Business Closed on WagJag – no alert, no refund

Trueler has received several complaints about WagJag from one of their clients. It is a daily deal website based in Toronto serving a lot of cities in Canada. WagJag demonstrated unacceptable negligence to the customers.

I had two “amazing” weekends trying to redeem WagJag coupons.

First was a voucher to Asia Asia Buffet in Mississauga:

“$9 for an All-You-Can-Eat Dinner Buffet, Including Sushi and Dim Sum at Asia Asia Buffet & Banquet Hall (a $21 Value)”.

WagJag - Asia Asia Buffet Deal

I and my family had a trip there on one of the past weekends, but unfortunately it was a big waste of time, gas and money… The doors were closed! We were very upset.

Asia Asia Buffet in Mississauga was not in business anymore. Sometimes such things happen, but there were no any e-mail notices from WagJag warning customers not to spend time on redeeming this voucher.

Another one was a voucher to Chocolat Creamery in Richmond Hill:

“$10 for $20 Worth of Chocolate Sweets and Treats at Chocolat Creamery”

WagJag - Chocolat Creamery Deal

Same frustrating experience. We came there on another weekend, but the doors were closed again!!! Out of business… How is this called?!!

There were no e-mail notices from WagJag about business closure. It is again a waste of time, gas, money, and forced changes of our plans…

I have requested a refund from WagJag for this deal twice, but there were still no reply, no refund. They just ignored my requests.

WagJag gave us a lot of awful experience. One deal after another…

Why WagJag did not send any alerts to all the voucher holders when businesses were closed? Is this so hard to do? Let’s figure it out!

They could easily save time and money for their “valuable customers” by sending out an alert. But WagJag doesn’t care about their clients. Described experience showed it very well. WagJag knows that usually some vouchers are not used and get expired. If they warn customers as soon as business is closed, they would have to issue refunds to all the voucher holders. In reality WagJag prefers to keep those money in their own pockets.

Even Deal55 (“daily deal site” which has been proved to be a scam and still commits fraud) has sent their customers a notice that they will not be able to use one of their deals because “the retailer did not want to participate anymore”. Is WagJag even worse than the worst daily deals scam? ;)

This case definitely has a negative impact on the group buying industry.

39 thoughts on “Business Closed on WagJag – no alert, no refund”

  1. I felt I’ve been robbed when Wagjag advised that my paid money is gone when I asked for a refund/credit for an expired voucher that I did not use during the promotion period. I thought paid amount never expires and honoring promotional value is up to vendors. I do not think Wagjag follows basic business ethics or fair business practices if this is their policy. I filled out a complaint through BBB, and hope BBB will teach them some business ethics. Wagjag lost me as a customer and it’s annoying to fight for $30. I think group buying is not a gambling or lottery, and paid amount never expires on other social marketing/group buying companies/vendors. Folks, beware and fight for your hard earned money!

  2. I am a happy wagjag’er. I have purchased vouchers thru other sites/auctions and run into the ‘out of business’ vendor but that is out of wagjag’s control. What is within their control is responding and rectifying when it happens. I did have some difficulties setting up the telus monthly credit but eventually got it resolved.

    Below is my order history (last 4 digits x’d out for security) for which I’ve not had a problem redeeming, including for a couple hotels. I could see that if a hotel doesn’t have availability for your date it would be frustrating. I read the fine, print to watch for blackout dates etc.

    Whenever I buy coupons/cards etc, anywhere, I try to use them fairly soon after to avoid the ‘out of business’ issue.

    For the grocery program, I also recognize that the pickup location is just receiving, storing, the product until I pick it up, so I try to shop their when I go to pickup. It helps them to participate, even if they aren’t supplying the product, because then I learn about a business I might not have otherwise visited.

    39171xxx
    04/24/2014 10:43:00
    $20 for 4 kg of Breaded Chicken Breast Fillets (a $60 Value)
    Certificate 1 : 39171992-AJF-xxxx
    View Voucher | Print | Mark as Redeemed
    Location: Niagara Falls: The Meat S….
    05/07/2014
    $20 Available

    39171xxx
    04/24/2014 10:43:00
    $27 for 4 kg of Breaded, Stuffed Chicken Swiss Melts (a $90 Value)
    Certificate 1 : 39171982-EI9-xxxx
    View Voucher | Print | Mark as Redeemed
    Location: Niagara Falls: The Meat S….
    05/07/2014
    $27 Available

    38569xxx
    04/03/2014 10:49:21
    $36 for 6 x 20-Piece Packs of Wally Parr Pepperoni Sticks (a $62 Value)
    Print
    Flavour: Mild
    No Expiration $36 Purchased

    38569xxx
    04/03/2014 10:49:21
    $20 for 5 lb of Battered Crunchy Cod Portions (a $40 Value)
    Certificate 1 : 82646-TOV-xxxx
    redeemed
    Choose location: Niagara Falls: The Meat S….
    04/16/2014
    $20 Used
    Certificate 2 : 18109-FEK-xxxx
    redeemed
    Choose location: Niagara Falls: The Meat S….
    04/16/2014
    $20 Used

    38192xxx
    03/17/2014 10:14:31
    $20 for 4 kg of Fully Cooked Breaded Jumbo Chicken Wings Seasoned with Salt and Pepper (an $80 Value)
    Certificate 1 : 72860-VIZ-xxxx
    redeemed
    Choose location: Niagara Falls: The Meat S….
    04/02/2014
    $20 Used
    Certificate 2 : 02646-AQD-xxxx
    redeemed
    Choose location: Niagara Falls: The Meat S….
    04/02/2014
    $20 Used

    37221xxx
    02/05/2014 22:53:33
    $20 for 2 kg of Breaded Bacon Alfredo Chicken Melts (a $55 Value)
    Certificate 1 : 37221442-QU5-xxxx
    redeemed
    Choose location: Niagara Falls: The Meat S….
    02/19/2014
    $20 Used

    37221xxx
    02/05/2014 22:53:32
    $29 for 4 kg of Fully Cooked Breaded Buffalo Chicken Wings (an $80 Value)
    Certificate 1 : 37221432-03E-xxxx
    redeemed
    Choose location: Niagara Falls: The Meat S….
    02/19/2014
    $29 Used

    37221xxx
    02/05/2014 22:53:32
    $20 for 4 kg of Breaded Chicken Breast Fillets (a $60 Value)
    Certificate 1 : 37221422-1SZ-xxxx
    redeemed
    Choose location: Niagara Falls: The Meat S….
    02/19/2014
    $20 Used

    36029xxx
    11/09/2013 09:28:27
    Crowne Comfort: Airport Hotel Stay with 22 Days of Parking
    Certificate 1 : 91510-829xxx
    redeemed
    04/30/2014
    $75 Used

    36025xxx
    11/08/2013 10:24:40
    Crowne Comfort: Airport Hotel Stay with 22 Days of Parking
    Certificate 1 : 91510-829xxx
    View Voucher | redeemed
    04/30/2014
    $75 Used

  3. I just got off the phone with them on their 1-855 number… I waited 31 minutes to talk to a rep. I was calling to request refund on an unused voucher that I had found laying around… (my bad). They indicated they would do me a favour as I buy a lot and issue me a 50% credit back. Other than the horrific waiting period to talk to someone, they aren’t half as bad as you all say… Look into the businesses you buy from, the deals usually are available for days. Half of the responsibility lies with the purchaser. I lost half of my money because of my own negligence. Good on them for paying back their half.

  4. Wagjag deals with a lot of companies.. I don’t expect them to have to keep track of every company and make sure they are still open. How are they supposed to know if the place closes?
    That being said I have bought many vouchers from wagjag and only ever had 2 problems. One was the restaurants fault where they crossed off the wrong voucher as used on their list so when I went a second time the one I had said used, but I pulled it up on my phone and they used another one and told me which had already been marked as used.
    The other problem was another rooftop patio which I tried to visit multiple times before the voucher expired, but it was closed no matter the weather. I e-mailed wagjag and within a week they had answered and credited me for the 2 vouchers.

  5. I purchased a voucher for one of their “delivered to your home” deals in mid-November. After a few weeks I received an email from Canada Post with tracking info, but it never changed from “We have received the package information”. Attempt at followup with vendor returned some confusing finger-pointing as to who ships the product, them or Wagjag. After an unanswered email I finally called Wagjag, bit of a wait but csr was polite and professional. CSR sent an email to vendor who politely replied his same confusing statement – eventually got my credit card refunded last week but it wasn’t a super happy experience mostly because it was intended to be a Xmas present :-(. I suppose part of the delays and confusion on all parts could be also related to a busy online shopping/shipping season and office closings for stat holidays…

    Caveat Emptor is rarely a bad idea…

  6. I purchased Swarvoski earings -7 pair- and they arrived loose in little baggies-with no identification that they are Swarvoski- these earrings could have been purchased at the dollar store for all I know-i’m left days before christmas with what I thought was a great gift for the girls on my list- I called WagJag for a resolution and was given a series of “its not my fault…and its the merchant…blahblahblah” – I am unable to contact the merchant as they only have an email address- I called Swarvoski Elements in the US and they have no idea who this merchant is. Wag jag ended up taking my information only after I argued-and threatned to complain via social media- so we will see what comes of this but I dont’ have much faith…what looks like will be happening is I will be left without christmas presents as I will return these items and back to the stores I go. BAAAADDDDD experience thus far for me…stay tuned.

  7. I purchased oral B tooth brush heads a few months back and when they arrive they were dollar store tooth brush heads from Germany. Three of them broke within a week!
    I also purchased razors from them Oct 11.2012 and never received them. I have been sending them an email daily requesting a refund and informing them that I will be in contact with the better business bureau to file a complaints. I still have not received any reply from them. I tried called the toll free number and I was on hold twice for 30 min. Both calls I refused to waste anymore day time minutes realizing that no one was going to pick up. I got scammed!! My credit card company is trying to help me out now, godbless scotia. AND I WILL NEVER ORDER FROM WAGJAG AGAIN!!
    FYI if you click on the link that says “click here to see us hard at work” at the bottom of the customer support screen, the live sandiego zoo camera pops up where you can watch monkeys swing on trees….I think thats definetly them hard at work!

  8. Wagjag works hard to make sure the vouchers are honoured time and time again. I know this because I sell Wagjag and they are in touch with me when they are contacted by someone who has complained or want a refund. They have even refunded Wagjag customers because they’ve changed their minds. Whomever is claiming the opposite are competitors that are feeling the squeeze financially since Wagjag was launched. Buy Wagjag vouchers without fear because if there is a problem or concern it’s attended to immediately.

  9. I have bought and redeemed many WagJag deals. I have only ever had one issue where one of the certificates was said by the retailer to be redeemed which I almost 100% blame the retailer for as a clerical manual error on their bookkeeping of the coupons. I contacted WagJag and promptly without issue was redeemed. No issue.
    Based on many of the comments here I must be the minority, however thought I would share.
    I also do look at the deal and company and “usually” only go with well known or companies I know have been around.

  10. What do you expect? People all want to get something for nothing. Their hunt for the “best deal”makes them foolhardy and willing to sign on for all kinds of scams and frauds. You want to be sure you’re getting what you pay for? Buy direct from the seller, and stop going through third parties. There’s a sucker born every minute, and two to take him.

  11. Several hundreds of vouchers were bought from Polished and Pampered Wellness Centre. They closed early February, when I called them to get a refund and I asked why the consumers had not been notified I was told that it would be to time consuming for customer service and that if the consumer wanted their money back Wag Jag knew the consumer would be calling to get their refund. How professional is that? Will never deal with Wag Jag again!

  12. I am one of these advertiser with WagJag, last year we sold 2263 cupons and close to 12,000 guest visited our winery. We are advertising again this year. WagJag is just the advertiser like a news paper. I think that it is everyones responsability to check what you are buying before making the purchase to ensure that you are dealing with a reputable company.

    Check out this year offer! By the way we have been in business for now 27 years!

    Marc Mousseau
    General Manager
    Stoney Ridge Estate Winery
    http://www.stoneyridge.com/ wagjag

  13. Companies involved with Wag Jag do NOT live up to their end of the bargain! I have tried to redeem two different vouchers, one for Yuk Yuks and one for a hotel in Niagara Falls, but was unsuccessful. Each time, I was told that there was no availability for customers with coupons but there was availability for everyone else. (I called over a month in advance for the hotel room.)
    This is unacceptable.
    I will not purchase anymore vouchers from Wag Jag.
    I haven’t tried other similar websites and I do not intend to.
    I do not blame Wag Jag so much as the companies associated with them. Once you purchase the voucher you’re forced to either let it expire or plan your “experience” around someone else’s schedule.

  14. Wag Jag states that they make refunds on closed business etc. How come these complaints on WagJags site exists????????????????????????? I beleive its something that should be addressed, if not! The spectator should do a story on it to expose this weakness. GWD

  15. I agree that one should investigate a little before purchasing. We have to take responsibility for our own decisions as there are no guarantees in life.

    I also think it is naive to think Wagjag follows up on every company they have ever had dealings with to establish if businesses are still operating. Times are tough. I think if you are not going to use your wagjag in the very near future you should not buy it.

    Yes, wagjag makes money on vouchers never redeemed but this is based merely on the fact that society is so caught up with spending money and buying things. If we were not so quick to spend, these vouchers would be redeemed. We are a wasteful society.

    In the future, buy only what you know you will use soon. If you have no plans for that item or service, pass, these offers come up again and again.

  16. We have run coupons on Wagjag, Groupon, Steal the Deal and Deal Find.

    We have an open door policy for all of our customers to come in 9-5 7 days a week for redemption.

    We are service based not product based. We have a 100% customer satisfaction ratio on Groupon and wag jag the others do not offer this type of reply by users of the coupons.

    I’m not here to promote my business but rather to describe my experiences.

    When we first ran all of these we knew it was cheaper and more affordable to market this way rather than pay for marketing however I can see based on the programs how a business that is not prepared can easily loose tons of money and possibly need to close. Warning to new businesses. Know your margins and know your risks in advance.

    The real problem with these coupons for businesses is that we are already competitively priced daily. In order to run a program you need to instantly slash your prices to 50-60% off then you Need to split the sales price 50-50 with these programs…

    So if your service is currently sold for $10 you need to offer it at $5 and will only get paid $2.50 over a 3 month payment schedule.

    If your $10 service takes 30min to perform, you will loose money in wages for staff unless you do the work yourself. Impossible when the deal is in high demand.

    If you are goods based, then you could be paying more for the goods then you can sold them for. Risky….

    We moved our location this year to increase the facility size and notified all 4 of the deal sites. Not one of them notified the customers. We as service providers do not know who bought the coupons or we would have notified the customers. To this day we still have customers going to our old location and the businesses next door are redirecting them. Very inconvenient.

    You’d also be surprised how hard it is to get paid on time by these discounters.

    The discounters also deduct from our portion the credit card processing fees.
    Lastly the issue of tax. Most discounters do not charge the tax and the fine print is so small that the customer is shocked when they find out they need to pay the hst upon arrival.

    We ran these deals expecting to find happy customers that would eventually run out of coupons and just be happy with our service and return.

    Only 10% have returned regularly. The rest wait for the next coupon offer and go where they feel the deal is. I can understand that. So We have had to price match to keep customers coming back. We are now making the full pop without paying a discounter 50%. Just took us some time to figure it out.

    I say all of this so that businesses and consumers alike finally Stop using these discounters.

    To businesses, offer price matching stop giving money away to discounters and to consumers, before you buy that next coupon, pick up the phone call the company offering the savings and tell them you’ll pay them $4 directly if if you can come in now…. You save even more than the coupon and the service provider will make $4 today rather than $2.50 less fees in 90 days.

    It’s win win. We don’t need these discounters folks!!!

  17. These deal sites will not notify you because a lot of the time people dont even use the coupons they buy. It is a great business to be in. i have had 3 businesses close down with online coupons that i purchased , i notified the sits i got them from and got my money or credit back.

  18. There’s no way you have an “educational background in business”; you possess the grammar and spelling skills of a seven-year-old.

    The negative feedback is about the lack of customer service. The Deal of the Day business model is based on mass quantity buys, both in terms of advertising and in terms of the deal itself; quality is a secondary issues, and is ignored in many cases. That’s why I refuse to subscribe to these sorts of sites.

  19. Every quarter i run a Wag Jag for my business an i also purchase Wag Jags form other company’s too, so ot only am I a business I’m a customer of Wag Jags too. Through my educational background in business, marketing and consumer education, a service industry cant tell me they dont make any money on the people that bought there vouchers, nless they dont have any business knowledge?? As well, do thye understand (advertising dollars)how much it cost a to get a customer to walk through the door and not to mention the amazing advertising they get in the local newspaper, the community newspapers and the internet too. As for the customers compalining about “business going out of business” before they get to use there voucher, well maybe they just didnt do there homework. dont you thinks its wise to research the company before you buy?? let your fingers and your brain do some work before you do some impulse buying. Wag Jag is the only “deal” company i would ever do business with. They have integrity and they have a multimillion dollar company backing them!!!!
    I dont know what all the negative feed back is about people?? educate yourself today and stop blaming others for your own mistakes.

  20. Hello Terra,

    Unfortunately it was not the case here. WagJag did not notify customers.

    Thanks,
    Trueler

  21. As a matter of fact, Wagjag will notify all customers as soon as they know a business has closed. Wagjag works with thousands of merchants and often they will not disclose any information when they suspect they may be closing. Wagjag has no access to the vendor’s current financial information so it’s virtually impossible for them to know before this happens. Finally, you will always get your refund 100% guaranteed if a business closes or refuses to honour the voucher. I can tell you this as a fact because I work for Wagjag and process refunds all the time.

  22. I won’t be buying anything from them again, I’d wait for the another company to come out with the deal. I bought a deal months ago and didn’t receive the product and now I’m in customer hell.
    Go to http://www.yelp.ca write I comment there too about WagJag service.

  23. I bought a $99 deal with WAGJAG for NUTRILAWN services.
    I told Nutrilawn that I wanted to be at my home when they applied their products. But they came when I wasn’t here, & they did a poor application. Wagjag said they would investigate. Called many times – finally they said I could have a refund. Then said they could only offer a credit note for 50% of $99 – since Nutrilawn did their job.
    Not happy about this. Can’t find anything worth buying.

  24. Wagjag needs to make sure the companies they promote with these
    Deals and vouchers can live up to their end of the bargain.
    My husband got me a annivery gift voucher for last year 2010,
    for a place called Impressions Day Spa” in Mississauga on dundas.
    Voucher expires February 2011, well I have calling this spa , with very
    frustrating results. They can only book for 1 month in advance and then just
    When I called to reconfirm, they had no info on my appointment.
    Then I rebook with the same result.
    This has been going on for months. It is now November
    2011 still no appointment. It’s all a scam.
    Good money was paid for this.
    Everyone should know.
    This spa now tells me I cannot get an appointment until end of
    Feb. 2012. After my voucher expires.
    Wagjag needs to give me my money bag
    I am very dissatisfied

  25. just because you can pay somebody with your fraud money to make optimistic posts on these articles that expose you, to give WagJag a better impression on the public, does not beat the fact that your company has a huge history of scamming…

  26. Hi folks!
    Noreen here from WagJag. We do our best to take care of our customers and any time you have a problem with a voucher just give us a call! We definitely won’t leave you stuck with a voucher you can’t use.

    We are in the office Monday-Friday 9am-7pm EST and our toll free number is 1-855-492-4524

  27. I own a business and have thought about using WagJag.
    Never would I risk my business, I’ve worked far to long and hard to have some cheap coupon site destroy everything I’ve worked for.
    There is no way a business can even break even with these type of deals. WagJag takes half of your proceeds, so in my case it would cost me to much money to get a customer in the door. It de-values the product. Any business that goes out soon after having one of these offers, new they were in trouble before hand. If you ask me they were lining there pockets before they locked(or were locked out) the door.

  28. This is very simple if you would like a refund. Call your credit card company and let them know about the situation. They will investigate and if your claims are valid they refund your credit card themselves. Easy!

  29. If you have a problem getting a refund from Wagjag just call them up, they process refund requests quickly in these situations over the phone. I have had to do it 3 or so times so far… But, I agree, it would be nice if Wagjag or other deal sites advised when these businesses went under.

  30. $10k in damages?

    No court will ever reward someone for something that never happened. How would you ever justify $10k in damages for showing up to a restaurant that wasn’t open? Unless you had an option to make $10k in that two hours it would have taken you to eat, or you booked a party worth $10k and planned on using your ten dollar voucher as a discount :) you would NEVER get a judge to give you something you don’t deserve, or weren’t entilted to in the first place.

    So, if you take @stewart’s advice and spend $75 to file a small claims court case for your refund, you POTENTIALLY may win your ten dollars back, and then you would also PROBABLY, but not always get your $75 back from the company. HOWEVER, you would also spend a solid half day filing the claim, a solid half day serving the claim to the right party, a solid half day preparing for the settlement hearing and going through the process, a FULL day in court and then you would still need to wait for the company to pay you your money, (the court is not a collections agency)…so in total, you would spend no less than 3-4 FULL days going through the dog and pony show which is the Canadian small claims court. In 3-4 days you could make $300 working at Macdonalds. …by the way, that’s if you win, otherwise you would be out $75 on top of the $10 and also, may have to pay for the legal fees of the other party…on top of wasting 3-4 days.

    I love people who talk about subjects they know nothing about…

  31. They sold you a product that you purchased in good faith. If you’re unable to redeem your coupon for any reason the seller of the cupon / voucher is 100% liable. No statute of limitations or statement of not being responsible would be in effect.

    All you have to do is sue. Put lots of victims together and it’s a class action. You could also file a small claims suit for only 75 dollars plus misc costs in Toronto and likely win 10k in damages.

    Good luck.

  32. I just contacted WagJag about some Quiznos vouchers that I bought recently. The location was out of business when I stopped by earlier today. We’ll see what happens.

  33. KIER …What you think, Groupon has a magic formula and only features businesses that never go out of business? Groupon sold over 10,000 Organics Delivered vouchers which shortly thereafter went out of business. And they featured that deal multiple times.

    http://forums.redflagdeals.com/archive/index.php/t-1013313.html
    http://www.metronews.ca/toronto/local/article/803742

    The larger the company, wagjag, groupon, dealfind, livingsocial, the more the chance there is that the deal they feature will go out of business. the bigger the company the less quality control there is with managing the salesforce, and the more likely they will be to aim for immediate profits.

  34. Also this webpiggy one, no notice from Webpiggy either

    $39 for $125 Relax and Blossom Spa Day package from The Chakra Spa. Bought on October 4th, out of business by mid Feb.

  35. @Mike

    Did you even read this post by Trueler? Copy paste WagJAg’s FAQ with no comments is pretty lazy and even more lazy on the fact Trueler explains WagJag ignore’s request for refund and the business ethics against consumer protection. So essentially the post is the opposite of what WagJag does as standard practice again and again. I know of internet forums that would ban member with lazy unhelpful post like yours.

  36. Taken directly from WagJag’s FAQ:

    What if I buy a voucher from a merchant who goes out of business?
    We are all about featuring great merchants with great products and services…so, this should not happen. If it does, we will not leave you hanging! We like having loyal customers and we work hard to make sure you are happy.

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