“Hi
I have been charged £29.99 to my PayPal, I never subscribed to tastecard, don't know how it charged, I email taste card but keep saying you have subscribe, so this is scam
Date of experience: 04 April 2024”
“Avoid as much as possible. Wish I'd seen reviews before. Never used the card as the supposed discounts in my area were terrible or not actually discounts. You have to jump through multiple hoops to cancel, all the while they try convince you to stay. They wouldn't let me cancel online as my membership had, apparently, expired so asked me to email. They didn't get back to me until after my renewal date and by that time I had been charged. They refused to refund me as, I quote, they don't go by usage. So, even though I have never used the card and never will, I will not be getting my £30 back. Absolute scam of a company. Will tell everyone I know to avoid.”
“Charged for membership after trial and when contacting them to cancel and for a refund they decline. Have had to take this up with my bank as they refuse to refund money. The offers aren't even that great. Avoid tastecard at all costs.”
“Terrible experience. The app does not work. Missed out on so many so-called discounts. An absolutely piece of garbage and waste of money. I contacted the customer service and they refuse to take any responsibility for their unreliable app which does not work. They refused to refund the cost of my membership even though unable to use it”
“Ditto to all the reviews that have said this company is a scam. Their company won’t refund the subscription fee no matter what. And disputing with your credit card won’t help as these companies’ policies dictate that a subscription must be cancelled at least 48 hours prior to the renewal date, so there won’t be anything you can do about it.
This business is surviving only through a legal loophole that basically allows them to trick £40 out of as many people as possible till finally the word gets around enough that people wise up. Slimy model.
Plus, as others mentioned, there’s very little of worth here. In Sheffield, there are hardly any decent restaurants included. And the chains, like the pizza places, as others have observed, you can find the same deals online. The cinema tickets are okay if you plan ahead and don’t go on the weekend - that’s it.
I feel sorry for their customer service people. It must be so stressful to be a part of a business with no integrity and no care for its customers. Their customer service department must eat up well over half their budget. If Tastecard would shift their dishonest “we got you - too late - hah, hah” business model, they could focus on expanding and verifying the companies included with their card, thereby offering a product that people would want instead of being tricked into.”
“If I could rate 0 I would. I mistakenly signed up for this. As soon as I realised you would eventually have to pay I cancelled and deleted the app. I still had 39.99 taken from my account last week. I emailed the company who told me they had sent stuff to me and email reminders, none of which I have received. They told me I couldn’t have a refund, even though I’ve never used it and deleted and cancelled straight away. Under consumer rights, customers are entitled to a refund 14 days after purchase if they are not satisfied. I am certainly not satisfied. We are already struggling financially, we don’t really eat out or go the cinema etc so none of this is any use to us. If I did want to go the cinema it would cost me £20 for my family, cheaper than the £39.99 they are charging. Also restaurants etc have their own deals which are better and save more money for yourselves. This whole thing is a scam. The money can be returned they are just choosing not to. Charging people for something they have never and will never use especially after cancelling is just disgusting. Clearly a scam that people need to stay away from. Since I have asked for proof they have ignored all my emails. Also there is no way to speak to anyone on the phone which if someone is taking my money I would like to speak to an actual person.”
“This is a scam, pure and simple. You cannot cancel a trial. There website sends you round and round in a nver ending loop, their telephones are not answered by a human and when they finally reply to your email they bcasically say **** you.
A relly horrible company!”
“I must have signed up for the tastecard a while ago as part of another free offer and have never used it. not even once.
They default all accounts to AUTORENEW at their full price of £47.88
I contact them within 2 hours of them taking it from my paypal to explain and humbly request closure of the account and a refund of the yearly fee.
There response.
Sorry mate. You snooze, you loose. This is there words below
"When members sign up with us, as part of the sign up journey we confirm the membership will automatically renew on the expiry date. We just need you to let us know if you don't want to continue so we can stop your membership payment being taken moving forwards.
As we didn't hear from you before the renewal date, this is the reason we have taken payment for the next membership, we are unable to refund this for you. You have turned off the ongoing subscription so it will simply just expire on 04/02/2024."
RIP OFF ORGANISATION JUST OUT TO CAUSE FINANCIAL HARDSHIP TO HONEST FOLK, AVOID.”
“Robbing people of their hard earned cash. No prior notice to cancel subscription before charging me nearly £50. Customer service was rubbish when I pleaded to get a refund. They just don’t care! Deals are c*** too with so many restrictions-just not worth it!”
“I purchased a taste card last year for myself and a friend. We found that in the (mostly large chain) restaurants that accepted the tastecard, there were restrictions on what you could use it for, or when, like certain days of the week and special occasions. We found that most of these places accepted meerkat meals, which generally offered more savings. Over the year I realised that we weren’t getting any use out of it and I decided to cancel it when the renewal time came as I didn’t know it could be done beforehand without stopping the service. Unfortunately, I had a seizure whilst driving which led me to having a stroke at the age of 40, I was left unable to work and I was in hospital for 3 weeks, learning to walk again. I’m still not back at work and I’m
Left with a variety of problems including memory, so it’s safe to say tastecard was the last thing in my mind. Obviously I’m off sick from work and not receiving full pay and to be honest it’s been a massive struggle.
Then I saw tastecard was due to go out of my PayPal, I was on the cusp of my overdraft as well. I emailed them to cancel and got no reply until a few days later when the money had gone out (which seems extremely convenient). When they finally got back to me they said there was nothing that could do, I informed them of my situation, they then replied telling me that I could use it in theme parks as well! Which is great but I’ve just disclosed my medical condition and some common sense would tell you that isn’t going to happen as I’m not allowed on rides. It got escalated to their manager who said they took my circumstances into consideration but still refused which I think is disgusting. I understand that they can’t refund every time but with exceptional circumstances (which I can prove) I'd have hoped there would be some help. I’ll 100% avoid tastecard in the future and I would advise anyone else to do the same.”
“Not even worth one star. Don’t waste your money or time. It’s apparently only accessible through app and I couldn’t even download it on my US smartphone. I also couldn’t access my account for the whole duration of my trial period and never received any password reset emails so could never log in to even use it. To top it all off, the customer service is just shocking. Very unhelpful, took ages to respond, and simply uneducated. It’s also basically impossible to contact them unless signed into your account which I could not even access. If you have any issues at all they won’t help you solve it. Don’t risk it!! Wish I had read all the other bad reviews before signing up.”
“TasteCard are a horrible and fraudulent company with absolutely no ethics or morals. Not only are the deals offered now completely lacking, meal discounts are pretty much Mon - thu if you can find anything you like and you can find similar offers on the restaurant websites yourself. On top of this if taste card have your payment details they will use them without your permission or provide you with a single reminder even if you accidentally signed up for auto renew a year before it was just due. Now I would've been forgiving of this if however on the same day and literally hour I saw the fee leave my account I contacted TasteCard for a refund and cancellation and was met with a no, which goes against my rights. I tried to fight the claim internally with them and they were rude and obnoxious. I would've taken them to small claims and won however they are preying on busy people like myself who just haven't got the time. I can see a lot of people have had this issue and if the only reason they are still in business is by nicking/thieving peoples money then they should be trading. I understand if it had been a month or maybe even a week before contacting them for a refund but an hour just goes to prove how disgusting they are!”
“I wanted to give zero stars but it's not allowed.
Contacted Tastecard on 26th August as I tried to use the card in a restaurant and the app wouldn't open
Followed this up the following day by removing app and downloading again still no luck
Contacted Tastecard again and was on phone for over 30 mins then just got cut off
Followed their guidance to get a new password and re activate it, still no joy and no reply from Tastecard
Emailed 2 further times on 29th and 31st August, got no reply, called again on 1st September and after 45 mins waiting it cut me off again
The app is still not working just shorting out when you put in log in details still no reply from Tastecard and when I tried to call today they have taken down their phone lines, totally disgraceful behaviour
They take your money and don't offer a service, it's now been unusable since 26th August and they have made no contact whatsoever what's joke
Iv asked for a refund got no reply at all.”
“Onus on customer to cancel or monies are deducted automatically. At a time of pandemic and shielding for us oldies and therefore no eating out, the patronising attitude of a scripted response of customer service refusing a refund added insult to injury. Buyer beware, don’t do it!”
“Totally shocking company, tried to cancel my subscription but could not do so, Tastecard refused to refund the £39.99 that they took from me via my credit card.
If you have had a bad experience with Tastecard regarding their renewal practices please get in touch with BBC Watchdog, I have. The more people that contact them the better chance there is that it will be take on board and hopefully get the result we all want.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mg74”
