Family blacklists do you have them?

[Bearnecessity]

We do....got Zenith car insurance, Barclays Bank on ours...

@TatianaBis I can understand the paedophiles comment about Belgium, but what's wrong with Flemish? At least the majority of the Flemish speakers speak English, and will happily do so, unlike the Francophones. Lived in Belgium for 13 years and never had an undercooked egg.

DM and I refuse to step foot in a chippy that treated me like rubbish when I did a few shifts there as a teenager. It’s been years now!

Vodafone and Scottish power!

The bakery shop in Colchester where the owner ignored me in favour of serving a man standing behind me (this was 20 years ago) when I pointed out that I was next the owner told me "he's got to go to work"

I was wearing a suit and was about to go to my own job!

Haven't lived there for 15 years but every so often it still burns me.

HSBC because I went in wearing a sunflower lanyard so the bank clerk ignored me to discuss my account with my partner and when I objected she told me that the lanyard means I've brought my carer in to deal with my enquiry! (I wear it because I sometimes need a bit more time to process spoken information - just a few more moments) I did get an apology and flowers but on principle I won't bank with them.

Not me but my mother has boycotted France (the entire country) because she had food poisoning from a dodgy mussel in St Malo in 1969!

My DF boycotted BMW for 40 years after he had to borrow a colleague's company car for a week in 1980 while his (Rover, ironically) was being repaired. The electric windows - indescribably fancy to me at the time - jammed while he was driving past a recently manured field and that was that. 'Unreliable, BMWs'.

Also the Interflora florist in town, for vague reasons to do with a stand-up row either witnessed by or involving my godmother, never clear.

Funny how the boycott triggers which are forgotten or hazy seem for me to result in stronger more zealous boycotts. Kind of hard to rationalise or see the change or forgive when you don’t bloody remember what started it all ! Starbucks and France are both in this category for me.

Barclay Bank - firstly for closing my account in the early 1990’s because I didn’t make them any money (no overdraft, credit card or fees for bounced payments); secondly for closing the lovely local branch my father used every month for 40+ years and where, when he was too frail to go in himself, would ask after him when I went in to pay his bills; thirdly, for refurbishing what became the ‘local’ branch after closing the lovely one, and making it all automated processed with no actual cashiers to deal with counter transactions.

Virgin Media - for sending someone round to sign up customers on a new estate then, when asked about the costs, being told there would be a bill of several hundred £’s to enable them to lay cabling across the road to the new builds after they didn’t do it during building. Oh, and the whole cost would be the responsibility of the first person to sign up with no refund as others joined. Went with Sky in the end! And VM (again), for trying to scam residents of the same new build estate the following year (when they still hadn’t laid the cabling because no one would pay their extortionate fees!!) by knocking on doors asking them to sign to say they’d been told the service was available; I asked to read the paperwork that I was being asked to sign and it turned out to be a contract to move services for internet/tv to them!! Told them where to go!!

Gas Call, one of their engineers flicked his lit fag end over the top of the buggy with DD in it.
Our old corner shop. During the pandemic they encouraged customers to not use cash then introduced a minimum spend with card payments.

@Cubitalfossa

Barry the mother clucking ice cream van that used to wake my babies up at half nine at night.

Isn't this a drugs van?

Ooh, forgot a couple of others

The local Indian restaurant/takeaway because they cooked completely the wrong dish as part of a takeaway order so ended up with a chicken curry that had prawns and boiled eggs in it (had only ordered a plain mild chicken & veg curry) and second time (giving benefit of the doubt after chicken/egg curry) ordered a chicken biryani to share with toddler DTs; got sent something so spicy it was hotter than DH’s madras 😱

Subway - for closing the 2 most local branches as a result of Covid and then giving 4 days notice that, if we didn’t order anything by xx date, they’d zero our points balance which was around 5,500 points - due to shielding we couldn’t get to the next nearest branch (at an off motorway services) so lost our points. And Subway wouldn’t do anything about crediting back the points 👎👎

Event....you are justified....there..ash flicking over a child....

Oh Ryanair. As first time parents either. Newborn they were horrendous.

Nestle for the baby milk scandal. There's really nothing more evil. They can fuck off. I will always check I'm not buying any of their products.

Oh, yes, obviously Nestle!! Vile company.

Eyesite - the optician messed up my prescription and they gave me glasses that were worse than my old ones. I lost faith in them so wanted to get a replacement elsewhere.

I eventually got my money back by getting my dad to negotiate for me.

Some more and the explanation for the Halifax boycott and the HSBC boycott.
More than insurance, I had new for old contents insurance and when my freezer broke (the only time ever I've claimed on insurance) they told me I'd not paid for that policy. I had that policy in my hand and was quoting from it. I didn't get a new freezer and now I'll never use them again.

A local florist who's online reviews are sublime, probably family and friends did them. I've used once and all the flowers died in 3 days. £35 fucking quid they cost me.

Halifax about 30 years ago refused me the money in my bank on a Friday afternoon because a dd was coming out Monday. As it happens I would have replaced the money Monday morning and told them so. But still they refused.
HSBC I made an appointment to change from Barclays to them, I took in the Id requested which included the council tax bill. Sat through 20 minutes of blah then finally got to id and because my CT bill was from March (when they are sent out) and it was now September it wasnt good enough. Had to be dated within the previous 3 months. So I guess they only take on new customers from March to may.

British Gas 😠

I’ll second the Halifax - Thieving bastards! - I took out a monthly equity plan after they did a “review” and they massively they ripped me off for charges which they applied to each month’s deposit so by the end of the year when I got the statement my investment was worth far less than what I put in.

Now I would complain like hell to try and get some sort of refund, but then I simply moved my savings elsewhere.

Read small print carefully and take paperwork away and carefully consider before signing anything, don’t believe what sales people say!

Lush, Body Shop, Currys and Vodafone doing really badly here.

I would like to add any scented sanitary pads. Vile branding, trying to make women feel like they smell bad when the awful waft from their products is nauseating.

Alexander the Great restaurant in Camden. Fed one of the party who clearly stated anaphylaxis to wheat a meal and then said they didn't know what was in it. So we politely said sorry we can't eat this. The owner chased us out the restaurant aggressively shouting at us. It was the most awful experience

If you dig deep into their tripadvisor reviews we weren't the first.

It's illegal to not know the contents of the food you're serving.

@Benjispruce5

M&S and their pseudo wokeness.

M and s I miss a lot but mixed sex change rooms are an accident waiting to happen.

They're apparently putting pronouns on the staff name badges now.

What a load of w*nk!

I took them to the small claims court and got over £50.01 from them (I billed them £30 for the time wasted claiming and £20 compensation, plus the 1p)

You did this to Argos Scorpio? You absolute !

Shell petrol.garages..the way a member of their so called management spoke to me once, and then she hid in the back when I asked her to please come out and speak to me properly. She didn't. I am the least scary person you will meet, so not sure what her problem that say was.

Oh and a local florist who when I went in the shop to order funeral flowers for a dear friend who'd passed and I cried, the assistant showed no emotion whatsoever. Not even a 'sorry for your loss' just complete silence waiting for me to finish sobbing. I wish I'd walked out and taken my business elsewhere.

I'm so impressed by the grudge-holding on display here. Olympic level!