What are the worst big businesses? Name and shame!

[Memba]

40 minutes on hold to Virgin Media while they try to book an engineer to replace a TiVo box that went up in smoke (literally!) 2 weeks ago. Multiple calls to unhlepful staff in the meantime. Honestly, it would be easier to get a GP appointment...

Also GiffGaff. Tried to swap from EE. Nightmare. Massive buyers regret. You defintely get what you pay for.

But in the interest of fairness... First Direct and Octopus Energy are very much on my good list 😀

Scottish power purely because they put someone's name on my account along with mine I don't know who this person is they have never lived at my house but they won't remove them from my account I've complained escalated the complaint they say it's fine as his name isn't on the actual bill? OK so why is he on my letters and emails?? Ffs it's been years I got an emails the other day his name on it AGAIN

HMRC. The biggest shower of shit going, and the bain of my life 🤬

I used Klarna to buy furniture from Dunelm Mill, i used it as an interest free loan. My furniture is not crap, i did need it and its not going in landfill for many years.

My Evri driver is fantastic, he knows where to leave my parcels and i have - touch wood - never had a parcel go missing. He gets rave reviews on the local facebook site.

Boots are the most disappointing. I used to buy all my toiletries and beauty products there but now they've done away with the consultants on the counters it's bloody awful. Nobody to suggest products, give advice etc. Testers not replenished, limited colours kept in stock (that's once you've worked out where the available products are kept!). 90% of tills are self service. Their website is dire, slow and clunky.

I get toiletries with weekly shop now, and go to John Lewis for beauty products. I do have to wonder how many customers they've lost by shedding all their staff and consultants.

Worst:
HMRC

Best: Octopus Energy

Yodel delivered my DD's main Xmas present to a Mental Health Secure Unit on the 23rd December. ( As it was a secure unit you needed permission to enter. We think the delivery driver basically chucked it at one of the staff who were going in then took a picture. ) The retailer ( Next I think ) were sympathetic but couldnt get another one out for delivery before Xmas. Yodel couldnt give a shiny shit.
I was incredibly lucky that a family member had recently retired from a senior NHS role and had a friend in management at the site who brought it out for me.

I agree, AO are dreadful

British Airways. Cancelled my flight (ok this happens). Refused to deal with customers other than email/text. Refused my claim for an alternative flight and then completely ghosted me- no option for complaint/escalation. Had to go to arbitration (which I found out about as an option via Which?), At which point they settled everything.

LastMinute.com

My two horrendous experiences recently have been Crew Clothing and the NHS.

Qantas. Their customer service is almost non existent and the tiny bit that does exist is absolutely fucking shit. 8 MONTHS of back and forth complaints and they’ve done absolutely fuck all. I hate them more then I hate Virgin which is saying something 😂

It wasn't a fake
This woman was known for stealing from young children as they where powerless to do anything
This was the early 90's when parents didn't give much of a toss-and she'd just deny it if they did complain and had got away with it on many occasions
She stole my genuine £5

British Gas the biggest shower of sh**.
27 phone calls to settle mums account after she died.
Ended up getting the ombudsman involved.
To be told they didn't realise mum had died.
They were sent a copy of the death certificate.
Mum owed them £87. 00
First bill was for £8700.
Second £8.70.
Then told they wouldn't discuss with me as I'm not mum.
Poa sent.
Third bill £8700
They wrote after ombudsman involved to write off the debt.
2 weeks later received a letter saying mum owed the money.
Back to the ombudsman

National windscreens. Booked for them to repair my windscreen at home (I WFH full time) just received a confirmation that I'm actually booked into their centre 40 miles away and the job will take 4 hours. 'We can't do your repair at home.' Why did you let me book it then and not make me aware until the day before? I can't go tomorrow, or any time really, argh!

I actually got very angry on your behalf just from reading that. I am so sorry - companies have no excuse not to be able to deal with relatives of a deceased person, they have had plenty of practice. You poor thing and good on you for pursuing it, they can only get better if they learn from their appalling service (well you would hope... a pig might have just flown past the window...)

@taxguru That's a disciplinary offence for Royal Mail staff.

Yes, another vote for the utterly useless Purely Pets. The only reason I eventually got anything from them at all was because of a review I put on Trustpilot.

Also be aware they are part of a larger group called Insurance Factory who I believe have many other insurance companies linked to them. I’m going to be very careful to avoid the lot of them in future.

Vinted - their "customer support" is non existent. If you raise an issue, you get a response saying they'll reply within 48 hours - they don't. When you try and chase it up, you get a response saying we are dealing with it, please don't "clog up the system"! They aren't dealing with it btw, just hoping you'll go away.

Never the same person twice if you do get replies and they always sign off with that fake cheery "I hope you have a lovely day! (smiley face, hashtag peace and love etc)"

British Gas.

Their complaints function is totally non-existent. Outsourced staff have a poor understanding of English - the content of some of the emails and Live Chats I've had is absolutely shocking. No desire to help, just replies from a different person each time (in the same email thread), telling you something totally different to the last person. It was so bad it was genuinely almost comical.

Energy Ombudsman by contrast - outstanding. And their inclusion is clearly the only thing that kicked BG into actually dealing with my complaint, in their UK based escalated complaints team - after months of me contacting them.

Octopus Energy. Biggest pile of shite going. Took them to the Ombudsman and won but they STILL haven’t paid me the money they owe. This has been going on for almost three years! They now say they have “lost my file”. Beyond useless the lot of them.

They owed me about a grand, and ummed and ahhed about giving it back.

I just hate the lies and constant bullshitting.
I raised a complaint with the Ombudsman, and i had put a case together to take them to the Small Claims Court.
The fee was £80, and i had every piece of evidence that I'd possibly need to show the Judge.

I wasn't exactly relishing the idea, but, luckily, Octopus coughed up shortly after.
I don't know if that's because of the involvement of the Ombudsman, though.

Stick at it!

Scottish Power, they hate taking payments too. I was saying to DH I've never known a company to make it so impossible to make a payment. They are very difficult to deal with.

British Airways: shit website that crashes constantly and they take for ever to resolve issues that they caused.
Boots: what’s happened to them? Shabby stores, clueless staff, long queues, lack of stock etc…
Curry’s: worst customer service.

Good:
Le Creuset and Argos.

Bad: Thomas Sanderson/Hillary Blinds; Scottish Power
Good: Octopus energy

Currently on my hit list, Amazon, Next, TalkTalk, EE and Royal Mail (especially for business customers).

Octopus always been great and I am making an effort to shop small this Christmas because I'm so done with the big companies. They aren't any cheaper when you factor in crap products, missing/damaged deliveries and wasting hours trying to sort problems out. Small businesses care.