Poll on worst customer service you get from any large company you have to deal with on a regular basis?

[A580Hojas]

My nomination is Vodafone. By miles.

I rang them earlier, got the "we're all busy, do you want to book a call back?" option. So I booked it. They have now called back and I have now been waiting 35 minutes listening to their music interspersed by "sorry for the delay, your call is top priority and will be answered next" every 60 seconds.

In the time I've been holding I've been for a wee, husband has cooked the pasta to go with the bolognese, served it all up, mine's going cold while I wait for Vodafone to give me a few moments of customer service.

How crappy can a telecoms company actually be in 2022? I can only assume there is one person taking calls for Vodafone tonight.

British Airways without a doubt.

Although Qantas keeping me on hold and using a paid number so it cost me £60 is running close…

HMRC hands down the biggest shower of shit going. Useless, incompetent, clueless, idiots.

Vodafone a very close second.

BT about 2 years ago. No phone, dial tone, nothing

Used my mobile to contact them and advised them that my mobile number was the way to get hold of me

They left messages on my land line and said they could not contact me 😳

Remind me of the fault again?

Promised three times an engineer would turn up, nope

Sent a complaint into chief executive and lo and behold, got a phone call and an engineer turn up

Call Centre in India swore blind no record of an engineer being promised

My response was are calls recorded for training and quality purpose ?

Yes they said. Pull the tapes at the three specific dates times they advised me. All went quite

When I ended chatting to a nice lady from the Chief Execs team, they had pulled the tapes and to be fair, put their hands up

4 months free internet

Morale of the story - makes note of dates and times, be polite but go up the chain of command quickly

Worked for me, oh, be polite 👍

They hate it when you are polite as they can’t mark you down as a rude customer and just keep going up the chain of command and quote Dates, times back at them and what they promised

I did start to advise them of the cost of my time chasing the fault, £80 per hour or part of an hour.

Virgin as well before I ditched them

My internet was slow as I lived on a hill and the signal slowed down getting to the top of the hill 😳

Wrong person to say that to. Within 30 seconds the person concerned realised I knew a bit more about electronics than they did.

Previous life used to do Electronics on aircraft

Ditched them after that

Toss up between Talk Talk and BT 🤔 really can’t decide which is worse.

Ikea. Had so many problems trying to return damaged products. They don’t seem to give a shit about the quality of their products or their legal responsibilities. I used to buy stuff there all the time but in the last couple of years they’ve been awful and I doubt I’ll ever go back.

BT When we were moving to a new build house it was a nightmare, it was four weeks of hassle with the call centre. One of the staff made me cry he was so awful.

Barker & Stonehouse Said we must have ordered our furniture to the wrong depot, despite us having an email receipt for the right one. Had to keep ringing to get it sorted and we got no apology.

Virgin media,
Don't get me started 😡🥊😡🥊

Vodafone. Absolutely shocking service. No wonder they have about 1.2 stars out of 5 on trust pilot.

My recent experience cost actual emotional distress by the end of it. And tonight I noticed they had charged me for something they shouldn't have so will be on to that tomorrow.

thinking about it, DH is with Vodafone it has me as a secondary contact - I get all his texts about his bills, even though I’m with EE!! And his last bill was £28, which he paid yet some debt management company y keeps texting MY phone saying to pay £28 to get services reconnected. His service is fine. I just reply saying “piss off” but not sure if anyone reads them. Hasn’t come up on his credit report (yet) but dreading if it does

Virgin media... and now they send an email saying they are putting their prices up by £6 a month. What an absolute joke!! No way am I staying with them. I'm looking elsewhere

BT.

In the time I've been holding I've been for a wee, husband has cooked the pasta to go with the bolognese, served it all up, mine's going cold while I wait for Vodafone to give me a few moments of customer service.

I would have just had the phone on speakerphone (low volume) and eaten dinner.

But Yanbu, that is shit service.

EON. Eventually won an ombudsman complaint against them. What a nightmare.

Another vote for Vodafone. Took my bill plus £200. When I rang to ask for the £200 back they said they would add it to my account as a credit so I 'wouldn't have to pay my bill for 5 months.' They made out like I was getting it free!! Took two weeks to get my money back and I left when my contract ended.

The AA too. We have family cover and pay £22 a month. Every August they put it up to over £40 a month. When I ring they say my introductory offer has ended (I've been with them 23 years!) and if I leave to go elsewhere I will lose my customer loyalty rewards, which I don't want or need. I go through this every year and they put it back down to the lower amount for another year.

And don't even get me started on 111!!

BA. Needed to cancel flights as son got covid and couldn't cancel these particular ones online. Spent two days calling with the message that they couldn't take calls at the moment, you couldn't even wait on hold (which is at least an hour each time with them).

Meanwhile the date of the flight was rapidly approaching. Managed to get lucky on day 3 by calling before they were due to open and someone picked up. This is a very typical experience.

Metro Bank.
Cancelled my debit card on Chritmas Eve, the only warning was a dodgy scam-looking text.
Embarassing situation of card being declined in local Waitrose.
Metro kept me on hold for over an hour
Replacement card took a week to arrive - and then they tell me I have to wait for another two days for a new pin number - or go to a branch (which I could have done in the first place, but actually had other things planned on Christmas Eve).

Dorothy Perkins are shockingly bad.

I then looked on trust pilot and Facebook comments to see that everyone is having trouble with them.

@ToManderleyAgain

Can I add ‘Milk N More’ to the mix? They regularly fail to deliver our milk (it tends to happen for 1-2 weeks at a time so I presume it’s when our regular milkman is on hols / isolating), but there is no means to contact your milkman directly so you a forced to speak with customer services via a shitty little chat box. They apparently don’t have the power to contact your milkman directly either! They waste your time not responding to you on the chat and then fail to resolve the issue. All I want is a frigging bottle of milk!!!

Ah yes, milk and more! Our area has just been sold to another company. Got straight through on the phone line (I was delighted!) but they are unable to stop the vast number of milk bottles being delivered everyday! Attempting a good old fashioned note to the milkman tonight!

Samsung are bad. Did a live chat with them as couldn't get a Fitbit of theirs to link to my phone. Responses took ages (at least 20 mins each time), just kept asking the same questions (which I answered several times). I assumed they're in a call centre abroad somewhere probably dealing with numerous chats so put up with it for about an hour. Gave up and (politely) told them they'd not helped. They emailed a record of the conversation with loads of extra chat in it! As though they'd been responding every 5 mins and I was the slow one.

Agree about Better - their website is atrocious and never answer their phone either

Not a daily basis for either but IKEA and Argos.

Ikea - ordered a table online for my spare room, only item in the order. Table was £25 and it was £15 for delivery. Table arrived smashed on each corner. Contacted IKEA, asked for a replacement. They couldn't sent one. Asked for a refund and for them to collect the damaged table. Was told I'd have to return it to store, which I couldn't do as I don't drive and live over an hour away from the nearest store. Reluctantly they said they'd refund the top of the table but not the legs as only the top was damaged, even though it wasn't ordered as separate items and they wouldn't refund the delivery as "we don't have to, we paid our courier for it to be delivered". I asked to speak to a manager, was told no, there's no more information we can give you, we don't have to refund delivery as it was still delivered, damaged or not. Luckily I realised at this point that I'd paid using PayPal so I went to them, sent them the photos and screenshots and they refunded it in full.

Argos - most ridiculous response ever! Ordered 5 roller blinds, cut them to size, fitted the attachments to the wall then noticed one of the plastic clips that goes into the roller blind was broken. Contacted live chat, explained and asked for a replacement part to be sent. Was told no. I explained again the part had arrived damaged and I couldn't fit the blind into the wall attachment without it. Was told, and wait for it, to get an "independent forensic investigation", at my own cost, to prove it was damaged when they sent it! Sent the live chat agent the outline of consumer rights regarding damaged items etc and she said it didn't apply to them. I lost my patience and closed the chat. I went straight back on, got a new advisor and within 2 minutes he'd sorted it. He said all I had to do was taken the broken clip to my local store and they'd give me a new clip from another blind.

I'm so fed up with large companies getting away with dreadful customer service nowadays and there is very little comeback against them. Whereas with a small business getting bad reviews, fairly or not, can mean a loss of sales.

BT are absolutely the biggest shower of turds , hours on the phone , weeks waiting for engineers who don't bloody well turn up and then when they do turn up they are booked in for an installation rather than a repair and they aren't the right guy for the job. I was never so happy when the contract was up.

Scottish Power are just the devil , moved house and they were the supplier , I changed but the switch took 10 days, so we had to pay them for 10 days supply. They wanted 300 pounds for an estimated bill, I rang gave them the meter readings , was told that they would send an amended bill , the next bill was higher. Rang again and again and again , each time the bill was different, still estimated and not right. In the end I made a complaint to the ombudsman and a few months later received a bill from them for zero.. I'd rather sit in the house in the dark then have them as my supplier ever again.

What a sorry state of affairs that CS is so awful from so many large companies these days.

Ive had good dealings with Barclays and Scottish Power weren't too awful but Virgin Media are shocking. Each time I complain I press the option for 'Thinking of leaving' and you speak to someone who at least tries to help. They're also offering discount to anyone (by pressing a button) at present due to forthcoming price rise.

They sold me a deal for £62 and each month I get a bill for £100 and have to call for an hour and argue to have a refund. Then I bought sim cards for £12 and got charged £16 and had to do same thing. Every month I get the bill and have to work myself up to be able to call them. Emails and complaint forms are not acted upon. Its exhausting dealing with such incompetence.

Scottish Power. They made an error on my account. Ok these things happen. They’ve acknowledged an error was made but seem incapable of putting it right. This has been going on for months. I’ve had to do numerous phone calls, emails to them. Argh!!!

John Lewis, who overcharged me and now expect me to wait 6 weeks for the partial refund they admit they owe me because “our finance department is exceptionally busy” 😠

Vodafone are absolutely shocking. Totally inept. Ditto tax free child care and Hermes.

Barclays are quite bad too. Not just inept but in my experience they have also lied repeatedly and forged signed documents!