Which organisations if any have you decided to never use again for one reason or another?

[chantelleleanna]

I'll start with British Gas, awful company, very expensive and customer service is non existent..there is a reason they have lost a few million customers of recent years, close second place is EE for similar reasoning.

Many thanks

They’ve just send my dead parent a final bill saying they are sorry he has decided to leave even tho I went through the bereavement team.

Shelter - I always thought that I was buying 'Bill' a Christmas dinner and keeping him warm for a night - I didn't realise that I was paying for advisors to advise feckless tenants who spent their housing benefit on booze and fags on how not to be evicted for rent arrears.

Currys. Someone bought us a Currys kettle as a wedding present. The element went after about three years. Husband went to Currys to buy a replacement element. They didn't sell them and we had to throw a perfectly usable item away for want of an easily replaceable part. We hate this throw away/buy another culture. Never been in a Currys since and this was 50 years ago!

This! I was in tears of frustration trying to leave them, never known anything like it.

Their new connection with o2 is making me want to leave o2 after more than 20 years with them too…

Give me Ryan air over Easyjet any day. They scammed us out of £600 in covid!

It was petty on the part of Pizza express given they could have just issued 2 bills . I don't see why you could not have a bill for 6 people, and one pay separately on a different bill to fulfill the voucher terms and conditions . I've been on works meals at pizza express and split bills have never been a problem. I'd have been annoyed and assume you didn't tip.

It is always worth checking however before ordering if the terms and conditions are not clear, that the voucher is going to be valid so they say no, you have option of going elsewhere

HSBC - really got me on bank changes when I was younger and in a difficult position
Boots - for making their staff go back to the office and mainly impacting women (no I don’t work for them)
Starbucks - for not paying the tax they should

Permanently avoiding: Virgin Media, unspeakably awful.
Tescos.
Temu.
Starbucks.

Trying hard to avoid: Sainsburys, Amazon. Sadly also M&S Food, for taking their cafes out and turning the shop into a horrible soulless Ikea for food. I won't forgive.

Cannot avoid but would if could: United Utilities.

I want high streets back. 😭

Sky. Dreadful to try to speak to and their poor staff are terrified of bad reviews.

For anyone looking to switch broadband and having difficulty with their provider, its now easy with the One Touch Switch, introduced by Ofcom. The new company you choose communicates with your old provider and manages the changeover and cancellation behind the scenes. Your old provider will send you an end of contract and any exit fees due. We were just out of contract and did it through moneysavingexpert.com, very easy.

Very interesting to see many of the same names coming up again and again.

Boots used to be a great company, and Jesse Boot did a lot for the people of Nottingham. Sadly just a soulless multinational now.

I'm really torn on Vodafone, because I was sent through so many hoops with them years ago when their assistant didn't bother listening to (or even asking for clarification on) my name when organising the credit check for my monthly payment and put in the application for a made-up version of my name. I have a very common, standard name for reference.

When that came back as failed - because obviously no person of that name existed at my address (although I didn't know that was what had happened at the time), they told a panicked me to check with the credit reference agency that they'd used, which then conned me into signing up with them and costing me £15 before I was able to cancel... when I discovered what the issue was, they couldn't care less. IIRC they actually patronised me and blamed ME for applying with the wrong version of my name, when it was a different name entirely that I would never use. I ended up going with them for a dongle (more fool me) and the download speed was abysmal wherever I went with it. I moved to 3, which I always found infinitely better, with speeds that were literally several thousand times as fast (genuinely - the VF speed would routinely be in a few KBps, with 3's speeds in MBps). I left them and would never ever go back with them.

HOWEVER, as I'm sure most people are aware, VF and 3 have now 'merged' - although it's clear that it's actually a takeover of 3 by VF; so we are now with VF again for our phones. I thought we had strict competition laws in the UK, but apparently these have now been done away with, as the remaining choice of mobile providers is absolutely shocking. I can't see any point in switching again, but I feel deceived and our custom taken by false pretences. We previously had appalling service from Orange, so we would never go with EE on principle... but who knows what will happen if we eventually end up with just one monopoly provider who can charge as much as they like and freely give the most atrocious service?

We aren't fans of KFC anyway, but we would never consider going there now, after their adverts mocking Christianity. People are free to believe whatever they want (or not), but it's nasty to deliberately seize on people's sincerely-held faith and seek to cause offence for no reason whatsoever, and probably quite stupid too, if the millions of mocked people vote with their feet.

The whole thing about vouchers expiring after a year, or even less - from all kinds of companies - is nothing short of theft. You're effectively giving them a free loan and also restricting your friend/family member to shopping with them in reclaiming that payment; and then they point-blank refuse to repay that loan and blame YOU or your recipient for not calling it in sooner!! Bank of England gift vouchers are infinitely better, as well as being able to spend them anywhere.

British Gas sent me an overdue bill for nearly £300. I have lived in my property ten years and have always used scottish power, as did the previous owners for 10 years before that. I ignored it, they sent it to a debt collection agency.

I had to fight with these people for weeks to explain to them that British Gas had not been connected to my property for 20 years that I know of, and the bill was not mine.

When they eventually figured out it was for the same street name and number over an hour away, they backed away sheepishly. No apology, no follow up letter should the debt referral ever pop up in the future. Bullying wankers

ASDA

Haven't used them for over 20 years after finding quite a few raw meat products in the fridges past their sell by date. I pulled all the ones I could find into one area and told a member of staff who seemed really horrified and took them away.

Week later went in, same thing, more out of date meat products in the fridges. Obviously potentially poisoning your customers appeared to be very low on the list of things to avoid.

Haven't shopped there since.

As someone with serve allergies this is terrifying. Name and shame please

Sky Mobile
Best Heating
Snaiton Golf
Any Inchape owned car franchise
Lufthansa

Dominos - ordered onion rings and expected lovely crisp rings as shown on the menu but got 7 sad slimy, greasy dregs stuck to the bottom of the box. When I phoned up to complain I was told I was lucky to get 7 as they should only have given me 6.
Oxfam - when it transpired that overseas workers were exploiting women and girls for sex in exchange for aid, and more recently for all their trans nonsense.
Wickes - 'anyone who doesn't support trans rights is not the kind of person we want as a customer'
Lots of other brands for their pro-trans stance
Asda - part of the Walmart group who's policy in small towns in America is to undercut any local independent shops until they go out of business and then hike up the prices.
M&S - made huge donations to the Tory party
Nestle - for the baby milk scandal
Barclays - for supporting South African apartheid

Showing my age for those last two!

I used to regularly have their [Pret] egg and bacon baguette. It was delicious. Went in one day to get one and there were none there. The staff member flat out denied they'd ever sold them.

Charities - as a lot spend 20 - 30% of their income (i.e £millions) on generating their next income presumably on commissions and very expensive TV commercials.

Would never donate to MacMillian after they gave my father the wrong drugs and killed him. they checked his name band and gave the drugs to him regardless of them being for a different patient. Apparently not the only time this has happen with their nurses

Virgin media and TalkTalk because both reeled me in with the promise of amazing internet speeds (both appalling in our area) and raised the price an insane amount after the introductory offer so left both. Now with Youfibre and they’re great.

OMG !
Could you get a new job and be a whistleblower ?

Currys, awful customer service, Sports Direct with their no refunds policy,I actually don't know how they get away with it. Argos for anything more expensive than 20 quid or so as had terrible experience after buying a cooker from them. Booking.com dreadful as well. Oh and BT, I can be a pretty hard bitch when it comes to my rights but trying to deal with them on the phone made me cry

At the risk of all manner of ropey companies coming on and supposedly 'recommending' themselves, we should have a second thread about companies that MNers have used and been thoroughly impressed with!

I'm not going to derail this thread, but I have been consistently amazed by the top-notch quality of the service, ethics, efficiency and honesty of our (tiny) home broadband provider over the last 15 years. You can even phone them and have your call answered in a few rings by an actual person, based in the UK, who knows exactly what they're talking about and won't fob you off!

That's interesting what has John Lewis done re woman's rights ?
I know waitrose recently changed their feminine products to period products for trans inclusion but I wasn't aware of anything else ?