"Avoid this company at all costs. I placed an order 2 months ago and haven't received it.
I have tried calling on numerous occasions but they do not answer their phones or return answerphone messages. I have also emailed a couple of times without reply.
Do not use them, as you are likely to be left out of pocket and with no goods..."
"After using the same wine supplier regularly for years we decided to try out their competition so ordered a case of wine from this company for a works reception. Wish we hadn’t! After 4 weeks nothing received & absolutely no response whatsoever from them. They never answer the phone & never respond to left messages. I have contacted the BBC Consumer Affairs Team about this & apparently this company is already on their radar as they have received other complaints. I just hope that they will do a full investigation which will be shown on TV so that other potential customers are warned off. I’ve also contacted our Credit Card company & they’re looking into it but I’m not hopeful of getting our money back!"
"Same experience as other reviewers. Paid £300 for some niche wines two weeks ago. No delivery, no response to emails requesting updates. Nobody answers telephone. I'm now pursuing fraud action against these criminals. AVOID."
"I never receive the wines I purchase."
"Have paid Wine Direct UK for wine and delivery. Payment processed and no wine delivered.
I will be making a formal complaint."
"3 weeks no wine feeble excuses and emails unanswered. I will be contacting my credit card bank and action fraud tomorrow. This company also trades as just in cases. "
"Why is there not an option to award no stars? Truly the worst of the worst in terms of customer support - I have been completely ignored when chasing non delivery of my order. E-mails, phone calls and voice messages all ignored. I've had to resort to reporting the transaction as fraudulent with Barclaycard to seek a refund that way, as this crowd of crooks have taken my money and gone completely to ground. I'm expecting to read they have gone bust any day now as their customer (no) support line goes direct to a voice mail service that no-one ever replies to. Deal with this shower of crooks at your peril."
"Just received a 6 bottle order one month and a day after ordering.....Given the time delay I suppose I should be grateful to get anything. However, having vintage substitutions is a real shame.
As for the communication - well.....No response to an email. Left a voicemail (cannot talk to a real person) and finally a few days later things moved with a short sharp email. Wines arrived today as stated in that email.
I'll never use them again even though the wines I ordered are hard to find elsewhere."
"these guys notoriously do not deliver wines, check out the company history and report a fraud if you got stuck with them!!!
actionfraud.police.uk
https://companycheck.co.uk/company/10302578/FERMENTATION-LIMITED/companies-house-data
3 owners change their Directors appointments , close the company but then re-open when a new/old director is appointed! BE AWARE
I have done it! "
"Despite a phone call to tell me that the wine I had ordered for my parents 50th Wedding Anniversary would be arriving ahead of the date, two days have now passed since the special event and still no wine. Calls to the number provided are now always through to a voicemail system....save your money, time and effort and go elsewhere for your wine needs!"
"Just save yourself the trouble and order from someplace else. No wine is worth this much stress. I ordered a gift for 90 GBP. I thought 5 business days would be enough to have it arrive at the receiver, not to mention the fact that I agreed to Wine Substitutions and Vintage Changes. But no, it wasn't. I emailed 5 times, I called 6 times, nothing, nothing at all. Their customer service is non-existent. Or worse, they know and just choose not to do anything about it, so they are intentionally deceiving customers."
"It was my first and will be certainly my last order with WineDirect.
The order was placed on a Monday evening and shipped only on Friday, to be delivered Wednesday next week. After sending an e-mail (no reply), tried to call on Friday morning (left voice mail message) to get an update on the order and its estimated delivery date. No reply either.
To make thinngs really worse, what I've received isn't what I had ordered: ordered 2016 vintage, received 2017 vintage. And I had specifically stated in the order that changes on the vintage weren't accepted.
Totally unprofessional from WineDirect. Unacceptable."
"Doh - I wish I'd read the reviews here first.....
Ordered £222 wine 7th Feb - order confirmed by email
FAIL - heard nothing for about 10 days, had to call them for an update.
FAIL - it's 50/50 whether someone picks up the 'phone. (Don't waste time leaving a message)
Got through, no explanation for radio silence, arranged delivery for 20th Feb; my partner agreed to stay at home all day (it's the usual opacity on delivery time).
FAIL - 20th Feb, no delivery, no communication, very irritated partner
FAIL - no response to repeated calls, left answerphone messages, sent email
FAIL - Fri 23rd Feb, email from Tony Abreu: two items from my order were sold out - that's the reason nothing was delivered. SO WHY DID YOU LET ME PAY FOR ITEMS SOLD OUT? GET YOUR STOCK MANAGEMENT IN SHAPE IT SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN FAULTY FOR YEARS (read reviews below). Offered Monday (26th) delivery which I replied to within 25minutes offering three half day slots when I would be home mon/tue/fri.
FAIL - No response to my email by close of business Mon 26th - ie the day THEY had offered for delivery. Sent them email asking for a response to my suggestions of delivery slots.
FAIL - chased Winedirect by calling twice on 27th Feb.
Received email from Andrew Birtley 1st March: Winedirect was planning to ship to me for delivery Mon 26th but decided to postpone in order to avoid wine sitting in a delivery warehouse over the weekend of freezing [beast from the east] temperatures. Fair enough. BUT WHY DIDN"T YOU SIMPLY LET ME KNOW RATHER THAN LEAVE ME WONDERING WHETHER I SHOULD STAY AT HOME LONGER ON THAT MONDAY TO RECEIVE THE WINE? USELESS CUSTOMER SERVICE AGAIN. Mr Birtley concludes by telling me Winedirect plans to ship on Monday 5th March for Tues 6th delivery (again not checking whether that suits me), and that Tony will be in touch on Monday 5th [to update me].
FAIL - no one contacts me on Monday 5th
FAIL - 3 of 9 bottles arrive (from my now smaller order, two bottles being out of stock). I write an email just before midday, reporting this and gingerly asking whether the rest would arrive on the same day, as promised! ho ho ho. No response - no surprise.
I then write another email after close of business on 6th March entitled "WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON?," pointing out that 6 bottles are missing as is my refund for the 2 not available.
FAIL - no response. I have to call Winedirect and get through to Tony Abreu on 8th March who tells me the outstanding 6 bottles are out for delivery.....whereupon I inform him I am calling from a plane to the airport and I'm going on holiday so no one will be home. WHY DID YOU ARRANGE THE SECOND DELIVERY WITHOUT TELLING, OR INFORMING ME WHEN IT WAS DUE TO BE DELIVERED? He offers to get in touch with the courier to redeliver but we both 'agree' it would be better (and safer!) for me to sort it out. He also informs me my refund has been processed and I should receive it within 2-3 days.
The courier attempts a delivery; no one is home; an "unfortunately you weren't in" card is left which I collect on returning from holiday and use to arrange delivery for the next day I am home, Thur Mar 15th.
FAIL - No sign yet of the refund for the bottles I paid for over four weeks ago - YOU APPARENTLY DISCOVERED THE BOTTLES WEREN'T AVAILABLE 23RD FEB, AND I CONFIRMED I WANTED A REFUND NOT A SUBSTITUTION THE SAME DAY - OVER TWO WEEKS AGO - SO WHY WASN'T THE REFUND PROCESSED THEN?
DO YOU HAVE CASHFLOW DIFFICULTIES, WINEDIRECT? ARE YOU A RISKY COUNTERPARTY?
On a personal note each time I spoke with Tony Abreu it felt like he was genuinely trying to help....but unfortunately had a total lack of empathy with how dire the customer experience had been, and was barely apologetic.
It goes without saying I won't be ordering from Winedirect ever again, and I'll report them as fraudulent to my bank card issuer at the end of this week if I don't receive my refund.
But the point of writing this review, dear reader, and spending so much of my time doing so, is to give you a gift - the gift of dodging the Winedirect bullet.
BUY ELSEWHERE. LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO DEAL WITH SUCH POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Cheers!
"
"I wish there was a nil star option. I ordered a half case of wine difficult to source in the UK - hence my attraction to the web site- on 17 February expecting delivery within 4 days for a friend's birthday. No delivery, despite sending two emails and ringing three times. On each occasion I was put though to an automated answering machine service. One call was returned by man called Tony who promised me that the wine would dispatched on 26 February. It was not .I have notified my credit card copy to obtain a refund and will never use WineDirect again. "
"Ordered a case of 6 bottles and heard nothing from them for 14 days until I got a call saying a bottle was broken and getting a replacement was taking awhile so I agreed to replace that one bottle with a better bottle. Case came and was not the wine I ordered!! To rub salt into the wound, the replacement bottle that was promised to be much nicer as an apology for the 2+ week delay was barely more expensive than the ones I ordered and, from the website, looks like it was on sale so they were dumping stock on me!! Just terrible terrible company. I'm not a typically bitter customer and, again, rarely make comments...this is me saying stay away at all costs."