Volker Foerster

Over the last year (2025), JLC experienced increasing delays. Almost every order left the factory a few days after the expected processing time had passed. This is a very bad situation for everyone professional (business) customer - especially since the delays are consistent.
Currently we have 2 orders stuck in their system. Last status update was "SMD paste printing", already 7 days ago. No fab in the world needs 7+ days for that job.
Another problem is their dynamic pricing. We had situations when the quoted price increased by 20% after we corrected a spelling mistake on the silkscreen. We had 20% price increase after we increased the quantity and then decreased it to the old number. Whenever this happens, it is good advice to delete your project and to start over. To our surprise, the new price is sometimes better than the old one.
I understand that they have volume constraints like every manufacturer. But I am expecting to see true processing times. When it shows "5-6 days" then it can't be 9 at the end. And since this problem exist for a long time, I can clearly say their management is negligent. Not caring about those problems.

I am extremely dissatisfied. Keep does not let me add funds to my card, and I need to use my personal credit card for business expenses almost every day. First, I purchase shipping from Canada Post. A few times a day. The first 2 or 3 purchases go through, then my Keep card is blocked. They call it fraud prevention. I call it insanity. I need to wait until the next day, then I can again purchase 2 or 3 shipping labels, before my card is blocked again. Every. Single. Day.
Second, they won't let me send funds to my card to add to my balance. When I try, an error message pops up telling me the payment would exceed the due balance.
It means, when my card has only $10 credit left, and my balance is -$3990, I can't send funds to my card to keep using it, because the balance is not "due" today. Only when it becomes due, it can be ironed out. This is another insanity. Whoever developed this system was not the brightest candle in the room. If you want quick money, go to Keep. If you want a flawlessly working business credit card, stay the heck away from them!

I wasn't asked when Uncapped took over the business I had with SellersFi. I never had a problem with SellersFi. But with Uncapped. A major one. A problem that eliminates all business opportunities with them.
My business banking in a local credit union's hands, and Uncapped is incapable to connect to my bank account due to their flawed integration of Plaid's service.
I opened a new business banking account with a different bank, and connected this one successfully to Uncapped, using Plaid. Only to receive an email from them, they ONLY accept a connection to the bank account at my local credit union - the one they can't connect to due to technical problems. They are aware of these problems and promise me for the last 5 months to fix them, but nothing has ever changed.

I needed a new business bank since I was sick and tired of dealing with kindergarten banking at WFCU. RBC was the best recommendation. Canadian banking is stuck in the 80s, but this experience is the worst I ever had:
1. I wanted to pay a supplier invoice, but the money bounced back to my account within 5 minutes, and without any explanation.
2. I was promised a credit card was applied for then I opened my business account. Nope, it wasn't, as I found out 2 weeks later. Calling RBC to apply for one was not possible to hiccups in their 1980s computer system.
3. I wanted to pay bills using e-transfer from my new account, which didn't work because there is a daily limit of 2000 that can't be lifted.
4. I tried to e-transfer funds to my other business account, so I can wire them from there. Not possible because the email address is too long.
5. I then tried to e-transfer funds to my personal account, and from there to my other business account. Not possible because of an error message that tells me which characters are not allowed as comment for e-transfer. Turns out, no character was allowed at all. I had to leave the field empty in order to send 2000 (which was the maximum) to my personal account.

I don't understand why Canadian banking is so under the rock. This is completely crazy.

I need to move on, finding a bank that has arrived in the 21st century.

A pain in the neck dealing with them. Too many times they need you to call them even though everything is offered online. But then, you can call for hours, and it tells you to be next in line, but nobody ever picks up. And if you select the callback option, which promises you an agent to call you within 30 minutes, nobody ever will call you.

Then you email with them, or talk to the chatbot that falsely claims to be an agent, until the point when they ask you to call. Isn't it insane? You have them in an email conversation, that works perfectly fine, and they ask you in the middle of it to call them - and the nightmare begins.

Car insurance prices are reasonable, but their customer support is lowest level.

When Canada Post went on strike in November 2024, we added Sendle as a new carrier. We shipped about 500 packages in 3 months, and our experience with Sendle is excellent. It doesn't mean that we wouldn't have problems with the local courier services. ICS, for example, returned a few items without even a 2nd delivery attempt or a note card. Canpar returned a package when they found out the recipient is a military object. There is some ridiculous stuff going on with courier services; these people are not the brightest candles in the room. But there is nothing to blame on Sendle. They handled every complaint immediately, and are very responsive. They don't offer a plugin for WooCommerce, but recommend one from Joovii which is, unfortunately, a bit buggy. It recently stopped working for us completely. But it is only a question of time until other developers will integrate Sendle in their shipping solutions.

If you thought Canada Post would be bad, you clearly didn't meet ICS Courier. They return a bunch of packages without a second delivery attempt, without calling the recipient (number is on the label) and without giving the recipient a pick up option. If someone is in the bathroom for 5 minutes, and ICS wants to drop off this exact moment, your package will definitely be shipped back to the sender. Completely ridiculous business model. Sometimes going cheap is a very bad choice.

Wort possible customer support. I can't create an account because their system claims by phone number would have been used already. But they are unable to delete it, or what ever it takes to fix the problem. I am simply unable to create an account because they will not let me enter my phone number. And their support does everything possible to avoid acknowledging of their own issue. They keep asking me nonsense like clearing browser cache and other support-line-standard-nonsense that never leads to any results because the problem is on THEIR end.
Ignorant, arrogant, not solution-focused. Worth nothing.

What a scam. Recruiting drivers in Windsor, Ontario, and after all the paperwork is provided, vehicle is safetied, insurance is changed to "passenger transportation", spent 100+ Dollars for criminal background checks and 300 Dollars on a dash cam, they tell me "Lyft is not available in your area".

Sorry, but I can't give you more than 1 star. You obviously make more money on shipping fees than on sales margin. This is not a serious business. You are charging between 30 and 50 bucks for a small package within Canada? Absolutely outrageous.

Even though I know that nobody ever will read this; at least I want to use the chance to say some very important things about Ali:
1. Reviews are completely worthless. Never trust reviews on Ali. Why? Customers can only lease a review after receiving their order. If you have a dispute about ordering, price, shipping time etc., and you prefer to cancel your order over all these issues, you will not be allowed to leave a review at all.
2. 99% of the reviews are given for the ordering/shipping process, but not for the product. Countless 5-star product reviews are as useless as "received quickly. not tested yet".
3. Everyone is a dropseller. Almost. The average seller on Aliexpress, representing maybe 95% of them, does not have any inventory and places an order with their supplier shortly after receiving your order. Almost no seller on Ali can ship within 24 hours; they all need a week or even 2 to get your stuff moving.
4. Aliexpress website has countless extremely annoying flaws, and there is absolutely no way to complain about anything. Because Ali does not have just a single channel for direct communication to the management or even helpful customer support. They have Eva, the most stupid AI-powered chat robot you can imagine. And even after you used all the tricks to chat with a real person, you will not get any further, because this person is a dead end. Always. Without exemption.
5. Aliexpress does not allow sellers to create customized orders or to edit orders freely. For example, sometimes you have an agreement with a seller that you, for example, receive free shipping for orders over 1000 USD. If you are a USA resident, you can select Wire Transfer or Western Union as a payment option, to initiate a payment, and then stop the payment process right before the final click. This creates an order without payment, and your seller can adjust your shipping cost to zero because you ordered for over 1000 USD. But if you live in Canada, only instant payment options are available. There is no way to place an order with a merchant and to take advantage of individual agreements like free shipping on orders over a certain threshold. You can only place your order when you pay the full amount upfront. And then you can start negotiating with the seller about a refund for the shipping fees you paid, regardless of whether free shipping was agreed to.
6. Sellers fake shipping. It is almost common sense that sellers change the status to "shipped" and provide you with a faked tracking number within some hours or a day or two. These tracking numbers are either recycled and you will find out the shipment was delivered 2 years ago, or they are complete fakes and no tracking history will ever become available anywhere. But the seller met the platform expectations by "shipping" within a day or two. After a week or 10 days, when your order has actually shipped, they add the real tracking number to the system.
7. Sellers don't deliver because of price changes. For example, you order 100 pcs. of an integrated circuit for 1 dollar each, because the seller had the best price you were able to find. The seller shows that 9876 pcs of this product are in stock and available for shipping right away. A week later, you receive a message from the seller that the product is unfortunately out of stock and please cancel your order. As you can easily figure out, the price of the chip is actually closer to 3 dollars than to one, and the seller figured out how much they would lose when selling the chips to the agreed price to you. They just make you cancel the order instead of having the balls to fulfill your order anyways and suffer quietly.

Aliexpress is full of lies and pretenders. It is one of the worst experiences a professional purchaser can make. It does not affect people too much ordering one or two small and cheap items. But it can hit businesses using Ali as a source for their large-scale purchases very hard.

Absolutely terrible business behaviour. In contrast to Transunion US, offering an easy online cancellation option does Transunion Canada not offer any cancellation option. Like so many other greedy businesses in Canada, they want to get you on the hook and not let you go again. Their FAQ section doesn't have any information about cancellation; their stupid chat robot doesn't even know the word cancellation and asks you to try again. This is ridiculous. But, unfortunately, so Canadian! I wait for the day when there will finally be a consumer protection law requiring every business to accept email communication and cancellation in the same way they accept account creation. Online cancellation for online creation, offline or online cancellation for offline creation.

Rented a 6x12 trailer, did the online check-in and paid immediately. The night before pick up, U-Haul sent me an "update", telling me happy birthday, we have a 5x8 trailer ready for me.
I had to cancel this reservation on the phone because a cancellation option did not exist on their website. Then I had to book again but was only able to find a 6x12 trailer 250km away from me. It took me 6 hours to pick it up and cost me 100 bucks extra on gas.
Of course, U-Haul will not reimburse me for that.
Now, 2 weeks later, I need a 6x12 again, and I asked customer service to guarantee that I will not be punked again. But U-Haul does not have any internal communication. Their customer service asked me to call some local agent instead of taking care of my concern.
U-Haul is a dinosaur. Their customer support and their equipment is middle age. Their trailers don't even have a jack wheel. Impossible to unhook it when it is loaded or even when it is empty for a smaller person or woman.

Multiple times a year my DHL parcels are on hold without explanation. Then I see my parcels from China coming through Cincinnati to Alberta, where they get stuck for several days.
I learned from the news that DHL ripped me off by overcharging customs processing fees for years, but this time they are obviously not processing my parcel at all.

Vimeo Screen Recorder (Chrome Plugin) is completely useless. A short clip, not even 2 minutes long, already takes more than 3 hours for "optimizing", but the progress still shows 0%. I had to send a screen recording of an error to a software company to receive immediate help, but I am not able to do it with Vimeo. I lost 3 hours for nothing. Need to find a different tool for screen recording. Vimeo just doesn't work. Not at all.

I just asked a question about their security standards for online banking, log in and TAN processing.
Instead of answering the question, I received a slap in my face:
"Ihrem Wunsch auf Eröffnung eines Girokontos können wir nicht entsprechen. Die konkreten Gründe für diese Entscheidung können wir Ihnen nicht mitteilen, da es sich hierbei um bankinterne Richtlinien handelt, die wir aus verständlichen Gründen nicht offenlegen möchten."
They don't know me at all. They just tell a random person: You will NOT become our customer!
Sorry for asking.

Ein Team von tausend Mitarbeitern wäre nicht genug um eine Rufnummer im Account zu ergänzen.
Ich habe den Auftrag sazu vor 10 Tagen erteilt, um die Wartezeit auf einen neuen Freischaltbrief zu umgehen, nachdem bereits zum 2. Mal in diesem Jahr die TAN2Go App die Authentifizierung verweigert hat und ich keine TANs mehr generieren kann.
In den 10 Tagen wäre der Freischaltbrief allerdings bereits 2x angekommen.
Die Ausrede: "Wir haben ja soviel zu tun". Kann ich nicht akzeptieren, da ergänzen einer Rufnummer in meinem Konto gerade mal 1 Minute dauern würde.

I did not sign up for anything, only ordered a product sample. Since then they spam my mailbox every day with more super special extra offers, advertising, stupid news. They even ignored my message to stop the spamming.

I can't order a computer. I want to pay with my credit card, but Scotiabank obviously declines to send the payment to Dell. I tried 2 different cards (I use on a daily basis) and now both cards are limited just because I tried to pay for a Dell computer. So much about Dell's reputation.
Then I tried to get in touch with their support, but how ridculous, you can only use their online support (chat) if you have an order number. Really?? Since I CAN NOT order, I am of course NOT having an order number.
My last PC was a Dell, and I am happy with that. But it is getting old and needs a replacement. But now, I can't even buy a new one.
This is so freaking disappointing!

I sent 3 messages over 2 weeks, using the contact form on their website, asking for a set of winter tires. No response. I sent a message on Facebook and received the following feedback:
"Hello Volker,
Thank you for contacting us! This inbox is not actively monitored, but your message is important to us. Please call us at phone_number so we can assist you quickly.
Thank you!"
I posted on their Facebook page, again no response.
This is the most ridiculous experience I ever made in regards to asking for a quote.