Living Social

Saw a «deal» for two nights in Deep Cree Lake for $ 299 and purchased it for $ 269 as LivingSocial offered an additional 10% discount. I was curious as to the veracity of the «deal» and logged on the Deep Creek lake site only to find out that Living Social grossly misrepresented the value of the «deal». The stated rack rate in the ad was $ 489 which was a bogus number as it does not appear anywhere in the Hotel’s ad. Furthermore, instead of paying $ 269 to LivingSocial one can purchase identical «deal» from the hotel for $ 249, and if you have a coupon (readily available on the internet) the price drops to below $ 200.
I advised LivingSocial of this gross misrepresentation but have not heard heard from the Company. The bottom line is — LivingSocial issues erroneous information and the old adage is still true-​buyer beware especially if you deal with LivingSocial

I agree with the one star reviewers, the small savings aren’t worth the headaches. I had a voucher about to expire on the 25^th, so I rounded up a group of friends and went to a restaurant on the 25^th, a day that was very inconvenient for me, just to use the darn thing. After our mediocre, overpriced lunch we were informed that the voucher had expired, and I got into an argument with the owner, ruining my day and my lunch. So then I call Living Social and they say ‘expires on the 25^th’ means you can’t use it on the 25^th, so it really expired on the 24^th. What the hell? Who needs to futz around with a company that can’t read a calendar? The gave me a credit, which is nice, but I want my nice day back, who’s going to replace my ruined afternoon? From now on I’ll just go to restaurants I like and pay full price.

There are so many loopholes and scams in Living Social, that it’s not worth your time trying to get a good deal.
I have purchased a number of items and services from Living Social, and they all come with a catch, so it’s up to you to read the fine print. That, I understand.
My breaking point was when I purchased 2 Cirque du Soleil tickets for $ 200.00 apiece. When I arrived at the show, they told me there had been an unlisted afternoon performance that the tickets were valid for.
Forget about my ruined evening, I went back to read the details of my tickets and lo and behold: THE TICKETS I PURCHASED WERE FOR THE EXACT TIME AND DATE I HAD GONE TO THE SHOW AND BEEN DENIED ENTRANCE. So I contacted the Living Social customer service dept. to explain the situation and get a refund.
I took screen shots of the offer and told them I was denied entrance at the door. I had all the proof that I was in the right. Living Social told me that with ticketed events, there are no refunds or exchanges. I explained that this did not address the problem, I paid $ 400.00 for two upgraded tickets and was not let in. I even offered to go to another show in the future, as there were still performances.
They neither gave me a refund, nor an apology, nor even an admission that I was right. They refused to acknowledge their mistake. They lost this customer, and I am all too happy to tell me friends about WHAT A BAD DEAL MOST LIVING SOCIAL DEALS ARE.
Save the drama and just pay full price or go with groupon or another more reputable site. Or if you want to test the waters for yourself, you can try your luck here.

I have utilized this website for deals on several occassions and have been pleased with the deal and the service. I found I was not going to be able to use one of my vouchers before it expired and was easily able to apply for a refund without even talking to a person directly on the website. The refund is sitting and waiting for me in the form of a credit which is fine with me because I will easily be able to find another place to spend money no doubt.
I even look at cities where my family members live and recently was able to have a cute cookie bouquet delivered and at a great price.

Living Social was responsive to my situation. They offered an «out of policy» cash refund, along with an equal amount of store credit — «deal bucks» as they called it — for a future purchase, along with an apology. So I think the merchant was to blame for the bad situation more than Living Social.

THIS IS A LETTER I SENT TO CONSUMER AFFAIRS:
I am so furious right now with LivingSocial, Inc.
I made my first complaint with them on Oct 2, 2014 about how my brother never received a gift voucher to a restaurant nearby that I had purchased on August 29, 2014 to be delivered to my brother’s email address on Sept. 1, 2014. While I was waiting for their response, I had to take the time out to retrace what had happened by locating the Tweet I had made about the great deal in order to link back to the offer. After digging deep to look through my account on LivingSocial, I found the voucher, downloaded it and immediately emailed it to my brother along with a note from me saying, «better late than never» and was quite disappointed that he never got to read the original birthday note.
After a bit of time, customer service finally responded making up a lame excuse that it’s my fault for not applying his email in the first place. Since I was traveling throughout Colombia at the time, I remember vividly that I entered his email, followed by entering the delivery date: September 1, 2014 and a personal birthday message. If I had supposedly forgotten to apply his email, then how would the system accept the delivery date and my message? Like with most electronic surveys or forms, you’re usually redirected and asked to fill out the most important missing information. While I appreciated them asking if I still wanted them to email the voucher to my brother, I didn’t get the notion that I needed to reply back or else the voucher would get cancelled altogether. Instead, I just ignored the email because at that point, I was just glad my brother had the voucher in his hand.
Fast forward to this past weekend, my brother and wife finally tried to use the voucher. After a wonderful meal, they whipped out their LivingSocial gift voucher from their sister (me) and what happens next? The waitress returns to show them a message that read, «Please let the customer know that you are not able to honor this voucher because a refund was requested and issued to the customer on 10÷7÷14.» What a lie! I never requested for a refund, and to make matters even worse, I checked my Paypal account and as of today, November 16^th, 2014 — almost 40 days since the gift voucher was supposedly cancelled and refunded on October 7^th, 2014, I see no refund.
What was supposed to be a surprise for my brother turned out to be the biggest gift-​giving disaster of my life, spending my personal time and emotional energy on trying to resolve this with LivingSocial, Inc. Above all, this has been embarrassing on all accounts: for me, for my brother and my sister-​in-​law and the waitress. Needless to say, I am beyond irate.
I really expected this to be handled immediately to my satisfaction, making up for my vested energy, time, my brother and sister-in-law’s effort to find a babysitter, their meal that they had to pay for, and embarrassment inflicted. In the end, all they could do was refund me and give me extra credit to my Living Social account which I’m probably not going to get to use anyway since I don’t trust them, their backend system, their weak business operations and tactics.

Had a very unprofessional experience with one of the duct cleaning companies associated with Livingsocial. After scheduling the cleaning a month in advance, the duct cleaning company never showed up and lied about leaving me a message asking to re-​schedule. I even confirmed with them yesterday and today at the beginning of the 2 hour arrival window period. When livingsocial was contacted, their customer service staff disappointingly and shockingly dismissive, even when I explained that I had to leave work early, in order to be home during the scheduled time. Living social over the phone customer service department, did not have my best interest, as a customer, at heart. I even asked for a way to amend this very unpleasant experience by receiving a credit of the same monetary value as the purchased voucher towards a future purchase and they just refused. For anyone considering to purchase a voucher through
, I would advice otherwise.

This flash sale shopping site is similar to Groupon on a smaller scale. You can get a voucher for restaurants, events, services or gyms for a fraction of the retail price.
I have bought some of these vouchers and they tend to be for middle of the road businesses but you can get good ones too. The web site is easy to use and you can get rewards for buying deals so there you have it.
They get 4 stars since the site is always working and they don’t creep me out by stalking me to anticipate what I will buy and recommending it to me.