Leadthegoodlife Reviews 8

In the two months it took between my being charged for items which weren't delivered and finally getting my money back (I had to start dispute proceedings through my credit card company), I had plenty of time to find out that my experience of this shoddy crew was shared by approximately one in every five customers (see also Feefo for many hundreds of revealing reviews of which 20% are rated Poor or Bad). They promise delivery notification but don't send out any; they publicise an e-mail address for queries about orders but they don't answer any emails; they have a "customer service" phoneline in India where well-meaning operators who don't have access to full or accurate information try politely to sort things out for you but are ultimately powerless to do so. They have a UK postal address, but don't acknowledge letters.
The parent company (Ideal Shopping Direct) was exposed in the Daily Mirror and subsequently by BBC Watchdog in 2013 for these very failings, and claimed then that it was all a temporary hitch while new services bedded in after a takeover of the gardening business. Clearly it's not a short-term glitch but a whole way of life for them - pile 'em high, flog 'em cheap, and if you are are one of the 20% with a problem (no delivery, dead plants, no refund....) you can go hang.
I don't think a company with this percentage of dissatisfied customers should be trading; even their names ("Ideal" and "Good Life") seem like an offence under the Trades Description Act.

I have used this company in the past but have since changed my address and bank,which seem to baffle their online ordering system.

I had no luck trying to order over the telephone,with a crackly line and a foreign voice telling me they were having computer problems.

Also,the 2 bags of compost advertised online for £20 were now" not
available"but I could order 1 bag for £18.75.

Even this was beyond their capabilities to supply,as after wasting 10 minutes on their expensive crackly phone line explaining my new address and bank details,I was told that because I had 2 or 3 previous
accounts their system would not accept the order.

This company seems to be a complete shambles and is best avoided.

This company is absolute rubbish sent for 5 patio planters recieved 2 boxes of fertiliser sent them back as requested with a promise to refund my postage no planters no refund AVOID.

Ordered 5 fruit trees. 4 delivered one of which had damage.
1 short delivered.
No initial response to my email so telephoned (charges 10p/minute). Call centre staff of foreign origin, lied about delivery (fobbed me off).
Short delivered tree finally arrived. Badly damaged. No response to my emails.
THIS COMPANY SHOULD BE AVOIDED. NO CUSTOMER SERVICE. NO REPSONSE TO COMPLAINTS. ATTITUDE APPEARS TO BE "WE HAVE YOUR MONEY, NOW GET LOST".

I ordered a Karcher K5 on the Friday. Now it's Wednesday and I still have not received notification of dispatch. I telephoned, but after 5 minutes in a queue they disconnected me. Their site states it can take 14 working days to dispatch an item - Why? I'm waiting for some sort of communication - I see no reason for such a lengthy delay in the delivery process. This Company needs to get a grip - If you don't look after your customers, then someone else will !!!

I ordered five packs of lawn edging. After waiting a while, i contacted the firm who said they should be with me in a few days, but that i would only receive four packs rather than five as they didn't have them in stock. I was told I would receive a refund for the fifth. It would have been nice if they could have told me that originally. Another week went by, and i chased again, and no explanation was provided for not receiving my order and i was told i would be refunded. i don't want to be refunded, I want the order delivered but this seems a task beyond this firm. I would certainly not recommend, and will wait to see if my refund is forthcoming

I HAVE BOUGHT A LOT OFF LEADTHEGOODLIFE THE LAST 3 THINGS HAVE BEEN TERRIBLE. THEY HAD GOT GERBERA ON OFFER I KNOW WHY THEY WAS ON OFFER NOW THEY CAME DEAD.
THEY REPLACED THEM AND THE REPLACEMENTS CAME DEAD TOO.
I BOUGHT A PLANTER JUST BECAUSE I DIDNT FIND OUT IT WAS CRACKED ALL DOWN THE SIDE WITHIN 7DAYS THEY SAY NOTHING CAN BE DONE. THE REASON I HAD NOT USED IT WAS I HAD TO BUY SOME PLANTS FROM A PLANT FARM NEAR ME TO PUT IN THE PLANTER. I THINK ITS A LAME EXSCUSE THAT I HADN,T LOOKED AT IT WITHIN 7 DAYS. I WONT BE SHOPPING WITH THEM AGAIN THEY LIKE TAKING YOUR MONEY BUT DONT LIKE REPLACING DEAD AND BROKEN THINGS

I ordered 48 strawberry plants, 4 trees, 4 buckets, 2 pot plants & 9 packets of seeds in their Christmas sale.
First the seeds arrived (packed in 2012).
Then the 30 litre buckets arrived, I've ordered them before so they were fine and filled with soil to await the trees.
Between Christmas and February I heard the worst run of untruths from customer services reps I've ever heard.
When the trees hadn't arrived I rang them. "We're just changing depots, they'll be with you after the 15th" they said. Which was half true.
During another phone call I told them the trees status had been altered to "shipped" but unlike the previous parcels there wasn't any tracking info. Their excuse was that hundreds of shipments had left the depot without tracking info but it had gone on the 21st Jan.
When I reported the non-delivery again I was told I had to wait a full 10 days before they'd be replaced - I told them this was entirely ridiculous, plants can only be in transit for 3 days before they die so they might as well replace them now.
In late January I was given a manual tracking number that confirmed that MyHermes had my parcel and the rep said some would arrive on Sat 1st Feb and some Monday 3rd of Feb.
Of course, on Monday 3rd Feb I had to ring them again because once again nothing had arrived. I spent more than 20 minutes with the rep while she liaised with her supervisor ... Apparently Hermes had lost the parcel.
After being told they no longer had stock of the strawberries, I collected all the product codes and showed her they did have all of them in stock.
I was told the computer system wouldn't accept the replacements because the codes had been changed ... then with all the codes correct I was told she didn't have the authorisation to tell the computer to replace the strawberries with the exact same strawberries they had in stock!
Then, and this is unbelievable to me, during the conversation the rep said that head office had authorised a refund on Jan 31st for the trees, strawberries and pot plants without even letting me or the system know.

The point here is that I bought a lot of items at sale prices and saved myself just under £30 on a just over £80 order but none of the discounted turned up.
I have the 4 pots filled with soil with no trees for them. I have 5 strawberry planters filled with soil and no strawberry plants and a £43 refund. Of course, I can reorder the missing items today for £78 but the point is that I wouldn't have bought the pots or bought the soil if the strawberries and trees hadn't been on sale !!!

I asked to speak to the supervisor, but he/she refused to take the call and would ring me back.
Well, it's Feb 4th now and still no phone call. No surprise to be honest.
What I don't get is that if the sale or the items didn't exist, I should have received an email saying there'd been a mistake, an apology and a FULL refund not given the runaround over a period of 6 weeks to fall short of even a basic customer service.

It's incredible that this company changed management and the same things happened ... Then rebrands itself as leadthegoodlife.com and the same things happen ... The previous Garden Bargains site has 17 out of 19 negative reviews on trustpilot. So congratulations on receiving your first review for the new company ... same as the old ones - customer disservice and dissatisfaction.