To ask worst customer service experience

[wotwududo]

What's your worst customer service experience. Mine was with a chain car sales company. Booked to view a newish car. Got a call in the morning asking for my tea/coffee order. When I arrived, test drove the car I wasn't sure so said I'd think about it. The salesman talked me into going through the numbers. Sat down the price had gone up 2k!! I said I wouldn't need any extras. He was so condescending and rude, basically said if i didn't pay the extras they wouldn't tax the car or do any warranty. (The ad said a year free warranty) so to get the car at the advertised price I would have had to have driven it off court with no tax and no warranty. I walked we out? Anyone else?

Yes of course, wotwududo; the manager's response was that "She's having a bad day"

Needless to say I've never been in a Clarks store since ...

Oh please do share the name! I’m dying to leave BT. A provider early on in the alphabet didn’t help (BT are the first!)

The now defunct Kwik Save seemed to have a policy of employing the most ignorant and rude staff members you can imagine. I've been in several of their stores over the years and all bar one had staff with a couldn't care less attitude to their customers. Perhaps that's why they are now defunct!!

Europcar years back - booked through them and was getting into a cab at the station to reach their office when the cabbie told me they had closed. He knew as he had taken someone else there the previous week who had also found an empty office. I'd had no email, nothing.

Rang them up and found they had transferred the booking to a different office clear across the county so ran for a train to get there instead. Then drove 2hrs + all the way back to where I had started because that's where the holiday was meant to be. Later complaints resulted in no explanation, nothing to indicate they were likely to let any other customers know and eventually just a refund on the extra train ticket. Am I mad to think if you close an office it would be nice to let someone in on the secret?

I was on a bus the other day and an elderly man with a walking stick got on at the next stop. He was a little slow showing his bus pass to the driver who yelled "today would be nice". The old chap told him to f**k off 😂

British Gas homecare - they knew the age of the boiler and radiators when I signed up and were very happy to take the monthly direct debit. Until one of the radiators blew a hole and flooded me and the flat below. At this stage they told me that it was all too old to be covered and charged me to come out and drain what was left of the water. Though not brilliantly as it carried on leaking for days.

Cancelled sharpish and now have a lovely local plumber who, if anything, takes money off his bill if he realises he can do it quicker

Eight people waiting to order In a Chinese Restaurant in Alderley Edge. The Manager came out to the table next to us where two women were having a set menu. She told them that the waitress had accidentally given them a pudding that wasn’t on the set menu, and if they weren’t willing to pay the difference then she would be docking it from the waitress’ wages.
Both women were totally nonplussed and did pay the difference, however we got up and walked out, having told the stupid woman why.

I always hope that she didn’t take that out on the waitress ( who was maybe 16..) as well.

It's Andrews & Arnold.

They are a very small company and can offer a service way above the big providers. The slightest issue on the line and more often than not they call you.
It is more expensive, but if you're 75% WFH like we are in this house the cost is worth it.

British Gas just reminded me.
Many years ago we were having issues but had home care cover. They came out, told us we had sludge in all the radiators, it was so bad we needed pipework replaced etc etc and it wasn't covered. They wanted £1500. We asked they took a water sample to confirm this. They did and we had a letter back confirming their initial diagnosis, sludge etc.
DH at the time worked in Local Authority and had a mate in the plumbing side. We took a sample ourselves and sent it off via his mate. Surprise surprise, it came back perfectly clear.

When we told them they backtracked massively, fitted a new pump (which it transpired is what the actual problem was) and refunded the year of cover. Never used them again.

Try the other end of the alphabet - look up Zen Internet - you can ring and talk to person - they win awards every year if you research them.

With internet though it's often not that simple as just being able to use anyone- we need hyperfast 900mb download kind of thing for work reasons, sipped and huge Files and the only one usually offering it is Virgin- we have just moved to an area that doesn't have Virgin , so are going to have fibre to the premises and the only one that can do this is an Openreach/Shell combi. - and if I'm honest I suspect shell will be not exactly great customer service wise.

Total Gas. The previous owners of our house were a company rather than a private individual/family, the house was used for their workers to live in. When I called the gas and electric suppliers when we got the keys Total Gas told me they had our house down as a commercial property and as they don't service private homes we had to find a new supplier. Not a problem, especially because the commercial tariff was a lot higher than we'd normally expect to pay. Except Total Gas kept putting a block on every time the supplier we wanted to move to tried to change us over. No one at Total Gas could tell me why. We finally got moved over at some point. Then I had a letter come through off Total Gas telling me there was an outstanding bill of £450 on our account and if I failed to pay I would be taken to court. I called them, I knew I didn't owe them anything, everything had been paid. The guy on the phone phone was very much 'computer says no', could not have cared less. I asked to speak to a manager, his response was 'you can't ask to speak to everyone in the office until you get the answer you want'. In the end I agreed to pay but made it clear it was under duress and a complaint would be going to the ombudsman and I was going to seek further advice.
4 days later I had a cheque come through the post off Total Gas as there was an overpayment of £450 on our account. Could not make it up.

Years ago we were trying to sell our house. Our contract with the Estate Agent was on a no sale to fee basis, but there was a clause whereby if we decided to take the property off the market we had to pay a fee of about £350. For the first few weeks, they sent loads of people to view, most of whom were clearly looking for somewhere much larger. Then nothing at all happened for a very long time and every time we called to ask for a meeting the manager told us there was no point and we just needed to be patient. Eventually she called to say they were taking the property off the market and we agreed. So I was very surprised to receive an invoice for £350. I assumed this was probably just a mistake so called in to sort it out. Manager (in front of several other customers and staff) shouted to me that she was busy and I just needed to pay what I owed, then muttered something unpleasant about me to a colleague. I contacted head office who were initially very unfriendly and essentially told me that if a Manager said I needed to pay then there would be no mistake. They could see on their system that there had been lots of activity from the branch in relation to my property, quoting dates and viewings/phone calls etc. Until I asked them to check the YEAR of those activities and they realised they were all the previous year and there had not been so much as a phone call or e-mail in over 12 months. Manager is still at the EA and we have sold several properties since but not used them once.

This was back when I was a very shy, polite teenager. Went into a small Claire’s Accessories in local shopping centre - the door was closed, as I came in I thought someone was coming in behind me so left it open, as you do. As I looked round the shop I noticed the shop assistants were giving me filthy looks. Went up to pay and the girl snarled at me ‘don’t you have any manners?’ I was totally nonplussed, she then said, ‘when you come in somewhere it’s polite to close the door after you’. I said ‘oh I’m really sorry, I thought someone was coming in behind me’, she just threw down my change on the counter and told me to get out! I actually cried all the way home! Maybe she was just having a bad day, but I’ve never been in a Claire’s since. (Also found out subsequently I’m autistic and people being aggressive with me really triggers a meltdown!)

Ryanair. I suspect lack of training, but on more than one occasion individuals seemed to really not give a shit.

Sorry, this is long. Easyjet.
In 2018 I booked an Easyjet flight from London to Geneva, duration only a couple of hours. We left on time but after a good two hours nothing was happening; we should have begun to descend. Then the pilot announced there was congestion at Geneva and we would have to divert to Lyon in France to refuel.

(This was a Sunday in ski season when Geneva airport is extremely busy so not unexpected, to say the least. )
Some time later the pilot announced the flight would actually terminate at Lyon but Easyjet would lay on coaches to take passengers on to Geneva. The plane was more or less full. As we disembarked at Lyon the crew assured us that coaches would be arriving very shortly. The plane took off, empty.
The airport was in fact closed. Eventually an Easyjet rep arrived but spoke very little English and said she could not get any coaches. She suggested we either get taxis to Geneva or go into Lyon to a hotel for the night and get a train the next day. This hugely upset many passengers who were going ski-ing and would lose a day of their holiday.
It was now dark and raining heavily. Meanwhile there were no refreshments apart from a couple of drinks machines which took Euros. I only had Swiss Francs. (Didn't expect to be in the EU, but if a cafe had been open I could have paid by card.)
A huge queue formed outside the terminal as 100+ people waited for taxis which came in dribs and drabs. Eventually got a minibus with about seven other people and the rather dodgy driver took us to Geneva, on the motorway in pouring rain, on his phone the whole time. We were concerned that if anyone said anything he would just turf us out onto the hard shoulder.
I finally arrived at Geneva about five hours late, should have been around 4 pm and it was now after 9 pm.

The worst thing was Easyjet could not have cared less that they just abandoned a plane load of passengers in the wrong country; they made no effort at all to help. I think the assurance about coaches was just to get passengers off the plane.
It was very stressful and still rankles hugely; I will never fly Easyjet again. Their complete abdication of responsibility was staggering. They had advance knowledge -- they thought they would give it a go and see what transpired. We were just left to our own devices, with no apologies.
After much to-ing and fro-ing they reimbursed me for the taxi fare, about 100 euros, and a meal in Geneva, because they had to under EU regs. (I should have charged for translation services too, no-one had much French but I speak it passably).
But really it was no recompense for what we went through.

CannotCopia

Fab - they are wonderful, aren't they? I don't expect companies to never have any problems, but when you get, in quick succession:

1. Sorry - just to let you know, there's a problem;
2. We need to do this to fix it;
3. We've done it, all now sorted;

....that's the company for me.

Crikeyalmighty

Yes, that's the one thing Virgin have over the others - although, if they end up as 'good' as they were with us for years, I'd rather have a high-quality slower service rather than a theoretical fast one that doesn't actually work.

If Virgin isn't a possibility, Andrews & Arnold can provision FTTP for you (assuming it's available in your area), at the highest speed that any provider could on the infrastructure. You can check what they can offer on their website, if you're interested in looking.

That said, many people are blindsided by the highest amazing speeds trumpeted by BT and the like (often not regularly achieved in real life), but most home users don't actually need anything like those speeds and aren't actually in a position to make use of them. Obviously, it has to be fast, but over a certain speed, for most, it's just unnecessary willy-waving. Supposing you needed a car to travel 100 miles up the motorway, would you rather have an ordinary, decent, reliable mid-market one with a top speed of 120mph (when you can't legally exceed 70mph anyway) that will get you there without any fuss in a couple of hours or a Lamborghini that can do 260mph but which keeps constantly breaking down?

My elderly Dad. The self diagnostics had shown no fault but there clearly was. We'd already tried other handsets that we knew were working (mine). Anyway BT said that they'd send an engineer which would be £lots if it turned out to be the phone itself. I said that would not be right as Dad still rented his handset from BT. They said that they had no record of that being the case and were very insistent. I said that we had bills going back years and could provide evidence that he was renting it so they needed to come out at no charge or tell us how to claim a rebate on all the rental he had paid. Surprisingly they then conceded that we were right about it being their handset and surprise surprise it turned out that it was a line fault anyway!!

... the pilot announced the flight would actually terminate at Lyon but Easyjet would lay on coaches to take passengers on to Geneva

I knew what was coming as soon as I read that bit; as with "there'll be staff groundside to sort things out", too often it's just a way to avoid queries onboard and get you the hell out of their hair

Similar happened to me (Ryanair this time) when they sold local transfers during the flight, only for there to be no "agency desk", no staff in a certain described uniform, nothing

Hp customer services. My laptop was returned to them for fan issues as it kept overheating.

The return was delayed after I'd spoken to people during the week and they'd said all was fine they were just waiting for a part to come in.

It went into a further week and I had essays to write so I called again. This time the man at the end of the phone said there was water damage. I insisted there wasnt as no water had ever been near it (it was 6 weeks old and had started within a couple of weeks of purchase ) and had cost so much I didn't allow myself to drink near it just incase. (this was approx 15 years ago). I also explained what the other agent had said the week before about the part coming in.

He was ADAMANT it had water damage and it was obvious to the point it was dripping out the machine. Luckily my mum is a fusser and at the time she recorded the condition I had put it in the box with as she trusted no one (again, it had cost silly amounts of money to do coursework on back before they were available more cheaply as they are now) so we had proof he was wrong. I asked him outright if he was calling me a liar. He said "yes".

Staples, where we had bought it from couldn't do enough to apologise when we got back to them with the video that it went in on pristine condition and hp agents comments. The area manager replaced it the same day with a better spec machine, free computer bag and free storage CD thing. He got the original machine back from hp within 2 days. There had obviously been a drink poured in it after they'd put it in the box to return it according to the area manager of staples as it ran straight out and the paperwork for the returns was purposely missing. They followed it up but I couldn't find out anymore. I hope the bloke got what was coming to him though.

My car had been written off by another driver, so I was in the market for a replacement. Found what I thought was the perfect car (6 months old, ex-demo, low mileage with all the bells and whistles) from the manufacturer’s dealership. I was about 3 hours drive away, so my DC took a day off work to drive me there. Paid the deposit. Got there to be told by a salesman we wouldn’t actually be able to see the car as it was in their workshop (not on site) being prepared for delivery, but they would deliver it the following week free of charge. They plainly hadn’t got their lies straight as we subsequently spoke to the manager who then told us that the car was actually out on loan to someone who was having their car serviced and was due back in a couple of days!

Sat through a 2 hour sales pitch for replacement windows. At which point they refused to give me a quote without my husband being present.

It was in 2018 not 1958

Our builder was fitting our kitchen and also replacing a small side window - he had our plan and took the measurements for the window to make himself.
I got a call at work to say he’d made the window wrongly - he’d got the height and length mixed up but he’d happily knock some bricks out and make it fit.
i got home to find the window fitted and was blocked up okay yet this meant my full height cupboard was shifted so close to the back door that we could no longer open it more than half way! I had a really horrid gap between the dishwasher and the cupboard and wish I’d just said no and to make the window again.
This is typical of my relationship with contractors - I’m far too nice for my own good.

Sainsburys a couple of weeks ago, have since switched to Tesco!

Online delivery never turned up, customer service say they can’t get hold of driver but store manager will call me back. No call back. Day after I call customer service again, they can’t get hold of store manager, he will call me back. Repeat the same for several days.

Eventually customer service change their tune and say my card was declined. I point out it hasn’t, I can see £120 paid out of my bank to Sainsburys on date of booked delivery. Customer service reverts to “can’t get hold of store manager” line. Apparently only he can process a refund?!

Eventually I go through the exact same gubbins with them over Twitter for several more days and only when whoever I have been DMing at Sainsburys Twitter account finally admits for the third time that they also cannot get hold of the store manager, they process the refund. So, they could have done it at any point but instead dragged it out and left me £120 down and with no big shop for nearly two weeks. And I still don’t know why the delivery driver never turned up! 😄

Just thought of another example. DH & I went to a lovely restaurant locally. The waiter would only talk to DH & I felt invisible & uncomfortable. The food was great but we didn’t go back because of that blatant sexism.