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.

A high street supermarket that I had a voucher for over 30 years ago. It was a six month voucher. Only noticed on the last day as I’d thought it was a year and they tried to deny me my new toaster as they said it had to be used BEFORE the date.

It didn’t say that ! It just gave the date so of course it was inclusive! However I was early 20’s and the sneery old male manager ripped it up in front of me.

Over the next year I carefully stole the full value of the voucher. £50.

don’t care that I’m a ‘thief’.

Another vote for Sky.
A few years ago our next door neighbours sold their house and when they moved out Sky cut off our broadband instead by mistake. It took 6 weeks to get it reconnected which was a complete nightmare as DH works from home and the DC were in exam years at school and needed the internet. Then to add insult to injury they tried to charge us a hefty reconnection fee! They finally backed down on that when we said we were complaining to Ofcom but we switched providers as soon as we were out of contract and they'll never get another penny of my money again.

Scottish Power. Appalling customer service when I had problems with my meters.

Easy Jet after they refused to refund my flight when my mum died, even though I was happy to send them the death certificate. They gave me stupid vouchers. I had no problem with refund from Air BnB.

Scottish Power. Awful experience all the way. During the energy crisis in 22/23 theykept upping my direct debit so much that I ended up with over £200 in my account after winter. It was impossible to contact them as the telephone lines were only for vulnerable customers.
Their chat operators were based in India so whenever I sent the message they would reply in the middle of the night and then close the chat because “ the customer was not responding”. I left as soon as the switching/fixing became available. Then the idiots phoned me to convince me to stay. They got a long loud rant about why I had left.

Virgin Media for the same reasons as PP.

EE. My contract literally ended 6 months ago and they're denying what's right there in black and white on their own app and paperwork, and won't let me leave.

British Gas for making hundreds of mistakes consistently over the years. Left them for Octopus . No cheaper of course, but much better service.

Thames Water. I don't live in London any longer, but good God. I started a twitter account, back when I was leaving London, in a false name so I could start to initiate contact re leaving (back then this was apparently the quickest route) and all they could ask was "what's wrong with using your real name? Why have you used a false name?" and it just went on and on. I said I was happy to email under my real name/account, but that twitter was a lot faster initially, but I didn't want to use my real name on twitter.

Nope. "but why not just use your real name? We don't understand". And it was this REPEATEDLY. Over many days. In the end I had a massive go at them, and they backed down. Horrid. I never use my real name on social media.

The Salvation Army. Worked at their headquarters for several years and they really do have a cult like mindset (and I say that as someone who is pro religion). They are very protective over their own and have a lot of double standards in terms of how that approach things. Refuse to give them a penny or contribute in any way.

Trampoline place near to us said we couldn't wear their competitiors socks.

I argued, said I'll wear which socks I like.

They gave us free pairs of their branded socks. Which like sheep, we wore.

Never went there again.

3 Mobile, I had a contract phone with them and i dropped it while getting away from the stranger who sexually assaulted me while I was walking home from work. It broke and they told me it was my fault, and that the circumstances were irrelevant! I had a crime number of course and the detective in charge of my case offered to speak to them but they weren't having it. In the end i emailed their CEO and that made them change their tune, they sent me a new phone but as soon as the contract was up I left and went to another provider

This, especially after so much of their advertising consisted of slagging off other green deodorant companies for using a tiny amount of plastic. Funnily enough I tried both a few years ago and Wilds cases fell apart very quickly and never held the deodorant very securely, but the rival company cases are still going strong!

Anything owned by Boparan - two sisters food group/ Boparan restaurant group.

His son seriously injured a little girl (dying years later) they took ages to pay compensation/ wouldn't take responsibility and generally utter arseholes.

Talk Talk

For months wouldn’t let me cancel a 15 year old contract as apparently I don’t know my own name (they’d somehow messed up the account details and had part of my email address as my ‘name’, which I worked out in the end, despite it presumably being fairly obvious to all the people I spoke to.) Of course when I cancelled the direct debit, they were more than happy to hound me - the person they could not identify as account owner. I said if you believe it’s me who owes you money then you clearly have identified me as the account holder. They did cancel in the end, sometime after I just stopped paying. Never again!

Oh and Booking dot com. Failed to let us know return flight time was brought forward by an hour, even when checking in online 24 hours in advance, even though the schedule had changed weeks before we flew. Missed the flight, had to pay for alternative flight home. They were prepared to refund the original cheap flight but not cover the difference for the much more expensive flight we had to get home. So we were left out of pocket due to their mistake.

Curry’s - many years ago I took a laptop in for repair under my monthly paid for insurance. It had a small bullseye crack in the corner of the screen. They returned it saying they were not repairing it as the damage was deliberate. I opened the box in store when they returned it to me - the workshop had clearly had some kind of ‘accident’ with it themselves - it was literally smashed into tiny pieces like it had been hit with a sledgehammer! Fucking disgusting.

Second incident with them - I bought a new oven, it was broken on delivery. They sent a replacement, that too, didn't work (different fault). I then spent the next 6 months arguing with them, with the help of Trading Standards to force them to actually deliver me a working oven. That experience was more horrendous than the laptop incident.

I have never shopped with them since, and never will.

@NonComm can I ask what your bad experience was with PCS union? I'm in the civil service and find them fairly ineffectual. There seems to be a lot of infighting at the national level too. I've always believed in unions but I wonder sometimes if it's worth paying the subs.

I don't see how it was 3's problem tbh, it was accidental damage not a fault with the phone

I've tried wild and fussy and found them both crap, I'll stick with antiperspirant

I found fussy really effective and they don't test on animals 👍

John Lewis , my go-to for donkeys years but after overhearing an interesting phone conversation regarding a faulty item ( they thought the line was on mute ) never again.
Having destroyed my credit and loyalty cards ,I’ve told everyone I know the lurid details and will ensure they never receive any more of my money.
Their now off-shore customer service is an insulting joke . So sad really , they were a trusted institution. Gone.

That's a shame, but obviously it's important whatever we use in our pits works! I've tried a tonne of deoderants over the years and am so pleased with Fussy.

Same! I just got the new peach one yesterday and I love it so much!

Fairy liquid. I hate their adverts. No other reason.

Boots. They lost my designer glasses on the day before Christmas Eve and refused to help me by rushing through a pair for me to use over the holiday period. Vision Express were brilliant and saved the day ❤. Boots never did find them, initially lied that they had them, then offered me less than half the price of the frame in compensation. And they don’t pay proper tax in the Uk. Dreadful company.

British Gas - clueless and expensive.

BT - they called everyday to get me to upgrade and offer additional services. Ironically I stopped using them as it was bordering on harassment.

Talk Talk - couldn't use my landline as there was a fault their end. I rung from another phone and they kept telling me to call from my landline so they could test it, despite constantly telling them that was the problem.

Andaaz fashion - very expensive for very cheap quality. They won't give refunds despite chasing.

Quite a few.

Dyson
Wetherspoons
Roman clothes

You boycotted a company for giving you free socks?

And you think that sheep wear socks?

Magnet. Way back in the 90s I bought a lean to conservatory off them and they were awful . Claimed in the brochure ‘full technical support’ yada yada but no instructions not even a packing list of parts. When I went back to them they gave me a HAND DRAWN diagram! Totally crap. When I complained to customer service I was told that my stress and missed days of work (waiting in for delivery of missing parts that never arrived) ‘counted for nothing’. Escalated it to the top and eventually got it mostly refunded. Told everyone who would listen how terrible they were. No social media back then unfortunately.