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Ben D.

2
Level 2 Contributor
London Borough of Ealing, United Kingdom

Contributor Level

Total Points
742

About Me

London based musician, amateur mathematician and linguist. Habitually barefoot and will destroy you at scrabble.

How I Can Help

Music, education, maths, science, linguistics, philosophy, football/matchday experience,

Interests

Music, maths, languages, science, philosophy, board games, football, rugby, cinema, Indian food

5 Reviews by Ben

  • 6teenth World

12/22/19

I placed an order through this site having been tempted by one of their many social media adverts. I went for the quicker and slightly more expensive shipping option with it being December and Christmas being less than 3 weeks away. A couple of days later I found the order tracking feature on their website but it turned out to be just an empty interface as clicking on the button labelled "track" does nothing.

I therefore emailed them to say so and got a response the next day saying that my order wouldn't be trackable because of the shipping option I chose. They said they would aim to have it shipped within 12-15 days. A lot longer than the time states next to the shipping option I chose.

After another ten days or so I had still heard nor received nothing so I emailed them again. This time I received no reply at all. It's one thing shipping taking a bit longer during advent, but over two weeks just to process the order is ridiculous.

Update: I'm writing the following about a day or two later than the above. In that time I have still heard nothing from sixteenth world by I have received the item. It was shipped from China. It looks fine. It's thinner than I was expecting for a fleeced hoodie but it does feel comfortable and warm. It's a bit smaller than I was expecting for an XL, but it does fit me. If you absolutely definitely can't fit a smaller size than the one you normally go for, order one size larger than usual from this website. There's no washing label, which is frustrating. It seems waterproof on the outside but delicate on the inside, but definitely not cotton or wool as far as I can tell. I think a normal 40 degree machine wash and drying cycle should be fine. Hopefully! I'll email them again for more information.

  • Tinyclones

10/3/19

I discovered this site via an instagram ad in July 2019. When I visited it I saw a lot of positive customer feedback displayed and really liked the concept (of personal figurines made to resemble your own image based on photos that you submit while ordering) so decided to place an order for figures of myself and my wife. I then followed up with an email describing some of the details that I particularly wanted included on the figures.

I noticed the next morning that the email had bounced. I made a couple of attempts to resend, even using different addresses, but the problem was definitely not at my end.

I then noticed that the site was very new. There was limited internet presence. No reviews on places like this and their Facebook page was very new. I supposed they had previously worked as a shop selling to customers who visit their premises and had recently launched themselves online internationally, but doubt was definitely creeping in.

Then I noticed that they encouraged contact via Facebook messenger instead so I tried that. It was a nervous 12 hours or so, not knowing if they'd reply or not, but in the evening I finally got a reply acknowledging my message and promising to include all the details I'd highlighted.

A few weeks later and the parcel arrived just in time for our first wedding anniversary. I was very excited to open the package and see the results for myself.

But to my utter disappointment they had managed to ignore one of the most particular characteristics of my appearance - that I never wear shoes. I had drawn attention to it in my message and yet they had ignored that, and the photo I had submitted and decided to add a pair of black closed shoes to my outfit.

To anyone reading this who doesn't know me, I can understand why this might not seem very important, but these models are supposed to be representative of your personal image, and, in my case this is such a strong contradiction, not something I can proudly show to people. It's sad because someone with skill had made the effort of replicating a lot of the detail, but what I received was a crushing disappointment. It was almost an insult. Despite all of the warning signs that suggested it might be a scam, I did in fact receive a product, based on my image, but with one of the most important details that I had explicitly highlighted having been deliberately ignored I nonetheless felt cheated.

Naturally I contacted the site through Messenger again. Another nervous couple of days followed until I saw that the message was read. But I still had to follow up asking for an acknowledgement.

Eventually the reply came, saying:

"Hi Ben, we're so sorry about this! Your order was marked with a custom note, but it looks like the artist who worked on your figurine completely overlooked this request. If you'd like, we can work on a replacement, and have that delivered to you within the next 3-5 weeks. Let us know!"

Greatly relieved I wrote back saying I would be more than happy with this, also asking for a few other small changes at the same time (such as the inclusion of our wedding rings and adjustment of my hair colour which was a bit dark on the figures). I also sent them another photo with more detail for the benefit of the artist. They acknowledged this the following week.

However it has now been 5 weeks since then and I hadn't heard anything further. So I went back to Messenger to ask for an update. But sadly my message could not be delivered. Their Facebook account has been deactivated. So I went to their website which has reverted to a "coming soon" page.

They didn't notify me at any point and I can't help wondering if they had other pending orders that they suddenly abandoned without notifying their customers too.

So if the site ever comes back, and I haven't updated this review with a more positive outcome, please avoid it.

  • TutorHunt

10/2/19

I've been listed as a tutor on TutorHunt for about 8 years, and while it's nowhere near my primary source of clients I do get a small number every year and have also been discovered and given work by two agents through this site.

However over the last couple of years things have started to fall apart and revealed that their customer service and general attitude towards Tutors is prohibitively weak. There was a client who decided not to pay for her lesson and TutorHunt didn't so much as put a strike against her account when I contacted them for support. Then they decided to threaten my verified status and ask for new references despite having been an active tutor for so many years.

And now, the straw that led me to write this review:

I received an email a week or so ago saying my DBS was out of date and I needed to submit a new one. I wrote back and explained that my DBS has been registered on the Update Service all this time so they would just need to adjust their records accordingly.

Today I received a reply saying that they didn't have the means to do this. I replied saying that would be fine as long as my profile reflects that I have a valid and current DBS until they fix their system.

The reply I then got was a flat out refusal to do anything about it.

I've been using the DBS Update Service for 3 years. The system itself is at least a year older than that. TutorHunt should have been set up to work with it long ago.

It is extremely arrogant to suggest that an official system by which tutors maintain a valid, current, and paid for DBS certificate is somehow not worthy of TutorHunt, and bordering on fraudulent to show in the profiles of Tutors with DBS certificates that they do not have them.

The effect of this will be to alienate experienced tutors as only new tutors will have DBS that was first issued within 2-3 years and clients will understandably be reluctant to approach anyone else.

This will result in clients being misled into avoiding engaging the best tutors available.

  • Royalnesher

9/5/19

I ordered a tshirt through this site towards the end of July 2019. The site said delivery usually takes 7-8 working days. As I was ordering from abroad I expected it to be a bit longer. However three weeks later I hadn't received anything so I logged into check the order status and it still said it was processing. I emailed them to find out more, and then three days later the email bounced, and their website was down. A few days later it was back up again so I emailed them. But the same thing happened. Fortunately I had ordered through paypal so I was able to raise a complaint through their claims system. Paypal did manage to get me a short reponse promising to look into it. But the following week I received nothing further so I escalated the PayPal claim. Today (September 2019) PayPal emailed me to say they had received no further response at all from the site (also known as RYN Lifestyle) and so were refunding me in full.

I suspect this is a severely neglected business that has left its online shopfront up but the people who check it hardly ever look at it. Steer well clear.

  • eHarmony

3/16/16

Ok, I'm probably in the minority but I actually really like the way eHarmony encourages everyone to take the time to create a detailed profile. I want to see detailed profiles that tell me about the person whose photo I would be looking at had I paid for that privilege, and I want the opportunity to give plenty of details about what makes me different from other people a) as a chance to stand out and b) so I know I'm not wasting my time or anyone else's talking to someone who wouldn't like a person with my quirks. So far so good.

Ok, so I can't see the photos of the people matched with me yet. That's not necessarily an issue at this stage. We can get around that once we exchange phone numbers or whatever she prefers.

Here's the problem: I've sent things back and forth with three people so far in the three days since I installed the app. One in particular got as far as exchanging open questions. I sent her mine and answered hers. The next notification implies she's sent me something to read but when I click through to read it it actually says it's going to show me some safety tips instead. But we're not at the point of freely messaging each other yet. I haven't seen her set of answers. More suspicious is the safety information and therefore any further communication with this person is behind the subscription paywall. One more thing that's suspicious is that one of the three open questions she asked me was "Why did you join eHarmony?". On its own it could be a point of conversation for a potential date but now it looks like plain old market research.

So far this is just a small problem. Someone's gone to the trouble of creating and running a service. They want to be paid for it. Fine. Unfortunately there are two things that make it into a bigger problem.

Firstly, I don't have any indication this person is a genuine match (here by genuine I mean user looking around, seeing my profile and deciding she particularly would like to talk to me). I've seen nothing written in her own words directly to me. A reasonably detailed profile, but nothing very particular, and from the guided communication only the multiple choice answers. So I suspect I haven't begun getting to know a real person at all yet.

Secondly, the minimum subscription length is six months! Six months! I'm sorry but if you need to be on a dating service for more than a couple of months before you find people worth going on a date with then the service is poor. I might have been tempted to pay for one month, or even three months at a reasonable rate, but neither is offered, and the service is actually quite pricey per month too.

Also any service I pay for really must include a keyword search feature. I want to jump straight to the minority of profiles that match me and I can do that with a keyword search. Okcupid has it even with its free version.

So on the evidence I've seen, I'm forced to conclude that the whole thing is a scam.

Value

Ben Has Earned 20 Votes

Ben D.'s review of eHarmony earned a Fraud Buster vote

Ben D.'s review of eHarmony earned 9 Very Helpful votes

Ben D.'s review of royalnesher.com earned 2 Very Helpful votes

Ben D.'s review of tinyclones.com earned a Very Helpful vote

Ben D.'s review of 6teenth World earned a Very Helpful vote

Ben D.'s review of TutorHunt earned 6 Very Helpful votes

Ben Has Received 1 Thank You

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Roz P. thanked you for your review of TutorHunt

“So true Ben.”

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