Stick it to the Bad Companies
I was reading this post in Frugal Homemaker's blog, and it got me thinking. Their friend had a cell phone that the company wouldn't repair, so they attempted to fix it themselves, and I am so impressed, they succeeded.
But when you sign up for a cell plan, or attempt to do business with any new provider of any service, how do you know what you're getting? The Better Business Bureau is some help, but not much. And does the BBB deal with how you are treated by service representatives, or how their people speak to you? I'm thinking no.
So what I propose is to have people post their "hit lists."
Who has really messed you over as a consumer?
What company would you never do business with again?
Which companies always do it right?
Share here, and help other consumers avoid the stinkers. Let's try to keep it national, or if local, state the region.
For the record, GEICO has been awesome for us, through an accident concurrent with a Hurricane Rita Evacuation. Their people are always great on the phone, and they don't call to sell us stuff all the time.
posted by Fishie @ 10:00 AM
7 Comments:
Thanks for the mention!
The phone company in question was Cingular. He's had nothing but issues with them on many levels, and is changing companies when his contract is up.
HP and I had a small war about my dud of a computer in college. They called me a liar (IN WRITING) and I will never buy anything of theirs again if I can help it. (They merged with Compaq, so I avoid them as much as possible as well.)
I read this earlier and I thought that I really didn't have anything to add, and then Mom and I went to breakfast this morning. It's a local restaurant so I really needn't state the name, but I'm so...yuckified right now, I will not be able to eat out again for a good long while. ick.
We were seated at a table and I noticed immediately I had a little bit of "something" on the corner of my napkin. I point it out and ask for a new one, no biggie. Waitress takes the silverware, too, which I'm glad about.
Then she brings us coffee in two cups she has gotten from the back. As she's pouring I realize there is LIPSTICK on my cup. Point it out, she's properly horrified and switches my cup for a clean one from a nearby pre-set table.
She walks away and mom notices that there is again lipstick on the far side of my new cup. *shudder* Waitress is again notified and by now totally making up stupid excuses about the dishwashers being new. Right. Fine. Were they not trained to use actual soap and water???
I'm willing to be big about this and let it go. Then mom pours half and half into her cup...and watches as it floats in lumps on the top of her coffee. *sigh* OUTRAGE!
A new cup of coffee is brought along with new creamers "from a freshly opened box." Why these weren't used to begin with, I have no idea.
By the time our breakfast is served I've mostly lost my appetite, which is good because I'm scared to use the silverware or drink the coffee, so I pick at only part of the omlette.
When I go up to pay I insist politely and FIRMLY for a discount, which she gives me as about 25% off. I leave her a $1 tip, only because she did try to compensate for her team. And the actual food was probably delicious, I really couldn't tell anymore.
:(
Best Buy. I went there with my mom to get her old laptop tuned up shall we say as it was running badly and the ac adapter was broken. The HEAD of the service department while helping us, took a phone call and was saying to the other person "yeah I see that all the time at the class I teach, ppl just wait and wait until they can't ignore a problem and then bring it in," while looking directly at my mother. Then he starts talking about customer support and what number to push to get to the right department. By now we have been waiting nearly 10 minutes for this guy to continue to help us, so, I admit, I lost my cool. Maybe it was unnecessary to say in a loud voice "What number do you push for 'I'm taking my business elsewhere? Oh, I think that's number ONE' and showing him an appropriate digit. But I still don't regret it.
Circuit city is another one. I was in there with a comp savvy person who was helping me try to locate RJ45 CAT 5 connectors. Since he is fluent in Geek I looked at CD's. I was immediately approached, shadowed, and followed throughout the store by a sales associate until I left. The only reason to be shadowed by a sales person when they are not bugging you to buy something is when they suspect theft. I've never set foot in a cicuit city again.
I was shadowed at Dillards once! I went there just to use the bathrooms, because they had the best bathrooms in the mall! Somebody started following me (and my friend who was with me) when we walked in, was WAITING for us when we got out of the bathroom, and followed us until we left. It felt kind of rude. I was a teenager at the time, but I was the world's most quiet, clean cut teenager. We were not wearing huge coats or have big purses or anything. To this day I get miffed when I think of it!
I also have to say- I'm amazed they fixed it too! They showed me what was wrong, and honestly, if it were me, I would have never seen it.
Perhaps it's worth a mention that they're both engineers who mess with stuff all the time, so they had somewhat of an idea of what they were looking at, while I would have had no clue if I had done it.
I wonder how long the fix will last? They were not impressed when they saw the inside of the phone, and our friend said he could see why that one part was broken, even from normal use.
Spring Long Distance took 6 months to fix a several hundred dollar billing error.
Verizon DSL called me at 6:42 AM welcoming me to DSL (I had signed up the day before). I called their office to complain but they told me they *never* call before 9am. I told them that my Verizon caller id on my Verizon phone line listing a call from Verizon at 6:42 AM would prove otherwise. I then canceled the DSL.
The companies that always do right IMO are Safeway, McD's and Costco.
I think I'm one of the few people in the world with a good Best Buy story. Usually I hate the place too but our two year old van dvd player's completely froze (under a four year warranty). They replaced it with an upgraded portable dvd player without much hassle and no extra cost. It's so much nicer than our orginal and I can take it out and let the kids watch movies elsewhere (they threw in all the extras like the battery and charger).
I hate Wal-Mart and AT&T (not fond of MCI either). I really like Target but their return policy is goofy. I love Eddie Bauer, Safeway, Sprint PCS, and I've had pretty good luck with Comcast cable (although their DVR box/interface sucks).
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