My first issue is regarding their marketing preferences, and how they handle customer data.. When placing my order there was a compulsory box for a telephone number, but I made sure to tick the relevant boxes that said that I did NOT want to be contacted by phone, email, or post for any marketing / promotional reasons. So you can imagine my surprise when I got a phone call a few hours later from a call center trying to sell me their monthly subscription plan!! When I told the agent that I had specifically selected NO to using my information for marketing purposes, he replied that he knows that, but felt that this offer was very good and that I wouldn't want to miss out on it - and hence his call! I explained that this was a breach of data protection, and GDPR to use a customer's personal information for marketing purposes without their consent.. We then went back and forth for a good few minutes of him still trying to change my mind on signing up to their subscription plan, before he finally said he'll remove me from the mailing list and hung up. Since then, I've had at least one email a day from them with various marketing offers. Each time, I hit the unsubscribe button, and yet again the next day I received another marketing email!
Within 24hrs hours of ordering, I received a dispatch notification for my order. The parcel arrived a few days later, but I was shocked to find that it only contained two small items worth £10 out of a £70 order! I immediately emailed their customer services asking them firstly to ensure that my contact information was removed from their marketing list, and to ask where the rest of my order was.
After three days of no response to my email (despite getting a read receipt within an hour of sending), I sent a follow-up email which I received a response to. However the response was a blunt copy and paste telling me that they're sorry for the marketing emails, and have updated my marketing preferences - and to contact again if I have any further queries. They also sent me a link of how to update my marketing preferences myself - but the link was for their parent company website Ideal World Ltd and not for Create and Craft. So they didn't pay attention to where I had ordered, and completely ignored my complaint asking where the rest of my order was! I sent another email back asking someone to phone me by the end of the day to update on my order, but received no response. After another 24hrs, I submitted a PayPal dispute for the missing items which as of today has not been responded to. However a few days later, I received an email from MyHermes saying that they have a parcel for me, and that it would be delivered soon. This second parcel arrived this morning, and once again, it is not my full order!
So now I am back to square one having to try and contact Create and Craft via email, and have updated the PayPal dispute accordingly. This company may offer a great range of products at good prices, but their inability to process orders properly, no respect for handling customer data, and lack of care for their customers isn't worth the hassle.