Tag: LIVING SOCIAL

The Livingsocial offer that wasn’t social at all

By Christopher Elliott |

James Steidl/Shutterstock
James Steidl/Shutterstock
Question: I’m looking for your help in resolving an issue with a deal I found on Livingsocial.com. Recently, it published an offer for the Indy 500, which had options for $39 general seating, or $150 a person VIP seating. I wanted to attend with a few friends, so we all signed up for the VIP seats.

Livingsocial has an offer where if you purchase a deal, and then get three friends to do so as well, then you get yours free. Now, we all wanted to sit together, but figured 4 for the price of 3 wasn’t bad; however, there was no information on the deal page about seating policies. So I emailed customer support (their phone lines were down after their recent password issues) to ask whether this was possible.
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Maybe this Groupon deal wasn’t a deal after all

By Christopher Elliott |

auremar/Shutterstock
auremar/Shutterstock
Groupon is a bargain website that promises daily deals and “unbelievable” customer service. But Stuart Lord says he got neither when he bought a VIP wine package in California’s Sonoma Valley — a deal he later discovered was significantly overpriced.

Here are the specifics: The offer was for two people for two nights at the Sonoma Valley Inn and two “VIP” wine tastings. Total price: $169.

“The advertisement said it was worth $320 — a 47 percent discount,” he remembers.

Only, it wasn’t.
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