We'll round up the baddies and make a phat sexy tournament ladder. Then we'll tie their wrists with a handkerchief, and give 'em daggers. Each one of your votes will represent a stab.
The CEO of the "winning" company receives a giant golden shit! And probably a certificate of completion or something.
Last year, Consumerist readers voted Halliburton the Worst Company in America, with Choicepoint as the second. The contest landed us in the New York Times (twice) and on the APM radio show Marketplace. Let's see what we can do this year with nearly quadrupled readership (and a better polling system).
Nominate which company you think is absolutely abhorrent, and why, in the comments or at tips at consumerist dot com.
Next week, we'll put the ladder together and let the festivities commence. — BEN POPKEN
]]>I vote for the RIAA too.
As Jesse in Japan said
"Ruining thousands of people's lives to protect their already dead and buried business model is just plain evil."
Bush administration is a very close second.
"Cingular (now AT&T) - for managing to make an Apple product (the iPhone) look unappealing to me.
Boston Police Department - for wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars to blow up a glorified lite-brite."
]]>Or Time Warner Cable. They're pretty awful too.
I also think that until you've run up against however much memory you have on your voicemail, you should have a way to automatically skip to the newest message without being compelled to go through all the old messages again. It shouldn't matter how old a message is, along as you're not running up against that allotment.
How about Cingular, too, for all the crap they give people about getting out of their contract when THEY raise the rates?
I also second Clear Channel. They're trying to introduce LED billboards here in Minneapolis/St. Paul, encountering a lot of resistance, and recently made the sleazy move of offering to advertise Amber Alerts on their boards--good free publicity to promote the boards, right after they lost a lawsuit in Minnetonka and after the City of St. Paul placed a moratorium on the signs.
How about Real Networks? Their players are full of ads, never completely shut down until you close the ad window after you shut down the ap, the updates are buggy, and customer service almost nonexistent.
Finally, Sony should win an award for DRMing CDs (including CDs sent out by BMG)--and using anti-piracy as an excuse to digitally monitor consumers' listening habits to--wait for it--send consumers marketing messages. As reported here on "Consumerist."
Just my thoughts.
]]>Sony rootkit
riaa media companies in general, drm, hdcp, etc.
Haliburton They haven't gotten any better
Time Warner Cable Switched Digital channels (won't work with cable cards)
Clearchannel for buying up every radio station and making them sanitized suck.
AT&T My #1. They allowed the government to secretly wiretap everyone. Now we essentially have MaBell back. Also see net neutrality.
I'd also like to nominate H&R Block, for providing the world's crappiest non-service as a whole, and then lying egregiously to their consumers whenever possible on top of it. I tried to use them last tax season, got screwed for $200 when they messed up my return, spent months on the phone trying to get a refund, and ended up with nothing more than a lower opinion of telephone customer-service-people in general. Oh, and they were more expensive than a REAL CPA!
All corporate evils are enabled by corrupted government.
]]>
• Mis delivered my mail to a similar address 1 mile away at least 30 times after being told countless times about the mistake
• Left packages partly put in our box allowing them to get drenched in the rain on about six occasions
• Lost at least (3) Bill's that we were aware of resulting in (2) late fees from credit cards.
• On many occasions failed to open my nearest branch on time, meaning there is a crowd waiting to get in at 8:15 ready for blood.
• On December 15th mailing (6) boxes and watch the line behind me swell as the speed challenged clerk walked each package slowly to the back to apparently hand load it as people were looking at me like I was the asshat. Apparently in HOU the postal clerks all come pre-medicated.
• Being too lazy to deliver packages to our porch and instead leave notes directing us to pick them up at the local branch, the one that consistently opens 15 minutes late.
• Charging for tracking that is completely useless
• Installing a self service 24/7 machine but locking the opening for any package beyond an envelope
• Forgetting that they work for us.
"I Had a wickedly bad experience with uhaul about 7 years ago. My marriage has ended & I needed a change of scenery. I made a reservation on the phone to rent a truck. ON the day of the move, it took me hours and hours of waiting to FINALLY get some crappy little truck. I packed all my worldy possessions and headed out of the bay area to my new home in Nevada ALONE. and this was before I had a cell phone *joy*
bout 5 hours later, on highway 88 in california, about 15 minutes out of the last town, the entire truck just died. I was out in the middle of the Sierra Nevada's Mountains in May, and I was completed stranded. Lucky for Me, it was a sunday and it only took an HOUR for the CHP to find me and call uhaul. It took 6 hours for Uhaul to dispatch a tow truck to tow me to the nearest town....(reminder, divorced female single female, alone, I had no food, no water, and all my crap in the truck, oh and I was also broke and it was sunday)
7 hours after my truck died, This AMAZING Tow Truck Driver (aka My Knight in Shining Armor) appeared. He drove me nearly 100 miles to my home. I swear if he weren't married I would've married this man on the spot! If it weren't for him, I don't know what I would've done.
After about a week of the Uhaul being at my new apartment, they finally had it towed away. When they arrived, I had spoken to the mechanic before it was towed, we peered under the hood....battery acid all over the place. They FAILED to secure the battery and the entire way up there, the belts were rubbing thru the the battery casing.....
Of course, they then turned around and blamed me for the truck breaking down.
*sigh* They even sent me to collections to make me pay for the late rental and damage.
To this day I can not go on long trips without having an anxiety attack. Just remembering uhaul stranding me sends shivers up my spine.
Years later when I moved back to CA, I rented from budget and I had a caravan of friends help me back over that mountain. I will NEVER RENT FROM uhaul... they are just too damn evil.
Don't use my email on the site... it's been years and years and years since this happened. Not much good can come of this, but I have
learned and I won't use them... :) This letter is just to back up my vote for them getting the shiny turd.
They really don't deserve shiny golden turd... but if that's all you guys have I guess it's better then a bag full of the real thing... right?"
]]>And I'll add Clear Channel for, you know, censoring and all that.
]]>Otherwise then my vote is Comcast, because they are Comcastic.
]]>The worst companies I've personally dealt with this past year are Cingular, Aetna, Sony, and Comcast. Funny, I don't seem to be the only one!
]]>If we make screenings of "Outfoxed" mandatory for all voters, I bet it wins.
]]>If there ever is a Best Company, I nominate Costco because of the reaming that they have been giving UPS over this.
]]>
"Verizon -- Besides being bad at math (.02 cents vs. .02 dollars), its
customer service continues to rankle, dissemble, and to be generally
unhelpful. Specifically, their training is inconsistent for such a
large company, and when promised one thing by one rep, another will
claim that the other had no permission or authority to do so.
Time Warner Cable (NYC) -- Making and breaking service appointments
according to their own logic.
Aetna Health Insurance -- disallowing medication (non-generic,
without generic equivalent) specifically prescribed by a doctor,
claiming that they were under no obligation to cover medicine just
because a health care professional deemed it best for the patient.
Halliburton/KBR -- Same reason it won last year, only a year later.
Any ISP that is seeking to charge at both ends of the pipeline (i.e.,
opposed to the net neutrality law).
IDT -- for all the reasons you at Consumerist have listed.
Most airlines -- Passengers may have become mean to the front line
airline company reps. But I say that's in response to the airline
companies now treating passengers like they get in the way of them
doing business.
That's all for now."
]]>]]>
"Broadway Video. Why? Ask the Thomas Hawk and the rest of the internet..."
]]>I would really want to nominate comcast though... bastards.
]]>
- not honoring warranties
- lying to customers
- threatening to call the police when people complain
The site http://bestbuysux.org/ has documentation as far as the eye can see.
]]>Porn pedeling, false advertising, Nazi lovers....
]]>
Verizon, for crippling their phones in order to plug "revenue leaks." If I take a picture on equipment I own, I should be able to transfer to my own PC or another device over bluetooth the way the phone was designed instead of having to send it to myself over their "network" and get dinged an MMS charge or unit.
2.) Runner-up Mastercard, for trying to dick me around on reimbursement of "loss of use fees" charged to me by Dollar/Thrifty from above incident, despite the fact that it's clearly outlined in the terms and conditions. Had to give them a little pep talk about how interested my state attorney general would be to hear about the story, to get them to finally pay the approximately four hundred bucks. Greedy bastards!
Between these two incidents, I would estimate 2 dozen phone calls and multiple faxes.
]]>Comcast!
]]>There's been lots of comments that had they been nominated, they'd have won hands down last year. Lets see if it happens!
]]>