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.

Plusnet.

We moved and they told me the internet speed would be shite at new house but apparently fibre would be fine so we paid more plugged in the box all fine.

Direct debit then didnt go out so i contacted them they said it was their issue and theyd sort it. I asked if i could pay over the phone. No theyd issue an invoice and only then could i pay. Months passed and we heard nothing.

Went on holiday came back and internet was shit. To'd and fro'd for weeks with tests and told we had a fault. Nothing was done. Kept speaking to them and got a different answer every time.

Was eventually told wed had fibre cut off because we never asked for it (?) And weren't paying for it. I told them i had a fibre box and i had asked for it and had tried to pay for it several times.

I cancelled with them in the end and they even tried to charge me for that! Bastards!

Scottish Gas - attempted to bill me for a gas service I didn’t have. Refused to believe me when I said there was no gas connection. Insisted on sending someone around to check. I agreed but told them it would be at my convenience as I refused to take time off work for it. A few days later a bemused meter reader was standing at my door and said “I’ve been sent to read your gas meter but you don’t have a gas supply”. No shit Sherlock! They cancelled the bill.

Carphone warehouse.
Called to ask me if I wanted to upgrade as my contract was coming to an end. I said I didn’t and that I actually wanted my phone unlocking and a p.a.c code as I wanted to finish my contract and go sim only with someone else.
I got a load of flannel about how he couldn’t do that and this was a pre upgrade call but what he could do was make this next month cheaper.....so making it sound like I still had a month of my contract to go but if I agreed he could make it cheaper, I got him to confirm several times what date I could actually end my contract. Twat.
When I did contact them to cancel on the date he gave me, they told me I could have left the previous month, I complained about being mis sold- they took 3 months to investigate, the whole time I was paying them because I was told it needed to be resolved before I closed my account- another fucking lie- and, despite me getting him to confirm my contract end date several times, they declared I wasn’t mis sold. I want my ££££ back

@kazza446

Why would you expect someone else to come and clean up your puke?

She did say a few times she wanted cleaning supplies plus I suspect some help would have been appreciated, just a bed and some clean bedding and towels maybe

I bought a fridge freezer from Curry's and paid extra to have the old one taken away.
In between trying to keep the dog and toddler out of the way and (third party) delivery men who wanted to be as quick as humanly possible I hadn't noticed that they had ripped a hole in my hallway lino dragging the old fridge out.

I rang customer service within 10!mins of the delivery and was promised something would be done. That was last September and despite numerous emails, phone calls and letters going to and fro I'm none the wiser and have even moved since then.
Curry's blames the delivery people washing their hands of it and the dodgy delivery company just said I'd made it up and that was that!
Not stepped foot in Curry's since.

Getmeacupoftea, I never. Firstly I wanted them to come and vac the carpet after we had cleaned it up to try and get rid of the smell. When they said they couldn’t send anyone in I asked if we could the carpet cleaner ourselves. Secondly, on the Sunday I was asking for cleaning products to help us clean everything up. I’m a nurse, and hand sluicing soiled linen is a no no. Yet we were expected to hand sluice all soiled linen. It should have just been destroyed but they wouldn’t take it soiled. Also we asked for additional time on the departure day to get ourselves sorted and the villa cleaned and they said no!

This thread is making me dread

Cancelling Sky before I move
Explaining to BT that I am moving

Ikea. Hands down the worst. And the staff seem to take genuine pleasure in being arseholes. Shitty shitty shitty company.

Definitely Hermes. Bunch of absolute clowns!

Very very recently actually. Was allowed to book tickets to an event that didn't exist. They admitted they'd listed it incorrectly. Didn't tell me, I spotted it by pure chance so queried it. Asked for a refund but they wouldn't do the full amount including the booking fee even though it was their error.
At no point did anyone apologise and then got shitty when I kept chasing my refund.

A few years ago was in B&Q as had run out of tiles halfway through dong our bathroom. Picked up the few remaining packs of tiles we needed and some of them were split - think the last ones left, some broken etc on the shelf. We took them to the till with the right amount of packages and told the lady we had 5 packs (give or take the odd tile - it looked about right!). She insisted we count them all (fine) and so we apologised to the people behind us for taking so long. This followed:

Her: ‘Don’t apologise for me! You need to count them!’
Me: ‘I was just apologising for taking so long, sorry!’

The people behind the gave us a sort of awkward smile, and we smiled back. The lady at the till then said:

‘I don’t think you’re funny, I think you’re fucking pathetic!’

We were gobsmacked!

That line has gone down in history in our household.

We got the BT threat to charge big money if it turned out to be "our" phone, when calling to report a fault on my Dads line. Dad was probably one of the last people who still rented his actual phone from BT, so we said it was their phone so they were still responsible. They said they had no record of him paying the rental charge....we said that he had his bills going back years so if they charged him then we would be sueing them for all the rental payments he had made. Strangely they then found that he was renting the phone!!
And it was the line anyway!!

Wedding dress shop.

Boutique in Birmingham city centre, near universal 5 star customer reviews online. Bought a dress with "unlimited alterations" and was charged a fortune for the package.

Well, they ruined the alterations, the shape of the dress, added two sleeves in different material one 3 inches wide, another 5 inches wide. Refused to honour beyond 2 alterations as "all brides would be here forever if we did that" despite my unlimited alterations package. Staff thought nothing of walking on my dress in their shoes during fittings. Then the seamstress stuck a pin in my arm causing a 4 inch bloody gash that remained til my wedding day.

I took the dress to another dressmaker who told me the alterations they claimed to have done, they hadn't, and urged me to go to a small claims court to get my money back. They even wrote a note that I could use as evidence. Thankfully this dressmaker managed to salvage the dress 2 days before my wedding.

I decided not to pursue it as the dress was saved by the dressmaker and the stress would be too much but I later wrote an honest review. Within 24hrs it was gone as the business owner has complained to the website. Mysteriously another 3 five star reviews magically appeared on the site the next day.

@Sipperskipper did you complain? That’s outrageous!

@coffeecup yes we emailed the manager who bizarrely suggested we pop in and have a chat and a coffee with him!

Iceland. Three members of staff twiddling their thumbs on the checkouts refusing to serve me as they were baskets only and I had a trolley. The trolley tills were at the back of the store with a queue six deep at each one as those tills also dealt with the home delivery requests. Nearly 30 minutes to pay for ten items while staff sat idle. Haven’t been back

Nope they wanted to talk to my Dad, and only him as he was the account holder. I explained that he wasn't able to talk to them on the phone as not capable anymore.

That reminds me of another one. My dad was dying and was only semi conscious, but a couple of months earlier had provided written and verbal permission for me to deal with his house insurance when renewal came round. I had had some interaction with them, no problem, then one day they decided they had lost the paperwork and could no longer deal with me. I begged them to go back through their recorded phone calls and they said they only kept them for a few days. I pointed out that their notes must indicate that they had spoken to me the previous week. They agreed that they could see that, and had noted that I was to be the point of contact, but without the signed letter they weren't willing to speak to me. They asked me to get him to write another letter. I explained that he couldn't do that. They said I could write a letter and he could sign it. Or I could get him to ring them. He was semi conscious and no longer verbal. I cried, I pleaded, I explained. No, nothing they could do. We ended up having to apply for power of attorney but that takes time and he died before it was sorted out.

NC as outing ! I have loads !

Talk talk who refused to let me leave (out of contract!) as they said I hadn't given enough notice. I argued I had and they then said the next homeowners would have no phone line due to me if I didn't pay?! They even went as far as to say if they had an accident they wouldn't be able to ring an ambulance and that would be my fault 🧐 then suggested I paid it and gave the new owners my details so they could pay me ?? No idea why they thought that was a good idea/safe data wise! The call became embarrassing as they were so desperate not to lose a customer! It was like we were in a relationship !

BT- THE WORST! basically our home is new build with fibre to the premises which only BT provide. I rang up to organise after months of living in the house while they farted about setting it up. Was quoted an extortionate amount. I said I'd have to think about that as it was a lot and I'd call back. At which point the call holder laughed down the phone and told me I had no other choice but to accept the cost or have no internet. I then said I found his attitude to be rude and asked to speak to someone else, to which he said I was threatening him? Absolute joke!

Asda- ordered my Christmas turkey etc well in advance....received chicken....not even a full chicken just chicken breasts 😳

God soooo many more I could stay here all night 😂

Shoezone 10ish years ago
Ds1 was desperate for batman/spiderman trainers. Took him to the park first time wearing them and sole fell off.
Was told what did I expect for £5 trainers. I actually expected more than one wear funnily

Talk talk are very special. They flogged me a package of phone internet and tv. Never received the tv part, kept ringing up to be fobbed off. Eventually an employee said he “couldn’t lie any more” and the tv bit was not available in our area. But they happy to charge me for it! I went mental.

My usual Sainsbury's. August this year. Bought a £6 box of Belgian chocolates (which were displayed upended, if that makes sense). Opened them the following night to find they had all melted and the fillings had poured out everywhere.

Took them back a couple of days later. First woman at customer service desk cheerfully says "it's a good thing they weren't a gift!" and tells me to get another box.

I return with replacement box; she's not there but a colleague is. I explain what's happened and to my amazement this colleague tells me I must have stored them somewhere warm and that's why they've melted. She repeats this several times. Flabbergasted, I tell her I live in a cold house. Eventually she gives me the chocolates but in the most sneering, unpleasant way.

I go off to get a basket to continue my shopping, and walk past this snotty bitch slagging me off to a couple of other colleagues. I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. I would understand it if I was a regular piss-taker at the customer services desk, but this was the first time I had ever returned anything, I was polite and friendly and it was a fucking £6 box of chocolates.

I emailed Sainsbury's customer services to complain, got an automated response saying "we'll reply in three days!" and have heard nothing since. I haven't been back to that store.

Ironically, the weekend that this happened, we had gale-force winds and relentless rain (standard Cornish August). There was absolutely no way those chocolates could have been sat in the sun and melted BECAUSE THERE WASN'T ANY SUN.

Stupid bitch. It still makes me angry now. At least the (non-melted) chocolates were tasty but I kind of wish they'd also been melted just so I could go back and wipe the nasty sneer off her face.

They also allowed our data to be leaked so we were called twice daily by Indian scammers. We had to put protection on our phone in the end.

I was told to “fuck off” by an ikea shop assistant once

Oh, and the relevance of them being displayed upended (in a plastic holder) is that all the melted fillings were at one end of the box. So clearly they had melted either in transit or in storage.