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?

The Body Shop for its treatment of JK Rowling on social media (and for being overpriced generally)

JD Sports for truly appalling customer service. They sent me the wrong item and then basically shrugged their shoulders at me.

Trespass for rubbish in-store customer service.

I won't donate to Oxfam anymore. Here's why...

I avoid Elida Gibbs because they use the Draize test on rabbits which is inhuman and beyond cruel

@hiplip @MumofSpud

I hadn't heard of this. Our cat only ever eats felix, and was recently hit by a bout of unexplained vomitting - cleared up after antibiotic and and anti-vomiting injections from the vet, plus toxin-absorbing paste and a special diet. She's still on the special diet, and I'm wondering if she shouldn't go back to the Felix...

Off to Google now...

Pret A Manger after what happened to that poor girl Manslaughter in my opinion

Lush
The Body Shop
Amazon where possible

Companies, particularly the ones that provide period wear, that address women as menstruators or avoid the word woman.

Ah gawd M & S. My birth town had an M & S.The teen horror at the, occasional gift clothes. No Chelsea Girl in town, no C & A Clock House, nothing. Even Woolworths had a more 'with it' selection. At 16 with a wage earning job I swore a vow I would never wear M & S again.
Very petty, but I have never worn M & S for 40 years and counting.

Sainsburys - was a regular customer until lockdown where they Fucking lost their heads! They closed down the site, app and phone lines and email system and put bots on sm. Totally let down disabled and elderly customers inc me and inc cancelling orders without contacting and telling customers. Even when they opened up the phone lines again they were unashamedly unapologetic and basically said “we were blindsided couldn’t be helped!” Yet other supermarkets stepped up and helped much more.

As pp said they also don’t refund/cut price on more expensive subs but issue online vouchers to use against next shop. So I had a ton of these, used them for a final shop and haven’t used them since!

I’m housebound and buy pretty much everything via online supermarket shop so usually spend £100 plus weekly so that’s £5200 pa they’ve lost and I sincerely hope more due to not getting other customers as I tell of this experience every chance I get!

Other customers I have noticed on sm have done/been doing similar. They treated their most vulnerable customers like shit at a time when we really needed them.

Nestle - I try but get caught out on occasion

Body shop - from when they sold out ethically when that was the whole bloody point of the brand! What Anita was thinking I don’t know!

Clinton’s cards - worked there they treat staff like crap! More than one branch across 2 counties

Wilkos - after a few crappy customer experiences inc witnessing dd being treated like shite just cos she was a youngster, they didn’t realise I was the mother behind her in the queue. Also because of the time the assistant “served” me while not looking at either me or the till and scanning a product twice and huffing at me when I queried this. The assistants were all huddled together gossiping about their love lives at around 4pm when there were children around in an inappropriate way. Just appalling behaviour

Starbucks - 9/11, their crappy treatment of military and police officers on repeated occasions

Anything mlm - I have an old friend who repeatedly gets sucked into this crap and I have to then silence them when they’re on a new one on fb until they move on. Tried to discuss with them to no avail unfortunately

Cadbury - well Kraft/mondelez - not only the crap chocolate but the complete betrayal of the agreement to protect Uk employees

@TheWoleb that’s outrageous! Will be supporting you in not using cineworld in glasgow in future myself

I totally understand and agree with the boycotting of girl guides but I find it utterly heartbreaking what’s happened there being from a long line of guides and leaders and fear this will be the death knell for guides at a time when girls desperately need a girls only organisation

Halifax bank.
My mum had an account there and when she died I rang them to see what information I needed to access account. So I was thinking death certificate, probate form and ???
The person on the phone told me they only speak to the account holder even though I told her my mum was dead three times! I wasn’t asking for information about the account just what I needed to provide.
I finally went into my mums branch with all of the information and they were really rude and unhelpful. You would have though I was trying to steal millions rather than access her £345!

I avoid Starbucks these days and Amazon where possible.
Primark and other fast fashion brands
Wetherspoons
A local 'sells everything' shop. When the pandemic hit, they put the prices up of things like toilet rolls and hand santiser by about 300%, loads of elderly people shop there as its difficult for them to get to other shops. It was shitty behaviour and I won't be going in there again.
The Pizza Hut delivery near me - a friend and I ordered from there a few years ago, she's a veggie and ordered the veggie supreme, it arrived and they'd put ham on it. I rang them to explain - the bloke on the phone relayed it to the manager and I heard him say "So? she's lucky I didn't wank over it" Disgusting man.
Oxfam after that awful business in Haiti
Lush
I also do my best to avoid any brands that aren't cruelty free (Bobby Brown, Benefit and any brand that sells in China)

Try to avoid a fair few fast food chains such as McD's but the big one from me that I refuse to buy from is Amazon, generally I try to support small indies more, so local shops, if not I use etsy more.

Next-idiot Tory Brexit supporters.

Oh and Lush and Bodyshop for their political views.

Lush
Body shop
M&S for most items
(I did pledge to boycott M&S for throwing women under the bus. Unfortunately I am an ill person and need very specific products and haven’t managed / got the energy to find alternatives to heatgen leggings and super soft bras.)
John Lewis for their equally poor response to the changing room issue

[quote CoralFish]**@hiplip* @MumofSpud*

I hadn't heard of this. Our cat only ever eats felix, and was recently hit by a bout of unexplained vomitting - cleared up after antibiotic and and anti-vomiting injections from the vet, plus toxin-absorbing paste and a special diet. She's still on the special diet, and I'm wondering if she shouldn't go back to the Felix...

Off to Google now...[/quote]
Yes - my one had the same and ended up at the vets (£300!) then we found out about this potential issue with Felix- so I chucked out and changed to a different brand.
Yes it might be a coincidence that is affecting hundreds of cats but....

Aldi and Lidl

Amazon. Unethical in the extreme.

Sweaty Betty due to their stance on transgender
Nestle
Nutella
Johnson and Johnson
I try to avoid Unilever, impossible
Products with palm oil, near impossible
Amazon
GOAL
Starbucks
Mcdonalds
Lush
The body shop
Boohoo
Penny's
Wetherspoons

I could go on

Agree with many but am disappointed by a couple.

Oxfam were very badly misrepresented by the press and got a very unfair rap. They had one of the best track records in terms of safeguarding even when trying to manage personnel at arms length in other countries in areas of disaster and conflict. Many of the international development organisations in this country and in others face the exact same problem. Oxfam is one of the best worldwide in tackling it. I'd be more reluctant to support Save the Children after the sexual harassment of staff by senior - and well known - leaders and the blind eye that was turned towards it by Trustees.

NSPCC - some of its campaigns historically have been high profile but ineffective. But Overall they are a very good charity. It is extremely challenging to only deal with the symptoms of abuse and neglect - the victims - and never the root causes (majoritively) men guilty of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. They are brave and profoundly thoughtful about how they are trying to address the underlying causes to prevent further abhorrent behaviour and protect victims.

Dyson
Products over priced, don’t last and after supporting Brexit they moved hq to Singapore from UK

Wetherspoons
Travel lodge
Sports direct.

Mostly cos of how they treated their staff during the pandemic.

Hold on has op named the store the electrical app??

Any chocolate company which cannot prove that their chocolate is not made by child slaves who have been trafficked (which is all of the big brands)

Oxfam. As pp said particularly because of the sexual harassment by their aid workers of vulnerable women in Haiti.

Also because of the way they treated a family member working at Oxfam’s swish Oxford HQ, who was being badly bullied by their so-called manager.

I’m a manager of a big team and it was obvious to me this Oxfam ‘manager’ couldn’t manage their way out of a soggy paper bag.

NPower. Totally cocked up our electricity bills by over-charging again and again. Eventually we agreed a final bill and left them for another provider.

NPower then started demanding more money TWO years after we left them! They were in the wrong but it was very stressful and long-winded to sort out. They blamed their computer system upgrade

Now getting something similar with EDF, which is not yet resolved

@Bouledeneige

Agree with many but am disappointed by a couple.

Oxfam were very badly misrepresented by the press and got a very unfair rap. They had one of the best track records in terms of safeguarding even when trying to manage personnel at arms length in other countries in areas of disaster and conflict. Many of the international development organisations in this country and in others face the exact same problem. Oxfam is one of the best worldwide in tackling it. I'd be more reluctant to support Save the Children after the sexual harassment of staff by senior - and well known - leaders and the blind eye that was turned towards it by Trustees.

NSPCC - some of its campaigns historically have been high profile but ineffective. But Overall they are a very good charity. It is extremely challenging to only deal with the symptoms of abuse and neglect - the victims - and never the root causes (majoritively) men guilty of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. They are brave and profoundly thoughtful about how they are trying to address the underlying causes to prevent further abhorrent behaviour and protect victims.

That ‘white feminism’ training of Oxfams is pretty damming as well

Agree with adding Save the Children to the no support list

Also want to add Comic Relief to the list. They held up Lili Elbe as a female hero on twitter and doubled down on it. Lili Elbe is the male who died as a result of attempted uterus transplant in the 1930s. It was never explained what happened to the woman from whom the uterus was removed but this was before the days of using dead people as donors so this was a live woman who was mutilated at best