Who Is The Worst Company you Have Had The Misfortune To Have To Deal With

[CB Saint]

Dell - they are great if the kit works, they are terrible when it doesn't.

 

Any ppi company, especially the ones you keep texting. Is there anyway polite way to stop this as opposed to replying with **** off all the time?

 

Morris dibben - **** job of handling the sale of my house

 

Gilette - you take the **** charging £18 for 8 blades

 

Facebook

 

Apple

 

This thread is quite cathartic

[saintscottofthenortham]

3 Mobile broadband. Trying to cancel that, even after the 24 month contract had expired was just a nightmare. Just a series of unanswered emails and an Indian call centre bloke who ignored what I was saying for half an hour whilst he tried to sell me a laptop I told him 50 times I did not need. Eventually I cancelled the standing order to try and they started sending me letters threatening to send debt collectors round to my house. Never again.

 

United Airlines were pretty poor too.

 

Happy to hear I'm not the only one.

 

7 years ago 3 offered me a contract, I accepted. O2 then offered me a miles better deal, so I cancelled with 3. They informed me the cancellation had been completed. A few days later, a phone comes through the post from 3. I phoned them to ask where I send it back and they said I couldn't as I had taken the contract. I explained, they refused. I said in that case, I'll cancel now as I am still with 14 days. Brick wall. I phoned every day and got nowhere. I cancelled the standing order they set up with my bank but just couldn't get it through to them I wanted to cancel. Suddenly, on the 15th day, "Yes of course you can cancel sir, that'll be £570." I refused, stating that I had not actually signed anything and they even tried to say my mum signing for reciept of the parcel was a signature of contract.

 

7 years on and I'm still getting letters from debt recovery. Every time, I ask them to send me the contract paperwork and I will gladly assist, failing that, I ask you to please take me to court. Please!

 

Have actually been tempted to threaten action against them in the past.

[EastleighSoulBoy]

Dell. Five attempts to fix the same problem on a netbook and still no success.

 

Threatened them with various legal procedures and demanded a new machine as they could not sort my issue.

 

It was then that they finally caved in. Then the DHL guy who came to collect the old machine would not take it as it was not packaged,

previously Dell always advised me not to package it. It's been 18 months now and it's cannibalised for spares.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

Dell. Five attempts to fix the same problem on a netbook and still no success.

 

Threatened them with various legal procedures and demanded a new machine as they could not sort my issue.

 

It was then that they finally caved in. Then the DHL guy who came to collect the old machine would not take it as it was not packaged,

previously Dell always advised me not to package it. It's been 18 months now and it's cannibalised for spares.

 

Dell have had a terrible reputation for many years, but you can't blame a van driver for refusing to take responsibility for a unpackaged computer ! Whoever advised you not to box up a delicate computer during transit was a idiot - you should have ignored them IMO.

[St.JonB]

Phoning our ticket office number this morning it sound this has been sourced to Bangalore as well! Good service though.

[Danish Saint]

Try NSB (Norwegian State Rail)... For the 4th year in a row, all local trains from Oslo Central Station have been replaced with busses for the entire summer, due to faulty rails... FOUR years now!! And in the winter, the trains are delayed for hours and days due to snow or floods.

[SNSUN]

London Underground. Stupid useless tossers. :-D

 

Oh, tis the Lounge. Ok, truthfully my worst experience is Vodafone a few years ago. My dad's worst company is worse though - nPower. He went to an ideal home exhibition and was interested in what they had to say. He asked to be sent some more information, and as an ex-copper he made sure he didn't sign anything. A week later and nPower had changed all the power in his house to nPower. Furious he was, and my dad has a calm nature. He ended up calling all kinds of Ombudsmans to report them. Now he tells everyone he meets not to use them.

 

I can't vouch for some of my colleagues, but you'll always get good customer service by me on the Tube. (Unless I don't like your face, Uggo.)

[Verbal]

London Underground. They ripped £13.90 from my son's oyster card for a return trip between Hammersmith and whatever the Westfield stop is, then claimed falsely that he hadn't swiped in (on machines they admitted were being repaired at the time). Will have to do the usual County Court dance to embarrass them into refunding.

[sandwichsaint]

BT.....

 

Took them three months to install a line in my new house. Then took £200 out of my account implying that for those three months the line was active (activation fee) and was the quarterly bill. After informing them of their fault they wouldn't give my money back!

Almost had to go to court to get them to give it to me. They decided to pay me the day before the hearing.

 

****ers

 

45 posts and only I nomination for BT?

 

About 12 months ago my mum moved about 500m down the road. She's very organised and got it all sorted, she wanted to take her number with her and filled in all the forms etc. Top and bottom - BT didn't stop her old phone nor move her number over. They then issued her a 'new' number for the new house. Interminable phone calls and correspondences later they then disconnected her phone at the new house. When she then contacted them to say that this wasn't what she wanted they tried to bill her for a whole new line to reconnect it. Fair play to her, she's 71 and she stuck at it and after 6 weeks she got her old number back and no reconnection fees (having followed their procedures to the letter it should have been there the day she moved in). Even better she then binned them and went to plusnet who have been excellent.

 

Mother-in-law is 85 and best described as 'doddery' - we pay her phone bill on a rolling direct debit. The credit on this reached +£200! before we decided to do something about it. I phoned and asked to get the payments reduced - would be easier to get blood out of a stone. I asked for the £200 back and to reduce the payments to what they should be based on the last two quarters - I was on the phone to Indian call centre for over an hour until it was resolved.

 

Absolutely shocking (and the cynic in me wonders if they target older people?)

[hypochondriac]

Indian call centres do my head in. I was with talktalk for a year and will never make that mistake again.

[buctootim]

45 posts and only I nomination for BT?

 

 

I ended up working from internet cafes and begging office space at friendly organisations for almost a month before BT reconnected my broadband. The Indian call centre repeatedly (supposedly) ran lines tests and told me there was noting wrong with it and implied I was stupid and didnt know how computers / broadband worked, despite having been their customer for over 10 years. Real head against a wall stuff over hours of calls. Eventually solved by suddenly getting through to a UK centre one night. After 10 minutes "ah yes, there is a fault at the exchange. It will be fixed within 24 hours" and it was about three hours later.

[JackFrost]

The amount of horror stories i've heard involving BT means I advise anyone to avoid them like the plague.

 

One memorable incident was a few years ago when some outage took the phone lines down locally. Once they reconnected and a few random people phoning us up to place orders later, we dialled our own number and discovered that BT had mixed our number up with a local Indian takeaway. It took them over a week to sort it out.

 

The takeaway must have lost quite a bit if business that week

[Huffton]

NTL/Virgin

3 mobile, utter w@nkers

I'm quite surprised saints ticket office hasn't popped up on here yet

Not exactly a company per se but HMRC have to be possibly the most useless organisation on the planet.

[CB Saint]

How could I forget...

 

The Audi garage in chandlers ford... Biggest most arrogant knobers on the planet, bar none. Christ, i am getting angry just typing this post. Utter utter feckers.

[View From The Top]

Another vote for the Students Loan Company.

[EastleighSoulBoy]

Dell have had a terrible reputation for many years, but you can't blame a van driver for refusing to take responsibility for a unpackaged computer ! Whoever advised you not to box up a delicate computer during transit was a idiot - you should have ignored them IMO.

 

The five previous times the van driver had a proper foam padded box which would clamp the machine and it's battery safely in place during transit.

 

So exactly who should I have taken notice of if I was to ignore my five previous experiences?

[dune]

The amount of horror stories i've heard involving BT means I advise anyone to avoid them like the plague.

 

One memorable incident was a few years ago when some outage took the phone lines down locally. Once they reconnected and a few random people phoning us up to place orders later, we dialled our own number and discovered that BT had mixed our number up with a local Indian takeaway. It took them over a week to sort it out.

 

The takeaway must have lost quite a bit if business that week

 

I disagree. They are the best of a bad bunch imo, so long as you speak to a uk call centre, and not one in India.

[SNSUN]

London Underground. They ripped £13.90 from my son's oyster card for a return trip between Hammersmith and whatever the Westfield stop is, then claimed falsely that he hadn't swiped in (on machines they admitted were being repaired at the time). Will have to do the usual County Court dance to embarrass them into refunding.

 

That's a walkable journey! :-D

 

Seriously the key here (and I say this sneakily lest is get me into trouble) is that Oyster are basically crud. We hate dealing with them in ticket offices and yet we are made to issue their products. We used to have a staff Oyster number with a bunch of scots answering, none of which seemed to truly know what they were doing. In the end they automated the number and it's been much easier to deal with! If you go to a ticket office, you'll be told you have to contact Oyster if you have a problem with your card, which is true - it's their problem (or the customer's...), but in doing so you have to ring a premium rate number, and when you are querying a few quid, it's probably costing you that much in phone bills. My tip is to go straight to Customer Servicces for the Underground (based at 55 Broadway at St James's Park, contact details in every station) and bloody moan your arse off. Customer Services have an allocation of vouchers they can use for legitimate complaints and they seemingly freely give them out. The same applies for any delayed journey - even by a few minutes - most people don't know that it's in our customer charter that you can claim your fare back, Seems pointless if you're making a £1.40 journey between say Earls Court and Heathrow, but every little helps, it all adds up, and people come to my window with fricking dozens of these vouchers.

 

If the unresolved journey's still on the card, pop to Heathrow 123, I'll sort it! (Although it sounds like there's a couple of faulty journey's there, and we can usually only correct one.)

 

(Also, if you lot know you're making more than three journeys in one day, just buy a travelcard, don't bother using your Oyster, it's just safer that way!) :-)

[Verbal]

That's a walkable journey! :-D

 

Seriously the key here (and I say this sneakily lest is get me into trouble) is that Oyster are basically crud. We hate dealing with them in ticket offices and yet we are made to issue their products. We used to have a staff Oyster number with a bunch of scots answering, none of which seemed to truly know what they were doing. In the end they automated the number and it's been much easier to deal with! If you go to a ticket office, you'll be told you have to contact Oyster if you have a problem with your card, which is true - it's their problem (or the customer's...), but in doing so you have to ring a premium rate number, and when you are querying a few quid, it's probably costing you that much in phone bills. My tip is to go straight to Customer Servicces for the Underground (based at 55 Broadway at St James's Park, contact details in every station) and bloody moan your arse off. Customer Services have an allocation of vouchers they can use for legitimate complaints and they seemingly freely give them out. The same applies for any delayed journey - even by a few minutes - most people don't know that it's in our customer charter that you can claim your fare back, Seems pointless if you're making a £1.40 journey between say Earls Court and Heathrow, but every little helps, it all adds up, and people come to my window with fricking dozens of these vouchers.

 

If the unresolved journey's still on the card, pop to Heathrow 123, I'll sort it! (Although it sounds like there's a couple of faulty journey's there, and we can usually only correct one.)

 

(Also, if you lot know you're making more than three journeys in one day, just buy a travelcard, don't bother using your Oyster, it's just safer that way!) :-)

 

Thanks for the tips - I'll take your advice.

[badgerx16]

Try NSB (Norwegian State Rail) And in the winter, the trains are delayed for hours and days due to snow or floods.

 

But presumably it is the right kind of snow ?

[Hockey_saint]

That's a walkable journey! :-D

 

Seriously the key here (and I say this sneakily lest is get me into trouble) is that Oyster are basically crud. We hate dealing with them in ticket offices and yet we are made to issue their products. We used to have a staff Oyster number with a bunch of scots answering, none of which seemed to truly know what they were doing. In the end they automated the number and it's been much easier to deal with! If you go to a ticket office, you'll be told you have to contact Oyster if you have a problem with your card, which is true - it's their problem (or the customer's...), but in doing so you have to ring a premium rate number, and when you are querying a few quid, it's probably costing you that much in phone bills. My tip is to go straight to Customer Servicces for the Underground (based at 55 Broadway at St James's Park, contact details in every station) and bloody moan your arse off. Customer Services have an allocation of vouchers they can use for legitimate complaints and they seemingly freely give them out. The same applies for any delayed journey - even by a few minutes - most people don't know that it's in our customer charter that you can claim your fare back, Seems pointless if you're making a £1.40 journey between say Earls Court and Heathrow, but every little helps, it all adds up, and people come to my window with fricking dozens of these vouchers.

 

If the unresolved journey's still on the card, pop to Heathrow 123, I'll sort it! (Although it sounds like there's a couple of faulty journey's there, and we can usually only correct one.)

 

(Also, if you lot know you're making more than three journeys in one day, just buy a travelcard, don't bother using your Oyster, it's just safer that way!) :-)

 

Or become an eppileptic like myself and get free travel around London under and overground (Although I'm in Southampton, the DVLA who turned down my driving licence application suggested I'd be eligible so whilst it's bummer not being able to drive, it's a shedload cheaper and it most certainly would be in London!)

[alpine_saint]

British Telecom

HMRC

[sunrise]

Any ppi company, especially the ones you keep texting. Is there anyway polite way to stop this as opposed to replying with **** off all the time?

 

 

For anyone considering a PPI claim, do it off your own back, there was an piece on one of the news channels a while back saying that these PPI companies have no more success than an individual making the claim themselves. The paperwork is easy to fill out so why should a company try to take some of YOUR mone

 

Perhaps this topic could be expanded to include scam calls as well?

[Patrick Bateman]

I'd like to nominate B&Q.

 

Not 'customer service' as such, but their website, a truly dreadful eCommerce experience. What kind of eCommerce store lets you do all your shopping (I wanted a load of garden stuff including fences, soil, cement etc etc) and then when you get to the checkout all you can do is reserve it at a store.

The reason I was bloody shopping online is to get it all delivered as I don't have a van!!

 

So I went to the Wickes website, ordered the same items and got it all delivered 2 days later - now that is service.

 

So B&Q - most pointless eCommerce site award from me!

[Julian H. Cope]

Yodel, the worst delivery company I've ever had the misfortune of. Complete and utter f*cktards. Use at your peril or if you want your item delivered to an address two streets away without a signature or proof of delivery.

[Jonnyboy]

So basically just about every company is useless?

[badgerx16]

Bump...

 

The F@@@ing Student Loans Company, incompetent B@ST@RDS.

[sussexsaint]

Talk talk - chuffing awful company - just before christmas the gas people cut through our wire and it took talk talk 4 weeks to believe us and get it sorted - to a man they were awful - we left straight after and have been pretty happy with sky so far

[Bobbyboy]

Bulldog Broadband, remember them?

 

Also Dyson. Will never never never buy Dyson products now. And when I'm rich and shameless I'll buy the whole company and shut them down.

[scotty]

Bulldog Broadband, remember them?

 

Also Dyson. Will never never never buy Dyson products now. And when I'm rich and shameless I'll buy the whole company and shut them down.

 

Dysons are horrible machines, genuinely awful. The noisiest and least usable bastards on the market and among the most expensive, I'm sure they only sell to blokes, who buy them because they look like tonka toys. The emperor James Dyson has no clothes, there, I've said it.

[Sheaf Saint]

Europcar fro me.

 

Made and paid for a reservation to collect at Angouleme station in France for our holiday a couple of years ago. We arrived at the scheduled time only to find they had cancelled the reservation without notice, meaning we had to pay for extra accommodation in Angouleme until they could sort out a car for the following morning. They admitted that the cancellation was their fault and acknowledged that they should have contacted me, but trying to get a response from their complaints team so I could claim back the costs incurred as a result was an absolute nightmare. After initially registering the complaint I was told it would take up to two weeks for a response. The response I got was a pathetic fob off with some nonsense about not actually confirming the reservation in the first place, despite the acknowledgement from one of their staff about their error being at the bottom of the same email chain. So I called them up to inform them that under no circumstances was I willing to accept this, only to be told that as they had closed off the complaint case following the initial response, I had to wait another two weeks before getting a further response, and nobody would even give me the time of day over the phone.

 

I did eventually get a reimbursement and a token amount as a 'goodwill' gesture after I emailed them to advise I had logged a complaint with their regulatory body, but if I hadn't they would blatantly have done everything they could to get out of making the payment. Absolutely hopeless company to deal with, but then I guess it's now obvious why their quote was the cheapest.

[SuperMikey]

Talk Talk.

 

Amazing thick and stupid people in their customer service teams.

 

Agreed. Can be unbelievably bad at times.

[mightysaints]

I recently complained to Argos as they failed to make a delivery. First offer was £40 which was refused. I sent an email to the CEO and got a cheque for nearly £300 two days later. If you do get poor service fight them and don't give up

[trousers]

I recently complained to Argos as they failed to make a delivery. First offer was £40 which was refused. I sent an email to the CEO and got a cheque for nearly £300 two days later. If you do get poor service fight them and don't give up

 

£300 quid? Blimey, what did you threaten him with? A night out at Fratton Park in the company of John Westwood?

[mightysaints]

I threatend them with the small claims court. Basically the money covered my costs for days off and a ferry fee as the delivery was for our chalet on the IOW. I have sent emails before to CEO,s where their company has let me down. Once got a years free gold service from British gas for complaining for again not turning up to do work when agreed.

[Secret Site Agent]

Mine is Orange Broadband.

 

I was originally with Tiskali, then Wanadoo, then Orange bought them out.

First the broadband was slow, them stopped working. Rung and rung the Indian call centre and told no problem on the line. TGalked to BT and there was an issue, which BT sorted.

Then had BBand for 6 weeks at 0.5 meg, then nothing.

Samething with Indian call centre, reading from the script. Then asked for supervisors etc. NOTHING.

Found a site with number for UK call centre, finally got to talk to someone with some sense, but no joy. BUT got back two month fees.

Then told the problem may be the router, so sent a new router. Nothing

Moaned again and got another month back.

Got through to an escalation team, told me they were sending a better router, but had to upgrade my service. Sent me the paperwork, and I changed it to read, ' If Orange are unable to give uninterupted broadband service for 7 days, then this contract is null and void. Paid 11 quid tol get it notorised by Solicitor, and sent it of.

Got new router, worked for free days, then nothing. Phoned up to cancel, told I couldn't, told them i could, told me I was signed up for 18 months, told them the contract I sent back was that it was on the basis of 7 days uninterupted. Told me I couldn't change it, told them I could, the woman really argued with me, and I asked to speak to a supervisor, which she said I couldn't. I asked for her name, and she said they weren't allowed to give it out, and if I didn't pay, she would county court me. So I hung up, redialed, spokie to someone else, who put me through to a supervisor, who not only told me the name of the woman I was just speaking to, went ovber and chastised her, then arranged for me to come out of my contract.

 

I then went with BE broadband.

 

But, it doesn't end there.

 

A month after being with BE, orange takes a payment. I phone them up, get my money back.

 

Next month Orange take another payment. I call the bank and cancel the direct debit. Phone Orange to get my money back. They say they can't as I Have cancelled the direct debit. I tell them I don't trust them to not take any money, so they arrange to send me a cheque, which duly arrives.

 

Three months after leaving them, get a letter for non payment.

 

Nothing month four or five.

 

Month six, get a letter threatening court action over non payment of six month broadband. I rang them up and asked to be taken to County Court. I was offered easy payment terms, an offer of stopping proceedings and a warning that it would effect my credit rating and would be in the hands of debt collectors.

I told them that I don't care, as BE Broadband had been supplying me with Broadband for six months, and we willing to give this evidence in court. They dropped the matter and sent a letter apologising.

 

Then sent a letter the following month threatening court action.

 

So I e-mailed the lot over, sent it in the registered mail, got a solicitor from Which magazine involved, BE publicity department sent an e-mail saying that they are happy to assist as they want to use it for PR purposes and I finally recieved another apology and a cheque for £60.00.

 

It's been three years now, and I still expect them to want to take me to court.

[Horley CTFC Saint]

TV Licensing people are crap!

 

No fan of Lufthansa either but thats just personal

 

...and one of the best for balance - Ekornes

[Dibden Purlieu Saint]

At the moment, surpisingly, Miele.

[The9]

City Link

 

Often don't even bother turning up for item pick ups if its near the end of the working day. No consideration for their customer's needs and highly unprofessional.

 

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me of those useless cvnts. Once took 2 weeks to "next day deliver" me a new mobile phone, twice claimed to have delivered when I was in all day and didn't even leave a card, also failed to deliver to my work address, had a website which only allowed changes to delivery 24 hours in advance (hence missing another delivery on my day off when I was home waiting for the parcel and they were not delivering to my work) and eventually when I decided to cut out the actual delivery part, they told me at the depot after a 30 minute wait with no queue that they had returned my parcel - until I pointed out that I could see it on the shelf - and how lucky was that?

 

Virgin Media mostly peed me off charging a £50 disconnection fee when I moved to a different house which already had their service - even more annoying that we'd moved onto our own place within 6 months and as the wife now works for one of their partners we got a ridiculously cheap package so we re-signed up.

 

Oh, and Enterprise car rental phoned me the day before I was moving house on a weekend to tell me the van I'd booked a month previously wasn't available and they didn't have another one. As it was too late to book anything else I kicked off (not harmed by me being drunk on my leaving do) and they ended up getting one for me through a rival which they promised to honour and then underpaid me for twice. On the bright side I had a van for my 2 250 mile round trips.

Edited 6 August, 2012 by The9

[swannymere]

Dyson are great, had a vacuum for 5 years, it started to look tired and wasn't working quite as well as it should so used the Dyson website to get a 'service/overhaul' done by one of their mobile engineers at a fixed cost of just under £80, was left with a vacuum looking like new with a brand new motor, nothing wrong with that.

[Minty]

I have a fun City Link story.

 

I ordered some studio lighting equipment from a photography retailer, obviously not knowing who they use to deliver. Needless to say, lighting equipment contains light bulbs and other breakables.

 

On the day of delivery the driver turned up at the door and as he put the box down from on his shoulder, all you could hear was the swooshing sound of broken glass falling to the end of the box. Needless to say I refused the delivery and told the driver to return it as damaged.

 

I phoned the company I ordered from and they said they would resend a new box once they had received the old one back. Fair enough.

 

The next day, I had a knock at the door. A different delivery driver is stood there with the same box I rejected the day before. OK, probably not his fault so I politely pointed out that I rejected this the day before and could he please ensure it is returned. I phoned the company and let them know what had happened.

 

Day 3, guess what? Another attempted City Link delivery and this time it was the SAME driver as the first day. Knowing how delivery companies work, I know he doesn't load his own van so cut him *some* slack, but still had a bit of a go at him.

 

The company I ordered from said they were now out of stock and offered to refund my order in full. This I accepted and re-ordered the product from another company, and paid extra for Saturday delivery as time was now running short before a job i needed to use the kit for. I didn't know who they use for delivery but you can't control these things and so I didn't think about it.

 

Saturday came and went. No delivery. On MONDAY morning, my now familiar City Link driver turns up with my Saturday delivery, thankfully in one piece, but two days late.

 

I wrote an email to City Link customer service. I heard nothing back. I sent a second one. I heard nothing. I tried phoning Head Office and was told to put it in writing, which I did. And heard nothing.

 

I will never, ever use them again.

[Seaford Saint]

BT currently. I have just moved across the road and was told I could take my number with me. I had already taken the number from another part of Newbury to my previous address without a problem. She could not tell me why this was the case.

 

I have cancelled the standing order I have had 2 conversations with a lady who phoned me from India...nothing wromg with Indian call centres as I use them at Vodafone where I wok and they are a delight to work with. They do sysadmin tasks for me. Anyway like another poster on here I am about to go with Plusnet. They have been impeccable to deal with...the lady from Sheffield knew her stuff....

 

Such a shame as I have been with BT for over 30 years and had no intention of leaving them.

[JackFrost]

A friend of mine used Citylink once, and never again.

 

He sent 3 identical boxes of IT equipment to a photography lab in Exeter and got a phone call from the intended recipient saying the delivery driver was trying to get him to sign for 3 boxes. . . . and a rear tyre for a tractor.

 

After confirming to the driver that his IT company didn't sell tractor tyres and he merely had 3 boxes and 3 boxes only collected and sent, the driver still refused to deliver the boxes unless they signed for the tyre as well. I don't know what happened in the end but I bet a farmer somewhere had a long wait to get his tractor back to full working order.

[badgerx16]

Has anybody experienced the new trend in cold calling - you answer the phone and an obviously Indian sub-continent accent says "Hello my name is Darren / Kevin / Andrew / Cynthia..." ( I've literally just put the phone down on the last one ). Why are they lying, it makes everything else they are likely to say pointless because I don't believe them. We've had at least 10 of these in the last fortnight and I simply cannot accept that the call centres are only employing staff with these names, ( unless of course 25 years ago Mumbai experienced a glut of Anglo-Saxon names being registered ).

Edited 7 August, 2012 by badgerx16

[JackFrost]

Has anybody experienced the new trend in cold calling - you answer the phone and an obviously Indian sub-continent accent says "Hello my name is Darren / Kevin / Andrew / Cynthia..." ( I've literally just put the phone down on the last one ). Why are they lying, it makes everything else they are likely to say pointless because I don't believe them. We've had at least 10 of these in the last fortnight and I simply cannot accept that the call centres are only employing staff with these names, ( unless of course 25 years ago Mumbai experienced a glut of Anglo-Saxon names being registered ).

 

Have you registered with the telephone preference service?

[badgerx16]

Have you registered with the telephone preference service?

 

Yes, but they are using UK based numbers that redirect back to wherever they are based. We had one an hour earlier than 'Cynthia' where the chap on the other end told my wife he was called Keith from Scottish Power and he could save us money on our gas bill - we don't have gas.

[Colinjb]

A friend of mine used Citylink once, and never again.

 

He sent 3 identical boxes of IT equipment to a photography lab in Exeter and got a phone call from the intended recipient saying the delivery driver was trying to get him to sign for 3 boxes. . . . and a rear tyre for a tractor.

 

After confirming to the driver that his IT company didn't sell tractor tyres and he merely had 3 boxes and 3 boxes only collected and sent, the driver still refused to deliver the boxes unless they signed for the tyre as well. I don't know what happened in the end but I bet a farmer somewhere had a long wait to get his tractor back to full working order.

 

That is scandalous!

 

My City Link story (to clarify my initial nomination).

 

I am field based for my job. I live in the West Midlands and my work HQ is in Halifax. My work laptop was playing up and needed sending back to head office for sorting out. City Link were tasked with collecting the item from my home address before the end of the day and ferrying it up on my final working day before I took two weeks holiday.

 

By 5.30 there was no collection and I elected to telephone the depot with the tracking number. Connected through after a 15 minute wait I was onformed that all collections for the day had stopped and was there any way I could get it to the depot myself?

 

I furiously argued my case to them but to no avail. As I absolutely needed the laptop to reach it's destination I took the thing in first thing the next morning to Cov depot and then promptly rushed to the Airport only just making last call for boarding.

 

They are amatuers, never use them unless you absolutely have to.

[Secret Site Agent]

Yes, but they are using UK based numbers that redirect back to wherever they are based. We had one an hour earlier than 'Cynthia' where the chap on the other end told my wife he was called Keith from Scottish Power and he could save us money on our gas bill - we don't have gas.

 

I had one about three weeks ago and for the entertainment of my daughter, I pretended to be deaf and daft.

 

Him: Hello, my name is David.

Me: Sorry, no David here.

Him: No my name is David.

Me: Whats that about DVD's

Him: NO, my name is David.

Me: (this is for those born in the 70's) And I'm Ian. And I wanna go straight, I wanna go straight, I'm sick and tired of taking up drugs and staying up late. Hahahaha, come on David, sing with me. Hello? Hello?

 

Him: Who is your current energy provider?

Me: Currency provider? I ususally go to the post office and change it there, but I haven't had a holiday in years.

 

Him: Do you have any pets.

Me: Pests? No no pests here. I had some ants once, but I think they came in from outside.

 

Him: Can i interest you in any offers?

Me: Offices? Why would I want to buy any offices. I can bearly avoid my mortgage as it is.

 

Him: Who do you bank with?

Me: Johnny Dankworth? Wasn't he married to Cleo Lane.

Him: No, whose you bank.

Me: Oh, sorry. Hows my back? Not too bad considering, still get a bit of a twinge.

[Denzil]

Vodafone, absolute scum.

[tony13579]

I'd like to nominate B&Q.

 

Not 'customer service' as such, but their website, a truly dreadful eCommerce experience. What kind of eCommerce store lets you do all your shopping (I wanted a load of garden stuff including fences, soil, cement etc etc) and then when you get to the checkout all you can do is reserve it at a store.

The reason I was bloody shopping online is to get it all delivered as I don't have a van!!

 

So I went to the Wickes website, ordered the same items and got it all delivered 2 days later - now that is service.

 

So B&Q - most pointless eCommerce site award from me!

 

I never managed to find my items on B&Q web site. Dreadfully site. And Nursling store ! No one to cut timber much of the time. No staff to help, no help when you are struggling with their stupid tills. poor quality products. No stock of galvanised tacks for she'd roofs! How the mighty have fallen.