Bartercard Reviews 7

I agree with all the other negative reviews.
This company is bordering on fraudulent and a scam.
They charge you large amounts of money every month for Marketing and Support but provide none.
When you try to leave they make it incredibly difficult. Not only do they keep the money in your account, but they charge you the same charges as if you had spent it.
They have no complaints procedure.
They change you account level without your
consent and provide none of the so called benefits.
They are losing members by the day because they cannot spend the money in their accounts. They claimed furlough from the government, but continued to charge the members even though they were getting nothing from them.
The CEO doesn't care about the members because he is too busy trying to persuade people to pay vast amounts of money for a franchise by promising them loads of things that cannot be achieved. DO NOT JOIN THIS COMPANY OR YOU WILL LOSE THOUSANDS OF POUNDS. AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!

Echo what everyone else says. Sounds a great idea but no volume at all in the UK. If you have something good to sell they are around you like flies, but if you build up a balance of funny-money you cannot spend it. I counted 34 items for sale in the UK when I joined including factory gates and used biro pens (I kid you not).
Dodgy sales tactics before you sign up - aggessive contract terms and they keep you well away from the barter site. Screwed us again over COVID furloughing their marketing staff but only discounting (not eliminating) their marketing fee only if I signed up to another 2 or 3 years. So we ended up with legal letters flying backwards and forwards. It's not a scam in theory, but their behaviour makes it a scam. It just doesnt work.

This scheme is verging on the fraudulent, certainly unethical. I've built up a large balance over 10 years from people buying from me, but there is literally nothing I want to or can spend the balance on, and I every month I am charged real cash for a 'Marketing fee', but they do no marketing at all. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE

I was convinced to sign up with sneaky sales tactics, they led me to believe that it was a good was to trade services and minimise my tax bill.

After I signed and paid £300 for the year it soon became apparent that I was still liable to pay corporation tax and VAT to HMRC on services that I sell on Bartercard, despite being paid in barter tokens, which are completely useless..

I explained that I was misinformed by the salesperson and asked for a refund, to which I was told
'I don’t believe the fees are refundable due to the contract that’s in place'.

After explaining the situation many times to various people in the company, they stopped replying to my emails and even had the cheek to send me a threatening letter saying that I owe them more money because I hadn't sold any services on their platform!?

COMPLETE SCAM.. AVOID!

dreadful company and hard to leave- aweful customer service and all the businesses I worked with were poor quality. Avoid!!

I originally joined Bartercard in 1998. Have been a member both in The UK and Thailand.
Over the 20 plus Years I have so benefited from this system. From double glazing, Foreign holidays, Christmas away in UK hotels etc.
After all the Years as a member I now actually work fro them. 3 years in The Far East and nearly 3 Years in The UK.
However not everyone can understand the system and how it works, Yes it's trade currency which unitises down time and excess stock, spare capacity to turn into other services and goods for your business. You do need to work at it yourself though as a member to make it work,

If you are thinking of joining this company take it from me..save yourself a stack of money and time and don't. Barter sounds cool 'frees up cash; sounds catchy but in reality as soon as you join you will be bombarded by people desperately trying to spend their trade pounds. So inevitably people stop taking them or saying half trade half cash and having spoken to many other businesses you try and spend it and you can't and they take their monthly subscription £50 + and its a big con.