Comcast is in the final deathmatch for the second year in a row after losing to Countrywide in 2008. Will this be the year that the cable giant finally takes home the top honor? Or will WCIA newcomer and top seeded company AIG continue its total domination?
Whose name will we engrave on this year's lucky golden poo trophy?
It's #1 AIG VS #3 Comcast!
This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2009 series. The companies nominated for this honor were chosen by you, the readers, and seeded according to number of nominations. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america. Download the bracket here.
]]>@pigbearpug:
As a fan of Chicago area sports teams, I feel your pain. Just use the mantra we do, maybe next year...
Hey you don't need to apologize, we all have different viewpoints. I was just showing you my way of thinking. I do think you know what happened and feel AIG deserves their media scrutiny. I argue that the media has chosen them as an easy target because people are stupid and don't want to complex answers. (This is not referring to people here, I have found as a longtime reader that the vast majority of commenters here are extremely intelligent and have fueled interesting discussions because of it)
]]>1) People assuming that hating AIG means you 'forgot' about all other parties responsible, and
2) People assuming that we who hate AIG don't have the first clue about what really happened
I'm here to tell you both assumptions are false. I KNOW there are plenty of culprits, public AND private, and YES I KNOW it wasn't the bonuses or any one company in particular that caused the current dilemma.
Guess what? AIG is still a SHITTY company that did SHITTY things that contributed directly and indirectly to the situation at hand. So FUCK THEM, and I don't apologize for that.
OK, apologize for taking myself too seriously. Beer now, later sleep.
San Dimas High School Football RULES!
]]>In the 18 months I had full coverage insurance on my vehicles with AIG, they commited the following cardinal sins:
* Charged $10 late fees on automatic payments that were taken BEFORE the due date.
* Refused to refund said late fees (I just started figuring them into my accounting)
* When my car was damaged in a hit-and-run accident, they tried to harass me into using an autobody shop of their choosing, threatening not to pay for towing to the location. This is ILLEGAL under Washington State Law.
* When the autobody shop finished repairs, AIG disputed payments, dragged their feet, and were all-around cock-heads about paying out my claim. My car sat for 18 days in the lot of the autobody shop I worked next door to until AIG finally paid up.
* My experience was so terrible that I opened a policy elsewhere and cancelled the remaining term of my policy with AIG, which should have entitled me to a refund, but instead AIG continued to bill me despite my letters and phone calls to them, then sent me to collections because I closed the account they refused to cease pilfering from.
Comcast, on the other hand, merely offered me discounted service when I called to cancel. Even though I refused the offer, when my account was cancelled, it stayed cancelled for good, and I even got a $12 check in return for services paid for in advance.
AIG can suck it.
]]>@darkjedi26: +1. This isn't a logic pick. It's a heart pick. I hate Comcast.
]]>And then there is Comcast, they are technically succeeding in selling products and services to consumers... and people absolutely hate them for it.
In my opinion that makes them the worse company... well they are better than TWC... sorta.
]]>Sorry for replying to myself but I also wanted to add that there were parts of AIG that continued to make money while their (Is it called Mortgage?) department went down the tubes.
]]>I'm not too well versed in economics, but my whole problem with the AIG hate is that there are other groups that deserve a share of the blame. The people who accepted loans they could not afford are at fault for being financially irresponsible (I know they may have been mislead into believing this was ok, but that doesn't exempt you from blame completely) Also on the list are the U.S. Politicians for encouraging everyone to own a home (I don't have facts to back this up, but they most likely did this to get the minority vote), when in reality it's ok not to. It's to me similar to the "everyone should go to college" idea. There is no shame in going into a trade (plumber, electrician) and making living that way, not everyone needs to be a scholar.
]]>The problem was, the outrage was misplaced. It should have been directed towards the clowns in DC who let the boondoggle happen.
]]>Tough one.
]]>AIG wins this round. Comcast is strongly encouraged to apply for next year's match up.
]]>Its really not fair... if this were the final four, it'd be like one team suddenly declaring eligibility for Kobe and Lebron.
]]>Using your analogy, they were the napalm that engulfed the system.
]]>You have? I haven't, and neither have a lot of people I know.
]]>@PSN: kingpsyz: Yep, and I think it's unfortunate. Last year, Comcast was robbed of its title by the scapegoat du jour Countrywide, even though they no longer existed. This year, AIG will rob them again, even though their major crime was having a name easy enough for all the idiots in news to pronounce.
Granted, they are not without blame, but show me one large corporation that is.
Comcast ASPIRES to be shitty. Their business model is basically to bend people over and rape them. That is their INTENT. Show me AIG's malicious intent.
]]>@Jaynor: No, see I don't pretend that my knowledge extends further than casual conversations with our CFO, a quick Business Week onceover every now and again and chatty gossip with my DABA girlfriend. Oh and an Econ course or two I was forced to take in undergrad.
]]>Comcast, however, is alive and well, monopolizing, profiteering, and treating me like crap. Please vote for Comcast. I don't want to see another "flavor of the year" company win again because its just become so popular to hate them (Countrywide, AIG, etc).
COMCAST FOR THE WIN!
]]>@tc4b:
Yeah gee I mean your consistently insightful commentary about beheading executives is really helping me understand the economy in a way that assists me in forming insightful, rational opinions. Thanks!
]]>@tc4b: I didn't mean for it to come off in that way, but I still stand by what I wrote. We're hurting and people are looking for a scapegoat and as a result we're diving headfirst into a angry mob position when we are leaving out a lot of the facts. AIG is now the face of the recession. We've forgotten EVERYONE else involved. It's just AIG and their suckstobeyou current CEO.
]]>Comcast should be a landslide winner in this one.
]]>In the WCIA tourney, they are all 'winners.' But, the economy being the way it is, The Consmerist was only able to afford ONE Golden Poo award, so unfortunately, only one company can 'win.'
]]>@TinkishDelight: Please post your resume.
]]>@tc4b:
It's probably we avoid turning this thread into some sort of horribly metaphor torture chamber?
]]>Now a real close fight would be Ticketmaster vs Comcast. I'd really enjoy seeing that. Monopoly vs Monopoly!
]]>@tc4b: I think some of it is, but a lot more of it comes from people with a very limited understanding of finance, law and business assuming the position of a knowledgable authority armed with nothing more than a 2 minute segment on economics from their local news. In other words, people don't understand what's going on and are reacting to things the media tells them without bothering to process and fact-check on their own.
]]>I bet customer-wise, Comcast has screwed a lot more people.
]]>AIG is a screwed up company, which I could care less about since they never done nothing to me (other then take my tax money, but I blame the government more then I do AIG)
Comcast - They screw consumers directly. (AIG screwed them indirectly).
Even though Comcast will lose, I believe they should get some sort of runner up prize.
... Maybe a golden toilet or golden painted toilet seat or something similar.
]]>AIG still gets my vote just due to their synthetic coal tax credit scheme. While legal, it cost the US tax payers millions (at least $875 million) and helped keep AIG on the path to destroying all...
excerpted from the above link:
Unexpected directions
Financial Products' drive to keep ahead of its competitors took the firm in unexpected directions. It developed a reputation as an innovator with one of the most diverse toolboxes in the derivatives business.
That's how Cassano and his Transaction Development Group found coal.
For a group of financial wizards, the coal business seemed an odd turn. But it was a logical extension of what the firm had been doing all along: discovering gaps in regulations and markets.
A 1980 law, generated by the Carter administration, offered tax credits to companies as incentives to design and use synthetic fuel systems. The aim was to reduce US dependence on foreign oil.
Associates at the Transaction Development Group had discovered that many energy companies were not making enough money to benefit from the tax breaks. But Financial Products' profitable parent, AIG, could use those credits to reduce its tax bill.
"One thing AIG had was ample income," Savage said. "So what we did is, we went out and we bought synthetic coal facilities."
The firm had no intention of becoming coal processors. Instead, it arranged to install the equipment-bought for more than $225 million, as Savage recalls-at coal facilities and power plants. The facilities leased and operated the machines at a discount, while AIG got millions in tax credits.
Financial Products hedged aspects of the deals, and checked with government officials to make sure the arrangements qualified for the breaks. Savage said the idea was bold as well as clever. "We had the gumption to go out and take seven of these plants that were sitting around doing nothing," he said. "We carted [the machines] off to where they could be used, and it went on."
Greenberg, too, was taken with the gambit. "It was opportunistic," he said recently. He once joked that he wanted to ride shotgun in the truck carting the machines around, Savage said.
Over the next few years, AIG reaped $875 million in benefits from the deals. It was a coup for Cassano and his group. Although it wasn't Cassano's idea, Savage said, he guided it from concept to reality.
"He says he thought about it for six months," said Savage, who came to appreciate Cassano's single-minded focus. "He made a lot of money for the company."
$875 million plus kept a shady technology going...
]]>AIG's debt insurance business blew up because it formulated derivative contracts on debt securities that all correlated to one. But it was operating with bad ratings, misrepresented and/or hard-to-determine valuations, and has had its role as a financing conduit for other banks deliberately misrepresented in the press. It built its CDS business on trash paper, but it didn't start the fire. Mortgages and mortgage-backed securities did. That AIG is continuing to receive bailout money so it can pay out contracts on those - and not being allowed to go bankrupt so the company can continue to act as a political cover organization for very large bailouts to what are generally considered "good" banks as well as offshore entities - is not AIG's fault. The company is being made into a sham and a scapegoat.
]]>@chucklebuck: AIG is definitely a clutch player. When it comes down to the wire, they know how to make a play happen.
]]>A, to the I, to the muthaf***in' G!
]]>And I'm basing my decision not off of how much damage either company has done, but rather by the amount of bad policies, poor customer service, and just general company practices that I've read about that happen within the companies themselves.
Overall, this is really a tough decision >< Shoot, I've changed my mind twice already within the span it took to write this!!
]]>@lawnmowerdeth: I agree.
]]>Heh, blaming AIG. It's sort of like someone tossed a molotov into a landfill and the flammable trash is going to jail.
]]>I'd say that this year AIG surely has to win as far as overall evil, but Comcast wins as far as worst consumer-service company. AIG's evil was not really caused by their sales directly to consumers.
]]>Well if that was the plan, it worked on me.
]]>AIG is clearly going to win, and with good reason, but I think Comcast warrants some type of runner up prize. Especially that it took AIG to beat them, which should speak volumes.
]]>No contest. I can also attest that my vote was not influenced by any particular association with either company...I don't have any AIG investments, and Comcast isn't even available in my area.
Maybe next year, Comcast. I know you'll be training for it, you customer-serviceless bastards.
]]>C'mon Comcast! Screw up my cable line once more and acheive what is yours!
]]>I see a landslide a comin
]]>