LivingSocial
Reviews and Complaints

Buyer Beware! Do not use Living Social. One month before my voucher expiration date I called this window cleaning vendor 9 times without an answer till finally talked to "Mike". He told me he is booked beyond my voucher date and that it was my fault I didn't call sooner BUT they will clean my windows for an addtional $45. Then he gloated about how I could not get my money back. Low life! Living Social reps were no help either. Total scammers! Better to NOT pay for services until they are completed to your satisfaction. They have my $45 and I get nothing.

I purchased an ad for a new complete pair of eyeglasses from Focus Opticians Optical Outlet for $75. When I went to Focus, I was told I had to pay an additional $200 because my prescription was beyond the limits of what was posted in the fine print of the ad. I didn't have the ad with me but I was pretty sure I read it very well before purchasing. Anyway, I figured it was best for me to just pay the extra $200 to get the new glasses. When I got home, I read the ad and there was no fine print regarding prescription strength. So, I called Focus and he told me he would not refund me and that it was livingsocial's fault for not putting that in the fine print. I went to livingsocial and they claimed that since I redeemed the ad (with an addtl. $200), that they couldn't help me. I purchased an ad that was misleading and FRAUDULENT. I will never use livingsocial and I do not recommend anyone to buy eyeglasses at Focus.

They're corporate human infrastructure is scattered throughout the country. Hence the utter lack of customer service or merchant support. They are the slowest and rudest about paying merchants on time. Groupon may use aggressive sales tactics but they pay on time. Living Social uses a soft sell approach with merchants that they want to pursue heavily, then when it comes to pay they use every possibly tactic to delay payment and are extremely rude to boot.

I wanted to see a final price on a trip prior to making my decision, and instead of showing me a final price or even asking if I was certain I wanted to purchase the $700+ trip for two to Cancun, the website charged the $727 to my credit card THEY KEPT ON FILE automatically. I cancelled the purchase immediately, but my card was instantaneously charged the money. When I called them to see if they would assist me in communicating with my bank, sending a fax to them letting them know the funds will not be collected so the bank will release them back to my account, they told me they absolutely do not communicate with banks via fax or phone. When I asked to speak to a supervisor to try and resolve the issue, the woman on the phone placed me on hold, but when the same woman came back on the phone she told me she confirmed with her supervisor that there was nothing they are willing to do.

She advised me to have the bank call them, and that I should perhaps be mroe careful with my purchases.

Terrible customer service, and absolutely no effort to assist me in resolving the problem. I will never use this company again and strongly suggest finding another coupon website that values their customers as people intead of numbers.

I bought two SUV details with No Water No Hose Mobile Detailing via the Living Social website/coupon program on 9/9/2010. I paid $110.00. I made several appointments for details with the vendor. They never showed or followed up. I emailed and phoned the vendor and never received a response.

I used the problem link on the Living Social website to notify them of the issue and request a refund.

I received an acknowledgment email from Living Social that advised they would review and respond to me within two days. That was 11/18/2010 - today is 12/5/2010. I followed up with an email to Living Social with no response at all from Living Social.

I purchased a deal voucher from Gonabit (now living social) few months back. The voucher expires only on 4/1/2012. But when I called up the merchant to redeem it today (3/1/2012), the merchant refused saying that the deal has expired. When I contacted Living Social to whom I paid the money, they said they would do nothing about it. Guys beware of such fraudulent deals in the future!

I bought a coupon for two nights in a "Really Nice Room" at "The Groveland Hotel at Yosemite National Park." This is language from the offer. It blacked out after May 15, 2011 until October 15 and expired April 15, 2012. I called three times to schedule before May 15 and each time was told that room was booked but for and extra $90 a night I could upgrade to a vacant room. A $180 upgrade for a $150 deal? So they sold many more deals than they could possibly fulfill and even then only about three weeks of the available rooms were while Yosemite was open. When I asked for a refund LS said it was past the five day refund limit and refused. Bye bye Living Social.

Bought 2 different deals from them and when I went to redeem them in the last week of the deal, the businesses never got back to me. So basically trying to have me lose the timeframe to register and use the deal. One called back saying come in and then were closed when I went in at the allotted time.

Then livingsocial says its good for it's value which is useless unless you spend another $100-200 to be able to get nominal use out of the "offer". when i called they pretty much implied, suck it up, put in more money into it and get something or lose the whole thing since the value paid is not worth anything; implying 1 salsa lesson being more than $40. I dont think so! LIVINGSOCIAL AND THE TWO COMPANIES I got these deals for lost a customer as i would have bought and stuck with them and will review the other two businesses as well so people know to stay away.

I’ve purchased Haviana thongs from livingsocial.com over 7 weeks ago – the thongs are from ozthongs.com.au…I (and other friends who have purchased as well) still have not received the thongs. I’ve rung ozthongs several times and left messages…no return call. I’ve rung livingsocial (jumponit) and have asked for a refund as I don’t believe the thongs will ever arrive – living social advises that they can not give a refund once a purchase is processed (by the way, a purchase is processed the minute you buy a deal).

WARNING: If you purchase a deal on living social be prepared to lose your money as there is no refund/return policy.

I used purchased a deal on the http://www.livingsocial.com website and it was a coupon for jewelry. I went redeem the coupon and I noticed the deal was out of Australia. I never signed up to receive deals out of there! I emailed them for a refund in which they told me too bad too sad, I know the rules on the 5 day refund policy. I am aware of this and if it was in the US or had free shipping I was not have been asking for a refund. My complaint is, if I am supposed to keep up to my end of the bargain and adhere to the refund policy rules, http://www.livingsocial.com should not be able to change the location without notifying the consumer.

Austin TX. My husband bought two SHINE car detailing "deals". He made an appointment for 1; the place cancelled and said they had to reschedule, but then we could never get in touch with them to reschedule. His daughter never got them on the phone for hers. After making a complaint to Living Social, the car detailing person "Elena" called him and said they didn't want to do business with him and to get his money back. Living social said that wasn't the way it worked. So my conclusion is that they don't check out any businesses they offer specials for. I will unsubscribe and tell anyone I know about the bad experience.

First of to all Merchants, Stay away from LivingSocial.Com. Specially from their Salesperson in San Francisco. They made so many unfulfilled promises and at the end, they screw the merchant over. First day the Salesman (Name: Chase) came to our Shop, very upbeat and very pushy to get their services on board with an iPad as a free to use ticket to get merchants on board. I made it clear that I am alone for the time and will need help and he said he has people to help me. We reviewed the deals and toward its last week before the one day special deal was run, I made the change on the deal to make sure he does not include the drinks and customer must be aware that taxes are not included. The deal is only for Food/Sandwiches and Smoothies. He said he made the changes, but on the promo $1 deal day, nothing was changed and customers were online mad about it. I told the customers to call living social because it was supposed to have been changed on their system before the the deal was published.

One week before the day one, I been testing their system on the iPad, which was written very clumsy and unreliably. I made it clear a few times with the salesman as well as the trainor on the phone that once I clicked redeemed, if it is not necessary to enter the totals since their system shows a check mark says 'redeemed' and I was told that is right and correct. However, on $1 day one, this was not true. 90 percent of redeemed voucher did not make it in their system. This salesman was blaming me and grab the iPad and the cable and told me, this is not going to happen again and he was so mad and so arrogant A..S. He was also blaming me for having his field personnel helped me in the kitchen. Asked me if I asked them to do the sandwiches and I said, I did not - She actually went and helped me before I can even asked her. What I said to her was, it would be great if the salesman fulfill his promise to send he the kitchen help. Although I appreciated the help, it was a complete mess - sandwiches and food were not done properly and correctly. Food were just smashed together and given to customers. Wraps were not warmed up and lettuce/ingredients were not cut for the wraps and were just rolled up together. All my cold wraps from the fridge were taken out although the wraps were already prepared on the shelves. Most of these customers did not come back. The kitchen was a total disaster and total mess since everything were all over the place and messy. Good the health department was not scheduled to visit the shop that day. I told the salesman that, I am the one to tell you this is not going to happen again and you are fired, and he was not the one to tell me not to be doing business with us again. Yes, I got paid after 3 weeks and one follow up. But again, today, their customer service called me (Kristen Nielsen) and told me I was chosen to be featured in LivingSocial today and told me that they would like to do a deal today. Knowing that I was not talking to the previous Salesman, I said OK lets talked about it and we did. I also explained what happened previously and how rude the salesman was and I will never want to see his face and do business with him ever in San Francisco ever again. After we setup the deal and everything completed, she cancelled the deal and told me that she is not going to go through this deal today. So I told her, Never EVER call me again from LivingSocial and I will slam my phone to anyone from your company who calls me. They are NOT worth doing business and Merchants, beware of this new startup. They are just there to mess up Merchants for their own benefit. Once they mess you up, they make their bucks and you are done. NEVER AGAIN..

Livingsocial.com has poor company integrity. Unlike groupon, who guarantees 100% customer satisfaction, Livingsocial.com does not even know about the service they recommend. We bought 2 one-hour long massages from a Raleigh Chiropractic company. These massages were horrible. The appointments were running 45 minutes late. The room was unprofessional, with the masseuse not changing the sheet in between clients. The masseuse talked our ears off about how his hands were soar from doing livingsocial.com massages back-to-back all week. He barely massages us and it only last for 20 minutes, while we paid for a one-hour chiropractic massage.

Worst of all, we sent a customer service complaint to livingsocial.com and they have yet to respond after 3 days. To add insult to injury, livingsocial.com posted this same chiropractic company special several weeks later! I will never use livingsocial again because they do not investigate the integrity and quality of the specials that they offer. This public complaint is a result of no response from their customer service department.

LivingSocial "deals" are not deals at all. Pat attention to the fine print! Don't get fooled like I did. Avoid these scammers at all costs!

Here's the email I sent LivingSocial explaining my frustration:

I should have known there would endless fine print and strings attached to the deals you offer. I have made my first and absolute last purchase using LivingSocial.

I’m not sure how LivingSocial has survived without being labeled a scam. I purchased hotel reservations for $295 which included three nights stay in Orlando and two nights stay in Daytona Beach. After confirming my reservations, an additional $15 per night “reservation fee” was attached to my package. A $59/night bargain suddenly became $74/night. I keep asking myself why I didn’t cancel the entire deal as soon as they additional fee was mentioned.

I was asked if I wanted to receive discount tickets to area Orlando attractions if I would participate in a 90 minute sales pitch. I have no interest in a 90 minute waste of time, so I refused. Apparently it doesn’t matter whether or not you refuse; fine print on the reservation confirmation states the 90 minute presentation is mandatory.

My trip is scheduled June 21-26. If I could, I would cancel immediately and save myself the grief. The only problem is I know somewhere in the fine print there surely must be a cancellation fee.

Your so called “deals” sucked me in once, shame on you. Rest assured I will not be fooled a second time.

I just got a call from Visa Fraud Dept on the same card (it's not used for every day transactions either), saying that and online purchase was attempted this morning at Bed, Bath & Beyond & there's an approved pending amount of $1 on my account. Of course I will not know the full amount that charges until it hits my actual bank, then I can dispute it, and they will refund it, but still this is a hassle. I'm more than anything believing this is linked to when I bought the Amazon gift card from Living Social. I didn't have a good feeling about it, as I'd never heard of that company, but still did it. Now...the hassle. Ugh! Just letting you know...watch your bank statements in case the Fraud folks at your bank don't see it.

I just received a call from my credit card company of fraudulent activity on my CC yesterday out of NY. I live in Michigan. I only made two online purchases in the last month. One was the Amazon Livingsocial deal. I would suggest that everyone watch their statements for unauthorized activity. My card is being closed out due to the fraud.

I just did an internet search and found that other people are having similar issues since making the purchase for this deal.

This is how it felt: Living Social wanted to make a bunch of money. So they did this deal with Amazon, and they didn't really care how their customers were treated. They were not prepared for the traffic or the business. They didn't have enough people to respond to all the phone calls or emails. As a result of not putting their customers first, they have damaged their brand and credibility and now they are scrambling to make up for it.

Help Request #: [protected] filed on 8/15/10 via web. Received electronic confirmation of receipt and never again a reply/response. Followed up on 8/16/10 during normal business hours via phone listed on website. No answer. Followed up again on 8/17 requesting money back. Never a reply/response.

I have called the Living social Deal (T's Terrific touch) more than six times to schedule an appointment. I either leave a message on a personal voicemail phone, or when I actually speak with "Anthony" he is never at a place where he can view his calendar to put me on the calendar for a vehicle detail.

Here is the specific email sent to help AT livingsocial.com on 8/15/10:

I purchased two (2) car detail packages in Charlotte for Terrific Ts Car detail on 8/10/10. I request a full refund for the following reasons:

1. I left a message on a personal voicemail (Anthony) and never received a call back for an appointment

2. It is within the 5 days from purchase for a refund.