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.

Bad:
BT - have written about this on another thread - too complicated and annoying still (8 years later) to rehash.
Toyota Insurance - completely incapable of adding temporary drivers correctly. Managed to add my mum rather than DP more than once!
Toyota sales girl - suggested I should buy a VW Golf instead of their cars!!! Very glad I then went to Honda.
Comet - delivered damaged dishwasher to my parents. Then when coming back to collect it and having been told to use a small van due to difficult access, arrived in large truck, hit gateposts before reversing into oil tank, cracking the pipe while failing to notice any damage. When brought to the drivers attention that we'd just had oil pouring everywhere he had a Basil Fawlty moment and tried to avoid giving me his name.
HSBC - Bastards in general.
BMW - no end of trouble for my Dad.
Peugeot - wouldn't spit on them. Crap car & seriously crap customer service when it went wrong repeatedly - but in particular a week after purchasing it brand new.
NPower - got meter readings wrong way round for 7 years and took forever to investigate and correct them.

Good
Amazon - so far always very good customer service.
Waitrose/John Lewis
Toast - refunded an item I sent back too late with no quibbles
Honda - fab customer service (and lovely car)
Loch Fyne - Original Cairndow restaurant. Amazing food and service but isn't part of the rest of the chain.

I have to say that I never had any problems with my local big Mothercare store - apart from a lack of floor staff, maybe - but they were always polite and helpful when you did find them.

Loch Fyne - good one in Egham, crap one in Cobham, really fucking awful one in Henley. They ruined a friend's family birthday meal - "forgot" one of the main courses, then told us we hadn't ordered it, no compensation, tediously slow service despite the place being half empty and my friend actually marched up to the bar to pay the bill at the end. Didn't leave a tip of course.

Of those that immediately come to mind:

GOOD
First Direct
Amazon
John Lewis/Waitrose

BAD
BT

Hoover - the worst company EVER! Bought a Hoover hoover (surprisingly!) a year or so ago, and it is the biggest pile of crap going. It is pathetically bad at hoovering. It needs emptying after every room is hoovered (and I DO hoover fairly regularly), and often sprays dust everywhere. You actually end uip with more mess AFTER you've used it.

Hoover have been rubbish when I have complained, and even tried to charge me £65 when one of the attachments snapped in half 6 weeks after buying it - they claimed that it was not covered by guarantee as it was classed as a consumable!!! Arseholes!

Delta Airlines! Left us stranded in NY after cancelling the connecting flight for "bad weather" even though the weather wasn't remotely bad. Travelling with a 3 yo, they offered no help at all, and we had to organise overnight hotel at airport ourselves.

The alternative flight offered the next day included 4 separate legs! It took 3 hours to retrieve our luggage. I had to book and pay for a direct flight the next day. And they never provided the necessary docs/info to enable me to claim on my travel insurance. Wankers!

Bad: British Airways, Ryanair, NPower (dh had 2 year battle with them over meter readings, had to use ombudsman, also Grandma had endless problems), M&S (why do they never have the right sizes now? No, I don't want to order it in!), Carluccios in Cambridge.

Good: John Lewis, Ocado, Scandinavian Air wotsits (SAS).

BT
Virgin Media
GLTC
HSBC
Clarks
Hawks Cycles
PC World

darcymum I have reported you to MNHQ

Feel angry about this list just thinking about it:

AA- 8pm I'm out of hospital, 8.30pm car broke down with DDs aged 1 & 3 , pull in to town square, 3Hours later an 'affliated garage' turns up, awful van, no torch so uses his mobile to light the engine bay, could n't fix it, would n't tow to my parents 20 miles away so we had to get a room over pub disco.
Real AA come out 10am next day, can't fix it, call my Dad, we miss dp sisters wedding by 10 minutes.

gltc
boden - perhaps my kids are just mutants but better report me

Bad: Tesco Direct - we bought a bedside table and had nearly finished constructing it when we realised it had some pieces missing.

I asked (reasonably I thought) for them to send me the missing pieces and they said they can't do that.

The only option was to get a whole replacement. I said OK, but theyt old me I had to BUY the replacement and wait to be refunded on the other one.

It was crap anyway so I told them to stuff it and sent the whole thing back.

LOVE Lakeland. Put in an order and then wanted to add something to it so I rang to ask if it had been despatched. They said it had but sent me the extra item postage free.

I want to add a fantastically good GOOD:
O2 Broadband - cannot fault them, and have moved house and kept them so that's saying something. They have a 24/7, free call (yes it really is), UK based helpline who are amazing.

Topshop

Who replied to all my emails using a different "person" and each email said "bla bla, and if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to let me know"

I did have further questions...and each further question was replied to by a different name, AND each person NEVER had a surname.

Just sloppy and unprofessional.

Good

Toyota
John Lewis
Lakeland
Appliance Deals of Bolton - sent us the wrong model of washing machine which we didn't realise till we had plumbed it in and started using it, replaced it with the correct one no quibble at all even though they couldn't resell it. Also v.cheap in the first place.
ELC - replaced a broken toy 9 months after purchase with no quibble and didn't ask for a receipt

Bad

Bowater windows (do they still exist?)
Sainsburys online - all the fresh stuff is one day from expiry without fail
Next online for trying to make you open up a credit account
All car insurance companies who hike your premiums on renewal
Orange - just how difficult is it to put the credit on your new PAYG phone? 50p a minute to be told that if you bought it at Argos then you should get Argos to put the credit on your phone, phoned Argos, who were very polite but obviously thought I was very stupid, then back to 50p a minute Orange via various call centres and websites, probably spent more than the £10 credit voucher trying to activate the thing.

Sure I will think of some more.....

Columbus Insurance - happy to take my money for travel insurance but when I was in a car accident and had to cancel my trip they lost my GPs letter and didn't answer my calls/letters. Grrr.

Tiscali - cut our line off and left us with no phone for 2 weeks and no internet for a month. It was an 'accident' but I reckon they wanted to sign us up for another 2 year contract. Talktalk have taken them over now, but probably no better.

Homecall - charged us £200 cancellation fee when we moved house, which they'd previously agreed to waive but 'had no record' of agreeing to. Don't think they're around any more.

Virgin - Staff seemed to think it was normal that cleaning staff stole £125 from my bag when I left it on a plane. Their attitude was just that if the cleaners get there first your money will be gone, that's life.

Domestic & General - denying I had cover for my washing machine when it broke, despite me paying them £5 per month for the previous 18 months. Gits.

Ahhh that's better

AOL - when I rang to cancel my dad's email account after he died, they told me they couldn't do it because they needed the account holder to come to the phone....

I am about to close my current account plus all 3 dcs savings account with Abbey (Santander) as their customer service is so utterly rubbish and makes me want to bang my forehead on my desk until it bleeds.

Bad: Haven Holidays, Park Resorts, Direct Holidays.

Good: Center Parcs though probably wouldnt go again as to expensive these days but they over compensated us once after a catalogueof cock ups with oodles of free upgrades and free hampers and discount of next hol which we took and got even more free hampers and upgrades - this was before they became greedy!

Good: Asda Online,

Bad: Any shop particularly b and q that has those fuckity fuck self service twatty checkouts and no real people on checkouts anymore.

Wilbur that's appalling. I am almost not surprised having dealt with their customer service/ account people sadly.

NatWest...will never ever ever bank with them again

theyve
cancelled cards, closed accounts, transferred money, changed pin numbers, rude rude staff, obsenely rude in some branches!, customer service is awful!

Hate them with every fiber of my being

Barclays, who continually cancel my debit card without either warning me or calling me to tell me everytime I make a slightly out of the ordinary purchase. If they didn't have my mortgage in an offset account I would move it.

Ryanair who left me and 18 month old dd stranded the day of the liquid bombing scare because they closed their customer help desk at 5.30pm with a queue stretching round the terminal. I will never fly with them again.

Westland Garage in Richmond for crappy quality work, high prices and people who lie.

nPower. Can't bring myself to talk about it, it was too awful.

Heals is not great which is annoying considering how expensive they are.

I love Ocado. And Amazon.

NPower for their dodgy and persistent door to door sales technique.

British Gas, for bollocking up my perfectly straightforward change of address, & somehow changing me from Ms Myname (old address) to Ms Randonanagramofname (new address).

Then they sent umpty bills out to Ms Random at my old address, which new occupier unsurprisingly binned.

Despite repeated phone calls to them 'You're billing me under the wrong name at my new address, & I haven't had a closing bill for the old one, can you check accounts for both these names please, & put the right one on my new address?' - & despite my paying my new account blamelessly -

...they still somehow contrived to sic the bailiffs on to me - who spent months, apparently, sleuthing after both Ms Name & Ms Random before whacking a default on my credit record.

Which, I might add, took a brisk letter from Energy Watch (who were great) to have removed - two years later, when it finally came to light as I got knocked back for a mortgage because of it. Grrr.

Barclays, Curry's and our old corner shop|

Wouldn't use t-mobile if they were the last mobile phone supplier on earth. Would rather write a letter and deliver it by pigeon.

I've been lucky and had no really bad cs, though I wouldn't touch Currys/Dixons etc with a barge pole from hearing others experiences. Apple have most recently been my best customer service experience. I assumed I had to go to O2 with a problem with my phone, but they sorted it within 30 minutes for me and were great.

bad

BT for generally being awful and charging too much for line rental and constantly calling me up to get me to go back to them for my calls
Npower for owing me loads of money by the time I got round to switching
Natural Collection (sad to say, but they messed up delivering recycling bins to me several times and didn't seem to have a good system for returns)
Vertbaudet for clothes being out of stock for so long that my kids are too big for them before they have arrived
Sainsburys and Tescos home delivery - but I think it depends a lot on which store they deliver from
NatWest paid my grant cheque into someone else's account. I have never banked with them since
EDF energy, plus most other energy companies for their doorstep selling techniques (especially when the salespeople pretend not to be working for a specific company)
anyone who cold calls me and assumes because I answer my home phone during the day and am female I have loads of time to listen to them
I know it's not a big organisation, but customer service at my gp's surgery is generally terrible, receptionists and doctors included. This reminds me I ought to change

good
HSBC have always been great for me. let me pick up a new credit card in Australia when it was stolen just before I went travelling around the world. and always seem to keep an eye on my spending in case of fraud

HSBC fraud detection dept are very good - they phoned me within 2 hours of some git using a clone of my card in Thailand, and although the money was removed via ATM, they voluntarily increased my overdraft to cover the money out until the situation was resolved and the money was returned to my account.