What’s the worst customer service you’ve ever received?

[SuperMeerkat]

This is actually laughable as it was so bad. Today I was in NatWest as my husband is doing a Masters through his work and wanted to change his account to a student account. Anyway, we were told a 10 minute wait and after 40 we were still waiting. I enquires why this was and was told ‘they were busy’. I asked why the man couldn’t have kept us (and all the other customers) informed of the waiting time and he then put his hand up to my face, walked off and started talking to someone else. I said I hadn’t finished my query and he said ‘he didn’t have time to update people on waiting times’ despite sitting 6 feet away from everyone. Anyhow, he then yelled at me and my husband that we weren’t welcome at the branch and he was going to shut our account 😂😂 Crazy.

I've had terrible customer service from John Lewis online. An ongoing saga with ordering something which turned out to be out of stock, although the website said it wasn't. Then when it came back into stock I was charged twice the price that it had been when I ordered it. Then I sent it back and didn't get my refund. And so on. It was quite a saga.

But it all pales into insignificance compared with Currys. I have never been as frustrated with a company in my life. Six months of emails saying ring this number and phone calls to the number only to be told it could only be dealt with by emailing the email address that had said it could only be dealt with by phone. And over a dozen emails asking for exactly the same information that had been asked in the previous email. Around ten different phone numbers given out, each time insisting that it was the only department who could help, my complaint had been passed to them, only to ring the number and find that it was some random internal department like HR or distribution, an unmanned phone line with a recorded message or, my favourite, a completely different business who had no connection with Currys at all.

In the hypothetical event of Currys taking over the UK and being the only supplier in the entire country who sell white goods, I would cook my meals on a campfire and wash my clothes in a river using rocks and running water before I would consider giving them another penny of my hard earned money.

@isabellerossignol

"In the hypothetical event of Currys taking over the UK and being the only supplier in the entire country who sell white goods, I would cook my meals on a campfire and wash my clothes in a river using rocks and running water before I would consider giving them another penny of my hard earned money."

You see , this is why mumsnet is useful - I shall do similar.

In return may I add that if I have to get a parcel from A to B without it being lost & multiple conversations with a reference number with more to quote than the Rosetta Stone I shall strap it to the back of a tortoise being led by a homing pigeon rather than entrust it to Hermes. I wait still for an answer

BasiliskStare

Your future courier solutions certainly sound reasonable to me.

I might also suggest that previous posters who suffered through BT and Talk Talk incompetence might want to swap broadband for two yoghurt pots on opposite ends of a piece of string for all their future communications needs. It certainly worked for me when I was 7 and was playing pretend phones with my best friend.

@isabellerossignol

Brilliant - but you are obviously younger than me , in my day it was tin cans rather than yoghourt pots but both work when the internet doesn't.

& whilst I am at it ( and this is just general product uselessness rather than customer service ( as I do not have enough years to live if I have to phone this company as well as Hermes ) - Printers . I shall never spend another penny of hard earned cash on a canon printer. It hates me. It sulks , it goes to sleep , it keeps asking me if I want to copy or various other things I never asked a printer to do & it seems to live on a diet of paper , but it eats it and spits it out all creased and ruffled and even then I have to open the thing and tease the paper out . I shall , in the spirit of your campfire & river see if there are any monks trained in calligraphy , whom I could employ or give a donation to their herb garden, so that when I wish to produce a document could spend 3 years providing 5 sheets of A4 with a quill pen.

It would be quicker.

IKEA paid £35 for delivery for them to not turn up rang several times on hold for 2 hours each time (wish I was kidding) to be told they are on there way finally at 7pm they told me they weren't coming as my coat hangers were out of stock and they would have to rearrange. I asked for some money back for delivery as I had wasted a day in to be told they wouldn't do that. Rang the next day to complain again and got a £60 gift card, will never order online from them again however will go in store as it's to useful not to but at that point was my only way of getting the items and it was a lot of furniture.

Vodafone confirmed in writing, text and email that I had changed my direct debit details (as I'd changed bank accounts!) and then proceeded to try to take the money from the old account . When I later changed networks, they told me that my final bill was clear then set debt collectors on me. I guess that they don't like things changing .

John Lewis, I will never shop with them again. Sent a broken bed 3 times, each time on the phone to get it back was beyond painful, they're executive customer complaints team were ridiculously rude and actually made me cry on one call . When I said I just want a refund, this is ridiculous, they made that painful too and faffed about ages.

Vodafone. It’s been 8 years and I’m still furious whenever I think about it! DH ordered a new phone. They lost it in transit. Then said that was the last one they had and he’d have to wait 6 weeks for another. Whilst paying the bill for a phone they didn’t send us. We said no, that wasn’t good enough and cancelled the contract and the direct debit. They then claimed we owed them £20 for a phone and service they’d never provided, and set debt collectors on us. It took THREE YEARS of back and forth with their ludicrous excuse for customer service to get the debt erased.

Metro bank. We moved and wanted to change address on kids accounts. All our other accounts at other banks were sorted in a single phone call.
Metro makes you visit the bank in person. Went to do it and it took ages - maybe a trainee but we all have to start somewhere. Next month one account has been done successfully. The other statement is still going to the old address - we had redirected post so I could see and had the statement. Took another trip the other side of the city to change again. Metro bank told me it was all changed and they could see on their system it was changed. I had an actual argument with them telling them it wasn't. They wouldn't believe me despite me having the statement in my hand. Eventually they conceded and managed to find the error. But I had to be quite shirty first.

Add to that there special savings incentive for kids. Take coins in and add them to your account and you get £5 free after X number of deposits. However, take in a substantial amount of birthday money in notes and that doesn't count because it's not coins...... Wtaf!!!! So, take £10 out - give it to mum to change into £5 and 5*£1 - re deposit it and then it will count....... Crappiest bank ever. No wonder they are on the verge of collapse. (if the internet is to be believed).

My GP surgery. An item was missing off a repeat prescription, I put in another request for it twice. Both times the chemist received nothing. I went into the surgery on a Thursday to see if there was an issue. They couldn't tell me why it hadn't been done, and to come back tomorrow when a paper prescription would be waiting. On the Friday it hadn't been done, and to come in before closing when it would be waiting for me. It wasn't. I was told not to worry, she would take it herself across the road to the chemist where I could head to in the morning and collect. Saturday morning and the chemist had nothing.
I phoned Monday morning and asked for a GP appointment to get a prescription. I was told I wouldn't need one, just come to pick it up. At lunch time it wasn't there, come back at 6. I went back at 5 and was yelled at for daring to come an hour early.

Omg. I lost my shit. At this point my 5 yr old had 3 needles left for his insulin pen. And the receptionist refused to see there was an issue. At work if I repeatedly lied about when something would be ready I would lose my job. GP was suitably horrified.

Toss up between O2 or Npower.
02 offered me a new handset on a new cheapish contract. I said ok, but if I didn't like the handset could I cancel? Was told yes, 14 day grace period etc etc.
Handset arrived. It was not what I'd been told, was very basic. Posted it back the same day. Couldn't physically take it to the nearest shop, no had to pay to post it.
I then received a large bill. Monthly payment for existing contract, plus new contract plus large cancellation fee.
So I call them. Was told indeed there was a grace period but for their own convenience they put the first month's payment through straight away. I demanded my money back.
They agreed.
No money, took another months fee.
I call again, get told the same thing, "it takes time" well it's been a sodding month!
Eventually told the same thing. Refund processed though. Yay!
I decided I didn't believe they'd totally sorted it so I cancelled the direct debit on my end. Lo and behold, the following month they tried to take more money for a phone I didn't have.
By this point I'd demanded my PAC code and had a phone contract supplied by virgin.

As for Npower: -
When we moved house they were our interim supplier before SSE could switch us over. We provided multiple meter readings and Npower provided us with gas for a month and electricity for two days.
Sorted? No.
First of all we had a big gas bill from them. I blamed DH for running the central heating overnight.
A year later - hideously large estimated electric bill from them. Over £500. So I call them and tell them to politely sod off as they don't supply us.
Confusion. Call center person can see our account and it has the estimated bill, but also information that we weren't supplied by them.
I dug out the original meter readings and said that whilst I was happy to pay for the two days they'd better write off the rest.
Yes, was told that's fine.
Two weeks later - new estimated electric bill now £15k.
So I call them again. Account hadn't been closed down properly. Etc etc. They said I owed them nothing, after a lot of back and forth with managers.
Guess what? Six months after that we received a cheque as we'd apparently over paid on the gas. I paid it in.
Six months after that - another letter to say as I'd not paid the cheque in they were cancelling it. I had paid it in, even found my bank statement showing it.
Shower of numpties.

Jaguar Land Rover were pretty abysmal when we genuinely wanted to a buy a car in the next week or so. The guy clearly couldn’t be bothered or didn’t think we were serious or something and basically said they had nothing for us. We then went and bought another (lovely) car the following week.

Laura Ashley has a go at me in store because my gift card was out of date even though there is no way to tell this on the card itself and I had been gifted it well within the time. Will never give them my money again, the store manager was a horrible horrible woman.

British gas. I'm the only name on the account. They unilaterally decided to change my name to a (particularly unusual, not a male version of mine) name.

They then wouldn't explain why- because I wasn't the named account holder, or change it back... It took 2 months and legal threats to sort it out.

I 7th BT, I signed up for their broadband and phone package a few years ago, they arranged a day to deliver the equipment and get set up. I stayed in and it never came. This happened another 2 times. In between I had to phone and deal with their hideous customer service to explain that it hadn’t been delivered and reschedule. It took literally hours. I was hung up on more than once, transferred between the same people, left on hold for hours. They then started charging me for phone and broadband. I was not getting either. They charged me for over a year despite me phoning regularly as I was in contract. Eventually I managed to get a refund but it was genuinely like a part time job for a year.

Vodafone. Utter bastards. Charging me monthly for a contract I no longer had and when I cancelled the DD sent debt collectors.
Was on the phone to customer services in Egypt for 4 hours (from the UK) while the woman kept saying "you cant speak to my manager, I am authorised to sort this out" but then telling me she could not sort anything if I was going to be obstructive. I DIDNT HAVE THE CONTRACT ANYMORE.

Local Indian restaurant. We’d booked a table as it was a busy time. After our main course, which took some time to arrive, they demanded that we had pudding and coffee in the reception area (presumably taking our half finished bottle of wine with us) as they had overbooked! Never went there again

Skechers bought DS a pair of trainers, after the first wear the whole sole came off one shoe and half off the other. The manager in skechers said they had obviously been run in and they were only fashion shoes for walking in??

Vodafone again, I had great delight in telling them to shove their contract - useless bastards

Special mention for HMRC. Two hours on hold before you get to speak to someone and then they go through security questions and say you've got your date of birth wrong. No, I haven't, I know my date of birth. If it's wrong, it's because someone at your end has recorded it wrong. Ask me something else, anything else, ten other questions and I can prove that I am me and you can then fix my date of birth. No, can't do that. You need to provide the date of birth that we have recorded on our computer system, even if it's wrong, in order to prove you are who you say you are. OK, so let me see. There are 365 days in the year, 366 some years. And if we assume everyone who you have a record of is somewhere between 18 and say 100 years old (just to give the maximum likely age range) that's over 29,000 possible dates of birth. Will I just keep guessing until I get it right?

O2. I had been with them for years and changed to a new contract, then found a better deal so cancelled well within the 14 day cooling off period and changed my number to a new provider.

It was then weeks of being chased for a £160 dishonour bill for leaving my contract early. Spoke to multiple people on the phone and via their online chat, was assured each time it would be cancelled. They then took it out of my bank account via the old direct debit for my phone bill. It was only resolved when I emailed the complaints department. I had PND at the time and found it all so incredibly stressful.

Tui.You cannot get through to them easily.Their app wasnt working and I needed to speak to someone about my holiday.It took days of ringing every 10 mins that I was able to to finally speak to someone.

isabellerossigno - that is bat shit crazy. Have you worked out your 'proper' birthdate yet|??!!

British Airways Boxing Day 2004. Phoned up to request a vegetarian meal on my transatlantic flight and they told me to "fuck off" and put the phone down! (Temps drinking in the office maybe?)

When I phoned back the lady said that it would be "impossible to trace" who had spoken to me.

I didn't fly with them again for over 10 years.

Any company that inconsiderately discotninues a product that works for me.

Any company that phones me and then tries to put me through data protection - erm, not, it doesn't work like that, you are phoning me. If they insist I just tell them to write to me instead.

Any shop where the sales assistants mess around and look at a big queue, rather than jumping on a till to help (and yes I know in some cases they have been told to do another job but when I've worked in customer service roles, you serve people first. Always. Other jobs come second.)

Paddy power - when df died, he had various online betting accounts. Sky bet were exemplary, refunded the balance and sent a lovely email immediately.
Paddy power- I sent the death certificate scan. It had to be referred to a manager. I waited weeks. I kept ringing back. No one was authorized to deal with it. In the end I contacted a national newspaper finance page. The balance was about £9! ( Which I didn't know at the time, it could have been anything, couldn't tell until it eventually got refunded)

John Lewis dishwasher, bought online. They sent the wrong size. When I rang up to exchange, they asked me which was the nearest store ( I didn't know, that's why I was doing it online). They couldn't exchange, just cancel the order and start again. But in canceling the order, instead of crediting me, they debited again ( for the refund) And then charged me for the replacement. So I paid three times for something which hadn't yet been delivered, but they didn't seem to understand the maths. Then they sent it to the south coast, I'm in the north. I'm firmly in the never again camp with JL