I suspect I’ve been on the receiving end of an “Ouffer offer scam” -
This Ouffer offer scam was through one of the companies promoted on their Deal a Day site. I tried to do a search for “Ouffer offer scam” & it does seem I’m not the only one who has had this happen. It seems that others have paid for a deal and then either didn’t receive anything or what they did get was something way less than advertised.
All Star Carpet Cleaning Web page image
A couple of weeks ago, Ouffer sent me an email with a steam carpet cleaning offer. I jumped at it since that weekend a friend had moved out leaving a fairly well stained carpet in the room.
The Ouffer Offer Scam Story
One day after paying and ordering the gig I received a call from “All Star Carpet Cleaning”
(website- http://www.allstarcarpet.com.au)
to book my steam clean on Saturday 10/09/2011 at 12.30pm. I run my own business from home so I had to close the business for the day and spent many hours tidying up and decluttering the house so the steam cleaners could actually find the carpet – only to find they didn’t show up!
The man on the phone sounded professional; just like the Nigerian scammers, he was very convincing and it never occurred to me that it was an “Ouffer offer scam“.
I received an email with the confirmation of my payment etc and I thought I was good to go. In fact, it was all so convincing, that I still thought they were not answering their phone as they were too busy because it was such a good deal. Hmmm, methinks too good a deal to be true!
I have to admit that I did get a bit worried that it might be an “Ouffer offer scam” when I didn’t receive a confirmation call the day before. I just (stupidly) assumed that they were busy and would still turn up since I did have the receipt etc.
I got up on Saturday at 6am to finish clearing the place up and to have time to take my son to his basketball game. I cancelled my business for the day and arranged for my son to be minded at a friend’s place. This all took up time that I didn’t have to spare.
12.30pm on Saturday came around but no All Star Carpet Cleaning company.
I started to suspect an Ouffer offer scam.
Guess what?! Surprise surprise… looks like an Ouffer offer scam… the company’s phones are now unavailable or they ring out after asking for a voicemail message to be left. This is both their 1300 488 829 number as well as their mobile that is listed by Ouffer and on their company website.
Ouffer All Star Carpet Cleaning Offer
Of course, I’m yet to have either my emails or my phone calls and voice mails replied to by either company. This is when I really thought I had been the unhappy victim of an Ouffer offer scam by All Star Carpet Cleaning.
Ouffer don’t appear very interested in replying quickly and have sent auto replies back to email queries that state that they are currently experiencing a high number of calls and will get back to me. I am yet to receive anything but an auto response.
This makes it even more likely that there was an Ouffer offer scam by All Star Carpet Cleaning, because I suspect that Ouffer are busy dealing with all the calls from other people, like me, who didn’t receive the steam clean they paid and prepared for.
Meanwhile, my kitchen is overflowing with furniture and items that were on the carpet last week. I don’t know whether to waste more time on this Ouffer offer scam or to just wait and see if All Star Carpet Cleaning will eventually honour their contract (that has been paid for!).
Unfortunately, the longer this goes on, the more I suspect that I have definitely been the unfortunate recipient of an Ouffer offer scam.
If you have also been scammed by one of these Deal of the Day sites, leave a comment below and let us know what happened to you.
It really isn’t good enough to have people be so put out by this sort of fiasco!
Ouffer offer scam? I think so… 
All Star Carpet Cleaning… shame on you. Ouffer offer scams are not the way to make your money.
I sure won’t be buying from Ouffer again, not until I get my money back or my carpets cleaned.
Ouffer… if you don’t want people running away from you in droves, you need to do something about this Ouffer offer scam by All Star Carpet and make sure it doesn’t happen again!
Hi Tess,
I’m the social media manager at Ouffer.com, and I’m writing with regards to the recent issues you’ve been having with one of our featured offers.
Firstly – I’d like to express my most sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused by this experience. I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been to arrange all of your furniture for a steam cleaning that did not take place. It is hugely regrettable when one of our members has a less than outstanding Ouffer experience, and as such we will always do our absolute best to resolve all voucher issues as efficiently as possible.
Our goal at Ouffer is always to provide our members with an outstanding experience, and when we learn that we haven’t lived up to our own standards, we have to re-examine our process. Thank you for sharing your experience—we are committed to using the feedback that we receive from members to improve our service and bring you the kind of offers that you want. Our members are the most important part of our business, which is why we do go to great lengths to investigate the businesses we work with, and when we make a mistake and feature a vendor who can’t fulfil their contractual obligations, we are happy to issue refunds.
As this was the case here, please do accept our apology for this situation. Our customer service team has responded to your email in order to provide you with a full refund, and we have taken your feedback on this particular vendor very seriously.
Humbly yours,
Amanda
Social Media Manager
Ouffer Australia
Update to above post:
Ouffer did get back to me and refunded my money for the carpet scam sham. I do think it’s not Ouffer’s fault and they have dealt with the issue well. (Although a top ranked Google post does wonders for a fast response!)
As a business owner, I can appreciate that things go wrong and when we provide services through others, they can go doubly wrong. However, a refund does not really compensate for a full day of my biz closing down, a full day of organising the flat to get ready for the steam cleaners and a flat with everything piled off the carpets that then had to be put back together as I just didn’t have the time to spare another full day off my business.
So, I still lost.
It also took me at least 3 efforts to unsubscribe from their mailing list. After this experience, receiving several Ouffer offers a day was just rubbing salt into the wound. It was only when customer service contacted me about this blog post that they finally removed me from their mailing list.
I do commend Ouffer on staying on top of their online presence. These days, we have to really work hard to maintain our brand.
So, thanks Ouffer for working this all out. I do appreciate it.
Still need my carpets cleaned though! Still haven’t found the time again. Oh well.