I hope that the moderators will see this post for what it is – a genuine attempt to warn anglers of all types to be very careful when dealing with a set of companies based in Rotherham and trading widely on ebay and the internet.
The ones I know of are No14 Fishing, Fishing Republic, Yorkshire Game Angling and Lureflash.
I wanted a fly tying vice and found No14 Fishing on ebay to be marginally the cheapest. I looked at the 98.7 feedback rating and was happy to buy through Paypal. The estimated delivery time was disappointing but not excessive.
Two days before it was due I received a blunt message to say it was out of stock and new ones would be ordered from the suppliers. No sincere apology or, crucially, any offer of a refund.
I made contact through the ebay system but never received a reply. I could not start the ebay refund procedure before the estimated delivery date transpired. Meanwhile I rechecked the listing. Because of huge sales numbers the 1.3% of negative feedbacks actually translated into almost 600 people being let down in the past 12 months, very many of whom faced the out-of- stock situation.
I tried to make contact again through the email address given in the item listing and, surprise , surprise, it doesn’t exist.
I finally managed to get an email through, addressed to company boss Stephen Gross, to tell him that I had contacted Rotherham Trading Standards and the local press in his area and would be lodging a full complaint with ebay and hopefully getting the Beeb consumer programmes interested in his business practices. All of which is true.
I got a refund the next day which was at odds with the experiences of many, many others who waited weeks.
The dissatisfaction with this company is evident even on their own Facebook page – check out the one star ratings there for angry punters.
Undoubtedly many people are happy to use this set of companies but 600 badly treated customers is a disgrace. This operation clearly has no concern for its customers and no qualms about letting them down. My advice is don’t risk being one of them.
Even more disgraceful is that ebay allow them to continue trading.
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