Which organisations have you decided never to use again after poor customer service?

[tortoisefairy]

Right I will start. The idea is name and shame and maybe these huge organisations will realise to stop using ridiculous automated telephone services and to stop ripping us off!!!!

Currys - very low level of customer service after our HP printer stopped working as it was 2 months past the warrantee date.
Handy that.
AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

That's better, especially now when I phone to complain and tell them I've written all about it on here.

Abbey National - screwed up changing my name to my married name despite the fact that I twice gave them a copy of my marriage certificate. They also kept sending mortgage statements to our house (which is tenanted). We did get compensation for breach of confidentiality for every month that they did this though!
The Santander people were actually much better when DH got his credit card cloned.

Emirates for trying to get DS (19 months) to go to their office to sign a third party payment form to authorise me to pay for a plane ticket on his behalf because the credit card is in my name

Barclaycard - I tried to buy DH a wedding present whilst we were on holiday and the card was stopped for unusual transactions. When I got home there was an answer phone message from the fraud dept - really helpful especially as they have my mobile number. This resulted in DH having to buy his own present and me having to pay him back

Good: Ocado, Ikea (!), Amazon, Long Tall Sally, most people these days actually.

Bad: Sainsbury's (garden stuff) appalling service although did refund my delivery costs. I also get fed up with other organisations who take your order, then decide when it gets 'processed' and start their delivery timescale from then, yes that's you White Company and Toast...

Appalling bad: BT, TalkTalk (!)

Poor: Sainsbury

Indifferent: Tesco, large chain gyms (yes you David Lloyd)

Good: Apple, Hotpoint (surprisingly!), Amazon, Lexus

Great: John Lewis/Peter Jones, Waitrose, Ocado, MIele, Bosch

BT. I ordered broadband and signed the direct debit (stupid I know) and they then charged me for 9 months before the broadband went it. It took a year to get my money back.

And then they got their database muddled up and sent my bill to the wrong address, so it didn't get paid. While I was in hospital having ds they cut off my phone. They claimed it was my fault and would cost to be reinstalled until local post office (Thank you Royal Mail) managed to get the wrongly addressed bill to me and I could prove it was their fault. At which point they reconnected me.

Oh and the broadband complaints department in Norwich is ex-directory! WTF

Never again. I'm mobile only now.

Could someone add these up and publish the top ten of disasterous suppliers.

Scottish Power - complete waste of time - lots of letters and tel calls and still they could not understand the basics of what i ws telling them - never again

T Mobile - charged me for dodgy texts that i had received and not subscribed to - they kept telling me to call the Co direct and they could do nothing about it - the Co direct were dodgy and wouldnt return calls or answer phone - i was being charged something like £3.50 per text that i had never agreed to.

I was lucky in that my contract was ending so i cancelled it and refused to pay the amount of these texts - the debt colelction agency told me they would take me to Court - i told them i would love to see them at Court - never heard anything else until tried to apply for mortgage and they had put default against my credit history

I wrote to them recorded delivery and told them i would be taking them to Court - they removed it but no word of apology of anything else

Good - Amazon
Good - Salonskincare - they replaced parcel immediately that had been delivered by PArcel Force - theyd left delivery in my garden and dog ate it

Tesco I find really good as well

Lloyds TSB - no problem unless you want to ring them - that bloody automated phone line that never understands what you are saying - i end up screaming down the phone at it

I hate any shop which has self service tills like, boots, b & Q, Tesco etc etc

I get so frustrated that my stuff isn't in the correct bagging area, or it can't read my loyalty card and starts shouting at me 'Warning incorrect item in the bagging area' Then the conveyor belt takes it a Mile metre away where I can't pack it.

These tills need more staff to sort out everyones gripes than just having a normal till. Frustrating madness.

Furball: couldn't agree more. Why in the name of all that's sane do they put these wretched things in and then have to have a member of staff hanging round to cope with the inevitable disaster as people struggle to use them? That person could be operating a till! So yes, let's add Sainsbury's and indeed Boots to the list.

On a slight tangent, I was once solemnly told by an HSBC bank employee that the reason the automatic cheque-deposit machine - another pet hate - kept refusing to work was that 'your cheques are too big' (he meant in size, not amount, sadly). SO WHY DESIGN MACHINES THAT WON'T TAKE ANY SIZE OF CHEQUE THEN? Gaaaah!

Will not use:
I haven't used Shell garages for about 6 years after one of the pumps leaked all over me and they didn't have any tissue outside for me to wipe my hands on (apparently that was my fault )

Another vote for Barclays after shoddy service as a student - (their) overdraft cockup resulted in £200 of charges for me...

3 mobiles. Call centres that go off a script - need I say more?

So, in summary, we're generally all love John Lewis and are pretty fond of Boden, Amazon, Ocado and (mostly) Tesco.

We dislike BA, BT, most of the big banks (with special mentions going to Halifax and Abbey/Santander), curys and Mothercare.

We don't mind if companies stuff up, but would they please have the decency to be sorry and put it right.

Do you think possibly those journalists writing mumsnet pieces have a more accurate view of us than we like to admit?

Currys. Sorry, v poor typing!

Halifax and BT are awful IME.
British Gas are terrible, too, which made me especially happy to read that thread in classics about BG!

Lloyds made a mistake on our old account and charged us loads, but when we went into the bank to sort it they were very apologetic and refunded everything so at least they recitifed their stupid mistake.

Our local Tescos delivery service is brilliant but I know certain areas arent as good.
Amazon and Lakeland are awesome, too.

BT. Without a doubt. They tried charging me a full years subscription when i cancelled after 2 weeks of no service when I first went back to them. I had no service because there was a fault in their network somewhere and it would take a month to dig the road up and repair it. I spent £60 on mobile phone costs to get it sorted and they said for the first few calls it was my phone and refused to send an engineer, then would not cancel the contract, apparantly I was in a contract end of story and could only cancel if i paid them the whole year. I told them my contract had not started as no service whatsoever to pay for and to stick it up their backsides, they 'credited me back as a gesture of goodwill' no apology, no acknowledgement of fault, and no credit of phone charges.

Sainsburys (although i pop in when they are not looking occasionally ). They had a standup row with me over a broken tv, while I was heavily pregnant, in front of every one and pretty much called me a liar when I said it was bought there, and no receipt, even though they were still selling it! I went back with my receipt which i found after crawling on my hands and knees in the loft while heavily pregnant, and got my refund and £50 of vouchers as an apology but no actual apology.

A few banks. in particular Barclays. Lets just not go there .

Tesco were great yesterday after i complained about a substitution. Refunded me for amount, refunded my delivery charge AND gave me code for free delivery

Toast were shite, shite clothes and take ages to refund you.

I wont deal with any company that doesn't have real-time stock updates. La Redoute, are you listening?

Bad:
British Gas - Back Charging us for a previous tenant! WTF
ASDA Online shopping - Always substitutions that are strange
BT- Do you have any people that work for you??
BA - Expensive for crap service. Now they want £20pp to pre-book seats on a flight!!
Barclays - Grief over a 'unauthorised' £2.00 more on overdraft
GrenFlag - After taking my money 7 times online when buying breakdown and not knowing where it went, saying it was up to my bank to sort out not them!
Additions Direct - For sending out the wrong xmas toys 4 times!
Carphone warehouse - For deceiving you, thinking they have the best deals when they don't and their customer service team being totally inept!
My Landlord - 2 years to get a gas safety certificate and lo and behold we had gas leaks! Having a leaking toilet (2 litres a day) that has been like that for 6 months! Now a bathroom tap that won't turn off! Calling 5 times a day and not answering calls or dealing with problems!
Next Online - Only delivering 1/2 of an order and not believing me when I told them. I returned the 1/2 order and then they sent a letter that they wanted me to sign and return saying that if there were any further problems with orders I would be financially liable!! It was THEIR mistake!

Good:
Amazon - Always informed, good delivery, great service.
Lakeland - Ordered next day delivery at xmas time and did not arrive for 3 weeks! Refunded my order in full, got to keep it and sent me a card to apologise! Other companies need to take lessons.
First Direct - Ok, never have cc deals, rates are crap BUT Customer service is always excellent and always sort out problems.
Air Canada - Ok seats are crap but when travelling regularly to Canada with my DD they offered her a full luggage allowance as an infant, offered jar food FOC, always put my pushchair in a wardrobe on the aircraft and moved me to a bassinet seat when I was unable to book one on the phone.
IKEA - Replaced a broken sofa after 2 years!

Think that covers it...

Lastminute.com - have cancelled mine and friends trips repeatedly due to 'overbooking' on their behalf. Refund doesn't quite cut it when your holiday is cancelled the fucking day before you are due to leave. Cunts.

And anyone who says; 'All I can do is apologise'. Go on then, apologise. They never actually say sorry you see just use this trite phrase.

Sainsburys - crap delivery service and rubbish substitutions and delivery of food past its best before date on date of delivery

Reactfast (emergency plumbers)- shoddy rude cowboy plumbers who have no fricking idea what they are doing and rubbish customer service. And this is a national outfit too. Steer well clear!

I feel really shit after reading this thread.

I work for ELC which was took over by Mothercare a few years ago, so am officially a Mothercare member of staff.

Im not rude. I always talk to customers, sometimes whether they like it or not
I always do my best to give my customers the best possible service I can. But I am no miracle worker.
Unfortunatly policies are so strict nowadays that there are some incidents of refunds where our hands are tied.

Should always say sorry though, even if we are not personally at fault, we are the public face of the company so its our job to apologise.

Bad: mothercare (sorry ABF) - all the staff ever seem to say is "we can order it in for you"

Loch Fyne - failed to believe that someone whose credit card says Dr could possibly be me rather than DH.

Everest windows - yet more hard sell, a quote that was 3x bigger than anyone else which was then miraculously dropped by 45% but only if we signed that day.

A local framing shop who refused to take back a mirror I'd been given and didn't want, on the grounds that "you've been using it". Because mirrors are so fabled for wearing out

Good: The appliance warehouse, everyone else said it was illegal to have a washing machine in the bathroom (the people before us did it, not our choice...) and one chap called Barnaby spent hours on the phone to plumbers and electricians and discovered that the regs had changed in the last month so we were ok.

GOOD

Liz Earle
NExt Directory
Sofa Sofa
B&Q - surprisingly so, just had our bathroom from them.
Sainsburys - very helpful yesterday when i went through the checkout and realised had forgotten my purse
Gap

BAD

Sky
Clarks - always big queue, staff disinterested - had to interrupt the gossip to ask to be served
Asda
Mothercare
fat Face

SafeStyle - I had there rep come round and tell me he could make an appointment for their sales guy to come and see me - great we need new windows. But i am obviously incapable of making any decision being a woman because my dh has to be present.

This is despite the fact i know what windows i want, we wont be signing any contracts that day whether dh here or not. I do not need finance i want to pay cash anyway.

They refused to send someone round - strange company policy - they lost themselves a potential sale - its not hard is it - send a rep give a quote and go away to leave customer to ponder

ELC - bought an electronic mobile/cot toy thingy which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. Couldn't find the reciept but only wanted to swap it for a working one. Of course it worked in the shop and the horrible manager was getting it to work and looking at me like I was stupid, ignored me when I told her it was intermittent and then told me without the receipt she wasn't going to do anything as I may have stolen it in the first place. I wrote to Head Office and complained and never got a reply.

Also Currys after a stereo I bought from them stopped working 8 months later. I still had the reciept but was on funny, shiney paper and had faded badly so it was unreadable. They said they wouldn't give a refund as they might not have sold it. Had to point out that Matsui is their own brand and only they sell it. So they said it may be more than 12 months old, I found a credit card receipt saying it wasn't. They still refused until I went in on a very busy Saturday and complained at the top of my voice and refused to leave until they refunded my money.

Someone else came in the same day with similar problems over a washing machine and nearly strangled the manager while I was there, actually put his hands round his neck and lifted him off the floor.