Hanna N.

I had had my eye on a Ted Baker bag for several months, but always put off buying it because it was expensive. I finally saved up enough to get it - just to notice it was out of stock everywhere I normally shopped! EBay had people selling it at double the price, and I almost bought it from there, but I did a last resort -sort of Google search and found the bag on Namshi. I was sceptic of the website - especially the "100% genuine brands" text at the top - but the website's design gave me some confidence, as usually hoaxes are pretty badly designed. So I ordered the bag and paid with PayPal to cover my back.

While waiting for my order to be confirmed, I found the reviews on SiteJabber, and almost canceled my order. When I recieved an e-mail asking for a copy of my national ID " to ensure a smooth customs clearance process", I almost canceled my order again. But instead, I sent Namshi and e-mail asking why they ask for such a thing and told them I was wildly uncomfortable with the idea of sharing such information with a foreign company, and told them I had ordered from several countries in the past and had never been asked for a copy and everything had gone smoothly. I recieved back an e-mail where they said my order had been comfirmed and was on it's way.

I live in Finland. The order was placed on 22nd of January and sent on 23rd, and it arrived to Finland (and got stuck in customs) on 25th. I did the paperwork for custom clearance, paid the tax and got the bag on 29th. By any standards, that is a pretty damn fast international delivery.

The package was branded with Namshi's logo and inside was the bag. I inspected it to the best of my ability and compared it with the genuine Ted products I have bought from elsewhere. The small details such as engraving on buttons, the lining of the bag, the price tags, they all match. I am confident that it truly is genuine.

So all in all, aside from Namshi asking for my national ID - all my fears were unfounded and I actually got very good service from Namshi. So at least based on this one experience, I can recommend them.

My dearly beloved MacBook Pro has processed its last data byte and has departed from this world as of yesterday. Let me take this moment to say goodbye to it.

You were a loyal and patient companion, hardly ever complaining when I had three browsers open with 167 tabs in them. You were not jealous when I installed Microsoft Office on you but endured it with a smile, just like you endured it when I had you in my laptop back while rushing out of the library and I got my bag stuck between the closing doors. While the noise from the heavy door hitting your slender frame was ominous indeed, you did not utter a word of complaint but greeted me with the same familiar log/in screen when I hastily opened you to see if you were alright. You had a couple of dents on your gray, shimmering surface, but they only gave you character. I took you to see the world: our journey started in Finland, and while we saw many cities there together, that was not enough - we wanted to see more, you and I. And we did. We saw Sweden, we saw Turkey, we saw Hungary and lastly we saw England, loving it so dearly we made it our home. But while I did not know it at the time, that was the start of the end for you.

For half a year, we kept on like we always did - you served me faithfully through both work and play. And how we played! The Netflix-marathons and the computer games were abundant. I remember cursing you once for not running a Windows-only game and I apologize for that. I know you would have done it for me if you could have. I was out of line - after all, I was too cheap to buy you Fusion. I also apologize for blaming your battery for not working when the adapter blew up. I should have known better. Your older brother outlived its charger as well, after all - it seems like endurance runs in the family. A couple of times you shut down unexpectantly, and I cursed you then as well, before realizing that you only did it to protect me. For making you so heated that it was the only option you had left, I apologize as well. You were getting old, but I expected you to still work like when you were brand new. I should have been more considerate; I realize it now.

I also sincerely apologize for my drunken friend diving on the bed when I had so stupidly left you laying on it. You got a crack in your screen, but still you soldiered on. I was amazed.

But now, after a generous four years, you finally drew your last electric charge and the light in your "on" button has faded for good. Rest in peace, my dear friend. I hope that where ever it may be that you end up, electric outlets are abundant, and your fan is often cleaned. Farewell.

I have been receiving the monthly subscription box from LoveLula for almost a year now. It is great value for money: the products in the box usually seem to retail for about twice the amount that I've paid for. The packaging has been good, and the shipping has been reliable.

The contents of the box do change each month, but having been a subscriber for 10 months now, I've noticed that the most common products seem to be facial creams, lipbalms and facial washes. This is pretty handy, since those are the products that you usually frequently use anyway, so you don't end up piling up stuff you're not going to use.

One of the best things though is that you'll be introduced to a lot of products you'd otherwise never try, and it makes finding your golden products that much easier.

You also always get a discount code with the box for the brands they send you, so if you need to stock up on something, the -20% code they include can make up for the cost of the box if it happens to include the brand you want to buy. The brands to change from box to box, but for example John Masters, Madara and Balm Balm have frequently been included in the box.

UPDATE: As everyone can see, Freelancer has replied to my review on this website. My support tickets, however, still go unanswered, although the rep apparently had the time to check the ticket number and confirm that it exists. My ticket was submitted on the 30th of April, so that is almost 2 weeks now that I've been waiting for a reply. What else do you need to know of a company, other than that their representatives give more importance to replying to bad reviews on other websites, than actually taking care of customer service on their own website?

UPDATE 2:

After updating my review and sending a private message to the rep asking for them to actually look at my ticket, I received a reply - only to my original query. The CS rep that replied to me completely ignored my second message (and problem), and just marked my ticket as completed. I had to manually open it again to be able to reply to her and aks her to read my other messages as well!

The word that comes to mind is "underwhelmed".

Original review:

I was awarded two projects on Freelancer.com during the same week - one for an hourly contract and one for a fixed-price contract. Having been burned by scammers previously, I was smart about my payments this time and had the client deposit the payment in as a milestone. I completed my work and sent the files to him, after which he gave me additional work. I was overjoyed! I created an invoice for the amount equal to the extra work and sent it to him, which he promptly paid. Much to both of our surprise, what happened is that the paid invoice absorbed the milestone into it, and only charged the client for the amount that went over what he had initially deposited. This made for a very uncomfortable moment when I had to ask the client to verify if this is what actually happened, and basically had to ask him to repay something we both had thought he had already put into escrow!

On an hourly contract, things got even more bizarre. I was hired for a very short job, so the client deposited only an hour's worth of money to give me a sense of security. I did the work using the time tracker (which is now required), and after completing my work - which took 1 hour and 42 minutes - I received an immediate automated e-mail telling me how many hours I had worked so far that week and what they were worth. The e-mail stated showed an accurate amount and also told me that an invoice would be automatically generated and sent to the client on this and this day. Alright, cool. Much to my surprise, however, the automatically created invoice did not actually bill the client according to my real-time worked hours (like it said in the e-mail), it had billed him a flat hour - even though my actual working time was written on the invoice, just like an afterthought. "Worked hours 1.42, billed hours 1." Why? The client's already paid my invoice and left me stellar feedback, so asking him to pay the rest is another awkward situation I really wish I didn't have to be in. On top of this all, I sent an e-mail to support about this over a week ago, and the only thing I've received back is "we will be in touch in 24 hours"!

When you combine this with the fact that I keep getting invites to apply to jobs that specify a budget which is 1/3 of the rate written on my profile, the fact that Freelancer sends you tons of spam that clogs up your e-mail, and the fact that there is now a minimum charge for each project you are granted (which is charged immediately after you land the project, by the way - and thus forces you to require the client to release 10% of funds immediately just so your account doesn't go to minus from the project fee), making projects with a budget of under 50 dollars a complete waste of time when all things are considered, Freelancer has just become an absolute garbage website. I'm very disappointed.