Swell UK Ltd Reviews 

I placed an order with Swell on Friday the 17th of April for a new Pond Filter, as my old one has sprung a leak and the uv light stopped working ages ago. Their website said I could pay an extra #5.99 for next day delivery, and it specifically said I'd get it on Saturday the 18th of April.

When it hadn't arrived by the end of Monday the 21st of April, and I'd received no notification of its dispatch either, I decided to check here - I really wish I'd checked here first!!

So , I emailed them requesting to cancel the order, and I ordered a different filter from Amazon (which not surprisingly actually arrived the following day). I also tried phoning them, but was on the "Our lines are really busy but your call is really important to us" message that you often get, and I gave up waiting after about 40 minutes. I'm not sure how their lines can be that busy - they sell pond equipment ffs!!!

Anyway, on Wednesday I received a reply from them saying sorry for the delay and my item would be dispatched shortly, to which I replied saying "I have cancelled my order. DO NOT SEND ME THIS ITEM!"

Then today, Friday the 24th of April - a week after placing the order with the next day delivery on it, and having cancelled the order 4 days previously, I get another email saying "Sorry, but your order has been dispatched and is out for delivery with the courier", so now I'm awaiting its arrival.

At this point I don't know whether to try and reject the delivery before the driver leaves it on my doorstep and drives off, or just accept the delivery and sell it as new on ebay, as I'm not sure I trust them to refund me if I return it to them and, looking at their website, I reckon they'll try and make me pay for the return costs as well.

I wouldn't actually bad mouth a company but I feel like how swell serve their customers is extremely poor.
Ordered for next day delivery . No such thing. They are not great at replying to emails. The girl told me they were dealing with a large amount of orders. Overall service was poor and wouldn't order ever again. Stay away at all costs took over 10 days to be delivered after emailing back and forth. Asked to cancel my order but was refused

Very disappointed with Swell . Ordered pond vacuum which i received no confirmation email for order. When it finally arrived a week later the drain hose does not attach has wrong fitment. After messaging them to try to rectify and receiving no response I have initiated a return. I have now been waiting nearly a week for them to respond to my return request. Tried calling but call just gets dropped every time. They say they will get back to you within 24 to 48 hours but no this is not the case. Customer service seems to have bypassed this company. Will not be ordering from them again!

Avoid.

Ordered a large black VIVARIUM over the weekend. I received a delivery very quickly within 2 days.

Unfortunately I received a small AQUARIUM. ??

Have been on the phone for over half an hour and no one is answering the phone. Obvious disregard for customers.

Sending the correct item is pretty basic guys...

Picking up the phone is the bare minimum.

I've ordered from Swell UK for 9/10 years, up until my most recent order I would have happily recommended them.

In fact the last issue I had was six years ago when I ordered a pump that had been discontinued by the manufacturer who hadn't passed on that information to Swell and the lady employed by Swell back then recommended two potential pumps that would be a suitable like for like pump and also sorted a refund for the price difference same day.

I appreciate every now and then that there can be issues, but the lack of communication now from their end is awful.

I placed an order within their next day delivery cut off on Thursday (16/04/26) and filled in a contact us enquiry the next day (17th) during office hours as it hadn't been dispatched to ask when it would and if I could get a refund on the delivery service I didn't receive. I then received a reply on the Monday (20th) stating that it was being processed and packed, also that they would refund my delivery cost. My order however wasn't processed or packed until the 21st and I ended up receiving it today 22nd.

I will not be using Swell again, instead I will do what I always should have done and supported my local Koi or aquatic dealership.

I was a little concerned reading some of the reviews after placing my order. I ordered fish tank on a Wednesday morning, the website said expected delivery was the following Monday. I didn’t receive confirmation until the next day and there was no order tracking, however Saturday evening I received confirmation that parcel had been dispatched. It arrived in great condition on the Monday.

2 out of the 3 fish were not what I ordered. Very poor condition, scales missing, one has a lengthy scrape down it's side.
Hesitant to introduce to my other fish.
With products and quarantine hopfully the fish will improve.
The water they came in was understandable murky through fish waste but stank to high heaven, not normal good water quality.
Don't buy according to there photos if fish on there website as there false.

The worst company i have ever dealt with!
urgent order for fish filter ordered Friday 10th April, pain extra for next day delivery by 4pm 5 days later, they have my money and my filter they havent the decency to answer the phone 4hours on hold in total still never picked up, no repsonse to 2 emails sent no order confirmation no receipt. Please don't use this company you wont get your order!

Sent me the wrong fish, offered a refund but not for the postage. Completely absurd.

Terrible customer service, terrible service in general.

Avoid this company - half of the order tuned up 2within 4 days but the main part of it was not sent. They told me on the phone when I finally got through that it was a split delivery and would be a few more days. It was a birthday present so I missed the date. No communication from them at all - rubbish service.

I ordered a vivarium setup and food/accessories. It was supposed to be express delivery but I has ordered over Easter so expected a slight delay. I didn’t receive order confirmation so had to ring up and chase the order. The man on the phone was lovely,apologised for the delay and agreed to send next day delivery, which was great.

Only 2 parcels arrived. The vivarium wood was chipped in places. A week later and still no sign of the third.parcel..very slow response times, no idea when it will arrive.

I am having to buy another UV light from a reptile shop in Blackpool as my son is collecting his dragon tomorrow and we need everything in place.

Very disappointed and won’t be purchasing from here again. Hoping I at least get a refund for the missing UV light.

I am done using this company sadly .
Emailed them on the 9th April with some questions regarding one of their aquariums , No reply . So the following day (10th April) I decided to just buy it & I paid for next day delivery at £5.99 . I needed this tank urgently! All was fine, tank got dispatched the same day etc . Saturday 11th April the Yodel tracking was telling me it won’t be delivered that day . After multiple calls to Yodel whose call centre must be in India I was told they don’t deliver to businesses on weekends .. eh ? I don’t own a business nor do I live at one . Finally my tank gets delivered on the Monday 13th April . So why did I even bother paying the extra £5.99 for something I could have gotten for free had I known the next day delivery wasn’t going to be fulfilled, thankfully I finally got an email back 4 days after I’d sent it with some BS excuse as to why my tank was late , their phone lines on Monday 13th when I’d tried to contact them were apparently off due to staff training 🙄 I’ve now had them refund me for the delivery cost I’d paid . I’d purchased some pond liner with underlay a week or two prior to this which took them absolutely ages to dispatch , imagine my horror when I find it just dumped on my doorstep ( value of almost £300) because the courier couldn’t even be bothered to knock .

They make their business look worse by using these cheap nasty courier companies ( Yodel & FedEx ) . Every time I’ve ordered from Swell the delivery NEVER shows up when it says it will due to these incompetent courier services they use . When will they learn ? After reading these reviews I’m absolutely dreading using the pond liner now incase there’s an issue with it that isn’t easy to spot . I definitely won’t be using them again .

Absolutely totally useless customer service it's impossible to speak to an agent. Ordered and paid tracked sent royal mail tracking tracking has frozen for 24 hours and no movement tried calling Swell they just hide behind sorry high calls they Never respond. Now trying to get refund for no delivery would not recommend that any one uses this company they are completely untrustworthy

As predicted STILL waiting on a refund despite sending the item back weeks ago. No update. No communication. Have sent several messages and nothing. DO NOT USE

Very poor experience with Swell UK, and I would honestly warn other people to think twice before ordering from them. My aquarium arrived damaged, with the bottom glass cracked across the base, so it was completely unsafe and unusable. I also saw the delivery driver handling the parcel roughly when bringing it in, which I believe contributed to the damage.

What made it worse was the packaging. For such a fragile item, the aquarium was packed with paper only, which was clearly nowhere near enough protection for delivery. It showed a real lack of care and common sense. I genuinely could not believe that something as fragile as an aquarium had been packed like that.

The communication was also horrible. Replies often took 2 to 3 days, and messages were usually sent late in the evening, which only dragged the whole situation out even more. On top of that, the information I was given was inconsistent. First I was told one thing, then later something else. A courier collection was arranged, I stayed at home waiting all day, and nobody came.

In the end, I had to deal with extra hassle myself. One drop-off point refused the parcel because it was too big, then at another one I was told I had to print the label. I do not have a printer, so I had to go elsewhere and pay to get it printed. All of this was for a problem that was not my fault in the first place.

Yes, I eventually got my refund, but only after a lot of stress, inconvenience and wasted time. I was actually hopeful about using Swell UK again in the future, but after this experience I definitely will not buy from them again.

For comparison, I later bought the exact same aquarium from Complete Aquatics, and it arrived quickly and was incredibly well protected inside to prevent damage. That just made it even clearer how badly this order from Swell UK had been packed and handled.

Very disappointing service overall, and I would not recommend them.

I order something I needed urgently on the Wednesday and paid the £5.99 for next day delivery as on their website and was not sent, I emailed customer service 3 times and on the 3 email requested for this to be cancelled and no reply. It was eventually sent on the Friday and when I checked the tracking on Friday night Yodel have not received the parcel, so it looks like it will be a week before I'm going to receive the parcel.
This is not the first time this has happened to me dealing with Swell so I advise anyone who is thinking of buying from this company to look else where.

Absolutely shocking. My tank is under warranty and it started leaking. A trail of 18 emails followed asking dozens of questions, including did I check the silicone when the tank was delivered (what???) and asking me to lift the tank up and put kitchen towel underneath. Superman wasn’t available. They don’t read your emails properly and just ask the same thing over again, maybe phrased a little differently.
Their conclusion was that as I had tried to repair the tank before contacting them the warranty didn’t apply. The leak began just before Easter and needed urgent attention. Their first response was four days after I contacted them, and then you get days of interrogation. My tank would have emptied itself several times over by then. It would seem one is expected to sit with your finger on the leak until they came up with a solution. They also tried to blame the fact that the tank overhung my work surface by 1cm, which doesn’t explain the silicone peeling in other areas.
In conclusion, they try to grind you down. My tank wasn’t expensive and came with the flimsiest, ugliest filter, not apparent in the marketing photos. If it had been more expensive I would have taken it further. The warranty is not worth anything, and it would appear customer services have been conditioned into not helping by pressing a button and asking a stream of futile and unbelievable questions. As previous reviewers have said, how this company stays afloat is mesmerising. Just don’t go there.

purchased a VivExotic Repti Home AAL Vivarium with Cabinet from Swell Reptiles in March and have been very disappointed.

The unit was assembled correctly on a level surface and initially seemed fine, but within a few days the cabinet became unstable and started buckling in the middle, causing the glass panels to go out of alignment and the entire base to come apart in various areas.

I provided clear evidence, with an extensive back and forth, but my claim was rejected as “assembly error” Despite clear photographs being sent. Given the price and purpose of the product, I expected far better quality and support.

Terrible customer service, multiple communication ignored by company and cannot trust their next day delivery. Avoid at all costs!

I Ordered fluke solve medication for my goldfish and swell uk sent fluke solve plus which resulted in losing three of my best fish, fluke solve plus can lead to fatalities in goldfish, informed swell uk, and thay apparently organised a courier to collect the product for a refund or replacement which failed to turn up. Not happy!