“Stay well away from this company
Stay well away from this company. Whitespace publishers trading as UK Bride have to be the worst company we have ever had to deal with. I won't bother going into full details of our case as it pretty much replicates others you will have read on this site but in a nutshell, UKbride will make contact and do a hard sell of a "no obligation free trial" generally on someone within your company who has NO AUTHORITY to sign the company up. You will then receive numerous fake enquiries and then all will go quiet meaning you sort of forget about them. Within days of the free trial being over you will receive a phone call demanding a full years subscription. Check them out on company's house. They actually state they specialise in un-cancellable contracts. The company will then send you letters stating that they will force you into insolvency quickly followed by a letter from an ambulance chasing solicitor. We have internal emails from this company that we were inadvertently copied into stating they have a policy of ignoring customers. So when they tell you the only way to get out of the contract is to ask for a STOP code or pay up for a service you wont receive, just remember they will just ignore you anyway as they want to ensure you don't receive that elusive stop code.
Make sure you get everything in writing and keep dates as they will ignore you. We persistently asked UKbride to remove our advert and like many other companies we have it in writing that they will only remove the advert it we pay in full. Is that sounding like a ransom to anyone else???
In 6 months we received 193 enquiries. Not a single one of those enquiries responded to us. Compare that with other platforms we are on whereby 90% of initial enquiries we have responded to receive a return and 50% who responded booked. How is it that out of 193 enquiries we didn't so much as get an 'out of office response" let alone a real couple looking for a service.
UKBride work on a bullying method trying to scare hardworking individuals and businesses to pay them through a range of scare tactics. This includes fake court summons for one.
You will also notice in some of their responses that they will claim you have received bookings worth £1000's through them. They acutally sent us a printed flyer stating we have received £13000 of bookings through them. When we asked them to justify this they pointed us to 2 wedding couples who had left reviews on our page. BOTH OF THESE WEDDING BOOKINGS HAD BEEN TAKEN 2 YEARS PRIOR TO US BEING PLACED ON UK BRIDES WEBSITE. UKbrides answer to this.......if they left a review on UKbride then the booking was through them. What a load of codswallop fantasy b@llsh@t.
For a contract to be lawful a number of things have to be proven. UKbride work on the premise that business to business contracts don't have the same protection as consumers HOWEVER you do have rights and if you are one of the many companies about to be taken to court by UKbride don't stress and don't pay them. Due to the increasing number of people coming forwards there is now a growing body of individuals and companies working together to prevent this company from putting more companies and individuals through the hell they seem to think is a reasonable way to make money.
UKBride have caused untold misery to a lot of people and companies. If you are thinking of signing up DON'T do it. If you have and are on the receiving end of their bullying then you are not alone. Feel free to contact me and you will find out you arent alone. Trading Standards need your evidence too. Sonja de Rijk”
“Big UKBride Problem. Please Take The Time To Read
Like other small businesses on this review site, my business in May 2020 was offered and took up a "Rescue Package" free 6 months offer by Whitespace Publishers T/A UkBride, believing them when they said that a large strong business wanted to help small businesses struggling to survive during the pandemic.
UkBride said the package "usually sells for £999 + VAT and provides 6 bookings per venue (on average), and 100 leads per month that haven't booked their venue yet."
However, although on May 7th 2020 I'd sent the requested "I agree to the order form and I am happy to be bound by the terms and conditions. " with my name, I was too trusting and as the terms and conditions was an 18 page A4 attachment, I didn't check the content of the attached order form which mentioned automatic renewal, and as during the 6 months my business didn't receive a single enquiry, let alone a booking, and I was busy getting our site prepared to reopen in July 2020 (having been closed for 9 months due to winter closedown followed by the pandemic), and was then busy with peak season, I forgot all about UKBride.
On June 2nd 2020 I received an email from UkBride's Sales Manager confirming that my business had been uploaded to their site, and I then received no communication from them until 6 months after the start date when I received a demand for £999 + VAT. I immediately asked to cancel, as the 6 month package had been a complete waste of time with nothing to show for it, but their response to not wanting the service, was that I must pay, or Whitespace Publishers T/A UkBride would sue my business in court, and we would then get a County Court Judgement, and be liable for costs, as well as £999 + VAT.
Although the "Rescue Package" had been worthless, to be rid of the stress of being threatened with all of this, I offered them by email on several occasions (firstly on 3/2/21 to UkBride Senior Accounts manager) payment for 3 months i.e. £249.75 + VAT, but never received any acknowledgement of this.
They commenced legal action, and in September 2021 mediation occurred. I again offered £249.75 + VAT, but the only compromise UkBride would make was a payment plan for the full amount plus costs. So I now await the date to attend court.
So there it is - a large strong business claims to want to help smaller businesses financially suffering due to the pandemic, but instead in my opinion they act like a very mercenary business, providing in our case a worthless service to contractually trap us into a £999 + VAT obligation, and then it's pay the full amount in one payment or in instalments or you'll be sued. I would have thought that a service that delivers nothing amounts to an unfair contract.
If you can offer any support or help, or I can help you, please email me via our website asap. THANK YOU. David Ager, Yurtcamp Devon”
“UKbride, part of Whitespace publishing are a business that uses hard sell to offer businesses “Free” adverting which they claim is without commitment. The actual process you sign up to commits you to a 12 month non cancelable contract at the end of your “free” six months unless you have requested a stop code. They give no notice that your “free” trial is ending and then hit the business in question with a invoice, in many cases over £2,000, for the next 12 months regardless of whether the business wished to continue advertising.
UKbride take a super aggressive stance with businesses receiving solicitors letters, threats of insolvency, threats of debt collection and court action if they do not immediately settle the invoice that is sent. They have even been known to send out fake court documents to deliberately bully and intimidate as well as making fake claims as to sales and leads generated. If you ask them to cancel they will state they will only stop the advertising if you pay the invoice (we have this in writing) which is demanding money to not provide a service. There are even instances of people trying to cancel, UKbride refusing to let them cancel, and if the dispute hits the anniversary of the disputed contract they then invoice the client again for a further year.
UKbrides business practices seem to be based on hard sell, deception and threat and are causing untold misery to dozens of wedding related businesses throughout the UK.
There is a now a large group of individuals and companies from the wedding industry who are working together, sharing information and experiences, to expose this organisation and fight them if necessary through the courts. If you need help dealing with UKbride then google Steve Shields and I will be delighted to help.”
“well we didnt want to advertise with uk brides as we were just going into the pandemic and about to close our hotel, but they kept pushing the free trial. they said why not take the free trial it is free. so in the end we decided to take it. we didnt sign any think but sent an email thanking them for the free trial. we didnt get any enquiries but afterall we where in the pandemic. well the trial came to an end and we got invoiced on the day we received the invoice we contacted them and said they had invoiced us by mistake but they said we should have cancelled the free trial. and we needed a pass code to cancell but they wouldnt give the pass code until we paid the invoice. we had just gone in by a few days of the roll over so we offered to pay for the month we where in. but they said no it was the full amount which is
over 1200. and still wont give us the code. what a scam, i wish we could warn all future business s about these con artist. but unfortunatly its only when they come to write a review like this
and see all of the other reviews. they will realise they to have been conned. i suggest you get in touch with other hotels or business s on there site so that we can bring a case against them
believe me there are a lot of people that have been conned and of course they threaten court and they will make you bankrupt”
“As a wedding venue we suffered massive income losses last year due to the pandemic and thought this company was genuinely trying to help out with six months free advertising. I attempted to cancel the advert before the trial period ended but was not told I needed a code to do so until after it had ended. I have been harnessed with emails and letters threatening court procedures! They are acting fraudulently as they are breaching the Misinterpretation Act 1967 by denying I tried to cancel before the end of the six months! A bunch of fraudsters!!
If anyone would like to contact me we can support eachother and stop the bully tactics.”
“They do not tell you about the auto renewal and certainly do not advise you they are going to help them selves to £1200. All wedding venues have had a dreadful 18 months and UK bride didn't show any compassion they just insisted they want your money and will take legal action if you don't pay. We didn't even get one booking from their website. They are conmen and hide behind bad business practices to rip your hard earned money off.”
“We are just another number of venues that they continue to scam. Absolutely disgusting and an SCAM. A company not to be trusted. They have done this to lots of other wedding venues. They need to be put to shame for their behaviour an downright cheek”
“Same here. We took their 6 month free trial then wrote to them before the expiry of the contract, but they deny receiving it.
They are also threatening us with legal action. They must be so desperate. I have sent evidence but they are not budging. We should get together to fight this case of misselling. Covid has killed the wedding business and they are fighting to survive. Their staff are leaving them too. Stay away advertisers. We never had one single booking from them either.”
“Be careful!!! Stay away from them!!!
We decided to use 6month free advertising with them. When renewal date came we send email to cancel but never received any reply and now they asking to pay for roll over contract!!!
Never got any business from them!!!”
“I signed up with UK bride for a year's advertising on their platform. It was an absolute waste of my time and money.
These are the facts upon which I base my conclusion:
1. Over the year I spent at least 40 hours following up "leads"
from UKbride. This included sending hundreds of emails, text
messages and making many polite phone calls.
2. I am an experienced and qualified wedding photographer.
I offer great value for money and have photographed
hundreds of weddings over the last 20 years.
3. I gained absolutely 0 (zero) bookings from UKbride.
4. UKbride use a rolling contract with suppliers which basically
means that unless you read the fine print and cancel in a
very specific time frame, you are automatically contracted to
pay for the following year.
5 Uk bride took a very hard line on following through on this,
with threats of legal action made to me.
6. Uk bride claim in their marketing that over 90% of supplies
book the following year. Maybe this is in good part related to
their use of rolling contracts with suppliers?
7 When speaking to a Uk bride representative about the issue
they were more concerned about how my online activity might
tarnish the company's reputation, rather than being
committed to come to a fair and reasonable resolution. Again
they threatened me that their legal team may have to become
involved.
If I could give Uk bride 0 Star Rating, I would.
As a wedding supplier I would totally avoid this company.”
“My Experience with UkBride
I advertised with UkBride and at first it was great but as time went by the cracks started to appear.
I would like to write a full and accurate review of how I was mistreated as customer advertising on their platform.
This year has been horrendous for any bride to be and its also been horrendous for my photography business at DUKE PHOTOGRAPY
I have never once had any business from them but equally I could have tried harder. At the beginning I was paying for a year of advertising but did not know I was in a contract, I mean, how could I know? I have never seen the contract in my life and I certainly didnt sign anything and it wasn't made aware (but I will get to this part later)
The business model is case of letting sleeping dragons lay by taking vendors bank card details and storing them in file, however they had to call me as my card details had changed, they were trying to take another years payment. So now they have my card details with no contract in place which is illegal.
They rang me to take payment but when I kindly declined they said I had to because that was apart of the contract and when I asked why they didnt contact me prior to the auto renewal especially whilst we were in lockdown and couldnt work, they infomed me that business to business contracts do not need any warning on auto renewal and proceeded still trying to take payment.
This year has been awful with every wedding postponed and trying to feed my poor children as this is all I can afford at the moment and despite letting UkBride knowing how difficult time was at home they still tried to take full payment untill we agreed £20 a month as a cancellation fee for 6 months. Now I am not going to lie, I lost my temper with them on the phone when they failed to show any compassion or remorse as I couldnt understand why a business would not warn me that my contract is about to renew and despite going through hardship they were absolutely relentless! I would like to point out that because I am not a key worker, I havent been working so considering we are in unprecedented times you would have thought they would have dealt with this in a better way but instead all it has done is shown their true colours
They said they were going to send the contract through the post, they didnt. They said they were going to send the contract in email, they didnt. So the third time I asked, I waited on the phone until they sent it through.
They sent me a contract with all my details which they filled in but they never had my signature. This for me is very unprofessional Its safe to say they haven't been able to taken payment since nor can the persue any further but now I am currently seeking a charge back from my bank and taking further action as they have broke GDPR for storing details without followng correct process and certainly not being in a contract.
This is my experience with UkBride.”
“Sign up to advertise with UKBride.co.uk and they conveniently forget to mention that you are signing up for a yearly rolling contract (hidden in the T&Cs small print). When the renewal is due 1 year later you do not receive any notification via email or phone, they just help themselves to another full years ad fees from your bank without permission. Sadly for us an expensive mistake and we have instructed our legal team to recover the stolen monies. During the year the ROI from the ad was terrible and you would be better off advertising on Google or a more reputable bridal directory. Avoid at all costs!”
