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.

@Els1e

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!!!

Their error on my account took well over a year to sort out. Then they promptly did it again.

This was after the 2 years it took me to get them to accept that they were my supplier - as they consistently told me I wasn't and I couldn't move to another supplier as I needed them to register my meter on the database.

Plusnet. Took weeks for them to sort out my home move, in the meantime we had no internet or phoneline. Kept trying to tell me my line was working when it clearly wasn't. Sadly I was still under contract. As soon as I could leave I did

Currys. Lying bastards. Didn't sort anything out and couldn't have cared less about trading standards and consumer law until I told them I'd recorded our phonecall where they were caught out lying to me and threatened to put it on YouTube. Couldn't refund me fast enough. On a previous occasion I bought a laptop that was missold due to incorrect information on their website, I did get a voucher to compensate though. Many years before that they made me jump through numerous hoops to return a faulty laptop that was only a week old. I will never, ever buy from them again

Sunrise Medical

nPower. Took them ages to sort out my bill. They ended up owing me £hundreds

@Storminamu

BT in conjunction with Openreach. Horrendous experience.

Got to agree with that.

I used to get a regular problem with the landline/internet. Every time I rang to report it, I'd hang on for 45 minutes or more before I even got to speak to anyone.

Then there'd be 30 minutes of hanging around while they tested this, that and the fucking other, followed by 40+ minutes of unplugging this, switching off that and generally fucking about until they say "There appears to be a problem with your internet".

It was so hard not to shriek "I know that you fucking moron, why the fuck do you think I'm fucking phoning!"

In the early stages of lockdown, when I really needed a reliable connection, I massively kicked off and told them I was going to take this to Ofcom. They actually sent an engineer to my house to check stuff out. He replaced the socket where the line comes into the house, and it's been fine ever since. And they knocked £50 off my bill.

I'd had shit internet for 2 or 3 years, and that's all it needed.

BT

Ryanair. They have no customer service AT ALL, not even an email. Literally no way to contact them. They must have closed down the whole department and replaced it with an automated (useless) chat bot.

And generally, companies which rely on automated service and you can never speak to a human. Awful.

@opal8 Send an email through gov.uk if you want a result from the passport advice line. They're currently responding within a day and any queries that need access to an application will be answered by a person who HAS access to the application. Although even they are hit and miss at the minute as the advice line as a whole is currently losing experienced agents by the bucketload.

If you're getting emails asking for documents something is either missing or details on the documents sent don't match some information provided.

There will have been an email telling you what's needed (the email address is automatically populated from your application so if you've received a reminder it will definitely have gone to the right place) although these are missed a lot and can go to spam. Hope this helps!

@DaphneduWarrior

Virgin Media by a mile. I pay £50 a month and my fucking wifi goes down every single fucking day. Takes ages to get through in the phone, they ignore my complaint letters and worst of all, they’re the only provider for my postcode!!!

Snap;we lose wifi several times daily with these.

Hastings Direct car insurance.
Never again.
Was crashed into 18th Dec. Car finally collected for repair yesterday, only after I repeatedly chased it.
Have had to provide damage photos 4 separate times and spent hours on the phone.
Info hasn't been passed to the hire car or repair subcontractors who have resorted to calling me to see if I know what's happening.

Same names over and over.

BRITISH GAS - the new CEO took over on feb 2020 I think. Chris O'Shea and while he had poor timing with the pandemic, he set straight out to create significantly worse contracts for staff, more hours, less pay, less holiday, less sick and models like ctap, which essentially mean if a job takes longer than management want it to take, then the engineer needs to come in and work that time back for free or face disciplinary. Boiler service for example is now 17 minutes. When staff said it wouldn't work he put in fire and rehire straight away, and carried it though and fired hundreds of engineers and hundreds more left before and after the fire and rehire.

He's tried to employ more engineers, as they were short staffed before he did this, and it unsurprisingly, hasn't been received well. Essentially now with BG there isn't enough staff to meet demand, if you look online at their reviews they were from excellent customer service to poor in the last 12 months.

BT- really dismissive customer service, been without consistent internet since January 8th, they say there is no problems. We are having a new booster but I can't see how that helps as no internet even if I plug into router. They want people off lines ASAP and seem to have no technical knowledge. They used to be great too. We have been with them for years with no problems and have been happy to pay more for the service if it means we have a quality and stable connection, but right now they are useless and dismissive.

People blame working from home but I don't see that's the issue. Interestingly companies that have been seen to treat their employees well seem to be fairing well, companies like admiral who were and continue to be, good and flexible employers seem to have good customer service. I think working from home can work really well, but it depends on staff morale and motivation.

I think all these companies with bad customer service are also bad employers.

@Popkids re Better, they are much improved if you tweet them or actually go into a leisure centre

@Newnamefor2021

I was coming on to nominate British Gas - they win hands down on the poor service stakes as far as I'm concerned, so it was interesting to read your post. It explains a lot!

If you treat your workers like shit they offer a shit service! Who knew!?

[quote TonTonMacoute]@Newnamefor2021

I was coming on to nominate British Gas - they win hands down on the poor service stakes as far as I'm concerned, so it was interesting to read your post. It explains a lot!

If you treat your workers like shit they offer a shit service! Who knew!?[/quote]
Yeah it's bonkers isn't it? Who knew treating people like crap affected the business??

British airways seems to be nominated on here too and they were the first to attempt fire and rehire, they didn't go through with its unlike British Gas but British airways still demoralised their workforce with their actions and lost a lot of good staff.

Student Finance England. They asked for a birth certificate to verify identity in about March/April, and so it was sent off, but nothing seemed to be proceeding with the application. We called them every so often, all the phone handlers we got through to kept telling us it's fine, it can just take ages, it's being processed. This went on until July or August, when instead one of them said, "we don't take foreign birth certificates". Bear in mind that you tell them the place of birth when filling out the application in the first place, so that they shouldn't have asked for it in the first place then, and one of the multiple handlers over these months should have been able to say so too. Eventually had to send off the actual passport, which is more nerve-wracking, and the payments came in about 2 months late because of this.

@Precipice

Student Finance England. They asked for a birth certificate to verify identity in about March/April, and so it was sent off, but nothing seemed to be proceeding with the application. We called them every so often, all the phone handlers we got through to kept telling us it's fine, it can just take ages, it's being processed. This went on until July or August, when instead one of them said, "we don't take foreign birth certificates". Bear in mind that you tell them the place of birth when filling out the application in the first place, so that they shouldn't have asked for it in the first place then, and one of the multiple handlers over these months should have been able to say so too. Eventually had to send off the actual passport, which is more nerve-wracking, and the payments came in about 2 months late because of this.

Agree they are awful, I was on the higher payment threshold due to being an independent student and every year they would ask for more evidence, the same evidence and for me to fill in forms that actually weren't relevant. And every year this would delay my payments causing me to struggle financially. The last time I had this issue I kept phoning only to deal with different and progressively more unhelpful people each time who didn't know their elbow from their arse and would condescend to me when I would explain what forms I actually needed to fill out or why they didn't need certain evidence due to already having it and wouldn't believe me despite having already gone through 3 years of previous funding. In the end my funding came in 6 weeks late after they realised I was right and they had everything they needed to begin with!

They haven't been mentioned yet: Thames Water.

They put in a smart meter to my house, but didn't bother telling me. We only realised when I coincidentally requested a smart meter. But it took them multiple requests for them to actually process, and figure it out. And when they finally did figure it out, I had to choose between settling up my bill for what it would've been under the smart meter for the last 12 odd months if they'd actually told me about it/billed with it, and the estimated water bills I'd been paying. But they wouldn't tell me how much the smart meter bill would come to (even though they knew), to help in the decision. I plumped for smart meter bill, and luckily received a refund.

I had to contact them recently as I wanted advice about a leak. Their website has a 'report a leak' function that gets you to select the location on a map, then click report, which takes you to a help page which tells you to 'report a leak' which leads you back to the original 'report a leak' function. You can't call them, or email. So I used the online chat, but the guy just sent me to the 'report a leak' function, and said he couldn't do anything about the fact it didn't do anything. So, so pointless.

O2. I keep trying to cancel auto top-up and they say I don't have it enabled...despite agreeing that they take £10 every month, on the 20th, automatically. But no, that isn't auto top-up apparently and they can't/won't cancel it. Make it make sense!

OH yes to Thames Water too. They've been replacing pipes in the area lately, our street alone took them the best part of a month. They were never here for more than 3 hours per day! Turning up at 10:30 on weekdays but 7:30 on Saturdays digging up the pavements. Infuriating!

Bulb

Scottish Power, useless, pass you around and around and end up nowhere. It's like ringing fog.

Had to go to the ombudsman in the end, they make a decision, Scottish power are now 3 months past the deadline.

So ring, email the ombudsman all you get it, will chase them and get back to you, then radio silence, so you start the process again, every single month, it's like ground hog day.

So I ask myself what is the point of the Ombudsman, if they agree in your favour and still Scottish Power have implemented nothing in which they are told to do, what are they for. I thought it was the last stop to complain and it has to be dealt with. Oct was the deadline. That was after they appealed the previous decision on the last day, because of one word, "refund" wanting to change it to "credit" so they then got given an extra month to implement, yet still haven't sorted anything out. Dec 2019 I have been trying to sort it. We are now on our 5th account No. I think they think, it will just miraculously sorts itself out by closing one and opening another. Quick enough to send e-mails increasing my direct debit.

Would just love a magic wand.

Three mobile- so scripted I got to the point where my blood pressure was going through the roof and I was crying my DH had to take over the call I just couldn't handle them anymore I almost switched the sim off and took the hit each month because man alive luckily EE are better.
I don't care where call centres are based but surely understanding the language is essential.

@user1471453601

For me it's Hernes. I have to say, since a new deliverer started it's much better. Before that it was continual lying, we tried to deliver but no one was home. Three adults and a dog that reacts if someone walks into our garden, let alone knocks on the door. No way to contact them that I can find.

I've now cancelled two subscriptions because they will only use Hermes. I know they pay peanuts, and I'm sorry for anyone who has to work for them, but don't gaslight me. You didn't try to deliver, there was someone in, just tell me the truth. I know you dont,cos you'll be sacked, and I guess that's better than an entire household being gaslighted

Definitely Hermes for me. They’re so bad it’s almost funny. The lying! My favourites. I’d been working in the front garden the whole afternoon and they still tried to tell me they’d delivered a parcel, they’d have had to walk past me to deliver! Oh and the proof of delivery on another parcel… it was a photo of my parcel … and that was it. Even the call handler had to admit it was pathetic. I dread when I get that email to say Hermes will be delivering it…. Why on earth do firms still use them?

Scottish Power. Moved into my new place and set up my account with them as they were in place from the previous tenants and it had prepay meters. Bloke on the end of the phone kept repeating that there were 'reasons' I had the prepayment meter and until I could 'prove myself' it wouldn't be removed. Despite me repeatedly telling him I was a new tenant and had a faultless credit record, whatever had lead to them being installed was nothing to do with me. Then the welcome letter turned up and my name couldn't have been spelt more wrong despite me spelling it out to him. This also meant I couldn't access my online account because my email is my name.

Many many many phone calls later finally get my name sorted out on my account. Keep getting told my online account will now be sorted. Still isn't. Still absolutely no way of accessing it. Finally get someone to listen that it wasn't due to my actions that the prepay meters were installed but informed that it will cost £200 each to replace them. Can't afford that.

Still no joy on getting my online account. Finally decide to change suppliers as I'm so fed up with their service. Close my account, confirm closing meter readings, get a couple of cheques through the post a few weeks later. Fab.

Then a couple of weeks later I get two bills. Apparently I now owe money. I query this as they've just sent me cheques because my closing balance was in credit (which made sense because my meters were in credit). Nope apparently the money owed is correct. Ask how this is possible with prepay meters. They say they will check. Get txt messages telling me to check my online account. Call and say I can't do this because I've never been able to access it. They check while I'm on the phone and apparently I now owe even more money because they've reassessed. Ask for someone to please explain how a prepay meter can end up owing money. Nobody really can but give me a load of bluff about them not being entirely accurate and this is why they wanted me to have a smart meter (imagine this bit in an 'I told you so' kind of voice). Remind them that I DID have engineers over to install smart meters and they were unable to do so because there was a problem with the signal Scottish Power's end. Then they look closer and realise they have me down as already having a smart meter. Then ask me to reconfirm the meter readings as that could help with the money owed. Send them the pictures. No, they need to be with a recent/today's date. Point out that it won't be the same meter reading because I've used gas and electric since then and am no longer supplied by them. Ah well in that case they can't reassess sorry.

Fine whatever, I can't pay the huge amount they're asking all at once. Please set up a payment plan. They go over it. I instruct them to send it out by post because, once again, I can't access any online account and have never been able to thanks to the original way it was set up and subsequent failures to rectify it. Of course, they'll set it all up and send out paper copies. Paper copies never arrive but I do get several txts asking me to check my online account. I think it's paid off by now but I've no way of checking

Oh and new company originally sent out smart meter cards because Scottish Power told them I was on a smart meter. Right after I'd told them I definitely wasn't and we'd gone through the whole engineer visit failure on the phone.

And they've still never been able to tell me how a prepayment meter manages to be £100's of pounds inaccurate in their favour. Funny that.