Customer service: three best and worst companies

[Nutmegger]

My best three:

• Discover Card - I had a few billing issues with them and they gladly took care of it without complaint. I also liked the fact that I was transfered to a call center in the United States (no offense to anybody).



• T-Mobile - For some odd reason my check was received late (I mailed it two weeks in advance!!!) but they took care of it and didn't try to screw me.



• Zappos.Com - I will never buy shoes from any other store!!! Customer service is the best I've dealt with as far as 'net shopping in concerned.

Three worst:

• Household Bank CC - Got screwed over and there was no customer service; only a voice mail could be left. Needless to say, the card got dumped.



• My ex-community bank absolutely sucked! They were set to merge and just kind of forgot about us customers...:eyes:



• Had trouble canceling my old ISP. They just made the process difficult then I had to listen to a women named "Peggy" as she tried to convince me to stay. Jeez, it was as if she was trying to sell a used car!


What about you?

[SoCalDem]

1. To cancel an ISP..the easy way..

call your credit card company and tell them you "misplaced" the card. They will issue you a new card with a new number.. Then you call the ISP and tell them you have cancelled the card and you no longer want their service. There is NOTHING they can do to keep you..

[linazelle]

37. That is the best solution I have heard. I'll remember it. nt

[China_cat]

2. I have to disagree with you about

Discover card. They stopped sending me bills even though I was up to date on payments and paying more than minimum. Calls to them every month resulted in no action whatever so I kept making my last minimum payment and stopped using the card. A YEAR later I get a letter saying that they can no longer accept money from me since they had sold the account to a collection agency. The collection agency is, at present, trying to collect almost 4 times as much as the last balance was on the last bill that I have.

I truly believe that this was payback for my complaint to the state AG about Discover card charging me over $300 to END my business connection with them...taking their card in my shop...due to my business having to close.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

5. I hate discover card.

Everytime I freaking call, I get some Indian woman who can barely speak English. UGH!
Duckie

[Nutmegger]

14. Wow - sorry you had to deal with that

:grr:

Luckily, thus far, I haven't had any trouble with them but have had issues with other CC companies. Damn them!

[Left Is Write]

25. The most telemarketing I have ever received has been from Discover.

[Skittles]

3. how about this for customer service

I work nights.....some poor programmer called me to see if he could get a performance bump on his job (due to high CPU he could not)....he mentioned the job would be running all night and he'd have to stay up to check on it. Things were slow so I said how about you go to bed, I'll check on it during my 30 minute system checks and I'll call you if something is wrong? He went to sleep and I checked on it every 30 minutes for the next 10 hours until it finished. :D

[wain]

39. I'd send you flowers!

I always detected a sense of glee in the voice when waking me to tell me my job failed.

If not flowers, then a Starbucks card or a gift certificate at a local pizzeria.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

4. My picks:

Great Customer Service:
MidFirst Bank: They are the best bank I've ever had, and i'm not just saying that because I work for a fellow subsidiary of the same company. They will take care of you. If you have one in your city, don't hesitate to make it your bank. I've had great luck.

And I'm having trouble thinking of any other good places.

Bad:
Best Buy Geek Squad. Lost my computer twice. Sent me the wrong computer. A whole big mess. I did end up emailing corporate and they sent me a $100 gift card. So that didn't suck. And don't let them fool you. Their contract repair company doesn't suck. THEY suck.

What is up with all these places lately who have lost credit card machine capability? Everytime I want to go eat someplace, their credit machine is out of order. Retards. FIX IT!
Duckie

[LeftyMom]

6. Good ones (mostly local, no surprise)

*SAFE credit union- How often can a person say they've NEVER had a problem with thier bank? They always have plenty of tellers, thier lines move fast, the restroon is clean... I can't think of anything bad to say about them.

*Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op- Thier prices are better than the chains, the employees know thier stuff, they offer a low income discount and actually publicize that fact and best of all they have great sales. The down sides are that parking at the midtown location is a nightmare, they sell meat (unlike whole foods the meat dept doesn't smell up the whole damn store, thank goodness) and for some reason they opened a money-losing second store out in suburbia which was pretty braindead, IMO.

*Nextel- Hey I get to say something nice about a big national company (well a subsection of Sprint, now.) Unlike pretty much everybody else on the planet, I have no problems with my phone. It works when it should, where it should. If something is the matter with my handset, somebody at Nextel actually tries (and usually suceeds) to fix it before trying to sell me a new one. My phone doesn't do anything special, but it makes calls when it should and doesn't hang up until I push the button, which is what it should do.

Companies that suck

*AOL- Like everybody else on the planet they billed me for a zillion years or so after I canceled my account. I had to go through the fraud procedure and change my bank account numbers to make them stop.

*Bank of America- My son's Dad emptied and closed an account he hadn't used in months. They kept taking the monthly fee out of an account that he had followed thier procedures to close, then took out overdraft fees for the negative balance caused by the other fees. Once that had built up to several hundred dollars (without any notification of what was going on until that point) they tried to bill him for the mess and report it to credit agencies. Not even he deserves to deal with that kind of mess.

*WalMart- My mother got my son some overly large pants there for Christmas. (FYI: We all know walmart's evil and I don't personally shop there but my Mom is a chain store addict.) She couldn't find the recipt so I had to exchange them. Rather than a straight-across exchange for the same pants in a smaller size, they insisted on givng me a store credit for the lowest price the pants had sold for recently. As a result, I had to exchange two pair of pants for only one pair of the same exact style in a smaller size. What a rip-off.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. I had a great experience with Bank of America

My checkbook was stolen and they were awesome about it. I was on vacation, found I had no money in the bank and one phone call took care of it. All my money was back in my account within an hour.

[StuckinBFE]

7. Absolute Worst Cell Phone Company

Verizon Wireless - Everytime I have an issue with my phone they tell me I need to use my insurance plan on it plus all their employees are idiots. The best thing was my old phone with old battery fell in water, this time it was my fault so I used my insurance on my phone received a new phone and had to use my old battery. Went in because I had some strange error they told me the corrision from my old battery (there was no physical signs plus it had been over a year and half since I replaced it) caused my new phone to break. I went home did some searching on the internet the answer was to take out my battery and let my phone sit for a few hours, presto it worked. I have had so much bad service that I can't wait to change phone companies as soon as I move to a larger market where I more then one choice for cell phones.

[Common Sense Party]

36. Yup. Verizon sucks wind. n/t

[linazelle]

38. US Cellular is horrible. I paid $300 to end a contract with them

because I wasn't getting any reception and they told me they don't guarantee reception. When I say no reception, I mean my home location was obviously a dead spot in their network and I could not take or make calls from home--the only place I needed to use the phone. They wanted me to pay for the contract anyway.

[Deja Q]

43. So far I've found them to be infinitely better than Sprint...

At least for billing; Verizon does go out of its way so customers have to use their pricey add-on programs to do more with their equipment...

My verizon outlet told me about letting the phone dry out after removing the battery.

As for sprint... :scared:

[AzDar]

8. Zappos RULES!! Incredible customer service.. n/t

[prole_for_peace]

46. i agree. i LOVE them

i received the wrong pair of shoes in the correct box. i called to tell them so when i returned the shoes no one thought i was pulling some kind of switch. they were very nice and apologetic. i even received a phone call a few days later apologizing again and asking if everything was ok.

[Radical Activist]

9. US Bank is the worst in my experience

It was an especially shocking 180 since they took over a local Firststar whose main selling point was their claim of great costumer service. They were pretty good too, until the transition over to US Bank, which is clearly run by a bunch of crooks.

[Heddi]

21. US Bank has been okay with us, but one big FUBAR a few years ago

We have 2 checking accounts with US Bank--one is used for checks, the other used as savings -- we use a checking for savings because we get higher $$ back interest with the checking.

We had always transferred money back and forth betweeh both accounts with no problems. We had gone on vacation and when we came back, we noticed $110 taken out of our account by US bank. We called them and they said the $$ was for money transfer fees. Apparently, the 2 accounts we had had a limit of like 3 transactions a month, and every transaction above that had some exorborant fee attached to it. We told them that was totally unacceptable and they credited us the money and said that they changed the 2 accounts to whatever accounts had unlimited transfers.

Fast forward to a few months later.

We're transferring money between accounts, and notice $250 worth of $$ taken out of our account.


This time, we go to the branch (we had talked with them on the phone previously). They tell us that they have no record of our accounts being changed and that there's no way we could have changed the accounts over the phone because that's something that has to be done in person at the bank office.

The gal then tells us that because of the "misunderstanding on our part", she'll credit back the entire $250 and change our accounts. Well, I guess she was new because her boss comes over and makes a big huff about how we should read the fine print blah blah blah---we'd had the account for 5 years at that point---never had a problem with transferring money before...

So THEN he says that they can't credit back the entire $250, only $110 of it. I say "Well, why can't you do the entire amount since it was the person at your telephone service that gave us the impression that we had no limits on money transfer" and he goes into this lecture about how there's no proof and we should have come into the branch and blah blah blah.

So we got a $110 credit and bit the other $140 in fees.

THEN---get this---after being there for 2 hours going round and round about the fucking money, they have the AUDACITY to ask if we want to sign up for automatic bill pay and are we interested in a student loan with them!!!!

we're like "uh...yeah...right..."

We'd switch to another bank, but US Bank is somewhat regional/national, and we absolutely will NOT go back to Bank of America and all the other banks around here are purely local and equally crappy as well.

[Heddi]

22. delete

delete

[ghostsofgiants]

10. My ISP back home is awful too.

The service itself is crappy, and every time I canll to complain, I get the runaround. Not cool.

[grace0418]

11. You are SO RIGHT about Zappos.com!! My other picks are here too.

But first I have to say that I love Zappos.com so much. Especially because I am a woman with size 10.5ww feet. Other shoes stores aren't even an option most of the time unless I want to buy unisex or men's shoes. But Zappos.com goes above and beyond EVERY time I order from them. Free (and blazing fast) shipping, no sales tax, free return shipping, 8 gazillion different styles...what's not to love?

I'm restricting my picks to chain or online stores. It's easy to pick a little boutique no one's ever been to but I'd rather this be of use to someone outside Chicago.

Best:

• Zappos.com.
Absolutely. For all the reasons above.

• Trader Joes.
I've never had a better grocery experience in my life. All the TJs I've ever been to (several in Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, etc.) have had so many friendly, helpful employees I can hardly believe it's true. Maybe I'm just exceedingly lucky but shopping there is a joy. It doesn't hurt that I love their products, either.

• Drugstore.com.
I haven't had to deal with their customer service very much but when I have it's been great. Once I ordered a box of Earplanes (earplugs) that was supposed to have a third bonus pair but the bonus pair was missing. I emailed them and two days later I had a whole new package of three pair. That was nice.

Worst. WORST. WORRRRRRRRSST.:

• BEST BUY.
In contrast to Trader Joe's, I have literally NEVER had a good experience with Best Buy. Even just shopping there is a nightmare, but having to deal with customer service makes scratching my own eyes out sound fun. Last December I purchased two games for my nieces from their website (no one else had them or I never would've resorted to Best Buy) and paid extra to have them shipped UPS so I could track them. I ordered them well in advance of Christmas so it shouldn't have been a problem. Well, they shipped one item but put the other on backorder. I was about to cancel the b.o. item when I got a second email (the same day) saying it was back in stock and they would ship it out immediately. Only for some reason they decided to ship the second item via USPS with no way to track it. Naturally, it never showed up. On Dec. 22 I called and said that, because Best Buy screwed up and ignored my shipping preference, they should send me a second copy via 2-Day Air so I could have it for Christmas (and I would return the first one if it ever showed up). The customer service rep actually replied "Now WHY would we do that?" Uh, I don't know...because you SCREWED UP perhaps? She wouldn't even transfer me to a supervisor when I politely and calmly asked to speak to one. ARGGGGGGGGGGH!

• COMCAST
Too many stories to even recount of this nightmare company. I shudder to think of how many vacation and weekend days I wasted trying to get Comcast to show up and get my fucking cable working right.

• BEST WESTERN
Funny how two of the entries on my "worst" list have the word "best" in their name. Okay, this is a very long, drawn out tale that took months to resolve. I'll tell you the short version. We stayed at a Best Western in Santa Monica CA. The first night we stayed there the power went out on the whole block and proceeded to stay off for three days. This meant no phone, no A/C, no light in the windowless bathroom, no hot water, no elevator, no tv. While this wasn't Best Western's fault, their "solution" was unbelievable. They basically didn't tell anyone what had happened in the night until you stumbled down the stairs (in the dark) to the front desk to ask. They offered no assistance, not even a flashlight, to retrieve our car from the completely pitch black underground garage. We literally had to feel the license plate and match it to what we'd memorized from our rental agreement in the sunlight. Our second night they offered to put us up in different hotel. This ended up being a total fleabag motel with dirty sheets, cockroaches, and mystery stains everywhere. The next morning, when the power still wasn't back on, we decided to sleep on my brother's sofa for the rest of our trip and we went to the Best Western to retrieve the rest of our luggage and check out. They actually had the audacity to try to charge us for two full nights, without even an apology or discount. It took months of wrangling with the corporate office before I finally got a refund. But I tell everyone I know to never, ever stay at Best Western.

[grace0418]

13. I want to add CostCo to my Best List with a great story.

My friend was getting married and wanted me to do her flowers for her (I'd done my own flowers and my wedding and she really liked what I did). She found a supplier that would ship her the flowers she specifically wanted so I could arrange them the day before the wedding. The flowers arrived two days before the wedding and they were almost completely dead and brown.

In a panic she called CostCo and asked what they could get for her (I had suggested to her that she try them because I always thought they had nice flowers). The CostCo flower people went out of their way to find some of the exotic flowers she wanted plus they got a whole bunch of other flowers they thought would complement nicely (she's not really into roses or other standard wedding flowers). We drove there the next morning and they brought container after container of the most incredible flowers that they had set aside for her. For $250 we got more flowers than we even needed and they were GORGEOUS.

YAY FOR COSTCO! They saved my friend's wedding.

[Nutmegger]

15. Forgot about Trader Joes!!!

An absolutely awesome shopping experience; it's a little out of the way for me but well worth it!

[grace0418]

29. I just went there after work and was treated to another

excellent experience. Even though the store was packed with the after work crowd, the sales staff was friendly and attentive. I got through the line in less than five minutes (that never happens at Jewel). Best of all, they had their chocolate frosting in stock. Which is awesome because I need to make cupcakes and their chocolate frosting is the best I've ever tasted. Really. It's like sex in a jar.

[cynatnite]

12. AOL and Charter are the worst, IMO

We used AOL for a short period of time between houses and to cancel them took four tries and four months. They continued taking money out of the bank even after we canceled. Finally, had to file a complaint with our bank and in a few weeks we had all our money back.

Bank of TN is probably repug to the max since all they have is Faux news running at their branches, but they are great in helping their customers and will take the time with you. Plus there is NO automated system when calling. You go directly to a person. :)

Charter's technical support is awful! I might as well ask my 6 year old to help me with my internet issues. I quit calling them after a guy told me he didn't know how to set up Outlook Express to recieve email.

[philosophie_en_rose]

16. Best: Costco, Amazon, Safeway WORST: QWEST!!!! Fred Meyer

I love Costco. People look happy to work there. Plus, their return policy is excellent - 6 months no questions on computers!!! at no extra cost. Amazon.com has fairly good customer service. I like that they'll call you immediately after you make a request. Safeway is tolerable. I hate fakey-fake "I'm your bestest friend" clerks (which is forced policy at Safeway), but they do a good job.

I HATE QWEST, as much as I hate George W. Bush. In fact, it may be my mission in life to go into business - open a phone company - and crush QWEST like a bug. Those liars refused to honor a written contract specifying monthly charges by constantly overcharging random amounts. Not taxes - the basic amount. Their math was just wrong or they randomly turned services on and off. I am nice to customer service, but they were exceedingly rude to me. (What? You just can't afford to pay?) !!!! Nice. I will set up a line with tin cans and string before I give a damned penny to those people again.

Fred Meyer frequently has wrong prices. Check your receipts! The cashiers won't.

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. Sirius

I actually got to talk to a human bieng every time I called and they were as pleasant as can be. Plus they answered my questions.

I also have heard people complain about Sprint but I have had nothing but great customer service from them.

[AirmensMom]

18. Here are mine:

BEST:

Lands' End -- they'll take a return no matter what and even pay the postage. If you need an exchange, they'll send it right out with a label to return the original product with. I've never had bad service from them in almost 20 years.

Discover Card -- very easy to dispute a charge. Just call and they do the rest. I've never had to produce any paperwork. I can see that a few people have had bad service from them, but I never have.

rawguru.com -- sent a seed sprouter to me that got damaged during shipping. When I called to tell him I needed it ASAP, he got one to me the next day. And he didn't put another charge on my card.

WORST (OK, I have FOUR):

Capital One -- we had to dispute something that was returned. The company never credited our account and we had emails, etc., saying they would. Capital One made us send all receipts and correspondence via fax twice and snail-mail once. And it's never been resolved, to our knowledge ... at least, they have never notified us. The temporary credit has been on the account for over a year, though. We didn't renew our last card.

Adelphia -- always down and really bad customer service. They blame everything on the router, even if you're bypassing it.

Wells Fargo -- sends mortgage refinance offers via UPS Legal Express Envelope. So the UPS guy rings the doorbell (which he never does for packages) and my heart stops every time I see this piece of mail. I've tried for TWO YEARS to get off the mailing list. I've even talked to supervisors.

Oppenheimer -- they would call, ask for harleydad, and hang up on me when I asked who was calling. I have caller-id, so I called back several times to tell them not to call, especially if they're going to be rude. After 6 months of these calls, I reported them to the FL Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services (I'm on the FL DO NOT CALL list) and the calls stopped.

[Neshanic]

19. Best, Discount Tire, Costco, Nordstroms. Bad,Verizon, Cox, Chase

[wickerwoman]

33. Yes, Verizon is horrible!

I used to work nights so I was trying to sleep during the day and some stupid computer was calling me every friggin' day at 11:02 exactly just as I was starting to fall asleep. I called Verizon to see what I could do about it. They said there was no way they could trace the call (bollocks), no way they could block the call (bollocks) and suggested that I simply unplug my phone all day every day. I asked them what I was supposed to do if there was an emergency and someone needed to get through to me and they suggested I get a cell phone and pay another $60 a month. Assholes...

[aePrime]

41. Verizon *is* horrible

I don't think they care at all that their customer service is so bad. They obviously put no effort into it whatsoever.

We had phone and DSL from them in our previous city. Every time we called about something, we'd give them our account number, but they could never find our information. I bet if we had stopped paying our bills they would have found us very quickly.

When we moved, we wanted to set up DSL again. We have cell phones, so we didn't really care about the land line, but we'd get one to get the DSL. Every time I called I was on hold for at least an hour, and their stupid voice activated system is intolerable. We finally got through, told them that we wanted to set up a phone line and DSL. They told us the day DSL would be installed, which was nearly a month later.

Being a computer scientist, I was anxious for my internet connection, so I noticed when the day came and went and I didn't hear a thing from them. After being on hold for ages again, I explained calmly to the lady that our DSL hadn't been installed. She said, "Oh, well, that's because we can't install DSL there. We're not doing any more installations in your city at the moment." Argh! They're a f*ing communications company, shouldn't somebody have called me? They installed my phone, they know the number! I wasted an entire month of not getting my research done at home because of them. We've since canceled our land line from them as well.

Another of my least favorite companies is Washington Mutual. I set up an account in CA while living there, and everything was fine, until I moved back to Idaho. Once back, no Washington Mutual here could find my account information. I had somebody there explain it away as the fact that they're separate companies for tax purposes. I don't care -- it should look like one company to me! I quickly closed my accounts with them, and haven't looked back. I hear horror stories from friends about them now, and I can only shake my head. Nobody seems to heed my warnings about them beforehand.

[CONN]

44. Agree Verizon is bad...

They allowed my long distance service to be switched to Sprint. I had a cheap long distance company before ($.04 cents to the UK). Of course when you are "switched" like this you don't get to pick one of those calling plans so my UK calls were $5.00 per minute.

I tried Verizon and they were sorry but had to talk with Sprint. At Sprint I never managed to get anyone.

Then my credit rating got a zing from some company I never heard of. Turned out after investigation, Verizon turned it over to credit agency. I was annoyed because I was never contacted by the credit agency. I called many times to resolve. Same runaround - call Sprint, sorry deal with collection agency, etc...

Finally, owning stock in Verizon and being a customer for 20 years, I appealed to investor relations (via email to an executive), then it was cleared up in a day (8 months later).

[Heddi]

23. here's mine

Good:

Les Schwab Tires - I think they're west-coast only but my gosh are they good. The only bad thing about them is that they tell you they'll call when your car/tire is done but they don't, so you have to call them back. Good because they patch tires for free (even if you didn't buy them there) and they have a generous warranty program for their brakes--I think the warranty is good for 3 years. Then if the brakes go out within 3 years, they replace them and give you a brand new 3 year guarantee. Also, they're just really nice people and epitomize old time customer service. Highly reccomended

Costco: no questions asked return policy. Very nice workers as well.


Bad:

Dirt Devil Vaccuums - we have a canister vac and about a year ago, a dog in our neighborhood ran off with the lid to the canister, so we ordered another one. The first hurdle was actually finding someone in the 'order' department who knew what we were talking about. After going round and round with them, we ordered a replacment canister which was the only way we could get the lid to it. Shipping took an inordinate amount of time. I think we finally got it about a month after we placed the order. Open it up, and the canister is there but with no lid. So I call back and go round and round and finally get a very nice and apologetic guy who couldn't for the life of him figure out why they'd send the canister without the lid. Sent it out free (other people I spoke with said I'd have to pay for shipping), and sent it out next day air (other people said it would take another month or so to reach us).

Qwest - not so much customer service but billing is a NIGHTMARE. Finally we cancelled our Qwest landline because the billing was so convoluted that we could never make heads or tails of it. Trying to figure out if you were charged properly was like reading a physics textbook.

Verizon - just switched to Verizon today from the horrid T-Mobile. Had Verizon in the past and were very happy with them. Only recently did they give service to our area. Called the 800# on sunday to find out about a promotion they had. Asked if we were billed when the phone was activated by us, or when we got the phone. Was told billing started upon activation and that we had 15 days to activate phone after getting it. Then went into Verizon store to ask further about promotion and was told that promotion didn't end on 2/20, but 3/4.

Saw ads on TV today stating that offer ended today. Called Verizon again and got a very rude woman on the phone who said that she specifically remembered speaking with me "a few days ago" (I called yesterday) and that she knows what she said and flat out called m a liar. Said that I'm trying to get something for nothing. I hung up on her. Hope this isn't an indication of how their customer service has changed in the last year and a half...

T-Mobile - Oh! bad company, shitty service, can't get calls ANYWHERE. If you're within 10,000 miles of a mountain, expect to have no service. Had a situation where we were going to go over our shared minutes. Called to see what options they could offer us-- when we had Verizon in the past, they would temporarily bump you to the next billing level so you didn't have to pya .60 a minute for calls. Callled T-Mobile to see if they could do this and they could, as long as we signed a 2 year agreement.

Also, girl at the T-Mobile kiosk in the mall told us there was no activation or connection fee when we got our phones, only to be billed $75 on our first bill. Thankfully, we called Tmobile and told them taht she said there WERE no connection fees and they said they'd take it off our bill and bill the 3rd party company that runs the kiosk. So that was good customer service on their part.

Comcast: Worst. Company. Ever. I'm sure if you do a google search on either Comcast or AT&T Cable COmplaints, you'll find the complaints that we not only wrote to the company, but the complaints we put up on on-line complaint websites.

British Airways - went to London. stayed for 9 days. Had BA flight from London to NEwark. In London, flight was delayed about 4 hours because of mechanical problems. Got a 5-pound voucher for McDonalds. Since we missed our connecting flight from Newark to South Carolina, asked what BA was going to do re: hotel, etc. They said their responsibility ended where the flight began, and that they could only offer us accomodations if we were to stay in London, but had no obligation to help us out once we got to the US. Didn't get to the US until around 2am and no flights out at that point. Very disappointed. Also, flying international with BA is like sitting ina cattle car across the Atlantic. Quite rude to non-business class customers. Refused to refill our drinks. On an international flight from Seattle to Amsterdam, we got 2 sodas and one tiny bottle of wine with dinner. Had only 5 blankets for entire plane. Said "first class gets first option of blankets". Ignored us when we begged for water.

[grace0418]

28. I could not agree more about Comcast. THEY SUCK!

I get 15 total days off per year. That's sick days, vacation days, personal days, family emergency...everything. When I think of how many of those precious few days I wasted waiting for Comcast to show up, or come back, or finish what should've been a five-minute job, I want to scream. All for cable television. This is what happens when there is no competition and no recourse.

[Heddi]

30. When we got our cable installed in our apartment

they told us they would be there between, like, 12 and 3 and if they didn't show up on time, installation was free.

So I sat at home, and even got up EARLY in the event they came by early--I don't mind that so much as coming by late.

We had told the lady on the phone that we live in a secured apartment building, and that they had to dial our number at the box downstairs in order to get into the building. They had my home AND cellphone number and I told them TO CALL ME if they had any issues with our location or our building or ANYTHING>

Around 11:45 I started getting hetchy so I called the customer service again to tell them about the security box on the front door.

Sat and waited. And waited. And waited.

3:05 rolls around and I call customer service. I'm fumed. Took a day off FROM SCHOOL to wait for these bastards.

Customer service lady transfers me to the local office and I'm told by the RUDEST of RUDE people that *sigh* the guy came by the house, knocked on the door and no one answered.

I said that was impossible because we lived in a secure-entrance building, and that he could not have knocked on my door.

So then she gets all huffy and said that he tried NUMEROUS times to access our building but we wouldn't answer the phone (the box rings to the telephone). Then he tried NUMEROUS times to calll my cell and home number but we didn't answer. Then he got someone to let him into the building, came to my apartment, and knocked on the door for FIFTEEN MINUTES and no one answered.

I had no problem calling her a fucking liar to her face and told the same thing to the manager that she transferred to.

Well, about 20 minutes after that, I get a ring on my phone. It's the installation guy. He's downstairs. Trying to get in. Had a lengthy call and sorry for being late.

I let him in and told him what the woman at the local office said about him trying to get in, etc etc. He said that was a plain lie because he hadn't been to my building and was very sorry for being late, gave me a free installation and 6 months free digital cable with all the movie channels.

It only got worse from there :)

I thought when we moved from South Carolina to WA we had gotten rid of Comcast because AT&T had the cable out here. Well wouldn't ya know it, within 2 months of moving to WA, Comcast merged with AT&T to give customers a new level of suck that we never knew existed before. I hate AT&T but no where near my hate for Comcast.

Now we live in the boonies and have Charter Cable which, as far as cable companies go, really isn't too bad. Certainly nowhere near the level of complete incompetence that Comcast has reached and exceeded.

Once, our internet was out for about 20 days. THey kept giving us this shit-ass runaround about why it was out but wouldn't give us service. I sat on hold for FIVE FUCKING HOURS one day. Finally got through to someone who sounded very unpleased that they had to do a job and actually ANSWER the phone, and told me that they weren't going to give me a credit for my internet-free days because "the internet isn't that important" and asked me why I just didn't conduct my business over the phone like a regular person?!?!??!?!

[grace0418]

31. I feel your pain. I have similar stories of rudeness and

incompetence. I finally was on a first name basis with a Vice President at the corporate office, and it still took months and months to get our problems resolved. I remember one time, after waiting one whole day (they were supposed to show up between 8-11 a.m., then between 12-3 p.m., then before 6, then OOPS, the NEXT morning at 8 a.m.) I was on the phone with dispatch at 10 a.m. because they SWORE the technician would be there at 8 a.m SHARP. The dispatch not only called me a liar ("We would NEVER give an exact time and we would never have a technician out at 8 a.m. on Saturday."), they proceeded to tell me they had no way of contacting their technicians out on the road so they couldn't tell me when he would get there.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

So a *communications company* has no way of contacting it's workers when they're out on a call. They wouldn't have, oh I don't know, CELL PHONES, or walkie-talkies, or lap tops or beepers or anything like that. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuure.

Of course, when the technician did show up at 1:30 that afternoon and my husband was explaining the situation to him, WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT his little ole CELL PHONE STARTED TO RING. My husband asked him "Is that your personal cell phone?" and he replied "No, this is so dispatch can contact me."

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

When I was relating this tale to the Vice President, I said "Oh and, by the way, my payment is going to be there sometime between the 15th and 30th of the month. If not then for sure by the 15th of the following month, or thereabouts. It's hard to say for sure. Just stay by your mailbox and wait for it. You have nothing else to do, do you?" She said "I get your point."

[lakemonster11]

32. Comcast is EVIL

When I set up our cable TV/internet last year, I talked to them over the phone and made sure I was getting a good rate and not being screwed by any sort of "deal" where I would get cheap cable for a few months and then a ridiculous monthly rate after that. I even had my brother verify the plan and rate by talking to the customer service representative before I agreed to anything.

The cable guy came over and installed everything. He was great (and answered every one of my questions as if I were intelligent---which is usually not the case when you're a young woman, infuriatingly enough). Anyway, after he left I noticed that the invoice had a much higher rate both for installation and for monthly service than I had agreed to (as in nearly twice as much). I figured it must have been a simple mistake, so I called Comcast and told them about it, expecting them to apologize for the error and fix my bill right away.

Instead, they told me that no such rate existed and that a Comcast representative could not have possibly quoted me that price. I wrote multiple emails to their customer service center about it and got dismissive answers that basically just said "tough luck---pay up." Finally, I wrote an email to my state attorney general's office. A week or so later I got an offer from Comcast to credit $200 to my account. I still wasn't happy, since it didn't cover the extra money I was going to have to pay them over the course of the year, but I was sick of dealing with them and had no real alternative, so I took it.

[grace0418]

34. Yeah, what is the deal with that?

It's bad enough to be told one thing then get another, but to have their customer service reps imply that you're either lying or insane is fucking infuriating.

I think they just figure most people are going to give up eventually because who wants to waste months dealing with letters, phone calls, faxes, attorneys, BBB, complaint departments, etc. over cable television (or phone or internet)? They probably bank on that. It's probably worth it to them to give the few people who DO go that far a couple of bucks because they get to screw everyone else. Since there is no alternative to Comcast in my area, you end up just dealing with it or not having cable at all.

Argggh! Every time I'm reminded of dealing with them my blood pressure goes up.

[Left Is Write]

24. My personal experience...

Good customer service:

Starbucks - I get fast, friendly, nearly error-free service. On the rare occasions there HAS been an error, it gets rectified immediately and/or I've been given a free drink voucher. The workers at the two Starbucks I go to most frequently are cheerful, speedy, and always smile.

My bank - the tellers at the branch I use most frequently are just as cheerful and friendly as the above noted Starbucks employees. They have been very helpful on numerous occasions with questions and other issues. There was one time when an error occurred with an autodraft payment: two drafts were made instead of one, causing an overdraft. The problem was corrected in less than 24 hours, my account credited the overdraft fee, and their guarantee applied.

DirecTV - they are always quick to resolve issues.


Bad customer service:

ABC Financial (I think that's their name) - This outfit handled the paperwork for automatic payments for Gold's Gym. I kept getting billed for my membership AFTER it had expired without extension. It took me THREE MONTHS (at $60 a month - 30 for the membership, 30 for the child care) to get it straightened out. They INSISTED that I had signed new paperwork the previous June extending my contract another several months. They were wrong. I had to get the general manager of Gold's involved to get it straightened out (and that was something of a nightmare in and of itself). Neither Gold's Gym nor ABC Financial will get my business again.

Capital One - it was Capital One. Do I really need to say more?

Can't think of a third, but I'm sure something will come to me.

[Kali]

26. Will have to try this shoe place

mostly I go barefoot or wear men's sandals, boots or converse, but every once in a while I need girl shoes...(:puke: )


Discount Tire, - we go through tires and they are always good about the replacement. I had one bad experience with one branch but corporate took care of it nicely - been going there for close to 15 years, I bet.


Local small town junky outlet store, Alco - they have Dickies jeans for 10 bucks (ssshhhhhh don't tell anybody) not always every size in stock every time, but enough that I am a happy customer. (that isn't exactly customer service but hey)


I have to say Verizon used to be pretty good, when we had them they would go out of the way to help, especially the tech guys, but things just didn't work out (we were actually out of their service area, but juggled things out of Tucson/Nogales for a couple years) Now using Alltel - they seem ok, no complaints so far. have been pretty patient with my somewhat random payments and such. Always seem to refund the reconnect fee when I really screw up - again ssshhhhh.

Safeway used to drive me up the wall - they are a monopoly in the nearby town, but the customer service was ok - agree with someone above about the fake cheeriness crap, but at least you can get help if you need it. Now they are going to have wallyworld come to town for competition, hope it doesn't drive them out of business, cause I really don't want to shop there.

MCI is a company I hate, they sent a bill I disputed and would NEVER send me a copy of the itemized original that I either lost or they never sent in the first place. We went back and forth for what seemed like a couple of years - and I eventually said screw it I am not paying - I see it is still on my credit report. That's ok I can out wait 'em.

I hate my internet server now too. (See in the computer group forum) - I used to be tolerant of their little quirks because they were small and local, but they have changed hands like 4 or 5 times and now they are dumping my e-mail address/domain name - which is, you guessed it - one of the main reasons I even chose them! arrggggg

As for rotten customer service can you say microsoft, epson, gateway? I feel like every piece of electronics I own was the worst but I am pretty sure it is really an industry-wide trait. I bought a gateway because I heard the customer service was the best - if that is true I would sure hate to experience one of the worst!

[grace0418]

27. You won't be sorry.

I don't work for them or anything, I swear. :) I just completely love Zappos.com. Last summer was the first summer since I was little that I had cute, non-sporty sandals to wear. Normally I just wear Keens or gym shoes, but it's nice to have the option when you're doing something dressier.

[Starlight]

35. I see some of mine are already posted here.

Good experiences:
Land's End - the best
Banana Republic
Starbucks
Harmon Discount
Shoprite
Macy's (Short Hills NJ)
Zappos

Not so good experiences:
Comcast
Verizon
Capital One

[AngryAmish]

40. Best is Caterpiller

Any part will be delivered to anywhere on the face of the earth within 24 hours. That is service.

[Bryan]

42. Boy, a lot of people have had trouble with Verizon

I've never had any trouble with Verizon's people. Last summer, when I made a cross-country trip, they mistakenly charged me upwards of $50.00 in roaming charges, and I got it credited back with a single phone call.

I do agree that Capital One is the devil. I've never made a late payment, but over a year ago, they jumped my rate up to 21%. Twenty-one percent. I can get a better rate through the Mafia. Needless to say, that card is now sitting in a landfill.

[Reverend_Smitty]

45. AOHell is probably the worst

along with Dell, I've had some bad experiences with their customer service line too.

I am pleasantly surprised with my cable company...Cablevision. We get internet as well as cable services from them and every time I've called them I always got to talk to a person and they were extremely nice and helpful