DrapedInDarkness
Distinguished Member
This is a very long post so please avoid it it may not be your type of thing, I've proofread it twice but spelling mistake are still possible, thank you any who make it through all of this.
As some if not most of you know by now, I've been dealing with the problems of long covid and one of the lesser problems but still annoying was the inability to ggo on my usual German holiday and make myself fatter gorging on amazing German food.
But the great thing was that a friend in Germany found a company in the UK called The Sausage Man and they were a wholeseller who switched to consumer sales during the crisis, my friend very generously sent me a box of their products roughly once a month since September (two as this is my birth month) and apart from small hiccups the service was generally very good and the food was the closest thingg to being in Germany.
There were some errors and not all were their fault, my second order was missing a product and the customer service was excellent with a voucher off my next order of triple the price of the missing item, one was quite late by the delivery driver and the last one actually went to the wrong address completely, for this delivery I was asked to walk to the other address hoping the parcel would still be there and pick it up, seven hours after delivery to the wrongg address!, When I politely pointed out this was not feasible they agreed to a new delivery the next day which came bright and early with no issues.
However my December delivery had a change of supplier not notified on the website for Schnitzels and the taste was not as good and they were very soggy, the MD replied personally and agreed they were very sogggy and gave me a £16 voucher to use for a future order, well we did not use it for the next two orders as we were saving it for when my friend was able to be here again as it was dateless, thhe last order was in February and this time they had changed the Frikadellen supplier again without notifying customers, the shape now resembled a normal hamburger and the consistency was like a sponge with a not so wonderful taste.
The MD again replied to me personally and told me that he would happily refund me, my friend in Germany was not so happy however as two changes without notification was making the orders meaningless so also wrote a message to the Sausage Man which was replied to by a member of staff who called asking for more information to help improve service and offered a discount voucher for the inconvenience, he then replied aain and pointed out that although he understood brexit and the pandemic had cost them and he understood the higher chargges to keep the business running, changing the suppliers for lower quality but same prices was not really fair and he pointed out that the suppliers he used were suppliers to low cost supermarkets in Germany.
This time he received a reply from the MD who had contacted me
"" I suggest that you and your friend Shane just stay away from us. We try our best, work 12-14 hours a day to make this online retail working and do not need complaining about nothing.
It really does not matter if the Frikadellen are flat or round and our Bratwurst has the same ingredients including milk and celery since about 8 year – absolutely no change there.
The Schnitzel are still very tasty and the Frikadellen taste better than ever. Just tried it last evening.
Just waste your time somewhere else – we really do not need anyone to tell us the address of our producer just to show off their investigation skills. I’m so tired of this.
Read our Trustpilot reviews and you’ll see how good our products are. And yes, pls write your own 1 star review. I really don’t care!""
I then contacted him again as he had still not replied to my acceptance of the refund saying I thought that was a bit agressive and pointing out we had made a few orders and had left glowing feedback for them previously, after no reply for three days I left a new review on trustpilot pointing out all the above.
This is my review and his reply.
""
Very sad to leave such a negative feedback but the appalling customer service from an MD leaves me no choice.
There have been problems with some orders in 2020 but only one was a mistake by The Sausage Man, when an order was sent out not completely fulfilled, and one went to the wrong address and sent as a new delivery the next day, the customer service on both these occasions was fantastic, although I was asked to walk to where the misdelivery was initially.
But then from December and February this year, Two of my favourite products had supplier changes and for the first one back in December (Schnitzels) I was given a credit on to my account for the price paid £16, I then made a new order in February and the 2nd product (Frikadellen) had also changed and I was offered a refund which I gladly accepted, only I've never had a reply to my acceptance or a refund.
The MD then replied to my partner telling him that we should stay away from The Sausage Man.
So I have not received one refund and have a voucher that is now probably useless to me.
The MD went from very friendly to very aggressive despite telling that they want feedback to improve and admitting they changed suppliers without notifying customers on the site.
Please see excerpts from emails below.
""I read your comment about our Schnitzel and the new provider. Unfortunately the old provider could not produce enough before Christmas and we needed to find a replacement.
I agree that they are a little soggy but I still like to eat them. However, we plan to move back to the old producer as soon as the current stock is sold, which should be in about 2 months. My college Luke will inform you, when the new delivery from the old producer is available in the online store.
Here’s a voucher code for your next order in the value of the 2 pack Schnitzel (£16.00) you bought last time in December""
""The owner and the two md’s of the company are all German and we love our German food. We really try hard to maintain a high standard, but sometimes reality kicks in. And no, we try to keep the products as German as possible – the only thing is that we reduce salt a little bit as people here don’t like as much salt as in Germany.
Pls let me know which products were not up to you standard and I will happily refund you fully for them.
If you want to discuss this further, pls see below my phone number.""
""I suggest that you and your friend Shane just stay away from us. We try our best, work 12-14 hours a day to make this online retail working and do not need complaining about nothing.
It really does not matter if the Frikadellen are flat or round and our Bratwurst has the same ingredients including milk and celery since about 8 year – absolutely no change there.
The Schnitzel are still very tasty and the Frikadellen taste better than ever. Just tried it last evening.
Just waste your time somewhere else – we really do not need anyone to tell us the address of our producer just to show off their investigation skills. I’m so tired of this.
Read our Trustpilot reviews and you’ll see how good our products are. And yes, pls write your own 1 star review. I really don’t care!""
As you can see from the reply below the MD has now chosen to further insult me by confirming that there is not going to be a refund and he will remove the voucher too.
Reply from The Sausage Man
An hour ago
As I said before - the good thing is that you don't need to buy with us anymore. So, if you are unhappy just stay away. By the way, I'm closing your and your friends account.""
So basically a refund and voucher worth almost £30 has now been withdrawn by the seller, I'm not sure if that is even legal but I cannot afford to find out, so I really just wanted to vent a little bit, but would you expect such replies from an MD of a company that makes over £4.3m a year?
As some if not most of you know by now, I've been dealing with the problems of long covid and one of the lesser problems but still annoying was the inability to ggo on my usual German holiday and make myself fatter gorging on amazing German food.
But the great thing was that a friend in Germany found a company in the UK called The Sausage Man and they were a wholeseller who switched to consumer sales during the crisis, my friend very generously sent me a box of their products roughly once a month since September (two as this is my birth month) and apart from small hiccups the service was generally very good and the food was the closest thingg to being in Germany.
There were some errors and not all were their fault, my second order was missing a product and the customer service was excellent with a voucher off my next order of triple the price of the missing item, one was quite late by the delivery driver and the last one actually went to the wrong address completely, for this delivery I was asked to walk to the other address hoping the parcel would still be there and pick it up, seven hours after delivery to the wrongg address!, When I politely pointed out this was not feasible they agreed to a new delivery the next day which came bright and early with no issues.
However my December delivery had a change of supplier not notified on the website for Schnitzels and the taste was not as good and they were very soggy, the MD replied personally and agreed they were very sogggy and gave me a £16 voucher to use for a future order, well we did not use it for the next two orders as we were saving it for when my friend was able to be here again as it was dateless, thhe last order was in February and this time they had changed the Frikadellen supplier again without notifying customers, the shape now resembled a normal hamburger and the consistency was like a sponge with a not so wonderful taste.
The MD again replied to me personally and told me that he would happily refund me, my friend in Germany was not so happy however as two changes without notification was making the orders meaningless so also wrote a message to the Sausage Man which was replied to by a member of staff who called asking for more information to help improve service and offered a discount voucher for the inconvenience, he then replied aain and pointed out that although he understood brexit and the pandemic had cost them and he understood the higher chargges to keep the business running, changing the suppliers for lower quality but same prices was not really fair and he pointed out that the suppliers he used were suppliers to low cost supermarkets in Germany.
This time he received a reply from the MD who had contacted me
"" I suggest that you and your friend Shane just stay away from us. We try our best, work 12-14 hours a day to make this online retail working and do not need complaining about nothing.
It really does not matter if the Frikadellen are flat or round and our Bratwurst has the same ingredients including milk and celery since about 8 year – absolutely no change there.
The Schnitzel are still very tasty and the Frikadellen taste better than ever. Just tried it last evening.
Just waste your time somewhere else – we really do not need anyone to tell us the address of our producer just to show off their investigation skills. I’m so tired of this.
Read our Trustpilot reviews and you’ll see how good our products are. And yes, pls write your own 1 star review. I really don’t care!""
I then contacted him again as he had still not replied to my acceptance of the refund saying I thought that was a bit agressive and pointing out we had made a few orders and had left glowing feedback for them previously, after no reply for three days I left a new review on trustpilot pointing out all the above.
This is my review and his reply.
""
Some great food let down by appalling customer service.
Very sad to leave such a negative feedback but the appalling customer service from an MD leaves me no choice.
There have been problems with some orders in 2020 but only one was a mistake by The Sausage Man, when an order was sent out not completely fulfilled, and one went to the wrong address and sent as a new delivery the next day, the customer service on both these occasions was fantastic, although I was asked to walk to where the misdelivery was initially.
But then from December and February this year, Two of my favourite products had supplier changes and for the first one back in December (Schnitzels) I was given a credit on to my account for the price paid £16, I then made a new order in February and the 2nd product (Frikadellen) had also changed and I was offered a refund which I gladly accepted, only I've never had a reply to my acceptance or a refund.
The MD then replied to my partner telling him that we should stay away from The Sausage Man.
So I have not received one refund and have a voucher that is now probably useless to me.
The MD went from very friendly to very aggressive despite telling that they want feedback to improve and admitting they changed suppliers without notifying customers on the site.
Please see excerpts from emails below.
""I read your comment about our Schnitzel and the new provider. Unfortunately the old provider could not produce enough before Christmas and we needed to find a replacement.
I agree that they are a little soggy but I still like to eat them. However, we plan to move back to the old producer as soon as the current stock is sold, which should be in about 2 months. My college Luke will inform you, when the new delivery from the old producer is available in the online store.
Here’s a voucher code for your next order in the value of the 2 pack Schnitzel (£16.00) you bought last time in December""
""The owner and the two md’s of the company are all German and we love our German food. We really try hard to maintain a high standard, but sometimes reality kicks in. And no, we try to keep the products as German as possible – the only thing is that we reduce salt a little bit as people here don’t like as much salt as in Germany.
Pls let me know which products were not up to you standard and I will happily refund you fully for them.
If you want to discuss this further, pls see below my phone number.""
""I suggest that you and your friend Shane just stay away from us. We try our best, work 12-14 hours a day to make this online retail working and do not need complaining about nothing.
It really does not matter if the Frikadellen are flat or round and our Bratwurst has the same ingredients including milk and celery since about 8 year – absolutely no change there.
The Schnitzel are still very tasty and the Frikadellen taste better than ever. Just tried it last evening.
Just waste your time somewhere else – we really do not need anyone to tell us the address of our producer just to show off their investigation skills. I’m so tired of this.
Read our Trustpilot reviews and you’ll see how good our products are. And yes, pls write your own 1 star review. I really don’t care!""
As you can see from the reply below the MD has now chosen to further insult me by confirming that there is not going to be a refund and he will remove the voucher too.
Reply from The Sausage Man
An hour ago
As I said before - the good thing is that you don't need to buy with us anymore. So, if you are unhappy just stay away. By the way, I'm closing your and your friends account.""
So basically a refund and voucher worth almost £30 has now been withdrawn by the seller, I'm not sure if that is even legal but I cannot afford to find out, so I really just wanted to vent a little bit, but would you expect such replies from an MD of a company that makes over £4.3m a year?