Are there any stores or companies you refuse to shop from or deal with?

[User1055]

As the thread title says - I have just decided to shop anywhere except a major high street electrical / computer company from now onwards after a couple of poor customer service issues. I shopped there from convenience, but I'm fed up with them now.
This got me thinking. I avoid any MLM, even though I really like some products I was given as a gift, and stores with poor ethics regarding production, worker treatment, etc.
Do you have any you actively avoid?

@user1471457354

It was in the papers and on mumsnet.

John Lewis. For the appalling customer service and frankly, cowboy practices they are now getting a reputation for. There was an OP a couple of days ago that had a faulty machine sent to them and JL were trying to not refund them or take the appliance away, and told them to deal with the manufacturer, despite the machine being faulty upon delivery, completely contravening the Consumer Rights Act. They did exactly the same to me a couple of years ago. But, in my case, they didn’t have a replacement to send me so I (thankfully) had to buy it elsewhere - this didn’t stop John Lewis thinking it was perfectly reasonable for me to be GBP75.00 out of pocket (for recycling and delivery charges) once they’d taken the faulty machine away and left me with nothing, because they’d still ‘taken the old machine away’ (I could have the local council to do that for GBP22, wish I had) and they ‘had delivered a dishwasher to me’ - ie the faulty one it took me two weeks to get them to collect. Cheeky fuckers - I got all the money back, I don’t give up easily . And I couldn’t get the new dishwasher delivered and connected until after they’d removed the faulty one because they told me, very aggressively, that if it was connected and moved and it got damaged, I wouldn’t get a penny back. They’re disgusting. I imagine they’re going down the tubes tbh.

Mac D's ... just sh£$@ all round
O2 .... their ads make me cringe
Any MLM
Lush ... the smell from their shops make me gag when I walk past (but not been to a city centre for years now so that may have changed)

@thistimelastweek

Dyson Wetherspoons The Daily Telegraph

All brexit related.

Absolutely agree!

[quote Thewiseoneincognito]@MilesJuppIsMyBitch don’t the fitting rooms have doors? Your strange narrow minded bigoted thinking aside, How is it any different to the actual MEN working on the women’s fitting room in other stores? It’s perfectly normal. 😊[/quote]
Actual men don’t tend to work in women’s changing rooms in my experience...

Argos for selling Faulty goods
Boots Rude and disorganised( Superdrug for everything now)
Currys
Sainsbury's Dreadful staff attitude and replacing most checkouts with self scan( I have limited dexterity)
Was shouted at queuing in lockdown as wheels of my Walker were over the line!

@SirGawain

After reading these posts I am duty bound not to patronise any of the businesses mentioned; so i'm just sitting here in a loin cloth!

I'm horrified. The only way you could possible have got a loincloth that fast is Prime same-day, surely

Forgot to give an honourable mention to Barclays, I don't boycott them as such but will never trust them with my or anyone else's money again as apparently they don't think it's notable for someone to be withdrawing money at cashpoints in England and Sousse at exactly the same time

Oh also - in addition to the list I mentioned earlier - I've never eaten anything from Macdonalds since I was about 11. I'd sooner just go hungry TBH.

[quote Thewiseoneincognito]@MilesJuppIsMyBitch don’t the fitting rooms have doors? Your strange narrow minded bigoted thinking aside, How is it any different to the actual MEN working on the women’s fitting room in other stores? It’s perfectly normal. 😊[/quote]
It's probably no different. I doubt many women feel comfortable undressing in a changing room staffed by a male bodied person.

Local specsavers - total arses about booking appointments for us all - insisted in end we stand outside shop and phone to make them. When we went they did rest of family then for unknown reason delayed my appointment by an hour - then chased me for payment I'd made before leaving the shop. They got very nasty - but I'd paid with card so had to go back in and show bank statement - they still tried to argue because their account departments doesn't make mistakes .

Tesco - for furniture - month and half they kept schudling the sofa delivery that kept not happening - apparently the couldn't find the sofa in warehouse but couldn't order another because there was one in the warehouse - we kept having to be in - no apology when we gave up and cancelled. Got same sofa next day delivery from another company.

Curry's quickest we could get a washing macine was a week - no car young kids lots of washing nightmare - they delivered very quickly but didn't install despite us paying turns out they'd delivered a serverly smashed machine - two week wait for pick up and replacement - never shopped with them since.

Currys PC world - Shitty staff who were patronising and then openly laughed at me because I didn't understand a charge on the invoice. I can't remember how it was phrased, it was only about £5 but I kept querying it. In hindsight, that charge was made, 'because we can.'

Then the two idiots who installed the washing machine tore the lino when fitting it. We were in rented accommodation at the time. OK, Currys PCWorld paid for replacement lino to be supplied and fitted but I really resented having to go cap in hand to the Letting Agent and the Land Lord and do all the co-ordinating to get the 'making good' done. Even then, the washing machine didn't work. That got sorted later by a third party.

Ryanair - my husband shelled out £45 for 3kg of excess baggage @ £5 per kilo because he was taking a flight for a skiing holiday and needed his ski jacket plus all the other clothes.

New Zealand
Dick Smith (went out of business a few years ago) my husband purchased a mobile phone from Dick Smith and when he went back to Dick Smith with a query, he was told Dick Smith do not sell that model. Fuckers.

MLMs
O2

@LegoCaltrops

Love your username. It describes Lego perfectly.

DFS! still having a complete nightmare with them!

Sykes Cottages. Dreadful customer service over a covid diagnosis whilst staying in one of their properties. Will never use them - or their related companies - again.

Amazon

Specsavers opticians. A computer error meant that we'd booked an appointment and it'd actually booked for a different day. They knew about the error and didn't bother to confirm appointment times so we only found out once we'd turned up. Only solution was to wait a further 4 weeks with an autistic child who was nervous about the visit so we really needed it over with once we'd built him up ready to go! Went to boots instead and were seen next day.

A small acrylic cutting company. I had an issue with an order and was made to feel like a nuisance when trying to get it resolved.

Cricut. 6 weeks to get a replacement for a faulty item. Only eventually turned up when I got sick and emailed a different address to chase it.

Lots of charities as prefer to support the ones run by volunteers where all the money goes to the actual cause.
Sports direct

Avoid Lush, Body Shop and anywhere else that is anti women.
Lush had a “ Naked “ day where staff were told to only wear their aprons and nothing else. Another time they had a lipstick promo, they had the staff wear T-shirts and then customers were supposed to kiss the T-shirts on the bodies of the mainly female staff!!! It was a license to sexually abuse and harassment the staff, absolutely disgusting. Plus their stance on the police, and women’s rights🤬

Just remembered more (typing between eating a sandwich and work calls )

Npower as they tried to claim a 3 bed house with 2 adults who both worked 12 hours a day and rarely used heating/ electric as we were never there, had to pay a £282 monthly direct debit to cover the cost.

Also, British Gas. When we first moved in we set up our account and paid them every month £96. Every month we would get a letter saying we hadnt paid. We would call,they would explain it's a mix up to do with them using 2 computer systems that didnt talk to each other and tell us to ignore the letters. Which we did do, whilst continually paying them. Eventually we get a letter summoning us to court (I hadnt even seen the pre legal letters). So DH and I gleefully showed up to small claims court with all our evidence of payments, phone calls etc. The Judge tore their representative a new one.

Also MLMs. I have a friend who seems to switch to a different MLM selling scheme every few months. Its angers me as she has significant mental health issues and I think they take advantage. I dread to think how much money she has lost.

Lush, Body Shop and Starbucks because of their politics

@Letsgetquizzy, TBH I do have some sympathy for any shop etc. which doesn’t allow customers or their dcs to use staff loos. I used to work in a very small local library, where we did allow it, and so often the kids would pee over the seat and the parent hadn’t bothered to wipe it up - this despite us saying, ‘Please go in with him/her’, esp. if it was a little boy.
And this was in a ‘nice’, MC area.

Not to mention the time when someone had apparently smeared the contents of a dirty nappy over the floor, and just walked out and left it.

It was muggins here who had to don the rubber gloves and set to with a bucket of hot water and disinfectant.

Starbucks for charging for water after 9/11

MacDonalds and all similar 'fast food' restaurants who poison their customers.

Coke - one of the biggest polluters ever PLUS selling bottles tap water

Nestlé for their african breast milk scandal

abercrombie and fitch for their discriminations against disabled staff

Amazon for undercutting independent suppliers and putting them out of business and working conditions.

Apple for child slave labour to mine rare earth metals for their devices.

Any company that participates in animal cruelty

Nutella for using children to pick hazlenuts - I actively boycott these comapnies - if a friend walks into these shops I'll refuse to go in. People understand my grievances and agree with them but the shops are just 'so convenient' Companies should change their policy to suit their customers wishes not the other way round and force us to accept unethical practices

Dunelm - nasty shop assistant at start of the pandemic, treating all customers like shit because she didnt want to be there (actually said that to a customer) failed to process a refund on a separate occasion for a pair of £100 curtains. Son bought a load of matching furniture...some damaged, some unavailable well after order processed, crap customer service when he complained.

Boots - crap customer service, hostile staff in our local one, generally not a good place to use.

Local Lloyds bank - shirty staff, deliberately slow service, mixed messages surrounding distancing in branch.

Specsavers – used to be brilliant for many years and now let down twice by poor quality items which they argue about forever. (lenses you can’t use for driving)

Aviva Insurance – Appalling attitude to ANY claim. Made it clear they didn’t want to know about any details, loyal customer for many years, sent claims ‘adjuster’ who haggled to effectively zero, despite valid claim.