Decided to put reviews of my various consumer experiences with busineses here on my own personal homepage instead. I have completely lost faith in the major review platforms including the likes of Google Review which I urge no longer to trust. Reviews here are my personal opinions of my experiences as a geninue customer to these businesses.
After Hill Park Dental East Tamaki and Panmure both closed unbeknownst to me, ran around looking for a new dentist to regularly visit. Have decided to settle on using Smile Dental Ormiston for ongoing teeth cleaning and periodontal monitoring and already been to this practice a number of times now.
Pricing I feel is quite reasonable. 200 to 250 for teeth cleaning. Gum pockets appear to be slowly reducing.
May Yee Sim is the dentist I usually see, having originally seen her at the Smile Dental – Sylvia Park Branch. Also saw Karis Ho for sore gum condition. Appreciate both their positive and friendly attitude.
One advantage with Smile Dental over other Dental practices is that they are open on the weekends without surcharge. This is immensely handy as it means I don’t have to arrange time out of my busy work week to go see the dentist.
Was originally a little bit concern regarding Smile Dental being a chain, but experiences appear to have been fine so far with nothing reasonable to fault about any of my experiences themselves to date.
The only thing that can really be pointed out is their Group wide website has a few spelling mistakes and may need a bit of proof reading. Statements such as “Your dental specialist may prescribe you see a periodontitis” did give me a little bit of a quiet chuckle.
Used DJR Plumbing / David Roche to Install a new Rheem Stellar 160 replacing the old Vulcan Freeloader 300 back in June 2022. including new slab, external piping, fittings and connections. New water cylinder so far working great.
Total price paid $4038 (Includes gas certificate)
DJR may not be the cheapest, but did appreciate the professional, approachable and can do attitude throughout. Very responsive to communication, probably the best I’ve seen from any tradesperson. Punctual, arrived to do the job on time at the times he stated the following day.
There was a minor leak to the existing distribution pipe discovered afterwards, David very obligingly came back that same morning (after notifying him) where he resolved it without fuss. The Owner’s manual was found soiled in the bin, looks like it got accidentally stepped on, however was able to eventually find a copy online.
Overall, reasonably happy with the job done and happy to consider using DJR again for any gas fitting and plumbing be it for my own place or for a rental property.
Update 26th January 2023:They eventually were able to get their guys to come around and do the job in the end. Updated the review accordingly. Price issues have since been resolved. They allegedly had staffing shortages contributing to some of admin issues detailed below.
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Used this company before many years ago and called upon them again last year to conduct a moss spray treatment on my concrete tile roof.
After a about 3 no shows along with a price quote irregularity, 2 of their roofers eventually came along and did the moss spray on the roof. It appears Edwards and Hardy introduced a new job booking/scheduling system which has resulted in some frustrations to both customers (such as myself) and their own front line staff in the last year or so. This resulted in me having to repeatedly chase up via Email, texts and phone calls as to the status of the job and when they could expect to come around.
Regardng the price quote, Edwards and Hardy provided a written emailed quote of 470 to spray the roof while 2 other competitors I was able to contact both provided me a quote of 380 for roof spraying. I had accepted Edwards and Hardy’s already higher quote in good faith based on previous custom. To find an additional $100 Health and Safety charge tacked on afteraccepting their quote and upon receiving a confirmation without this being communicated to me beforehand was rather curious. (Since sorted out, though took a bit of chasing up).
Job was completed within an hour. Apart from one missed cracked tile (a check of the tiles was included as part of the roof moss spray), no real issues with their front line staff who diligently got to the job, were pleasant to deal with and answered any questions I had. The company in general terms however will need to sort their back end systems and work on their communication as according their own field staff, they’ve had multiple complaints of the same issues from other customers.
Update 15th March 2024:Since Dropped a note to the Commerce Commission regarding Noble Dental’s marketing,
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Personal opinion only as a once-off patient. Self referred to Noble Dental Remuera back in October 2021 for an initial consultation only as part of a wider search for a new dentist after the clinic I used to attend closed down. All Noble Dental personnel appeared to be reasonably friendly and professional throughout the consultation.
While I acknowledge my dental health certainly isn’t in the best state it could be, came away feeling they made it out to be in a pretty bad way overall along with them verbally suggesting that any treatment they undertake for me would be “a gamble”. Other dental clinics I attended (as part of a search for a new dentist to frequent) did make mention of gum issues, but framed it more as a cautionary observation in which to keep watch on as opposed to warranting utmost alarm. In fact, I believe Noble Dental provided the most dire prognosis out of the Dental Clinics I had consulted.
I acknowledge Noble dental are seemingly regarded highly as specialists in this area and they are perhaps more particular in any assessment they make. Though will admit was at least a little taken back by overhearing behind the partition that 5 teeth (despite being free of decay and tested as “vital” apart from one root canaled one) have poor prognoses and would likely end up needing extraction. This appeared contrary to the impression I got when I originally read Noble Dental’s website where they state “We use minimally invasive, advanced technology in gum treatments to save teeth even in advanced cases of gum disease.”
Asked for a copy of the clinical notes during the consultation to be sent to me directly (as I had self referred) to which Noble agreed to do, though did have to chase them up a number of times. These were eventually supplied to me after a month with to their credit a profuse apology for their delay.
As a side note, two other reviews coincidentally or otherwise were originally found linked to an individual offering “Public relations for local dentists” and who I firmly maintain feel should have made disclosures of this potential conflict of interest upfront in his reviews. Upon accepting the PR person’s offer to let me sight his invoices to support his claim that his dealings with Noble were genuinely and strictly 100% patient/dentist, the individual back pedals with a curious story declining to do so along with his reviews disappearing.
Paid $490 for the initial consultation and Full Mouth X-ray which appears to be inline with what other periodontists in Auckland charge. Quoted around $7,000 for treatment which includes quadrant cleaning and perioscopy which I have decided not to go ahead with.
Have since settled into using another dental practice for regular routine treatment and ongoing monitoring of periodontal condition. That said, I wish to stress that this review is my personal opinion for the initial consultation only and does not in any way reflect or refer to the quality of Noble Dental’s treatments nor is this intended to throw shade on Noble or their expertise.
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In an apparent attempt to explain the link of some of their reviews to a Public Relations entity, Noble Dental (or may be their PR agent?) has replied with…
Had a pretty poor experience with this particular business when they were previously operating as a Thrifty branded franchisee. While it is not likely I will ever return it is nevertheless genuinely hoped they have taken the opportunity of a rebrand to SIXT to improve their business practices.
Some of the things that disappointed me at the time include (but not limited to)…
Charging of fees that were clearly outside of the hire agreement. Failure to properly disclose, detail and describe certain admin fees in their written legal documentation.
Obstructive and confrontational attitude upon reaching out to ask about these charges, then trying to close the matter with “Thanks for your feedback on disclosure” while casting blame on their franchisor.
They very promptly changed their tone and refunded the fees the next day after I advised they were in clear breach of their obligations under Australian Consumer Law and will be moving forward with lodging a case with VCAT. However they stopped short of apologizing or otherwise admitting fault.
Vehicle while clean was in poor mechanical tune (compared to the same make/model hired from other business units operating under the same car hire brand). Anecdotes received from both customers and their own employees suggested they cut corners on servicing some of their fleet.
Being subjected to persistent up-selling upon picking up the vehicle. Not experienced to the same degree at any other location operating under the same brand. Then going ahead and adding on a breakdown add on anyway and concealing this in the walk-through of the agreement.
Upon returning home to New Zealand and writing about my experience on this blog, ended up with people identifying themselves as former employees writing in privately to affirm the issues as well as offer recriminations against management along with repeated mention of “Flaunting material possessions”.
While many of the issues that lead to my indignation have since been resolved, none of these in hindsight should have ever occurred in the first place.
It was (and remains to this day) my single most bizarre and unusual experience as a retail customer to any business either side of the Tasman.
Update: 27 December 2019 – Have now received confirmation of a refund from A2 Hosting.
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At the same time of setting up my Digital Ocean droplet as part of the Early December site move, created an account with A2 Hosting on their shared “turbo” server (with “Performance Plus” add on), drawn in by the positive reviews on Webhostingtalk and their up to “20x faster” marketing along with their 66.6% off Black Friday Specials
I copied NUI.NZ to both a Digital Ocean Droplet and to my account on A2 Hosting (both at their respective Singapore data centers) to begin comparing the two. After some testing, discovered that the Digital Ocean droplet performed faster for my use case in terms of responsiveness, speed and consistency.
NUI.NZ on Digital Ocean loaded up in 3.2 seconds on Average.
NUI.NZ on A2 Hosting shared turbo loaded up in 3.9 seconds on Average (with Caching enabled and A2 Optimisation plug in installed) but was bursty / less consistent and felt so much less snappy and responsive overall.
A2 Hosting’s marketing had led me to believe that I would have access to 2 CPU cores and 3GB of RAM on a burst basis versus the 1 CPU and 1GB set up with my 5 USD/month Digital Ocean VPS droplet.
Additionally, setting up their A2 Optimisation plugin they had developed for WordPress and then clicking “Optimize all” will crash even a shiny new and fresh install of WordPress into the white pages of death. If the aforementioned didn’t crash it, enabling Memory Cache on the WordPress instance will most certainly crash it. After much frittering around I did manage to get the plugin to work but only in rather limited situations I’ve found. It is my belief A2 Hosting should seriously consider removing the plugin as it is I believe impacting their brand.
I’m also a little bit disappointed with how they have structured their so called “any time” refund policy. Within 30 days, you can get a full refund, after 30 days however, what they will do is re-bill you at the regular rate for the rest of the paid up period then give you what is left. I struggle to think of anyone who will be (willingly) paying regular rate given the performance I’ve seen of their shared hosting product. I have to admit, this has darkened my regard I have towards the A2 Hosting brand.
I have now requested a cancellation and refund under A2 hosting’s 30 day risk free policy. Given prior experience with Shared hosts and my impression of some of the way A2 Hosting do things, I don’t have enough faith to see out the full 3 years with them
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I have to admit, over the years, I’ve started really souring of Shared hosting in general and believe it should be left for only of the most insignificant of web projects (Personal websites). Sure, if you are a largely a neighbourhood bricks and mortar (Vet Clinic, Dentist, Hairdresser, etc) business and just need a site with a handful of static pages (and may be a blog, but would argue at a stretch) then Shared Hosting may be Okay.
If on the other hand you’re a business who is almost entirely dependent on the web, it should go without saying you shouldn’t be using budget shared hosting… ever. Unfortunately, I see many businesses and online only retailers for what ever in their right signing up for shared hosting, installing Woo Commerce / Presta shop and once their site goes down or goes slow, they are seen screaming to high heaven on all the support channels and web hosting forums begging for a resolution.
Update 7 December 2021: Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd (formerly Thrifty Car and Truck Rental Victoria now trading as SIXT Car Rental Vic & SA) have since kindly refunded me the admin fees earlier this year that were originally charged outside of the written agreement and which originally triggered off my indignation. Many of the fake reviews posted while they were trading as Thrifty have since been promptly deleted upon separately advising the matter had been turned over to the ACCC and Consumer Affairs Victoria for comment.
Had also fielded the occasional E-mail from those identifying themselves as past employees of Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd, describing Working Conditions, Pay and Internal Culture issues, etc. though these have since tailed off as Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd followed their franchisor to rebrand as SIXT Car Rental Australia.
It is however sincerely hoped that under their new banner as SIXT Australia, Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd will take this clean slate as an opportunity to continue to substantially improve on their business conduct and practices going forward.
Will leave this post up as is, as purely a historical snapshot / record of perhaps my single most unusual consumer experience I’ve ever had either side of the Tasman and the first and so far only time I’ve ever had to initiate formal action under any given country’s Consumer Protection Framework anywhere in the world. It should however be understood much of this post may no longer be current particularly the bit about planning to take them to VCAT upon my return visit to Australia.
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Topping off personally my single most disappointing consumer experience to date either side of the Tasman that I can recall… upon looking to place a review regarding my last hire experience with Thrifty Car Rental out of Mickelham Road, (Melbourne), discovered that the franchise owner along with certain senior staff of franchise operation Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd, had posted several of their own reviews whilst failing to disclose their commercial and/or employment connection to the business…
Lawrence (Vic.) Pty Ltd. T/A Thrifty Vic Car and Truck rental – Managing Director… “Personally I think that these guys are the best rental company in Victoria. They always have great service a delivery on time with a smile. I would recommend them to anybody.“
– Source: Google Maps (This has since been removed upon advising I had referred the matter to the ACCC and CAV)
Thrifty Franchise owner Lawrence (Vic.) Pty Ltd for Dandenong, posting a 5 star review of his own business. This has since been removed.
…Being the owner, of course he would think and say that about his own business. Some disclosure in his review would have been nice.
Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd’s Chief Financial Officer, was also discovered to have placed multiple 5 star ratings of a number of Thrifty Car and Truck rental locations…
Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd’s Chief Financial Officer posting 5 star ratings for the branches owned by his employer in breach of ACCC Guidelines. (They were formerly operating as Thrifty, now operating as SIXT Car and Truck Rental Australia.)
Some more ratings placed by the same individual. He has placed 5 star ratings on at least 8 (possibly more) locations owned by Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd along with 5 star ratings for a handful of other Thrifty Locations owned by other business units.
Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd’s Chief Financial Officer posting 5 star ratings for the branches owned by his employer in breach of ACCC Guidelines. (They were formerly operating as Thrifty, now operating as SIXT Car and Truck Rental Australia.)
Also came across this… Known employees (confirmed upon glancing at their profiles) including the owner of Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd are seen posting fake ratings and reviews for Thrifty Vehicle Sales location (Since renamed simply to “Direct Vehicle Warehouse” as of December 2021) that they operate in Dandenong. (These have since been removed in haste upon advising I have turned the matter over to the ACCC and Consumer Affairs Victoria)
Fake Reviews posted to the Thrifty Vehicle Sales page in Dandenong (Since renamed “Direct Vehicle Warehouse” as of 2021) by those in the employ of the reviewed business (Lawrence Vic Pty ltd). These have now been removed after advising I had referred the matter to the ACCC and CAV
Furthermore, if you glance at the rest of the profiles from where the ratings and reviews have come from, quite a few of them I feel appeared (at least to me) to be from direct friends to one of the Staff in question (Profiles liking and commenting on posts from the staffer’s profile and vice versa or more apparent, the staffer appearing on the friends widget of those profiles).
While friends of staff are well within their right to place a review if they are genuine customers, a potential conflict of interestis present and this should really be disclosed within any review they post as per the ACCC Guidelines in respect to asking friends to leave a review.
More Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd staff posting positive reviews, this time for Thrifty Weipa. (While this may be a different business unit to Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd, they are still part of the Australian Thrifty Car Rental network and any such review should disclose this)
Thrifty Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd employees posting reviews for Thrifty Weipa. While a different Franchise, they are still part of the same network and should be disclosed.
An older review from 3 years ago posted by another employee of Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd…
Another Google self review from a Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd staffer for Thrifty Car and Truck Rental Campbellfield.
Here’s a more recent glowing review for Thrifty Car and Truck Rental for Footscray…
(the statement “…team that works together to achieve their goals” caught my eye as it’s not normally something posted by a genuine customer)
(The review below was quickly removed after I posted a temporary review publicly challenging it)
Glowing review of Footscray Thrifty Car and Truck Rental posted by a staff member of Thrifty Footscray. This was quickly removed after posting my own review to challenge it.
From then I looked at the reviewer’s other review for Coles Express, a service station very close by Thrifty Car and Truck Rental Footscray where he mentions “…as part of my job for a rental car company…”
Same employee mentioning he worked for a car rental firm. No surprises which one.
…All the above fake reviews were the ones that were known about and could be directly linked to Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd personnel.
The last fake testimonial above was only caught by virtue that the staff member in question had posted in another review mentioning he worked for a rental car company.
In my mind, it certainly raises the question… How many of the other customer testimonials could also be fake or otherwise have been posted by Thrifty Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd personnel?
Wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd management possibly encouraged their employees to engage in the practice particularly since the owner himself was seen placing at least a couple of his own fake reviews.
Reviews posted to Lawrence Vic Pty ltd. New location: Thrifty Coburg in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. While an individual review from a profile where this is their only review is not sufficient by itself to raise a red flag, the ratio of such reviews do raise a red flag with me.
Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd’s newer location, Thrifty Coburg, Melbourne, Victoria. 4 out of 6 reviews revealed anomalies. 3 out of 6 reviews were posted by people with only 1 review with a 4th review from below…
The reason why this looks fishy…
The ratio. Out of 6 total reviews, 3 were made by reviewers with only 1 review,
One of them being especially and suspiciously hyperbolic. “Wow, what an experience” is a sizable red flag to me as such reviews have in the past often been found to be fake upon my own investigation. How often would one be so over the moon renting from a car hire place?
A 4th review was made by a reviewer who has a total of 5 Google reviews to her name. However, out of those 5 reviews, 4 of them are for Thrifty locations all operated by Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd, another red flag…
This reviewer has a total of 5 Google reviews to their name. 4 of them for Thrifty locations, all operated by Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd. I suspect this is more than a coincidence.
There are a few further individuals who if you Google their name present results to their LinkedIn profiles indicating they work for Thrifty. Whether they are the same people who posted these (in my view) rather anomalous, “written like an advert” review for Thrifty Vehicle Sales Dandenong is not able to be definitively confirmed as there are a ton of People in the Melbourne Area with the same (first and last) names, Never the less, the prose is very unlike a customer would normally write and combined with a match to Linkedin, these reviews I feel should be viewed with a high degree of skepticism.
While I acknowledge that Lawrence Vic Pty ltd isn’t alone in such antics (Far from it), Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd is the first business (that isn’t an outright cold calling boiler room “wire” scam operation) who I have both personally had any sort of interaction with and seen engaging in the posting of falsified testimonials.
Overall my hire experience with Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd was far removed from my usually smooth hire experience under the Thrifty brand in Australia. I will admit to letting my guard down in this instance due to trust built up from multiple positive hiring experiences before hand under the Thrifty brand. Issues with the Lawrence Franchise include…
Failure to disclose upfront the full fee structure in their written legal documentation in respect to minor damage caused by a small Roo jumping into the side of the vehicle. An undisclosed and non-specific 3.5% Administrative fee was levied on top of other Administrative fees and was not disclosed to me verbally nor in writing. (I understand as of September 2020, Thrifty Australia have now rewritten their Terms and Conditions to better disclose this to cover their network of outlets and franchises, however, was not disclosed as per their terms and conditions as of 2018 at the time of the hire) Note March 2021: Have since had a large portion of that refunded back to me.
Upon contacting the Licensee’s HQ at Dandenong thinking that these matters would be easy to clarify, I was instead met with a defensive attitude from one of their accountants (who I now learn has since left the organization) with the chain of communication abruptly closing at “Thanks for your feedback on our disclosure” with no further attempt by Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd to explain or otherwise point out where in the written agreement these charges applied.
Failure to provide a copy of the agreement at initiation of the hire requiring several follow ups. (This doesn’t appear to be an isolated incident with Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd.)
Upon eventual receipt of the above, discovered a break down add on I never requested and which I strongly believe was snuck on by the RSO under IMO obvious pressure by his bosses to meet his monthly sales target. The RSO agent I strongly believe drew my attention away from it during the walk through of the said agreement. I will take this on the chin this time, but this is something that prospective hirer’s must watch out for. Don’t be too trusting in “the brand”. Renting from one Thrifty branch (in my case, several different Thrifty branches) does not mean they do things the same way as any other Thrifty branch.
The vehicle, A Hyundai Accent hatch ran rather poorly compared to the same Make/model I rented several times from other Thrifty branches in Australia and New Zealand. The service sticker also indicated the vehicle was 2 months over due for it’s service. Anecdotes from Employees and Fellow customers a like indicate that they regularly cut corners on servicing.
On presenting a New Zealand Driver’s license, Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd demanded 2 x Australian Phone numbers and an Australian Address. No where was this stated anywhere on booking nor the unified thrifty.com.au Website. This is different from Thrifty Melbourne Airport and Thrifty Melbourne city (Spencer st) where no such requirement exists.
Their employment ads suggest a rather Sales driven culture I feel (“…totally focused on achieving targets and budgets”) and this has been emphasized in Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd’s ads far more than for Front line roles advertised by other Vehicle Rental agencies (operating under the Thrifty banner or otherwise) I feel.
I have also since dropped a note to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV) to let them know of Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd’s conduct.
If would be fair to say that I hold the management of Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd personally responsible for the matters arising out of my hire with them. Nor have I ruled out possibly taking out a case against Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) when I’m next back over the ditch on business.
To date, this remains by far and away my single most acrimonious experience as a customer to any business either side of the Tasman. I would expect to see these sorts of business antics 20 years ago in Mainland China (when things there were less developed) and not in a country such as Australia.
While I have since continued to rent through other ‘Thrifty’ branded business units in Australia without experiencing anywhere near the same sorts of issues, my continued custom with Thrifty as a brand is now under review (particularly so now that NZ AA and Thrifty Australia between them seems to have ended the hire car deals for us NZ AA Members).
In a nutshell… I consider trust extremely important in any transaction I undertake and Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd through their conduct I feel have completely failed to demonstrate this.
