Nominations for the worst customer service

Ok then - BT, aside from the incredibly bad website that didn't work 90% of the time, the folks on the end of the phone were just as helpful, and even when dealing in writing with them they were plain useless, many cases I didn't get an answer, sometimes what I;d asked for would happen, sometimes it didnt, but with no acknowledgements it was pretty vague.

N-Power - received a bill for gas supply at a house that does not have Gas. Phones up, lad on the phone that time was actually ok to talk to, and said it will be sorted and to ignore it. cuple of days later we had a letter from the baliffs about it (not just any bailiffs, N powr have their own firm in case you didnt know), they were much like BT and would not answer any questions and didnt even know what they were collecting for. N power insisted that I pay them for a gas supply that doesnt exist, I could not get it through to them at all.

Tiscali - when me moved we phoned to say we'd moved and to set up broadband. Told it'd take 2 weeks. No problem. 2 weeks came, no broadband. Phone up again, no record of the previous call. Broadband will be ready in 2 weeks. Another 2 weeks go by, guess whta? no record, broadband will be ready in 2 weeks. Aftert complaining to management and still getting nowhere I cancelled the account and got broadband elsewhere.

Who else did I mention? Girl at work, well she's just rude to everyone, never smiles, has to be right about everything. If it was my decision she would be gone.

As for co op pricing, Blakemore are the same. Most prices are set at their head office and our database is updated daily. Unfortunately they also make mistakes their end so you get wrong prices, offers change without notice etc (part way through promotions sometimes) etc etc. As it happens it does also work out well - printed talkers claimed 4x Kronenburg for £4.75, scanned through the till it came to £3.75. Well done AFB. They also muck us about with orders, Seasonal stock is on pre order only basis, our rep has failed to put our order in for last Christmas and now Easter, so we have virtually no seasonal stock. Perhaps he should go on the list for bad customer service too?
 
Jessops

I bought my 40D from them, then when it went wrong under warranty bought my 50D from them at the Newbury branch, adding money to the replacement vouchers. They brought out an opened box so I asked for a sealed box, which they went out back and got.
When I got to work and opened the box, the camera had a 4Gb jessops card in it with photos of the shop and staff. They'd just resealed the box. Complained, it was the last one, display item. I had to wait a week for a new one.
Customer services didn't even respond to my emails, phone calls met with a "we'll phone you back", but never did. In the end I wrote a letter of complaint to Jessops directors and never heard back.

Skip forward to a couple of weeks ago, I wanted a tripod head for use that weekend. Jessops had them in stock, collection only, from Bath or Basingstoke at £20 less than elsewhere.
One trip to Bath, plus £5.40 car park fees, to find I was presented with a head and no box. The head was heavily scratched, the action gritty and there was a gap in the display where this head had obviously been removed.
"oh we can probably find a box, do you really want it" was the managers response, along with - "it's the only one we have". Absolute waste of my time and money making the trip there.

Again, phone calls and emails to Jessops customer services have met with a blank response.

So I nominate Jessops, for having a policy of selling ex display, used kit as new, plus awful customer service that wont even respond to customers.
 
Royal Mail

For some reason they have decided that if no-one is in to sign for a parcel they will leave it in our recycling bins which are by the side of the house (despite us not having designated this as our safe drop area or whatever they call it).
On 2 occasions they left an Amazon parcel (which has a cardboard sleeve) in the paper recycling bin which was full of damp paper. they did this twice and despite two complaint letters never bothered to reply.
 
John Lewis gets my nomination of worst customer service I've had. I bought a fridge freezer from them. deliverey was no problem, fridge and freezer turned out to be faulty, temperatures in fridge area were too high , 8 degrees rising to ten degress (safe limit is 5 and below) in the freezer there was such a build up of ice to struggled to get a drawer open, all this after two days.
Phoned to complain after 30 mins waiting for them to answer the phone John Lewis tell me we will send out a engineer, if they find no fault we will be charged. I told them forget engineer I want a replacement fridge, I've only had it 2 days.

Emails passed back and forward and more phone calls each time taking 25 mins plus to answer. After speaking to supervisor a replacement was arranged with email to confirm. Couple of hours later another email informing me the sale had been cancelled (not at my request, I just wanted a replacement).
John Lewis said to buy another fridge and would refund my money when faulty fridge was replaced. They actually thought I should get another one from them. I told them to refund my money first before getting their fridge back, "Not how it works Mr Frank" She did'nt seem to understand I'd paid by credit card (not on tick) and one way or another they would get me my money back after telling my credit card company the sorry tale. In the end the supervisor saw the light and refunded me first.

Went to Currys and bought the same model, works perfectly now. I'll never use John Lewis again.
 
British Gas

So much agro with them that I wouldn't know where to begin, so just one example

No heat for a week during a very cold spell and the dopey engineer saying "my diagnostic tool is saying your boiler is ok"

Oh good, shame the boiler doesn't know that and refuses to fire up, so I know lets bring one part a day until we find the dodgy bit

Then we come to Toshiba who use the same process, renew parts bit by bit until you get lucky then send it back with a different OS which we don't have the registration code for

And finally BT

Fault cleared off as ok (it wasn't) just so it makes their fault cleared within a certain amount of time stat look good

Best of all BT engineer in finest corporate clothing decides to use my front door bell wire to provide dial tone after he was unable to thread a new lead in the existing hole. Could have taped the new wire to the old and pulled it through, realised he had messed up and tried to cut and run.

Tough **** for him that I saw exactly what he was up to, not a surprise really considering at that time I had been a BT engineer for twenty five years. Slung him out and insisted they send someone who knew what they were doing, don't care what they look like as long as they are competent
 
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British Gas are in a world of their own. I've never known such a bunch of muppets. Severn Trent are the same.

Not sure how co-op get away with mis pricing. I though it was illegal to have one shelf price a different price when it was scanned in. If it is higher than insist on the shelf price if it is the lower one and report them to trading standards. I am fairly certain they have been pulled up on it before.

Trouble is when all services and suppliers seem to be crap who do you buy from?!
 
Well, what an interesting thread.

We need to face facts - the vast majority of these issues are with large corporations. That's called progress........

The majority of people who work for these companies are but small lowly paid cogs who mostly don't give a crap. The bosses certainly don't give one either as long as they get their inflated salaries.

The UK excels in poor customer service which is hardly surprising in such an apathetic nation. We all bitch like hell but few of us do anything about it - and there is always someone else willing to go to BT, Talk Talk et al to save money.

Funnily it's always the same companies appearing in these and similar threads on other sites.

Talk Talk have non UK call centres - although they deny it, and I have spoken to them extensively. I have had problems which have always been resolved - not always on the first call though. It is frustrating but they get there in the end. I always recommend them.

Fortunately there are still some who have a pride in their job:clap:

I vote with my custom - if they give me crap service - I don't give them my money. Simple:wave:

The places that annoy me the most generally have signs up which ask me not to abuse their staff - that's also simple.... don't employ f***ing idiots then!:rules:
 
The problem is that you don't get what you pay for...

British Gas (their boiler repair service). The whole setup is geared to scam and costs a fortune. Safer (and cheaper) using a local engineer.

Autoprotect Car Warranty. Paid for a two year warranty, however, the classic claim of "wear & tear" appears to be applied to everything. Everything in the whole effing world is subject to wear & tear. Wear & tear within reason is the important part - but they don't seem to accept this.


Byker28i said:
Jessops.....
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If it makes you feel any better I went in to buy a Canon 24-70L about 2 weeks ago and wanted to test it on my camera first. Store dude was ok I guess but when a guy behind wanted to spend a tenner on something the store guy started getting impatient. Sod him, it's a £1,000 lens and I wanted to be sure so I went 50 metres down the road to Jacobs and bought it there instead.

Would you buy a car without test driving it?....


Parks Motor Group. Shower of ******s. Will never buy from them again.

On the flip side, Evans Halshaw have been mighty impressive recently and will probably buy my next car from them unless I go back to Honda (should never have left them :()
 
tijuana taxi said:
British Gas...
...
so I know lets bring one part a day until we find the dodgy bit
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haha so true, same thing happened to me with the house we just sold about a month ago. Poor girl who bought the house from us had to keep taking time off for these idiots to sort it whilst I spent an age on the phone trying to explain that it doesn't take 40 minutes to change a thermocoupler. :thumbsdown:
 
British Gas

AOL

Vodafone

And last but not least ...... Suzie's mobile burger van...... I asked for Salt on the chips and she forgot ..... bitch :bang:
 
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cyclamens said:
The majority of people who work for these companies are but small lowly paid cogs who mostly don't give a crap. The bosses certainly don't give one either as long as they get their inflated salaries.
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It's a strange shift, about twelve years ago when I started work the focus was on customer service. The industry message was "anyone can do IT, the way you stand out is with great service". Now the focus is often on doing it as cheaply as possible, regardless of quality.

My worst is British Gas and their boiler cover. That was just the one person who was really bad. I cancelled the day after their visit and went back to local guys.
 
British Gas Homecare - what a scam.

My boiler broke, engineer said need a new boiler and a system pressure wash, none of it covered by the peace of mind homecare agreement!

So I paid an independent repair company to come out and fix it and then I sued British Gas who argued and argued and sent lawyers letters and lied in Court.

They lost, I won so they paid plus costs plus expenses.

In addition, I found out that the "helpful" British Gas service engineers who come round to solve your problems under your friendly homecare agreement are paid commission by British Gas if they persuade you to have a pressure wash or buy a new boiler. One engineer confided that he earned 20% of his salary from these commissions.

I think they are a bunch of crooks!
 
Sky and NTL are the worst I have ever dealt with

Oh and NPower - can't forget their useless service
 
cyclamens said:
We need to face facts - the vast majority of these issues are with large corporations. That's called progress........

The majority of people who work for these companies are but small lowly paid cogs who mostly don't give a crap. The bosses certainly don't give one either as long as they get their inflated salaries.
Click to expand...

Yup. This is why I think this country should be run with a more communist view. The problem is, as you say, far too many people are paid such low wages when it's them doing all the hard work and running around, and at the end of the day what recognition do they get for it? Zip. Pay the workforce more and the managers less - workers' morale goes up, management don't get to feel so superior any more just because of their pay grade, sorted, everyone's happy. The workers will want to work, and management will just have to get over it.
 
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I hate British Gas and have told them so and why on many occasions when they have sent some poor individual to cold call or phoned me. Three examples:

1) Many years ago I moved from Leeds to Hemel Hempstead and asked for the cheque refunding my deposit to be sent to my new address in Hemel Hempstead. It was actually sent to three doors down from where I had lived in Bridlington before moving to Leeds. Apparently the cheque had been cashed by the recipent but none of this was their fault and I'd have to wait for the mess to be sorted before I'd get my refund. Refusing to leave until I received a cheque eventually worked despite being threatened with Police presence.

2) We foolishly signed up to whatever the "service" was called whereby an engineer would come to fix any problems with the heating and hot water system. Ours broke down and an engineer duly arrived, diagnosing a faulty diverter valve which needed to be replaced. He drained the system and then said he couldn't complete the job as he didn't have any gas for his blowtorch and would have to go back to the depot to get some more. As it was nearly his finishing time he wouldn't be able to come back and complete the job that day, leaving us with no hot water or heating in February. Needless to say he didn't turn up the following day and, on phoning the local office to find out when this was going to be sorted I was told that they couldn't do anything without the engineer's name as they didn't keep a record of who had been allocated what job. Apparerently it was all my fault as I should have asked his name. After pursuing this rather forcefully it was eventually accepted that they could send another engineer out to complete the job - two arrived and neither could understand why the first muppet couldn't complete the job due to having no gas when it was all compression fittings.

3) When I was managing the Royal Mail sorting office in Luton I had a couple of people phone up to say that they'd contacted British Gas when they had received a red demand despite never having received the original bill. The response was that some bills they'd despatched had been stolen from Royal Mail and that their bill had been in that batch. Interesting as that would have been something I would have known about for many reasons. When I phoned British Gas to ask if this was correct I was treated to the full explanation of how it was all down to Royal Mail, nothing to do with British Gas. On telling them who I was and asking for some more details there was a lengthy silence at the other end, eventually followed by a promise to get some more details and call back. Needless to say that didn't happen.

Over the last few weeks I've had calls at work trying to tempt me back culminating in someone wanting to speak to my wife (no, she's never worked in the same place as me) who couldn't tell me what it was about because of data protection.
 
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