Brakes Avis 

I started work at this company on January 29th 2022 at first I was happy, it was enjoyable I thought my manager who hired me would understand me as he grew up in a similar background,but things started to go from bas to worse working for the company as the management didn’t know how to manage and they didn’t have they’re staffs best interests. On the 17 I was in the brakes yard, and my mother called as it was an emergency. I answered I was then approached by mr Warren Fost and verbally abused because of me taken the call,Mr Fost walked away from my vehicular but I wanted to ask why he was so rude. So I got out my van and approached Mr Fost calmly and asked why he felt the need to talk to me the way he did, mr Fost mocked the way I spoke to me to shut up and was toe to toe with me. I had my fist clinched as he was in my personal space but honestly I like brakes at the time and I wanted to work there so I went upstairs to management and explained what happened. I was then told that I’d be suspended for something I still don’t know about and nothing happened to Mr Warren Fost on how he spoke to me, I went onto to resign from the company as I lost all the confidence In myself and to work for the company.I was due to be paid 17 days work and brakes brothers has unlawfully not paid me and put me into financial strain.

As an independent small business we have used Brakes for the last 18 years, prior to this as a head Chef I have used them for at least another 20 years .
We as a business now get the impression that they do not want our business or any small business any more. They seem intent on making it so difficult to place orders (online only),and ridiculously high prices (the equivalent of which can be purchased from ‘Bookers’ for half/ two thirds the price).
As other reviewers have already said the new delivery system is not fit for purpose.
The ‘Reps’ promise everything and deliver nothing, in fact they don’t even return calls.
I feel sorry for the hardworking staff being let down by bad management, if the staff morale is low then your business will suffer the consequences.

Drives hid damaged items on our delivery in an attempt to make us pay for the them use literally any other supplier if you can They rarely have everything you order and still have the gall to put £500 minimum order amount

When covid hit and all the schools and hotels restaurants all closed it was the care homes that kept you open , you decided to just stock your lorries and let drivers pick orders as they go, this probably worked then but you are still trying to use this one man two jobs service and it won’t and can’t work now everything is open again , BRAKES YOU ARE RUINING YOUR OWN BUSINESS, by being cheap skates

They never respect the windows time agreed they are always late by 4 hours gap sometimes even more from the time agreed.
Their services are really bad, I don't know how a company can survive like this. They deserve -0 star.

Was looking into driving job here but after reading the reviews, wasn’t sure it’d be my best move.

Shame

Pre-Pandemic this company was happy to take our money. Now they won't give us the time of day!!! Locked our account due to not delivering in my area anymore, even though I see their trucks driving past my business on a regular basis all the time. I have recently asked them to re-open my account which they will do on the condition that I spend £250 or more every week!!! Prior to Covid I had invoices as low as £84.56, and it didn't matter if I ordered 4 times a month or once a month. Their excuse that they removed the minimum spend during Covid and they are now reinstating a minimum spend may be true, but it has increased dramatically and it wasn't a condition that it had to be a weekly spend. They don't support small businesses and are a disgrace!!!

Really poor customer service. Cannot be trusted to deliver on what they say. Wouldn’t do business with them as cannot believe they will do what they say. Be warned and go elsewhere

We'd only just moved to Brake's pre covid. Delivery was great. Increased product range available to us and stock availability was great. Then they got short of drivers/staff and we were dropped from their deliveries for what was supposed to be a number of weeks, but became months and months. We had to source alternative products, make more items from scratch. On one hand keeping more £ in house for us, but also creating a lot of extra stress when the wedding industry reopened. We've still not been invited back as a customer. Would we go back... not really sure.

Dreadful company, always forgetting things from our order, or the diver forgets to load it...then wont deliver the missing item till the next delivery window (ours is one day a week so if you need it, tough). They're so lucky to be a nominated supplier, if that wasnt the case i would never, ever use them, perhaps thats the reason they dont care, people are forced to use them so why would they be bothered, they're still getting custom. Useless!
Edit after reply: Its nothing to do with Covid or the lack of drivers, stop using it as a scapegoat for your issues! When your staff cant do their jobs properly, things dont make the order, then we are left sorting it out! Perhaps if you adressed the issues instead of making yourselves look foolish trying to make excuses for them, you may do a little better!

Appalling service. Placed an order in October expecting delivery as usual, order delivery date came back as 19 Dec. Tried numerous times to contact them via the telephone thinking it must be a error. Automated messages cut you off no matter what option you select, sent e-mails. Eventually got through to somebody on 26 Nov who informed me they are no longer able to supply our business. Reading all the other reviews they obviously dont want smaller businesses money. Great shame as some good products.

Dealt with brakes for several years all the way through the pandemic only to be told they can no longer supply me as they are too busy.
I have a credit on my account that I have asked them to refund but after several weeks of asking have still not received it. I had an email today from their credit control department stating that I do have a credit but they can’t pay me at this moment in time. Not sounding to good

Wow... I was going to apply to Brakes as a class 2 driver but I've never seen a company reviewed so badly... Such a shame, it's advertised like it's a great place. Thank goodness for review sites. I'll be staying well clear of this company as I'm sure many other drivers will unless there is a significant improvement in the level of positive reviews

They aren’t understanding the company isn’t ran well just all round poor company

During the pandemic when things were tight Brake Brothers rang me up to see if i was interested in opening an account.I said i would think about it.shortly afterwards i decided to sign up online but my application was not being accepted.
The following morning i rang them up and explained what had happened and they ran me through a number of questions and basically the long and short of this story was the amount i would be spending was not enough.Basically they are only interested in big business clients.Family businesses do not get a look in.I do not know what figure would get you into this exclusive outfit.But from talking to the brakes rep 2000 pounds a month is not enough.What Brakes do not appreciate is that all these small businesses add up to a considerable amount of money that they are just throwing away .I just hope they do not come knocking on my door when the wheels come off their silly policy.

Like other businesses here our account was shutdown with a short notice (4 days) & no alternative given. The least they could do was make collection an option, until we find other suppliers.
Really disappointed how they've treated the small businesses - who should've gotten more support from them especially after such a difficult last year.

Absolutely disgusted in the fact Brakes decided to close down our account with no pre-warning. I went to complete our weekly delivery to be ‘locked out’ of my account - for the customer service team to have no explanation, no solution, other than ‘yeah, our seniors have decided to close your account’.
We are a small business, recovering from a pandemic like everyone else - and for our main supplier to drop us with no warning or date given has well and truly affected us!
This behaviour is abhorrent and I have never heard anything like it in my life. If you had given us a month or two to sort out a new supplier maybe we would have been able to deal with this better. We have been dropped in the busiest weeks of the year for us due to local festivals.
In addition to this when I was a customer with them spending a lot of money, deliveries were late and didn’t turn up, items were constantly missing on orders, and bank charges were significantly higher than the charges on the order confirmation.

I have never written such a bad review or warned other people so much in my life - I don’t think you (Brakes) understand how much you have impacted people’s livelihoods. You should be ashamed.

If you are a smaller business, DO NOT USE BRAKES!! THEY DO NOT CARE FOR YOUR CUSTOM!

Dear Trustpilot, please can we have a "no star" or even better, a "negative star" category for the likes of Brakes??

Like most/many/all of the businesses here, we have been dumped by Brakes. We have done everything to meet their terms of business - including paying higher prices for certain items just to meet minimum order values and to be able to get the items we can only get from them - only to be told they no longer want our business.

They are not the only ones struggling right now. We can't get staff - but we don't close our doors and tell our customers to p*ss o*f!! One day this will all be resolved and Brakes will (hopefully) regret their actions. I have other suppliers who are exactly the opposite. They will do anything to keep our business and a couple are actually trying to source the products we could only get from Brakes for us. I hope they can, but either way we will always support them as they have supported us - unlike the backstabbers that are Brakes.

We only spend £1000 per month with Brakes. How many others like us spend "only" £1000 per month?

But I suppose if they are supplying less customers, they won't need as many reps? Take their company cars of them and give them all vans - as one of their competitors has done! Clearly Brakes' management has no brains - or should that be "Branes".

And Brakes' media puppet - don't reply to this as you are a bunch of two faced *&^%$£"s!!

I sincerely hope they live to regret this!

Today we received a call from Brakes to inform us that they will no longer be able to supply our bakery & catering social business in the rural Highlands of Scotland. No prior warning and leaving us and many others in the lurch with no other supplier available to supply us. This should be a no star review for Brakes as clearly they are only interested in supplying large accounts where the delivery mileages are low. Whilst we appreciate the challenges being faced by the distribution & supply sector, Brakes actions are going to force small rural catering businesses to close!!

We were contacted this morning and told that Brakes will be unable to deliver to us from next week. We are frantically trying to source products elsewhere but they clearly didn't consider us important enough to give us any notice. They took over our small regional supplier so we had to move to them, now they are only interested in large accounts and multiple operators. You can tell what a company is like from how it treats it's small accounts!