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.

Sadly John Lewis are awful for customer service these days. Used to be my shop of choice for white goods etc, but no longer.
First Direct too - having a similar problem to a pp with letters about the joint account suddenly ( after 20 years without problems) being addressed only to dh.
But the absolute worst are Apple. Am never buying a new Apple product ever again. Just awful in every way. Obfuscation, denial of responsibility, overpriced products , built in obsolescence and general crappiness.

Really interesting thread . The same names keep coming up.

Just so sad to see that John Lewis been mentioned a few times. They used to be the best.

Ooh mine is definitely virgin. I want to move so badly but I’m not sure who to move to as we have a lot of devices, etc

Sainsburys are pants, I thought Asda was bad but sainsburys topped them when they didn’t deliver my shopping despite knowing from earlier in the day they wouldn’t be able to, no complaints process as such, no apology, no goodwill gesture for leaving me without food and toiletries ( it was a late at night delivery and needed some of the items first thing that night or first in the morning)

I have since closed all my accounts with them and refuse to shop in their store

However on my top hit list is Peabody housing association 😡 they are the absolute worst, rude customer service agents, cowboy contractors, never want to repair anything that goes beyond a basic repair ( they have recently fitted me and probably the other thousand of tenants) unsafe fire doors but they are refusing to rectify it despite having an expert report proving this so now I have to start a legal battle with them. Neighbour has had scaffolding put up by them for 5 months to fix her window but they are refusing to fix the window, all the while neighbours next door can’t get sky as the scaffolding is blocking the signal

Great thread. I have found my people. I have just cancelled all my coverage with domestic and general. They are happy to make appointments not to happy to actually show up and do the work.
Years ago when I travelled by plane BA lost my bag on three consecutive occasions. I knew that little picture sheet off by heart. The one where you point at the bag that looks the most like yours.

I think I have posted this on here before, but a few months ago there was a thing going on Twitter about having a law named after you if you died like Sarah's law.

Mine was that any company which does not have an email address for customer queries, and does not deal with them the next day at the latest, should be fined 5% of worldwide turnover (not profit). Companies have got to stop hiding behind chatbots and call centres where nobody ever answers the phone and also LISTEN to customers. They don't - and they won't admit when they don't know the answer and won't ask - they just tell the customer the wrong thing.

I am always amazed when people write into the "consumer agony aunts" in the weekend newspapers and companies only seem to be able to deal with a query properly when the press gets involved. Sometimes (usually airlines) they still refuse to give the customer's money back or whatever but nine times out of ten they resolve the issue to the customer's satisfaction. So if they can do it then, why not before?

Vodafone does have a customer care address but oh my goodness you have to dig deep to find it.

Also all the companies that use dark patterns. For example - Virgin Media allows you to upgrade your service online. But if you want to downgrade your service eg take away Sky sports, you have to phone them (and can't get through). Admittedly they did set up an online method of pausing it when the football stopped during the first lockdown.

I think we need to send this thread to the CMA and trading standards and say DO SOMETHING. To be fair, I think they do, but have limited resources.

Co-op Bank by FAR. Every month I have to pay a fee for my mother's care home. Every month I'm on the phone for an hour on hold. Every month they say 'we can't take the password you set up by going into the branch with your power of attorney, we need her password/mobile number/favourite colour'. Every month I have a painful conversation about how she's had alzheimers for 16 years and I have NONE of this information! It's dreadful. You'd think they'd be on to this given most of their customer base must be older!

Crest Nicholson - I bought a new build house from them in May and the customer services is absolutely shocking.

Still lots on my snag list left to sort including the major works to make my house actually comply with building regs. They constantly fob off and ignore.

Nov/Dec I had at least 10 occasions where they promised to look into my outstanding issues and call me back but didn't. I put in a couple of complaints about them not coming back to me ..... they didn't respond to my complaints.

I previously complained to the MD who told me all my outstanding issues would be dealt with as a matter of urgency. That was three months ago and when I went back to him and said they still weren't being dealt with he just ignored me.

EE. Mobile and broadband. Called me on Black Friday to offer me a deal with BT Internet instead, it would cost more per month but I'd get 3 months free and my phone contract would be reduced so would end up with monthly payments about the same. But I'd also lose 5gb data.

So, said I, I'm paying the same but getting less?

Yes, but you get 3 months free.

Me - ok, I'm assuming the cancellation fee on my current broadband will be waived?

Him - no, you'd need to buy yourself out of the current contract (about 6 months left)...

Reader, I didn't switch.

There was a company and I can’t remember their name where the phone rang and rang for 58 mins, you’d get through and it would cut out at exactly 60 mins. The first time we thought we’d been unfortunate but after the 3rd time we realised that was just what happened. The staff must spend their whole day going ‘hello, crappy company, can I take your name, DOB and address’ The phone cuts and onto the next infuriated customer.

Virgin Media, all of it - broadband, phone (mobile and landline) and tv. Just so hard to get any help, when you do speak to someone they can be good (not for phone issues) so we left them.

Dobbies simply don't reply or acknowledge any customer complaints IME.

I'm not sure why some posters are blaming bad service on contact centre employees working from home. If everyone was called back to the office tomorrow it wouldn't increase the number of employees, cause them to suddenly become fully trained or crucially, change the company policies that are actually the problem.

Virgin Media by a country mile.
The service is absolutely pisspoor, I'm routinely without broadband for a couple of days at a time.
But the thing that absolutely makes me tear my fucking hair out is when I call trying to sort out my broadband and they try to cross-sell me TV packages.
"No thank you just get the sodding basics working before you try to take more of my money".

Parcel2go.

A parcel was sent to me on 4th January which should have been delivered on 7th. It's not been updated since 6th January when it was at national sorting centre.

Tried to chase it up. No phone number. No email that I could find. Fijnally send message on twitter and they say they'll look into it. That was Friday.

Sent a message yesterday chasing it and just received a further message that says :

"I am very sorry but our system has been updated and previous messages have been cleared. Please can you confirm the order number so I can look into this?"

This really is the worst customer services I've ever encountered. Imagine LOSING not only the parcel but the follow up query... anyway why would Twitter clear down the direct messages?

What will happen next - hopeless so far!!

Southern Water, left my entire road with raw sewage leaking indefinitely, blaming the weather. Only got sorted when our MP intervened, turns out it was nothing to do with the weather but one of their engineers had left a bung in a pumping station. Never been so angry

Can I just say that the single thing companies big or small could do to improve their customer service (aside from hiring more staff) would be to stop insulting our intelligence by looking on their website.

I absolutely hate this. You're on hold to some utility/telco/grocer or whatever and the recorded messages pipes up to say: "Have you checked our website?"

Well fuck me that never crossed my mind, Doris. What a blinding idea.

Company websites almost never provide any tailored information that you can't get from an individual in a call centre. It's all about getting people off the phone. I get that. But FFS stop trying to tell us the website is an additional resource. 99% of the time someone calls because they have exhausted the website as a source of information.

by telling us to look on their website sorry. Frothing at the mouth illiteracy

Electrolux

I was disappointed in homebase. I ordered something for someone else (delivered to their house) and then tried to immediately cancel and select a different date. I emailed as the website seemed to suggest it might be possible to cancel this way. I heard nothing for a few days and started to worry. I contacted on social media and they said there was a delay with the order but I couldn't cancel it but thought it might go back to warehouse if nobody home. I rang them and they said they couldn't talk to me about it even though I ordered it because I put the recipients name on the delivery address. Ultimately 2 were delivered (1 to a neighbour as the reason for trying to cancel is recipient was on holiday, not back to warehouse as I had hoped). They returned it to a store for me but I didn't get the £5 delivery cost refunded. Of course I perhaps shouldn't have ordered a second time until 1st one was cancelled but as I had picked a date over a week away and emailed within an hour of ordering I thought there was a chance. It was the refusing to talk to me about it because i wasn't the recipient that really annoyed me. Will never shop there again!

So many! BT and Scottish Power probably the worst, but also John Lewis, would say Hermes but as you can't actually contact them not sure it counts ...

BA has been the worst recently. They act like they're running a bloody racket, changing terms and conditons all over the place and then making themselves virtually impossible to contact.

The BT fiasco had a good outcome I suppose - they were due to install fibre to premises at our house (from the pole about 12 feet away), and after 6 missed appointments and many many days behind the promised date, they ended up having to pay us compensation (as per their own terms) so we now have two years fibre with no bills and a bit extra to boot. The incompetency was staggering though.

Vodafone, who still owe me £89 but I've given up trying to get it back as it's just too bloody time consuming.

Talk talk for just being utterly shit in every way.

Argos for selling me the worst quality item I've ever bought: a bed frame -2 of the legs had already snapped off when I opened the box. Such a rigmarole to get it sent back and a refund.

Woolovers for sending a jumper with a hole in it and then not responding to tweets or emails.

First Direct for charging me hundreds in fees and showing zero sympathy when I wasnt earning for a few months due to DV injuries. I'm still angry about that years on.

Virgin media. Service kept going down across the village, multiple residents complaining to them, I'd complained, I'd complained to CEO after no response, still nothing. Finally managed to get another fibre provider so cancelled with virgin. They asked why and when I explained about the crap, unreliable service they claimed that there were no records of any issues in my area being reported. I might have bluntly suggested that their record keeping must be as shoddy as their fibre . They then decided to have various teams contact me at random points over the next 3 months to ask why I'd left (so presumably they don't record that either ) and offer me deals to come back.

I’ve had variable I think.

Co op was easily the worst, (this is almost 10 years ago though when I was a student) they set up a direct debit incorrectly from my account, I asked them to cancel it which they did, except they didn’t. And the direct bounced as I had no money (poor student) they then charged me £30 two weeks later for the bounced payment, and then proceeded to charge me £30 for this payment taking me into an unauthorised overdraft. Eventually they repaid it but it took a lot of complaining - I left shortly after.

Vodafone were awful. Asked them to cancel contest which they confirmed via email they would, proceeded to take the money for 3 months. Each month I called to deal with it and was told it was sorted (their call centres at the time weren’t in the U.K. either). Finally I was told it was absurd sorted, and I could cancel direct debit which I did. Never heard anything from them - until 4 years later when I went to get a mortgage and found they had put a default in my credit file, mortgage was declined. To their credit - I then spoke to a lovely man who removed the default from my credit file after I explained the situation and the mortgage went ahead but it was just a needlessly stressful time.