Companies you hate

[Uglyowl]

I tend to hold grudges and won't do business with anyone I feel "wronged by":

Shaws Supermarket: Super overpriced; got to express lane with 10 items, was expecting it to be $13, turned out it was $18 since I didn't have their "rewards card". It is snowing in Mass. today and huge lines behind me. Not going to spend 5 minutes signing up for a stupid card.

Directv/Direcway: Overpaying for exclusive rights to NFL Package and now price for the HD Sunday Ticket is close to $350/year. In 2001 when I started it was $129. Also Indian customer support, overpriced HD/DVR service, weather outages, etc.

Toys R' Us: New very strict return policy, wouldn't exchange an unopened Calliou video that had their stickers plastered all over it. No one saves receipts [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

AT&T: Changed terms of service after they got me signed up; don't remember a letter; wouldn't refund my $5. Very rude customer service.

[Klompy]

FedEx- They never get anything to me on time. It took them 4 weeks to get my copy of HOH from their station that was 45 miles away to my house.

[KilgoreTrout]

With you on Shaws. The Warden and I hit Shaws last night. With a storm forecast, the "new" Shaws on Grove St. Worcester had 2 cashiers working at 7:30 p.m. Note that there are about 25 manned checkout lines and a handful of self service checkout stations... So they had 2 registers running (one of which was a 12 itmes or less) on a Thursday night the day before a big storm is to hit. Of course we had too much stuff to use the self checkout.

Also not a fan of Charter Communications. Charter negotiates with the city, so our choices are Charter, DirectTV, or over the air television. The channel lineup stinks, the rates are high, and on days like today with heavy snow I'm sure I'll have fuzzy reception.

[tuq]

Klompy,

That is literally the first time I have ever heard anyone have a negative experience with FedEx. As in, ever. I've heard occasional gripes about UPS and DHL though.

Earthlink is my home DSL provider and I don't "hate" them (actually, hating an organization is a pretty fruitless endeavor since it doesn't have feelings and can't respond) but they shipped their tech support overseas 1-2 years ago and a few months ago I was having modem problems that were magnified 100X by the fact that the Indians typically couldn't understand what I was talking about, weren't helpful as a result, and wouldn't escalate my call even if I yelled at them - I'm not a dick to CSRs but I would go in circles for literally an hour with some of these people.

I'm positive there is some US-based Earthlink call center for premium or corporate customers or whatever. Wish I had that number.

[dknightx]

Yahoo!

they deleted my rocketmail account and all my emails without any warning, and then acted like nothing had happened.

[daryn]

basically all companies are the same. maybe some are slightly better or worse than others but mostly they are all the same. the truly horrible companies just won't survive. whichever company happens to be the one to screw a guy over is the one he is going to tell everyone is crap.

you always hear the same [censored].. talk about cell service, you hear: OMG TMOBILE SUX, VERIZON SUX, CINGULAR IS HORRIBLE... everyone just says that about the one they had a problem with. what about all the people who had nothing but the best service?

laptops? DELL SUX OMFG GATEWAY IS HORRIBLE, NEVER BUY SONY!!

[Guy Incognito]

Sprint - Awful long distance, awful cell phone service (8 years ago). I understand they've improved as of late, but I refuse to go back to a company that pretty much ignored me every time I had a problem.

Earthlink DSL - Numerous problems, 95% of which were promptly blamed on "BellSouth's phone lines".

[Nick B.]

I hate thetruth.com and all those other anti smoking ads that are incredibly annoying.

[Quanah Parker]

Dow/Union Carbide

"Union Carbide, now a Dow chemical company, was responsible for releasing 27 tons of deadly gases in Bhopal in 1984, killing thousands of people and leaving 150,000 severly disabled in what is referred to as the worst industrial disaster on record. Victims continue to suffer from insufficient treatment as Dow refuses to disclose all medical information on the toxic effects of the chemicals released in the incident."

Sad thing, even though I hate this company, I make no effort to avoid products they're involved with because I'm slack.

[amplify]

2+2 publishing for wasting thousands of hours of my life. Ok, so that's my fault. Still.