - 6 deals from 550 is roughly 1% failure rate (and with 3 in short succession I would suggest that rate is a lot higher recently). With a deal a day 6 days a week 52 weeks of the year you'll be dealing with 3 - 4 storms like this a year. That's possibly one a quarter, each highly visible and ranking well on a google search. Are you happy with that level of QC?

Clearly they aren't, Gordon has indicated as much with his post - the QC procedures are being expanded and improved constantly in the face of Boardsdeals-based feedback.

TheZohanS

Commissioner Gordon wrote: »

Hi Folks,

Thanks for waiting for me to get back to you on this thread. I'll try to address each issue individually.

And what does Batman think about all of this?

Sully

Without sounding like an ass, I have two questions.

1) The Bean Bag offer you were re-assured on. That's all well and good, but how are you so confident they will meet their targets? After all, people to this day on Boards are reporting that they are ignoring emails and are not meeting orders already placed (ie there is a big back log already). I wouldn't say I am fully comfortable with the bracelet clarification tbh, but maybe that is the case. Just feels a little odd.

2) In regards to the customer service level offered by the staff at Boards Deals. I am unsure where the abuse was leveled at Niamh in particular, I hope that my constructive criticism wasn't seen as over stepping the mark. I felt it was appropriate that I back up my concerns with proof. As I said, there are many examples where she does a fine job but I felt the ball was dropped when things got a little hot under the collar. Why were threads with people complaining ignored and are still ignored, while only posts which were not complaints were being handled? Will these be answered and going forward, will the issue arise again?

Commissioner Gordon

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Thanks, Gordon.

There is a point that I think still needs to be addressed: the announcement of each deal takes the form of a post from Niamh. It is obvious to me that most or all of the content of the post is supplied by the firm offering the deal, but posting their words under Niamh's name takes all of the description and the claims made onto Boards Deal's table. Where a contentious claim is made for a product or service, it can erode trust in the Boards brand.

Valid point that you make and we ran into a related problem with the Ionic Balance Bands a few weeks ago - where instead of saying that "the manufacturer claims XYZ", we inadvertently made it look like we were making the claims ourselves. We've learnt our lesson on this type of deal when we post it to the deals site, and I'm confident that it won't happen again. When it comes to Boards we've traditionally just copied the content from the deal page into a post, so I can see how it would appear on Boards that we're making claims. This hadn't been raised as an issue before, but I think a way around it may be to simply post the deal title onto Boards, linking to BoardsDeals, and inviting any questions.

Merchants do occasionally supply us with copy for their deal but we mainly base our creatives from the information from their websites. BoardsDeals serves two groups of people - first and foremost, it strives to offer great value to its members, and it also acts as an advertising platform for businesses. If someone posts an ad onto Adverts.ie or Daft.ie, the majority of people realise that they're looking at an advertising platform, and I'd hope that our members make the same distinction. Point taken on our Boards.ie thread however.

ToadVine wrote: »

This looks like a duck and walks like a duck ...

Have you independent proof of this "far superior quality" or are you willing to accept OwnU's word? Bearing in mind they use the "same image" and all ...




/snipped/

We've seen the product that we sold, and are happy that it's a quality item and good value for money. In short, yes, I am willing to accept the merchant's assertion that they offer similar products of varying quality.

--amadeus-- wrote: »

My first "proper" job was flogging ad space over the phone. It was horrible & I hated every minute of it but one of the places I worked was the customer magazine for a major UK bank / building society. The sales staff saw the magazine readers as a sales pitch and the magazine as the avenue to access that commodity. And that's what we sold and that's what people bought.

But the bank saw the magazine as an important method of communicating with thier customers and of enhancing thier brand. So every month a marketing rep went through the copy of every single ad due for publication and rejected any that they felt didn't fit the ethos, no matter how valuable the ad was. I lost count of how often I had to phone people who had paid full rate card for a full page and tell them that we would be refunding the money. And I missed plenty of targets because of it.

What's the point?

That short term gains can be damaging in the long term. There needs to be someone with no financial or other stake in the process vetting the deals because otherwise poor quality can be passed. I am not getting a sense from any of the "internal" posts that a proper independent review is done, rather that a checklist is signed off on. And anyone with a background in quality knows that signing a checklist and checking the quality aren't the same thing.

I don't know why but the reply above kind of leaves me feeling a bit cold. A bit "yes yes yes, whatever, we hear you, we won't do it again". It's the response of a business to a customer rather than the response of one community member to another. And that's fine, but as Oryx said it's perhaps not what we expected.

And 5 - 6 deals from 550 is roughly 1% failure rate (and with 3 in short succession I would suggest that rate is a lot higher recently). With a deal a day 6 days a week 52 weeks of the year you'll be dealing with 3 - 4 storms like this a year. That's possibly one a quarter, each highly visible and ranking well on a google search. Are you happy with that level of QC?

We physically see every product which we sell before it goes on site, we talk the merchants fulfilment, shipping etc. We're never going to get everything 100% perfect - I don't know of any company that does - but we do try our best to learn from our mistakes.

Of course we also understand the different between a short term gain and creating long term value. We turn away probably 15-20 merchants each week because we feel their products/ services/ offerings are unsuitable. However, on the flip side we have to balance that with what BoardsDeals members wish to purchase. You'll notice that we have quite a few merchants who run repeat deals with us; this is for a few reasons - we're fair to deal with, don't promise what we can't deliver, we offer straightforward terms and from the feedback I've received, our sales and customer service team are good to deal with.

Sorry if you read my post and felt that I was just saying what people want to hear. Having your site/work critiqued in public isn't always pleasant or easy to take, but we genuinely do value any and all feedback and we try our best to learn from mistakes and put in place measures to ensure they don't happen again.

With regards to the 5-6 deals from 550, firstly I would only view 2-3 as not having worked - primarily because the merchants in question went out of business, but in each case we were able to refund customers who had unredeemed vouchers. The remaining few of these deals had their problems, and maybe frustrated us and our customers, but I wouldn't term them "failures".

As for the three deals in short succession, I wouldn't count them as failures but I fully acknowledge that there were some valid issues raised with the deals:

1. Ionic Bands - we listened to the feedback, issued a clarification, offered refunds if people wanted their money back, and the vast majority of people chose to keep the product.
2. Beanbags - we contacted the merchant re. the concerns raised and received their assurances that there would be no shipping delays. If it turns out that there are problems with shipping we'll contact the people who purchased the deal and offer them a refund.
3. Bracelets - as I mentioned above, I think the product we offered was good quality and good value considering the price.

No, I certainly wouldn't be satisfied with a 1% 'failure' rate on all deals that we run and would obviously hope to keep reducing this rate as we run more deals and learn from our mistakes.

We're heading off for the weekend, but I'll check back in on Monday.

Thanks again for the feedback. g

Tragedy

Commissioner Gordon wrote: »

Bracelet Deal
We've received the following from OwnU, which should answer some of the queries raised in this thread.

"In answer to your query, we do source products from a variety of different manufacturers and factories. As a consequence, some of the products we import are of a far superior quality and finish than others, which is why it may appear that we offer similar items at different prices, through a selection of our different online stores. The same image may be used to illustrate bracelets of the same design across our different online presences, however the manufacture, quality and finish of the individual range of items sold through our different stores is reflected in the prices."

Few queries:
1) Do you know of any other business that sells a product which uses the image of a product that costs 25% of the price to advertise it? And fails to note anywhere in the products description that this product is of exceptional quality in some way?
2)If you checked out ownu.co.uk, how did you not find out that they run seasonsonline.co.uk. Did the website with only a handful of products and no description of who the website represented (i.e. Ownu.co.uk is a trading name of Sifay Interntional Ltd or however you're legally required to phrase it) not make you enquire further?
3)The product consists of three parts: shamballa beads, hematite beads and macrame cord. There's no precious metal to be of a higher quality/amount, no gem that can be larger/smaller or with a different cut. How can a collection of beads that cost less than $10 to buy in bulk be of a substantially higher quality than a collection of the same beads that cost less than $10 to buy in bulk?

One other point to note is regarding the beanbags. We originally signed this deal before Christmas, but decided not to run it as we'd run the risk of disappointing people who's purchased it as a Christmas present; at that stage the merchant could not guarantee pre-Christmas delivery. We have been in touch with them since Christmas and they've assured us that the products we've sold will be shipped on time and that they'll provide us with courier tracking numbers for each delivery. If this turns out not to be the case we'll contact purchasers and notify them of the situation. Apparently they sold over 50,000 units before Christmas with another deal site in the UK, which is the main reason why they were overwhelmed.

Point proven. You didn't research Infurn. If you care to read these three examples of peoples experiences with them, you'll see that tardy shipping and non-existent customer service is a feature rather than an anomaly.
1. http://www.revark.com/summary/Infurncom/I17334228860297
2. http://www.trustpilot.co.uk/review/www.infurn.com
3. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=619800

So in summary, a company with a proven track record of letting down customers, a company that many boards.ie users are still waiting to deliver promised goods to, and you don't care because they made you promises. Obviously they made you promises, they want you to make them money.
Either Boards Deals is naive, gullible, or doesn't care. Take your pick!

Feedback on Deals
Finally, whilst we don't mind criticism of a business decision that we make, and whilst we welcome your feedback on any of our deals, Boards doesn't permit or tolerate abuse of any other member. This includes members of any of the teams that make Boards.ie run - ranging from the paid employees here in the office to the Moderators who volunteer their time to make this place what it is. Dav, Emma and I think some of the comments on this thread are out of line; in future we'll act on them as they fall squarely within the "no personal abuse" guidelines. Again we don't mind criticism of our deals, our business decisions and our customer service, but there's no cause to be abusive to anyone to make your point.

Act on them now. I'm tired of firstly Darragh, and now you speaking out about phantom abuse of the BD team stemming from this thread. Act on it, because I'm tired of insinuations being made that what I said was out of line. If you think it's out of line, report the posts in question and it can be dealt with properly. I fully believe that Niamh's behaviour in that thread was disgraceful, and I fully believe that I have seen her act poorly in a few other threads. Neither of those things constitute abuse, and I've already explained why I believe her behaviour was reprehensible. I'm also happy to furnish more examples of where I believe she acted/handled things poorly if mods find my comments out of line. I'm also happy to link hundreds of other posts on boards of users saying XYZ acted poorly with no moderator involvement.

I also note that you haven't in any way touched on her claiming competitors products were cheaper and lower quality in an attempt to justify this deal(and not based on any facts or evidence). The fact that you ignore it and don't find it objectionable says a lot about Boards Deals as an organisation. Like Darragh, you instead attack me instead of addressing the issue: Niamh came as close to as making no difference lying about competitors products in order to justify what turned out to be a terrible Boards Deal. You're fine with that.

Darragh, can you post where people have accused Boards Deals of deliberately perpetrating a scam? Because you said as much earlier in this thread, and I see you repeating the same claim on Twitter.

Gordon, I'm prepared to spend €20 to buy a "Full Iridescent Crystal Shamballa Style Bracelet". I'm also prepared to get in touch with someone who bought one from the Boards Deal, and to compare the two.

If I find them to be the same, will you apologise to people on this thread and Boards Deals customers? Will Niamh apologise for lying about competitors products? And most importantly, will you buy a crappy discoball bracelet valued at €70 off me for the low low price of €20?

Sully

Think your going a little overboard there, Tragedy. Gordon & Co have given very detailed responses and I think there are better ways of approaching with your concerns.

Tragedy

Sully wrote: »

Think your going a little overboard there, Tragedy. Gordon & Co have given very detailed responses and I think there are better ways of approaching with your concerns.

12th post on this thread:

To be honest, I'm less interested in ownu.co.uk and whatever shenanigans they get up to than with
a)Boards Deals apparent lack of care for who they do business with and what 'deals' they sell
and
b)Their representatives response to someone raising this issue(and no, not me).

*Obviously exaggerating

Part hasn't been in any way responded to, and the answer to Part A) didn't really answer much with regard to both Ownu.co.uk and Infurn.

Unless I'm missing something?

And unless I'm missing something else, both Gordon and Darragh have insinuated I've been abusing a member of BDs staff without addressing it directly and Darragh has been insinuating I've been accusing BD of knowingly scamming customers.

I wonder, if was a BD staff member would Dav and Emma consider their comments as abusive and out of line? :rolleyes:

ToadVine

Gordon, you say this about the bracelets ...

Commissioner Gordon wrote: »

We've seen the product that we sold, and are happy that it's a quality item and good value for money. In short, yes, I am willing to accept the merchant's assertion that they offer similar products of varying quality.

If that is true, you should have no problem with Tragedy's proposal ...

Tragedy wrote: »

Gordon, I'm prepared to spend €20 to buy a "Full Iridescent Crystal Shamballa Style Bracelet". I'm also prepared to get in touch with someone who bought one from the Boards Deal, and to compare the two.

If I find them to be the same, will you apologise to people on this thread and Boards Deals customers? Will Niamh apologise for lying about competitors products? And most importantly, will you buy a crappy discoball bracelet valued at €70 off me for the low low price of €20?

Looks like this would be one sure way to sort this out. We could even have a few trusted mods witness the comparison.

So what do you say Gordon? Are you prepared to back up your words and assertions with actions?

darraghdoyle

Tragedy wrote: »

Like Darragh, you instead attack me instead of addressing the issue:

A disagreement is not an attack, Tragedy. A request for clarification is not an attack. A simple statement like

Have you direct links to this? Have you reported these threads? That's a very serious allegation of poor customer service by an agent of a company. I hope you have back up because it's unfair if you don't. I'd hate to see that said about me.

is not an attack. It's me asking you to show the links because I found what you said to be unfair.

In my first post to you, I asked you

OP, what's the best case scenario/solution for you here?

Instead of replying in a constructive manner, like my post was intended to be, you came back to me claiming I was "Hysterical" and then said

I'm not allowed to go posting that DarraghDoyle may be a liar. Or may be a boards deal shill. Or may have been in prison for fraud.

among loads of other things, without answering what the best case scenario/solution for you was.

I'm sorry that an explanation and a request for clarification is seen as an attack on you.

Regarding

Darragh, can you post where people have accused Boards Deals of deliberately perpetrating a scam? Because you said as much earlier in this thread, and I see you repeating the same claim on Twitter.

Erm, where exactly did I say that?

and where on twitter did I say it? Was it me saying this



or was it me saying this



Which is based on the conversations in the first few posts where it seemed to me to be based on the idea that Boards.ie had more to do with this than it actually did, like a phrase like

Do boards have a responsibility to ensure that a "deal" is a "deal"?

and similar comments.

I'm sorry you seem to think you're being attacked.

I think Gordon and Dav are handling this thread well. I'm sorry you didn't like me responding to you.

darraghdoyle

Tragedy wrote: »

Darragh have insinuated I've been abusing a member of BDs staff without addressing it directly and Darragh has been insinuating I've been accusing BD of knowingly scamming customers.

No I haven't. That's your reading of it, Tragedy. Indeed.

darraghdoyle

You know, Tragedy, it bugs me, these statements that you're making where you say you're being attacked.

More than anything just because if you kept that out of it, pointed out there was a problem and suggested a resolution - which is 80% at least of your posts, you're actually doing a great service to both Boards Deals and its members.

Instead you're making claims that aren't true.

I wasn't attacking you. I don't know you. Why would I?

I'm leaving this here. I hope you get a resolution. Don't worry about responding to me. I'll let people read my posts and read your posts and make up their own mind about who is hysterical.

Peace

Darragh

Sully

Tragedy wrote: »

12th post on this thread:



Part hasn't been in any way responded to, and the answer to Part A) didn't really answer much with regard to both Ownu.co.uk and Infurn.

Unless I'm missing something?

A & I would have thought Gordon clarification on the deals would have addressed these. He spoke about how the bracelet was approved (they saw it) and what the manufacturer said in response to concern. He believes them, I don't but it would seem a bit silly getting the two and somehow trying to compare them and see if there really is a difference. So I think going forward, they will learn from this. Likewise, he addressed how the Beanbag was approved. I don't like that either. But I just hope lessons were learned and we could very well be proven wrong. If we are right, they will deal with it. End of story.

And unless I'm missing something else, both Gordon and Darragh have insinuated I've been abusing a member of BDs staff without addressing it directly and Darragh has been insinuating I've been accusing BD of knowingly scamming customers.

I wonder, if was a BD staff member would Dav and Emma consider their comments as abusive and out of line? :rolleyes:

Well I read that comment in his post and didn't think it was directed at anyone specifically. Hence why I asked were my posts somehow out of line. So I think its how your reading it tbh.

Sully

Gordon, I'm prepared to spend €20 to buy a "Full Iridescent Crystal Shamballa Style Bracelet". I'm also prepared to get in touch with someone who bought one from the Boards Deal, and to compare the two.

If I find them to be the same, will you apologise to people on this thread and Boards Deals customers? Will Niamh apologise for lying about competitors products? And most importantly, will you buy a crappy discoball bracelet valued at €70 off me for the low low price of €20?

The more I read this, the more sickened I am. Especially the apart about Niamh apologizing. Wtf like?

Without Gordon seeing both products, or Niamh for that matter, its impossible for them to be 100% sure. So they are going on the word of the business. Its the same on all their deals. They will deal with it, I am sure, if an issue arises that proof is there. Refunds, not allowing the retailer do other deals etc.

Its really not worth getting into a forensic investigation about the two products and making a ruling. Its not worth the time and hassle for you, me, Gordon or Niamh. They made a call on whether to take a chance or dump it. It really isn't worth scrapping the whole deal because of a "possibility" and such a minor issue as well.

Also, I have seen lazy website owners use the same image for a similar product, even if there are quality differences. Its very common, especially in small businesses.

Your going way over the top on this dude, there is no need to get so annoyed over such a small issue. BoardsDeals have listened to our Feedback, taken it onboard, and we can only hope that the issues are dealt with. I take their word that it has been and lessons were indeed learned. Otherwise, their brand and their idea will be damaged beyond repair. They know that.

Tragedy

darraghdoyle wrote: »

In my first post to you, I asked you



Instead of replying in a constructive manner, like my post was intended to be, you came back to me claiming I was "Hysterical" and then said

As I already said, I thought it was self evident. I also didn't claim you were being hysterical, I claimed you were getting hysterical about what I posted about Niamh.
Huge difference, please take note and don't twist it.

among loads of other things, without answering what the best case scenario/solution for you was.

To show that you aren't allowed to say whatever you like because you appended may to a statement. Something you agree with, but when applied to Niamh's post you rewrite what she said to make it less definitive and then say her belittling competitors products in order to draw attention away from this Boards Deal isn't much of an issue and clear not poor or disgraceful behaviour.

I'm sorry that an explanation and a request for clarification is seen as an attack on you.

No, getting hysterical about my comments on Niamh, further more talking about legal issues and legal threats boards receives for similar comments, posting about users(presumably me amongst them) claiming Boards is intentionally posting deals like this. Those are examples of an attack. As is this puerile comment "You know, people often ask me if I miss working on this site. I just point them to threads like this as reply.". The rest of your posts aren't, even if I did find them to be excusing BDs failings in this deal(and the big boy to an extent) moreso than explaining/commenting.

I think you have to accept that things like this will happen but blaming Boards.ie for it is neither accurate nor constructive.

Erm, where exactly did I say that?

See above, it wasn't exactly that though so my apologies. Blame obviously isn't the same as them knowingly perpetrating it, so my mistake.

and where on twitter did I say it? Was it me saying this



or was it me saying this



Which is based on the conversations in the first few posts where it seemed to me to be based on the idea that Boards.ie had more to do with this than it actually did, like a phrase like



and similar comments.

Can you show a post in this thread where
Someone implied Boards Deals pushed this deal on customers despite knowing that it wasn't actually a deal
and
Where someone abused a Boards(Deals?) member of staff?
That's why I call it an attack. Make a broad statement and then don't back it up.

@Sully: I wouldn't have even bothered posting this thread if it wasn't for Niamh claiming the cheaper bracelets were of a lesser quality than the one in the Boards Deal. She owes users and competitors an apology for making that claim considering it wasn't based on fact or evidence. It was based on needing to distract customers. I don't know about others, but I find an employee of a company lying about competitors products to distract customers attention disgraceful behaviour. I found it disgraceful enough that I both researched the company and posted this thread. That issue still has yet to be even touched upon. I accept that it won't be, and Gordon obviously doesn't mind. Fair enough, I certainly won't ever be using Boards Deals again in that case.

I also don't see why I should be blasé about a comment like this:

Boards doesn't permit or tolerate abuse of any other member. This includes members of any of the teams that make Boards.ie run - ranging from the paid employees here in the office to the Moderators who volunteer their time to make this place what it is. Dav, Emma and I think some of the comments on this thread are out of line; in future we'll act on them as they fall squarely within the "no personal abuse" guidelines. Again we don't mind criticism of our deals, our business decisions and our customer service, but there's no cause to be abusive to anyone to make your point.

Morag

ffs sake get a room or take it to pms.

drkpower

Tragedy wrote: »

She owes users and competitors an apology for making that claim considering it wasn't based on fact or evidence.

Is this really what this thread is about? Making someone wear sackcloth & ashes....?

Your thread had and has merit; to draw the attention of BoardsDeals and users to a few 'deals' that have obviously slipped through the cracks (gaping cracks in some instances). Rather than leave it at that, and pat yourself rightly on the back for doing us some service, you have continued with what seems like, to be frank, a childish game of one-up-mans-ship.

LoLth

drkpower wrote: »

Is this really what this thread is about? Making someone wear sackcloth & ashes....?

Your thread had and has merit; to draw the attention of BoardsDeals and users to a few 'deals' that have obviously slipped through the cracks (gaping cracks in some instances). Rather than leave it at that, and pat yourself rightly on the back for doing us some service, you have continued with what seems like, to be frank, a childish game of one-up-mans-ship.

this.

admin begin
@tragedy:
seriously, its gone beyond the point of being a word from a concerned citizen and has turned into a crusade. Gordon has been very accomodating in answering questions so far so there is no reason to believe that he is deliberately trying to mislead you. if you feel something has not been addressed there are better ways to bring it to a persons attention than posting accusations and attacks. "discussion" "feedback". Dont post again please until you are clear what these words mean as opposed to "rant" and "crusade". You asked a question and are in the process of getting an answer but somewhere you seem to have gotten the idea that there is some sort of competition here that you can "win" by losing all sense of civility.

@darraghdoyle:
heya
I think yourself and Tragedy are at an impasse and it will not be resolved on this thread. the best thing now is to agree to disagree and allow this thread to return to its original topic, that being feedback on and discussion of the recent bracelet deal in particular and boardsdeals handling of deals in general.


@Tragedy & Darraghdoyle
If you wish to continue your disagreement please take it to PM or continue it on twitter. Any more "but you said then I said" will be viewed as off topic and will be dealt with as such.

@all:
OP question has been responded to by Gordon representing boardsdeals.ie , if there are any additional queries or you feel further clarification is required then this would seem to be the best place to post them but lets try to keep it civil and keep it on topic.

thanks

LoLth

/admin

nibtrix

LoLth wrote: »

@all:
OP question has been responded to by Gordon representing boardsdeals.ie , if there are any additional queries or you feel further clarification is required then this would seem to be the best place to post them but lets try to keep it civil and keep it on topic.

As you've invited feedback I'd like to leave some, hopefully constructive, criticism.

I think that 99% of the time the BoardsDeals staff do a great job. They are generally very helpful and patient, often having to repeat the same information again and again.

Unfortunately it is the 1% that goes wrong which is most noticeable to viewers of the forum. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, there have been occasions where difficult questions about the value/validity of a deal have not been answered; instead those questions are ignored until the thread drops out of sight. It's clearly not a case that the questions haven't been seen by an employee as other, simpler questions on the thread (like "how do I use my voucher") have been answered. One example was linked to earlier, another would be this thread I was involved in months ago:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=73055165


Three hours after this deal was posted, members replied questioning the actual value of this deal. Repeated questions over the course of 10 days were ignored. Even when a feedback thread was posted, confirming that the deal was mispriced, there was no explanation from the boardsdeals employees. Even though it was thanked by an employee!! http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=73341674

I feel what makes boardsdeals different and better than most deal sites out there is the access to the forum, to discuss deals with the employees and, most importantly, to give feedback on the deals. Ignoring this feedback and refusing to answer questions about deals makes the forum almost useless.

If boardsdeals are going to have a forum on boards, one that is essentially the same as any of the “Talk to…” forums, I think they should agree to answer all queries, even the difficult ones, and within the time frame of the deal if at all possible. Obviously single questions can be missed, but in the situation where several people are querying a deal there is no chance that the employees of boardsdeals could miss it. This is purely a question of professionalism, not answering these questions makes boardsdeals look bad.

On the subject of professionalism, the overuse of smilies in posts by boardsdeals employees is extremely grating. Statements like the one below, an example of a perfectly professional reply showing excellent communication with the customer. Why the smilie face?

We will contact xxx today for you, all deals are approved by merchants before they are run so there is perhaps a mix up at xxx about this. I'll get back to you later today

Ok, it’s not that big an issue, but it’s just a tiny thing that makes the forum look a little unprofessional. With regard to that sentence, the smilie makes me think the employee is saying "I'll get back to you later. Maybe. If I feel like it. ". I'm 100% sure they don't mean it to come across that way, but I bet I'm not the only one who perceives it like this...

One last thing – in the Boards Deals Experiences forum, why are posts thanked if they have good feedback, but not if they have bad feedback? Surely the bad feedback is just as valuable, or even more so, than the good feedback?

Apologies for the long post. As I stated at the beginning I think boardsdeals is 99% excellent. I would hate to see it gain a bad reputation for the sake of some very small, easily correctable, issues.