Matches has received a flurry of poor feedback and been accused of “scamming” shoppers since it was put into administration by Frasers Group earlier this year, according to data shared with Retail Week by Trustpilot.
One-star reviews have spiked at the luxury retailer since March − the same month it was put into administration and it was announced that more than half of its workforce was to face redundancy.
The retailer has continued trading since the administration was announced and has been offering discounts of up to 70% off its remaining stock.
However, several shoppers have reported that their deliveries have arrived with missing items, incorrect products, or haven’t been delivered at all. Shoppers have accused the retailer of being uncontactable to resolve the issues.
One customer claimed they ordered a diamond ring but received an empty box. They said they were unable to reach anybody at customer services to fix the problem.
Another customer claimed that there was “no one to contact if there is a problem”, calling Matches “liars” and “thieves”, while another said their inability to collect a return label was “very shady”.
An angry customer called the business “dreadful, disgraceful and untrustworthy” after their experience. A different consumer said: “Don’t ever order from Matches, they scam their customers and steal their money.”
One said they would “give a negative star rating” if they could and they “feel sick for having done business with them”, while another posted that they will be “avoiding the company in future as it’s not trustworthy at all”.
Of the 872 Matches customer reviews submitted to Trustpilot in March 2024, 548 of them were one-star, more than double the 250 five-star reviews during the same month.
In April and May, the total number of reviews dropped drastically. Of the 96 reviews published in April and 56 in May, 80 were one star in April and 43 were one star in May.
This is in contrast to the retailer’s reviews in the three months before its administration where five-star reviews outweighed one-star reviews by three to one.
The retailer is still running sales with up to 70% off the likes of Loewe, Jimmy Choo, Zimmermann and Versace.
Matches has been winding down operations following two rounds of redundancies, starting with 273 job losses in March and a further 91 in May.
The retailer was put into administration in March having only been bought from private equity firm Apax Partners by Frasers in a £52m deal in December 2023.
Frasers acquired “certain intellectual property assets only” from Matches’ administrator Teneo last month, which is understood to include the Matches trademark, domain names and data but not any of the retailer’s staff or stock.
Teneo and Frasers Group declined to comment.
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