Services vouchers from discount sites - do they work?

Although am not an obsessed discount voucher sites fan, I do scan these sites for something to buy (or rather some inspiration on what to buy) at least every weekend. Yes, buying stuff do give me joy! Though some look like really good deals, sometimes you can get better prices from Lelong & ebay. Further more, Lelong & ebay merchants send the items out almost immediately after receiving the payments.

Anyhow, you don't get services type of discounts such as restaurants, beauty, home cleaning etc from Lelong or ebay. So very much you still have to fall back to these discount sites. So far I have purchased several restaurant discount vouchers, 1 facial voucher & 1 cleaning services voucher. Never had any problems with the restaurant vouchers as long as I do early bookings. Some food are good, some not...and all these have to do with the restaurants, not the vouchers.

For the facial voucher I got, it was from Facial First (under Bizzy Body) which I redeemed yesterday after having problems finding an available slot for almost a month!

Got a bit pissed when the facial consultant implied that I did not read the treatment details properly which supposedly tailored for acne-ridden people, which I am not. I told them that their description of "prevent blemishes" didn't really imply it has to be acne-ridden, did it?

So after giving her a piece of my mind, we did a cut-down of the treatment so that I did not have to waste the voucher. Oh and as expected, she tried to sell me treatment packages for my high sebum and low moisture skin, which I politely declined.

And the biggest nightmare of all, was the home cleaning service voucher that I purchased from Groupon. The merchant here is One Bright Cleaning Services. Tell you folks, when you see this merchant's name, you should just walk away! This is such an irresponsible merchant.

I bought the voucher early this year and hoped to use their services for pre-Chinese New Year cleaning. They started with a online appointment booking form. They replied me that all the sessions during the period of time were full. Fine, so I made another booking for after the peak period. No reply from them and I had to email them a few times to get a response that they had changed their booking method. Apparently they could not cope with too many vouchers redemption.

So the new arrangement was that they would call you to arrange an appointment. That was in Feb 2013. Up to today which is the expiration of the voucher, no news at all. All my emails were probably routed to trash in their mailbox. Calling was not an option cos they would never pick up.

So I gave up yesterday and contacted Groupon and sent them my email thread with this irresponsible merchant. Groupon was kind enough to refund me and I opted for Groupon credits.

Seriously, how dumb can this merchant be?? If you put up your discounts into all these sites, you should expect that you'll get many purchases right? Isn't that the whole reason why you partner with them in the first place? If you can't cope with the responses, then don't put up discounts!

Anyhow this experience really made me think twice before purchasing any of such services vouchers, except for those restaurant ones.

So do services vouchers work?... I would say Yes... if they are from good & reputable merchants. Even so, please prepare to be patient in getting a convenient slot for yourself. Try to redeem your voucher much earlier and not wait around until almost nearing the expiration date.

There will always be the bad merchants like One Bright Cleaning Services which does not hold the end of their bargain, but in these cases, lets just hope the Discount Voucher sites are more responsible to give us back the refund. At least I know Groupon is.

My new novel from Dan Brown

Yeah...finally got Dan Brown's new novel "Inferno".

I remember how much I liked "The Da Vinci Code" the last time. I practically had to stop myself from reading and go to sleep, only to end up having weird dreams. Then the next 2 novels "Angels & Demons" and "The Lost Symbol" were equally spectacular as well. They were too good that the movies did not do them any justice.

Anyhow, those were ancient history. I bought "Inferno" a few days ago, and I have yet to start reading it. Perhaps I have lost interest in reading, or perhaps the temptation of internet and astro are overshadowing the urge to read.

Frankly I have no idea what "Inferno" is all about, and hopefully that'll add in the suspense when I actually start.

Why so action?

I seriously do not understand what's the problem with some people in my office. We work in the same office and share the same pantry... and there are still bound to be those who seem to just want to ignore you.

They would avoid eye contact at any cost, as if any of those would send them to the fire of hell. Even if there is such contact, they would act as if you are transparent... and any friendly smile from you would just invite a look away. Gosh.... why la so action? Further more, they are not really of a higher position to warrant such a display of snobbishness.

Oh well...I am done trying to be friendly to all these people. Perhaps it's time I show my "action" side to them as well.