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.

Thanks for this, I’ll never buy from them again.

Gail's Bakery. The pinnacle of everything I despise about modern capitalism.

Space NK. Terrible customer service and an absolute disdain for their paying customers.
Acai clothing, as above.

The BBC - bunch of Woke, Islamist liars.

Just Eat.
The delivery guy stole our takeaway.
We saw him hovering around on our road but he never came to our house or attemptedto deliver, just drove away on his crappy motorbike - with our food!

Barclays after they refused me a student Barclaycard (35 years ago). Not used Barclays since.

BT as their phone and broadband provision to our rural area is abysmal. May not all be their fault, as we are a long way from the exchange and trees do fall on the line in winter and break the connection - but all the same we have ditched them for both phone and broadband.

Brandy Melville (clothes shop for teen girls). No store refunds, no changing rooms, no mirrors and they don't use standard sizes. How anyone is able to actually buy something that fits them is beyond me. Utter contempt for their young customers.

I wouldn't deal with Thomas Cook (now defunct) after their treatment of a family when two children died of carbon monoxide poisoning in one of their properties.

Evri who have lost two of my orders from Cos and for being generally crap.

A well known foot care company with several shops in the South East who have a rubbish online booking system; even the receptionist told me I should have phoned up rather than book online.

P&O - after fire and re hire

The company (a professional partnership) who took 40% from employees pay during part of the pandemic because they were worried about cashflow (whilst transferring a stash into one of their wives' accounts). The senior people in the business were still drawing huge salaries whilst employees were going on UC. They went on to have a very profitable year in 2020.

I heard someone say that people would remember the way that business owners behaved during the pandemic.

NatWest - unknown to me my deceased ex husband had transferred hundreds of thousands into a legacy joint savings account (opened over 40 years ago) that I had completely forgotten about so hadn't removed my name from.
Their fraud investigation person was awful, when I said I knew nothing about it, told me I 'sounded' like an honest person. It was months of stress.
My ex had done nothing wrong either, it was a complex family matter and nothing to do with me.

Generally I find that when a business gets PE investment quality and customer service suffers.

Tesla or anything to do with Elon Musk. Don't need to explain.

I agree. British Gas is a PITA..
Im locked in with them at the moment until I move but I will be changing suppliers once I get to my new home.
It's taken over a year after my dh's death to transfer the ownership of solar panels into my name..a bloody year.

You have to give the driver a code now, maybe that's why.

I did have a driver try to deliver to a neighbour, it was 3.00 am, neighbour's house was in complete darkness

Can't actually avoid them unfortunately but DVLA, specifically the medical department.

Never actually got through to anyone, on hold for an hour then cut off numerous times, 18 months to get my licenc3 back after consultant said i was OK to drive, no response to letters until I got my MP involved.

Inefficient bastards.

Funny you should say british gas.
i absolutely despise them. They keep bribing me to come back. NEVER!

And, the british gas hagglers in the street iv started hissing at. Worst company ever.

Magnet Kitchens
It was 25 years ago but I still remember the stress. It took over a year to eventually get someone OUT to fix the problem which took 5 minutes to fix.
Magnet didn’t stay long in Ireland. I wonder why 🙄

@greenpolkadot55

Sounds like a case for the Ombudsman and compensation.

Why? How's it different from sny other chain?

Aside from good or bad customer service, I think it's probably largely pointless in changing energy suppliers therse days in an attempt to get a better deal.

They always try to stop you at thw supermarket door and ask how much you're paying, but rarely how much you use. Most people pay monthly amounts to try to balance off the bill costs over the year, rather than paying each bill in full when they receive them; so it's utterly asinine and deceitful to reel people in by promising them lower monthly payments for a few months, only to soon increase them to take account of both the actual costs of usage and the initial lower payments.

If I'm changing I always want to know the standing charge and the charge KWH, that's the only way to know if it's cheaper, I'd rather not pay the bill amount each month I'd rather pay a set amount generally over paying throughout the summer to not have to pay a large amount during winter

Aviva insurance, my brain tumour was not the right type of tumour for them to pay out the critical illness policy.....but, OMG! Service was worse than the brain surgery.

Yup! I can empathise with this! Absolute nightmare, had to become a expert on the road traffic act to get my licence back.

Yes, but the ones who hang around outside the supermarket aren't really targeting savvy people like you who understand the workings and are in a position to make an informed decision.

They'll ask "How much are you paying each month?" and then, when people give them an amount, they tap some figures on their tablets (or pretend to) and magically come up with a figure that's considerably lower. Their ideal marks will then think "Ooh, I currently pay X company £150 and Y company will charge me £125, so Y company is cheaper and I'd be stupid not to switch to them." They don't compute that it's just a contribution to an overall cost, which may be barely any less or even more in the long run, and which they're then beginning with a deficit.

Then, once they're with Y company and they write to them in two or three months and say "Wholesale prices are rising considerably across the board, so unfortunately we will need to increase your monthly DD to £180 to protect you from ending up in energy debt", they will have no idea whether the swap actually left them better off, worse off or no difference.

ah yeah I see what you mean now..yeah they are bad those sales tactics they use to reel people in.

That sounds horrendous - but then the government (all of them) always treat disabled people and those with serious medical conditions as inferior, the same as most people in general society do. At the very least, they treat it like your medical condition is both your entire identity and your passionate hobby, and you really couldn't possibly have anything else important to do like 'normal' people would.

In the same way as many people (and again, the government) clearly consider people who claim disability benefits to be pretty much the same as benefit fraudsters and workshy people, I reckon they probably mentally lump those who have to push to get their licences back following a change in medical circumstances in with those who have lost their licences for drink driving, speeding and other dangerous behaviour: "Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you....... became disabled through absolutely no fault of your own".

I've been fortunate enough not to have had my licence taken away and to fight for it back; but I do have to apply to renew it every three years - thankfully always accepted so far. People will call me pathetic for objecting, but I really resent the fact that they officially term it a 'short-term licence'. It's just another way to put disabled people in their (inferior) place. My licence is not short-term; yes, it has to be periodically reviewed and renewed, but the entitlement lasts for as long as I wish to and am fit to keep it... but as far as the authorities are concerned, it's a very special little favour that they benevolently hand out for a little while to substandard people who should be immensely grateful for it for as long as it lasts.

Were these smart meters? Did they reset them remotely? Surely they're not supposed to do that?

I do agree with everything you've said! But the DVLA medical teams were all laid off during covid, and what was an entire department is now about 2 people in Swansea. The problem is that it's not fit for it's purpose, and what they don't tell you is that you can legally drive after a medical surrender, as soon as your medical professional has written the letter they require, even when you don't have the physical licence. They took 10 months to catch up with my admin before the licence arrived.

Oh no !
That is horrendous.
Shame on Aviva - and all the money they spend on sponsorship of this and that.

And I thought Zurich were bad when we had a water tank leak.
Paying in for 25 years and they gave us a pittance.
But their swanky head office must have cost a bomb so they know the cost of building things and labour.
Feckers.
They too are great for their sponsorship- DH was at a golf thing and got lots of stuff with the Zurich logo 🙄
We won’t be keeping them.