Emily J.

I purchased two pairs of Rummos in November 2021 for an upcoming dance performance. I had tried some of their shoes (from a different retailer) on an earlier occasion, and found them to be good quality. Approximately 2 weeks later I received a notice that the shoes had shipped. By week 5 they had not arrived, and I checked online to see that the shoes were still in Portugal. I wrote to Rummos customer service indicating that the shoes were needed for an upcoming dance performance and that I had to cancel the order because they shoes would not arrive in time. 10 days later, having received no response from Rummos I opened a dispute with my credit card company. 3 weeks after I filed the dispute (exactly two months after placing the order) Rummos shipped the shoes and they arrived a whopping 10 weeks after the order date. Due to the time restrictions that I advised them of a month earlier (before they shipped the shoes again), I had purchased replacement shoes a week before they got around to sending the second shipment. I again contacted Rummos Customer Service to request return information, and have received no response whatsoever. I am now out $240 for two pairs of shoes that I no longer need.

Unless you don't care if or when you receive your shoes, do not order from Rummos.

My relationship with Capital One started with their Venture Card, which offers one of the most generous mileage programs out there, and no foreign transaction fees. Unfortunately, their Purchase Protection is practically non-existent. I had to open two merchant disputes in 3 months, and Capital One took the report, initially reversed the charge, but the minute the merchant lifted a finger to respond Capital One decides in their favor. It doesn't matter if the merchant fails to honor its own return policy; you're stuck what the purchase. Prior to Capital One I mostly used cards from another big banks, and felt that I had some actual protection when a dispute arose.

I've been a Hungry Root subscriber for the last 4 months and have had a very inconsistent experience. When it works well it's a godsend; a variety of healthy, easy to cook meals that are easy to portion, arrive at my door each week. But it seems that it often does't go according to plan. With HR you subscribe for a number of meals and snacks each week. You are presented with a list of meals and given the option to change the list up until a date (3 to 6 days prior to delivery) on which the order is locked in and you are charged. HR frequently makes random substitutions of items after the order is supposed to lock, often sending random grocery items instead of a new recipe. They also occasionally try to substitute a lower value item for what was ordered (bag of spinach substituted for chicken salad). Delivery in December has been abysmal, with an order due a week before Christmas never arriving, and the next one, scheduled to arrive 10 days later, being pushed back 4 days the minute after I was charged for it. As good as the food is, the inconsistency has caused me to start looking for alternatives.

I recently turned to MoveDance for women's salsa dance shoes after bad experiences with a few other sites that sold me fake leather shoes. The MoveDance site is relatively easy to navigate; you can search by size, shoe type, by color, etc. The selection is not as expansive as what is available on other sites, but what they sell is authentic and of high quality. The company is located in the United Kingdom, so if you go to the main site, shoe sizes are listed as UK sizes with a conversion chart. If you go to the US site, everything is US sizing which might be a little easier to follow.

The shoes have always arrived remarkably fast from the UK. My first order was placed just before COVID and took about 2 weeks to arrive. Subsequent orders have arrived within a week. MoveDance also offers easy returns; they generate all of the USPS and UK mailing and customs forms for inside and outside of the package. They charge $6.95 for the return postage, which is still a bargain, considering that you don't have to figure out the international shipping.

I bought and returned 3 pairs of shoes before finding a pair that were perfect for me. Each time I was able to ship the unworn shoes back and get a refund. The only note is that the refunds were a bit slow, and I had to write to customer service to inquire about their status.

StreetEasy is excellent as a free real estate listing service. I found my current apartment on the site more than 5 years ago, and have recently started looking again. The site allows users to sort by price, neighborhood, and various amenities like elevators, doormen, etc. The vast majority of postings include photos, specific apartment numbers, and a map to determine cross streets (which is important in NYC). The site also discloses whether the unit is a condo, coop, or other type of building and if there is a brokers fee associated with the application.

Although there are some quality control measures around the postings, the sources of the postings can be a bit of a mixed bag. Most listings are for legitimately available properties, but some inevitably end up being unavailable units posted by real estate companies trying to drum up clients. (In NYC, any listing that's more than a few days old is likely already rented). However, I do get a much higher rate of responses from inquiries that I make via StreetEasy than from the actual realtor sites; sometimes multiple agents respond to a single inquiry.

All in all, StreetEasy is a great resource for assessing the rental market. You might even snag an actual property.

I enjoy shopping at Ulta.com. I live in Manhattan where the local Ulta is always crowded, has long lines, and frequently runs out of product. I've actually placed a few orders from my phone while in the store. I am always able to find what I need on site without hassle, and to compare products without the overwhelm of the store. It there is something that I want right away I can order online and pick it up in store. Otherwise it arrives in 3 to 5 days, always will free shipping. If I don't like what I purchased online, Ulta lets me return it to the store.

The only downside for Ulta (in store and online) is that the product line selection is somewhat limited. For instance, I went to purchase setting lotion recently and they simply don't carry the product. They also don't carry Brazilian Keratin products.

The site is not well designed. The homepage allows you to search for major categories such as "latin, rhythm and salsa", "cuban heel," and "ladies dance sneaker". However, there is no further filter option, where you can filter by material, size, heel height, etc. You have to pick the main category and sift through page after page (37 pages of latin, rhythm and salsa") in attempt to find what you are looking for.

A decent number of the "leather" shoes they sell are "vegan" leather and there is no disclosure in any of the descriptions that the latter is manmade. There is a special link from the homepage for the "vegan" collection, but if you arrive at a pair of "vegan" leather shoes through the link for latin shoes, there is nothing to alert you to the fact that the shoes are not natural leather.

There doesn't appear to be a way of getting free shipping, but they do take returns.

I tried Freshly back in September to try to have some easy options for healthy foods in single portions. I signed up for the 12 meal plan because it was the most economical (although still approx $9 per meal) and excitedly picked a range of meals from the expansive online menu. I had to wait about 10 days for the first delivery in order to snag a Sunday.

The food arrived on time, but in a ridiculously large, heavy box, which I had to lug up 4 floors into my walkup apartment. I promptly unpacked it because it took up so much space and was leaking, and dragged the bag out to the trash.

From the first meal through the last, the food was thoroughly disappointing. Everything was salty and had a strange, acrid flavor to it. Some of the meat was ok (particularly the steak pecorino) but the rest of it was about the quality and consistency of a microwave meal. The vegetables and sides (mostly grains) were limp, soggy, and the portions were sparse.

I forced myself to finish all 12, to justify the money that I had spent and promptly cancelled my subscription.

I was a member of FirstLeaf for about 4 months, using an introductory special. The basic service is ok: you create an online profile of preferences and then refine those preferences by ranking each wine that you receive. The shipments come once per month, six bottles at a time. I diligently rated my first three shipments, and was disappointed when 1/3 of my fourth shipment contained Pinor Noir despite ranking every Pinor Noir that I'd received in the prior 3 shipments negatively. (I simply do not like Pinot Noir). If you do like a wine, you only have the option to order 6 or 12 bottles of it, as opposed to mixing or matching bottles in an order.

The biggest drawback of the service is that with the default order of 6 bottles per month you are expected to pay nearly $20 in shipping. You can get free shipping if you double the order, but the only option is to get duplicates of the same six random selections that you may or may not even like. Also, as noted previously, you can't mix and match orders by purchasing 6 bottles of a wine that you did enjoy and having it shipped with the monthly shipment of 6 random bottles.

I signed on to a different service that provides a default of 12 bottles every 90 days, always with free shipping, as well as the opportunity to mix and match my own bottle of 12.

I purchased two pairs of what were advertised as customizable "cowhide leather" latin dance shoes on the website. I paid $17 for "expedited" 3-5 business day shipping. It was only after I made the payment, that I learned that there would be 14 days of "processing" prior to the shipment date. But I figured, for custom leather dance shoes priced under $40, the inconvenience might be worthwhile. The shipment date came and went without the website status changing. Three days after the stated shipment date, I requested that the order be cancelled, on the basis that "shipping date has passed." I received a bizarre response, blaming the delay on the Chinese New Year, and asking that I wait a few more days for the order to ship, in exchange for a 30% discount. I declined, and restated my request to cancel the order.

5 days later, one of the two pairs is marked as "shipped" on the wesbite. It arrives exactly one month after my order was placed. Lo and behold, the shoes were made of a synthetic material, not the advertised leather, and were slightly too large. I promptly went back to the site, and again requested a cancellation of the second pair, on the basis that they still had not shipped and the first pair was too large. 5 days later, the second pair is marked as "shipped" and arrives 6 weeks after the placement of my order. This second pair is even cheaper and flimsier than the first pair.

I will now have to pursue a refund from a company that blatantly lied in its product description, and then refused to cancel my order when it did not comply with its own service terms for processing and shipping the order. STAY FAR AWAY.

Hotels.com heavily advertises that users earn a free night's stay after 10 reservations. As per the fine print, the accumulated nights expire after 12 months of inactivity, and you're back to zilch. What they don't tell you is that booking and paying for non-cancellable reservations does not count as activity. After at least 3 years of being a member and not racking up a single free night, I had 5 nights in the account in June, and booked 4 night's of non-cancellable reservations (for 1 night in July and 3 nights in September). Today I log into the account to find that I'm back at zero, and that my 4 non-refundable nights paid for in June will only be credited in the future.

If the "free night" promise in any way factors into your decision to book through Hotels.com, look elsewhere.