Are there any shops/restaurants etc. that you boycott due to a bad experience/service?

[NETSRIK]

I have two - Co-op (due to their manager in my local store selectively targeting only certain people about what were essential items in their shopping during Covid.

And Asda as their supermarket online delivery customer service line is really bad.

@earsup

Currys electrical...sold me a second hand vhs machine years ago...passed it off as new....had to have a sit-in at shop to get refund and reported them....not first time they had done this ....never been back....

Same thing for me, Dixons (I think they become Currys?). After several returns to the shop they lent me one while it was repaired, which also broke. I returned it on a busy Saturday afternoon, in a shopping trolley which I pushed through the crowd of shoppers, and asked for a refund which they finally gave me. I never bought anything from Currys on that basis.

Ryan Air - thieving bastards
Weatherspoons - owned by an obnoxious idiot
My local pharmacy - middle of winter, not well, went in to collect a prescription, 4 members of staff ignored me despite me trying to talk to them. I was wrapped up so was feeling hotter & hotter & nauseous so walked out. A passer by saw how ill I was didn't leave until I was ok to walk home (without my prescription)

A sandwich shop near where I work they make sandwiches and then take money wearing the same gloves

Pimlico Plumbers.
They pop out for a part and charge you for the time taken which is a lot longer than it should be.
Mark up on cheap parts is ridiculous. Ask for a good quality chrome and you get a paint covered plastic one for the same price.
Lied to about placement of flue regulations. Instead of pricing up to replace pipe they quoted to knock a new hole in the wall and replace the entire flue which involved moving it down 8" and along the wall about 12" because of regulations. Regulations that did not apply due to date of original fitting. Many hundreds of £££. Got it fixed by an honest repair person for what it should have cost.

BT - they treated us awfully when we were students (20 years ago) and haven’t had a BT line since

@purplecorkheart

A sandwich shop near where I work they make sandwiches and then take money wearing the same gloves

I don't use the small Subway franchises (in garages etc) for that reason. Usually only one person serving and they never change the gloves between handling the food and working the till. Utterly grim!

I bought a camcorder online from Currys. Website clearly said online purchases could be returned to store for refund. I took it to our local store and manager was adament he wouldn't refund with it being an online purchase. I went back next day with printout from the website but he still wouldn't budge. I complained to their head office and got a letter back telling me to take the letter to the local store to confirm they had to refund it. But the obstinate manager still wouldn't! When I fed that back to the customer service/head office, they sent a refund anyway and told me to keep/dispose of the item as I thought fit. Never saw the manager in store again, so can only hope they sacked him!

Curry's and Ryan Air for same reason as most on here. Haven't had a bad experience personally but refuse to be treated like dirt

Party venue we had DDs birthday. They mixed up all the food orders so some children did not get a meal, then wanted to charge extra £20 because we requested some additional chips for those children to eat whilst they waited for them to cook the meal they did not cater. To be so petty over plates of chips when we had spent so much money was unbelievable. In the long run they've lost out - she has autumn birthday so most parents were due to host class party over the year and we have not recommended so all have gone elsewhere. I also advised friends of my younger child to steer clear

I won't use any of the supermarkets for delivery after being failed to ridiculous levels by them all at some point more than once pre covid

A cafe local to me after they were extremely rude to my then 4 year old.. who wasnt actually doing anything other than queuing with me to be served, while the assistant was nattering and we interrupted their chin wag

Also they dont like serving "none locals"

@gogohm

I won't use any of the supermarkets for delivery after being failed to ridiculous levels by them all at some point more than once pre covid

We've been OK with Tesco and Sainsbury. Yes, a few things unavailable and an occasional weird substitution but no problems when rejecting substitutions or getting refunds for missing items, short dated items, etc.

But Asda and Morrisons home delivery were a different kind of incompetence and stupidity. Morrisons barely even delivered the basics like bread and milk, saying "out of stock, no alternatives" which makes a complete mockery of deliveries, especially when we went into store same day and they had plenty of milk and bread! As for Asda, their substitutions are unbelievable, not even close to what we'd asked for, i.e. full sugar pepsi when we'd asked for diet coke, or their own brand frosties when we'd asked for Kelloggs corn flakes - their drivers were also pretty peeved when we rejected crazy substitutions like that, with the usual eye-rolling, sighing etc.

Guess which stores we still use for home deliveries - clue, it's not Morrisons nor Asda!

Curry's PC World

Delivered a range cooker which we paid to have installed about three days before Christmas. The delivery guys/installers said they did not have time to install it as it would take them over their working hours (it was a 45 minute job). They drove back to the West Midlands and their Christmas. Couldn't wait to leave. We potentially had no cooker over Christmas and six guests staying. I tried to get Curry's to resolve the issue but the helpline was next to useless and said the earliest they could fit someone in was New Year. We paid £360 for an independent fitter to come and connect us up and he drove a 160 mile round trip on Christmas Eve to do that.

I never bothered to pursue Curry's for the costs. Instead I cancelled a business order with them worth about £8,000 for IT hardware in my new business offices and went to a regional contractor to fit us out. We have 26 staff now and we never buy any IT equipment from Curry's. All domestic equipment now comes from John Lewis.

Curry's PC World are not a real service business, their branches are just depots and the only difference between them and Argos is the logo.

Lounges, like Pato lounge, Cassio lounge etc, I’ve been to two and both times the hygiene left a lot to be desired.

WH Smith because of their till flogging techniques and ugly, ugly, dated stores

Lush, Body Shop, M&S - gender idiocy
Wetherspoons - Brexit
Ryanair - bad service and the man’s an arse
BA - not what they used to be, and treated staff terribly with their fire-and-rehire carry on
Snag - used to love them and their stuff is great but find recent advertising distasteful
Flixbus - really messed DP around on a charter hire and wouldn’t refund

Paul strides in York
I’m going back about 15 years ago when I was pregnant and really had my heart set on a Phil and teds three wheeler buggy
We paid £365 for one and took it home-6 weeks before I was due and it sat boxed up in my bedroom
I’d used it for about 3/4 weeks when the wheel rim shattered-my daughter was sat next to it and was cut by the flying shards
They left me for just over 6 weeks with no buggy and 6 children-4 of which had to get to school
I had to carry a toddler and newborn 2 miles a day just to get them to school (I don’t drive)
Got it back and 9 months to the day I’d bought it,the front seat just collapsed-it was unusable-and then the basket bottom snapped in half (made from plastic) and it dragged along the road if I tried to take it out
They didn’t want to know-they said I’d ‘overused it’ and my toddler was ‘too heavy’ and ‘overweight’ (he wasn’t)
The basket had snapped as I’d ‘overfilled it’ (it held the changing bag about half the time) and ‘it’s not meant to hold anything’
Shitty company and shitty snobby attitude
A £365 buggy should last a lot longer than 7 and a half months which is how long id been using the damn thing
Never bought from them again

Currys, probably the worst service ever. They rang to ask for directions (property is easy to find) and were very rude. When they arrived, tried to refuse removing the old fridge/freezer. We had paid for this and then complained it was dirty underneath. I can't actually lift a large appliance.

Sainsbury for ridiculous short dates on my Christmas meats (pre covid). Had to freeze it all for two days.

Asda, the rudeness of their delivery drivers is unbelievable.

Body Shop because of the JK Rowling stuff a year or two back.

Tesco because during Covid they showed no care or loyalty for long-term customers who were on their monthly delivery saver scheme. Their home delivery slots simply disappeared with no offer of reserving us a couple of slots, or a refund. And they were insane in store during Covid too. Fuck that, I went to Morrison's who were wonderful.

My local greengrocers. I really like to support local businesses where I can but the people who own it are miserable as sin. I started going there twice a week during Covid and they could barely raise a smile. Fuck them, I just started getting my fruit and veg from Morrison's.

@Simonjt

Lounges, like Pato lounge, Cassio lounge etc, I’ve been to two and both times the hygiene left a lot to be desired.

My local lounge is lovely - but I’m quite a distance from the two you mention.

@Zillamop

M&S because of pronoun badges

imagine being this bigoted -sophie, she/her

Frankie and Bennys. I went for a family meal, the meals were on special offer and they had wheat free options prominently advertised. We ordered eight meals and requested one meal to be wheat free as SIL has an allergy. They said if you want it made wheat free we’d have to wash the chopping board and clean our hands and use a separate pan and switch a couple of ingredients, and it’s not worth the hassle unless you’re paying full price. So we all walked out and never went back.

My local greengrocers. I really like to support local businesses where I can but the people who own it are miserable as sin.

What is it with greengrocers? Ours was like that too, in fact I would think we lived in the same town but ours closed down a few years ago. If you said to anyone in town "You know that shop with the rude serving staff" they would know exactly which one you meant. I remember the woman working there being rude to me because I was after a particular herb and just because she knew each herb intimately by leaf shape she wasn't going to help me work out which was which and god forbid they put labels on anything.

A very popular cafe who wouldn't let me take a pram in there in 1996.

Lush - for promoting their Paddington shop as somewhere girls can have a chest binder sent to avoid their parents knowing. Particularly shameful as their main demographic is teenage girls. If they were giving out advice on how to self harm or annorexia everyone would have been up in arms about it.

@ChaToilLeam

What's the controvesy with M&S please?