"Same experience as everyone else. I have currently filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Ordered almost $500 worth of merchandise. Delays for no reason and one item canceled without notification and one item delivered that was wrong. This is the item I am still trying to get a pre-paid tag for and get the shirt I originally ordered. It is ridiculous to wait from December 13, 2008 until the end of January and still not have the return tag. They send general emails will garbage excuses. They are horrible to deal with. DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS COMPANY. They will tell you all items are in stock- LIE they will tell you they will return your email promptly- LIE and furthermore you paid them for this treatment. Please use Harriet Carter or another type of company that sells seasonal items that will be shipped with better quality. One item has broke and the other was a shirt with seam separation upon delivery. Never again."

"I am outraged, I placed an order for Christmas on Dec. 19 for 4 of my
niece/nephews, and had the four items shipped to my mother in Tallahasse
for her to wrap before giving them to my nieces/nephew. I received a
confirmation email for the for items that same day from lakeside.
My mother received 2 of the items, and of course is waiting to give the presents until all of them have arrived. She has just informed me that
the other 2 still have never arrived!!!
I went to the website and looked at order status and it says that 2 of the items were cancelled. I was NEVER notified!!!! My family has been waiting for the presents this whole time!!!!
Why was I sent a confirmation email which was a total lie?
I used the contact page and sent them the statement above, and they only replied with a form letter saying the status of an order could be checked at the status page. Since when do we have to check the status if the confirmation email states we will receive the package in 7-14 days? Should we just assume Lakeside is unreliable?
I won't be shopping there again!!!!
"

"Comment/Question:
Better Business Bureau Complaint filed:
Failure to provide purchased products in a timely manner. Failure to
communicate the status of the order. Cashed check in November 2008 and
only provided a partial order. Order were partially Christmas products
and never received. Telephoned for status on non-toll-free number and
held on hold. Went on the website and listed questions. Never got a
response. Email on said that they had received the questions. Worst
experience ever received by an online store. Still no response to email inquiry or complaint.
"

"Like many people, I wish I read the reviews about this company before making my purchase. To make a long story short, I placed two orders a day apart from each other. A few days later I got a message on my voicemail asking me to call about the second order because there was a "credit card issue". I called and waited on hold for 15 minutes only to find out that they needed to verify my billing address. I gave them both order numbers and was told that it would be noted in both orders that my address was verified. I called a few days later to verify stock and and after sitting on hold for 15 minutes, was told that all of my seasonal (Christmas) items were on backorder and there was no guarantee that I'd have anything in time for Christmas. The next day, my second order showed as being cancelled so I called them again and waited on hold for 20 minutes. The rep told me that when they tried to bill my credit card, it was rejected. When I told her that the funds were authorized so the card could not have been rejected, she changed her story and told me that it was cancelled by mistake and a supervisor would be calling me later in the day or early the next day. A few days went by and I never received my call from the supervisor but I did receive a letter stating that my second order was cancelled because I failed to verify my billing address (which I had done a week earlier). As the weeks went on, items that were originally in stock were put on backorder and things sat in the "ready to ship" status for days before actually shipping and one more item was cancelled off my order without warning. I finally after a month I had received everything I had ordered with the last thing, a Christmas themed item, being delivered on Christmas Eve. Meanwhile I did all my Christmas shopping online this year and received everything else in less than a week from the order date. I completely do not understand why a place that sells seasonal items does not want to guarantee delivery of those items in the season they are intended for. Further more, while many reputable online retailers guarantee Christmas delivery for order placed in some cases up to December 23rd, Lakeside cannot guarantee that in stock merchandise will be delivered in time for Christmas even if the order is placed in November. "

"I should have read the other reviews on this site before ordering. I ordered 8 items from them. A week later I got a notice that 3 were cancelled permanently. Two days later I got a notice that another 2 were cancelled. I tried to call to cancel the whole order but repeatedly got a busy signal. I sent an e-mail through their web form requesting my order be cancelled. Two days later I checked the status again and the remaining three items are now marked as shipped, and they charged my credit card for the full amount of all 8 items + shipping. Don't buy from them, they are thieves."

"Overall awful experience. I wouldn't send my enemy to this company.

Their order status page is a joke. I got an error one day after ordering indicating "No detailed information was found for this order". I sent a message through their "contact us" page when this happened to inform them of this and i got what could only be a canned message telling me that order status could be easily viewed by logging in and clicking on the order status tab. Obviously it couldn't be.

Their phone support also leaves a lot to be desired. Two days in a row i called multiple times throughout the day and each time i called i received a busy signal. I was never able to get through to a person.

Now onto the main problem. I informed that my order was canceled because my item is "out of stock and is no longer available". If that really was the case then why doesn't the page for the item show that the item is out of stock. If someone can place an order for an out of stock item (instead of not allowing it and posting that it is out of stock on the page itself) it makes me wonder if the item was even in stock when i placed my order or if someone was just to lazy or incompetent to bother to update that page.

They'll never get a penny from me in the future."

"Same problem as everyone previously with items being listed as in-stock only to have the item be placed on backorder or cancelled altogether. My major problem is with the quality of the merchandise once you actually receive it. They are very poor quality and I actually put one item on the trash today. Another item I turned so that the broken piece doesn't show. The lights don't work so this will be the only Christmas I use it anyway. I would tell anyone who orders gift items, open the package and check the quality before you present them to anyone. These products are very poorly made. Lakeside is on my list of companies never to buy from again."

"Placed an order with this rip off company only to run into allot of problems with them and with my credit card, the items when I checked that were supposed to be in stock, were not, however they still put two amounts of my credit card, had to keep calling only to see that they were either keeping their phone off the hook due to all the complaints they must be receiving, so it ended up being e mailing back and forth To be hones the DOORS SHOUD BE SHUT ON THIS BUSINESS, today after talking to my bank they offered to close my credit card to protect myself since there were no credits placed on it for the items that they canceled due to they are not selling them any longer and the items I was told when I finally got a hold of a customer service person by the name of Michelle, who called me, and I told her to cancel all items on back order and they had no right to be billing any amounts to my credit card due to the LAW you can not bill a persons credit card till it is actually out of their ware house on a truck or plain to where ever it is being shipped. I wish I would have read all o f these reviews before I ever ordered from this CO. They are trouble with a capital T and if any one reading these reviews has any sense at all get out of the Lakeside collections web site or catalog there are many better well known sites on the web that have excellent items and do ship quite quickly, shop around but stay far away from LAKESIDE COLLECTION, you might really be better to go to a store and purchase your items, then take them home send them out through the postal service which believe me will be allot cheeper than having packages shipped to you or someone else from this CO. Yes I see that there are complaints listed with the BBB, and I am quite shocked that the BBB has not done a thing about this, for this company from all that I have been through and all the reviews that I have read, they are thieves.So do yourselves a favor RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN AWAY FROM LAKESIDE COLLECTION. Your credit card will be tied up with their boggus charges for items you may never receive and if you do it will be later than when you needed it. Should be a CLASS ACTION SUIT placed against this company."

"Due to the economy and Lakeside's great prices, I placed an order online on 11/18 for many of my family's Christmas gifts. It is 12/1/08 and I have yet to receive any of my items.

When I placed the order all items showed as "in stock" and in checking on the status online several times a week since ordering, items have been put on backorder through 12/15 and two items were cancelled!! All of this occurred without any communication from Lakeside. As for the items that are ready to ship - they will not be released until ALL items are ready to ship!! As you can imagine I am quite stressed that none of my items will arrive in time for Christmas.

To try to call their customer service you can be guaranteed a busy signal or, if you do get through, at least a 13 minute wait to speak to an actual person. Take note - they operate on CST and although they claim to be open through 4pm CST, you will have a hard time reaching anyone up to that hour. So, if you go the alternative route and contact them via email online regarding your order do not expect a response for minimally 2 business days and pray they actually address the issue at hand. Unfortunately in my case, the response I got back was so very boiler-plate and non-related to the specificness of my case that it was unhelpful and did not provide resolution.

In closing, best of luck if you intend to order from Lakeside. If you do, make sure it's nothing you need immediately or for anything as serious as an upcoming holiday. If so, make sure to order MONTHS in advance, because as you can see here even 37 days ahead of time is apparently not enough for them to seal the deal."

"Sold a item as in stock when it was on back order. Gave me a hard time while canceling my order I had made for Christmas(because it wasn't scheduled to arrive until over a month later after Christmas) Poor communication. "

"Same as everyone else complaints. Showed items in stock & weren't (I ordered by phone just to make sure) Customer service LIED & said in stock. Called every week-LIED & said in stock & ready to ship. NO ONE ever answers phone there. Finally recieved items 2 months later. They should not charge your credit card until order is SHIPPED! Will not order again."

"I wish I had read the reviews before ordering. Ordered on Nov 1 and all items were shown as in stock. On the 4th of Nov I received a cancellation notice of the majority of my order because the item was no longer available. I responded and requested that they be sure to adjust the shipping to reflect the lower order value. I received only automated replies - never an actual response. On the 7th my credit card was charged but the item has still not shipped on the 11th. Despite my alerting them to the need to adjust the shipping, I was charged shipping based on the original order amount (over a 100% difference in value of order). Spent over 20 minutes on the phone with almost unintelligible customer rep who struggled to calculate the difference. I will watch my credit account carefully and see if I am credited for the over-charge on shipping. NEVER AGAIN for this company!"

"Much better service than previous orders. All items sent in a timely manner. Communication improved somewhat"

"I have ordered from Lakeside three times in the past year. Basically, Lakeside has a wonderful selection of gifts at unbelievable prices. And they are the epitemy of "If its too good to be true, it probablly is".

My first order from them was a gift for my Mother from my son, for Mother's Day. I ordered the item over three weeks in advance, which I assumed (first mistake) would be plenty of time. Two days after I place my order I still had not recieved any confirmation from Lakeside, so I went to their website to check my order status. Imagine my surprise when I found my item on backorder. I called Lakeside, and after speaking with three very rude customer supports reps, I was transfered to a supervisor. I was told that my problem was not unusual and that it was, basically, "too bad". I was told my item had an expected ship date of four weeks later. So at the time I just went out and purchased another gift and gave this item to my mother when it finally arrived, almost a month later. I did, however, ask a supervisor how I could prevent this from happening again and I was told if I placed my order over the phone I could avoid ordering backordered items.

The second time I placed an order the same exact thing happened. The item was backordered with an expected shipping date of nearly three months later! I wound up calling and cancelling my order, and after waiting a week or so without any refund to my credit card I called to inquire about the status of my refund. Apparently, they "forgot" to issue a refund. After two weeks I filed a claim with my bank and the money was returned. I have never had to go through that much trouble for a refund.

I should have learned my lesson after that, but I happened to come across an email and found an item that would have made a perfect gift for an upcoming birthday. This time I called Lakeside to confirm that all of my items were in stock, and then placed my order. Three days later - lo and behold - one of my items is on backorder. I call to ask how this happened and I am forced to deal with a nasty customer rep who told me that it did not matter if I was told the items were in stock, obviously that person was wrong. I was transferred to a supervisor who told me I must be lying about calling to check the stock. I wound up ending the phone call after that, and called back later on that afternoon to cancel my entire order. I was told I could only cancel the backordered item as the others were scheduled to ship the next morning, so I cancelled the one backordered item. Unfortunetly I was not suprised this morning to find the items still had not shipped. After calling Lakeside I was told that they normally offer "temporary shipping dates" that are likely to change and are not a garantee of shipment. I was told my item would ship out this week, and that considering it had only been 6 days since I placed my order I was recieiving "extremely expeditied service" (6 days and they can't even tell me when my order will ship!). Moving on to the refund I should be recieving for the cancelled backordered item, I was told I would be issued a refund of $2 for the difference in shipping costs. When I inquired about the refund of the actual item cost at first they couldn't figure out how much I should be getting (item cost + $2 shipping. I was put on hold so that the rep could leave his work station to find a calculator), then they could not confirm with me when the refund would be issued.

As it stands, I have no items, no shipping date, no refund or even promise of a refund, so I am expecting to recieve my items (hopefully) in the next month or so, and I am not even expecting to get a refund at this point. Yes, the item prices were unbeatable, but the sheer amount of time and energy I have had to waste chasing this company down had made it far too costly.


**UPDATE** I finally recieved my items after more than 2 dozen phone calls to Lakeside. Customer service reps had NO idea what was going on and the two supervisors I was constantly transferred to were unbelievably rude. I finally turned to the Better Business Bureau, where I found out this company has over 500 recent complaints. I filed my own complaint, and urge others to do the same after bad experiences with this company! One of my items was damaged (not during shipping. The front of the book looked like it was cut with a box cutter, most likey in the warehouse). I contacted Lakeside and was told I would recieve a replacement. That was 2 weeks ago. No one can tell me the status of my replacment. I spoke to the supervisor of the call center, after many demands to speak to someone with more authority. She was very kind, but confirmed that there was nothing she could do about my replacement or the lack of help and rude treatment I recieved. This company needs to pull themselves together. It is a shame they have been allowed to get away with thise so long! I need the book by October 3rd, but have serious doubts about recieving it."

"Very cheap merchandise. One item arrived broken and another damaged. Company unresponsive to 3 e-mails and finally replied to the 4th where I was asking for direction as to what to do. I followed the return directions paying $7.70 to return a $11.95 item. Company didn't credit me the full $7.70 for return shipping. Unresponsive to 3 e-mails I sent asking for an explanation as to the amount refunded. I will definitely NOT be doing anymore business with this place!! "