Which companies are dead to you?

[Alexx]

Curry's-PC World after a bad experience with a faulty telly a few years ago. 

 

I try not to use Amazon, partly because it seems increasingly hard to be confident about what you're buying and from where. Also recently had a laptop nicked/swapped out for a different parcel. If you can't treat/pay drivers well enough to get honest ones to work for you... 

 

 

[Nice Guy Rich]

Phoenix Life, I claimed part of my pension early and they have done nothing but come up with fake excuses to stall the process and I'm still waiting for my money, months after I should've had it....I feel like I've been scammed, it's bordering on fraud.

[SumOne]

6 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

There's a simple non-paying bidder process. I've used it on a couple of occasions when selling a car which the "buyers" never turned up for.

Whatever it was at the time (about 15 years ago) certainly wasn't simple. I can't remember all the details of why it became such a mess, some wrong clicks and that was game over. 

[Skybone]

Currys / PC World - their "Sale" prices are usually everyone else's everyday prices.

 

Hotpoint / Whirlpool / Indesit / Candy / any other white goods manufacturer within the group - After having a washing machine, tumble drier & fridge freezer need major repair work after owning them for a few months, and then repeated work a few months later, any confidence in the group was non-existent. 

 

Music related, unfortunately, Rotosound strings will be avoided because of too many dead strings in new packs.

[SteveXFR]

9 hours ago, lozkerr said:

 

Brewdog, because of the owner's attitude. Which is a bit of a shame because the beer's decent.

 

I can't stand the whole "we're punk, now buy shares in the company because that's what punks would do" thing.

[prowla]

1 hour ago, Alexx said:

Curry's-PC World after a bad experience with a faulty telly a few years ago. 

 

I try not to use Amazon, partly because it seems increasingly hard to be confident about what you're buying and from where. Also recently had a laptop nicked/swapped out for a different parcel. If you can't treat/pay drivers well enough to get honest ones to work for you... 

 

 

 

29 minutes ago, Skybone said:

Currys / PC World - their "Sale" prices are usually everyone else's everyday prices.

 

Hotpoint / Whirlpool / Indesit / Candy / any other white goods manufacturer within the group - After having a washing machine, tumble drier & fridge freezer need major repair work after owning them for a few months, and then repeated work a few months later, any confidence in the group was non-existent. 

 

Music related, unfortunately, Rotosound strings will be avoided because of too many dead strings in new packs.

Ah yes,I forgot them.

Go to the shop and they say check online; well, I shouldn't have bothered coming to your stupid shop then!

I did buy some things online, but they sent me a lesser model; I sent it back so they sent me the very same ones again; back they went again, then they had to do an "inspection" before refunding, and took months to finally return my money.

[LeftyJ]

8 hours ago, BassTractor said:

Kind regards,
BT

Hey, it's that guy @lozkerr boycotts! Boooo! 

 

9 hours ago, lozkerr said:

I have a few:

 

BT, for being the worst employer I've ever experienced. 

 

[Boodang]

10 hours ago, Shambo said:

Also Currys. About twenty years ago I went into a Dixons store to buy a laptop. They asked me at the counter for my name and address. When I declined they insisted I must provide my address, so I told them I'll just spend my money elsewhere... which changed their minds and they sold me the laptop, without extended warranty and me giving them my personal details. The next week I started receiving junk email, special offers and extended warranty offers, addressed to me, from Dixons/Currys/Carphone Warehouse group... they had to have taken my personal details from the debit card I used to buy the laptop and updated their marketing lists regardless.

So now, I won't ever buy from them again.

It seems a lot of places do this now, so I have fun with it and give my address as 1 Made Up Rd, Made Up City, Nowhereland (in fairness I am a Nowherian citizen but as it is/was a rock floating in the North Sea I’ve never been there), and I give an email address as [email protected]

 

[Boodang]

Apple. I had a lovely iPod (the one that looked like an iPhone but isn’t) and I’d loaded it with tons of music apps which were quite cool and I used them often. As it was getting old I kept the thing in flight mode to stop it from connecting and doing a weird update as it was ticking along nicely. Then one day it refused to boot up and displayed a message saying unless I did an update it wouldn’t work anymore. Did the update and it wiped ALL my apps as they now unsupported. Most of the apps don’t exist anymore and I can’t get them back. Gits! 

[neepheid]

The Cave - a barber shop in Aberdeen. Needed a quick haircut and was looking for a new place as my old one closed.  So I went into their place. Got told by the lady (receptionist?) that it was appointment only. Place was empty. I said I was just wanting a single gauge buzz cut. Lady went to the back shop to speak to the barber. Guy actually looked at me through the open door then shook his head at the lady then disappeared back into the back shop. In full view of me!

 

Well, F you then, you snobby C!

 

Went to the place next door to it and got sorted out no bother.

 

Also Wetherspoons can eat a D. Owner's a knob. Managed to successfully dissuade my staff Christmas night out from going there and go to a nearby establishment instead, and will continue to fight the good fight.

 

Me and Gibson (USA) are on a long term break...

[MichaelDean]

1 hour ago, Nice Guy Rich said:

Phoenix Life, I claimed part of my pension early and they have done nothing but come up with fake excuses to stall the process and I'm still waiting for my money, months after I should've had it....I feel like I've been scammed, it's bordering on fraud.

I'm assuming it's all in hand, but there is a Pension Ombudsman. Might be worth contacting them in case you haven't already.
https://www.pensions-ombudsman.org.uk/making-complaint

[StingRayBoy42]

10 hours ago, lozkerr said:

Brewdog, because of the owner's attitude. Which is a bit of a shame because the beer's decent.

Forgot about them.

They got job interviewees to come up with marketing ideas, didn't give them the job, then used their ideas without payment or credit. Allegedly.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/craft-beer-giant-brewdog-denies-16168211


And yeah, their beer is pretty good... it's thirsty work, having principles!

[Newfoundfreedom]

Whetherspoons.

 

Not because they're supposedly full of pond life. I never found that to be the case. I used to work away from home, live in hotels all week, and at one time or another went to pretty much every Whetherspoons in Britain for a cheap and cheerful meal and a pint or two.

 

But since the B word that shall not be mentioned I would never put another penny in Tim Martin's pocket. 

 

The man is an absolute bell end. 

[BigRedX]

ASHDOWN.

 

Bought a new Superfly amp which after about 9 months developed the well-known high pitched whine fault, followed shortly by a reluctance to power on (about 1 in 10 attempts resulted in a successful boot up). When I contact Ashdown I was told it was essentially unfixable but for what I considered an unreasonable amount of money they would have a look at it for me. When I questioned this saying that it was a well known fault and essentially a design problem, I was ignored.

 

I eventually sold the amp for "spares or repair" on eBay for a pittance. I would have chalked it down to experience and let it go, but...

 

A few years later @TheGreek reported that he had bought a second hand Superfly with exactly the same problem and Ashdown had fixed it for free. When I bought this up with the Ashdown rep who used to post here, they were rude and sarcastic. That's not one customer service failure but two. I'm unlikely to be in the market for a bass amp from any manufacturer, but if I was Ashdown would be at the bottom of the list. I've also started taking a large black cloth to gigs to cover up any Ashdown products that might be located on stage behind me, so that they don't appear on any photos of me preforming. I haven't had to use it yet...

[Newfoundfreedom]

2 hours ago, Nice Guy Rich said:

Phoenix Life, I claimed part of my pension early and they have done nothing but come up with fake excuses to stall the process and I'm still waiting for my money, months after I should've had it....I feel like I've been scammed, it's bordering on fraud.

 

I'm currently battling with them to claim my mother's life insurance, and had the same problem 2 years ago when my Dad died. 

 

They are utter scumbags! 

[cetera]

1 hour ago, Boodang said:

Apple. I had a lovely iPod (the one that looked like an iPhone but isn’t) and I’d loaded it with tons of music apps which were quite cool and I used them often. As it was getting old I kept the thing in flight mode to stop it from connecting and doing a weird update as it was ticking along nicely. Then one day it refused to boot up and displayed a message saying unless I did an update it wouldn’t work anymore. Did the update and it wiped ALL my apps as they now unsupported. Most of the apps don’t exist anymore and I can’t get them back. Gits! 

Yep, had an I-Pod...... did one of their updates one day and it wiped my entire music collection that had taken ages to build up.
Fiio and a Windows Media for me now....

[Pow_22]

1 hour ago, SteveXFR said:

 

I can't stand the whole "we're punk, now buy shares in the company because that's what punks would do" thing.

and to be fair their beer is absolutely f***in awful!

[fretmeister]

Wampler pedals.

 

Once upon a time they put out a book about effects. The book contained cut & pasted copy from a much smaller pedal maker to which Wampler had no involvement. They didn't even give credit to the original author, let alone pay them any money. No hint was given that the prose didn't belong to Wampler. The original prose was very specific to the original author.

 

Other pedal makers such as the genuine legend Analogue Mike from Analogman quoted some of the original work and gave proper credit.

 

Wampler can f*ck off into the sea.

 

 

[floFC]

33 minutes ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

Whetherspoons.

 

Not because they're supposedly full of pond life. I never found that to be the case. I used to work away from home, live in hotels all week, and at one time or another went to pretty much every Whetherspoons in Britain for a cheap and cheerful meal and a pint or two.

 

But since the B word that shall not be mentioned I would never put another penny in Tim Martin's pocket. 

 

The man is an absolute bell end. 

Same reason for Dyson - I now have a Shark and very happy with it.

Same reason for Tate & Lyle - I try to always buy beet sugar (but it’s difficult!).

[gjones]

London Weekend Television.

 

The wife of their chief executive asked if her husband could get up and sing Eric Clapton's cocaine (small pub gig during Edinburgh Festival).

 

I said no.

 

She had a strop and said she'd make sure my band would never appear on LWT while her husband was in charge.

 

.....and she was right, we didn't.

Edited February 23 by gjones

[Newfoundfreedom]

1 minute ago, gjones said:

London Weekend Television.

 

The wife of their chief executive asked if her husband could get up and sing Eric Clapton's cocaine (small pub gig during Edinburgh Festival).

 

I said no.

 

She had a strop and said she'd make sure my band would never appear on LWT while her husband was in charge.

 

.....and she was right, we didn't.

 

Wow that's a coincidence.

 

My band has never appeared on LWT either. 

 

What a bitch! 

[knirirr]

Samsung. Years ago I bought a Galaxy Nexus. After a couple of weeks it stopped connecting to 5GHz wifi, and other owners found the same thing. Samsung's customer services were slow and incompetent, simply reinstalling the operating system (a task I could easily do myself) and returning the still-broken item to me - three times.
More recently, my parents mistakenly purchased an oven/grill from them. It was so bad it could barely even make toast, and never worked well even after several visits from a technician.
Also, their "smart" televisions are a bit dodgy when it comes to privacy.

Edited February 23 by knirirr

[TheGreek]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

ASHDOWN.

 

Bought a new Superfly amp which after about 9 months developed the well-known high pitched whine fault, followed shortly by a reluctance to power on (about 1 in 10 attempts resulted in a successful boot up). When I contact Ashdown I was told it was essentially unfixable but for what I considered an unreasonable amount of money they would have a look at it for me. When I questioned this saying that it was a well known fault and essentially a design problem, I was ignored.

 

I eventually sold the amp for "spares or repair" on eBay for a pittance. I would have chalked it down to experience and let it go, but...

 

A few years later @TheGreek reported that he had bought a second hand Superfly with exactly the same problem and Ashdown had fixed it for free. When I bought this up with the Ashdown rep who used to post here, they were rude and sarcastic. That's not one customer service failure but two. I'm unlikely to be in the market for a bass amp from any manufacturer, but if I was Ashdown would be at the bottom of the list. I've also started taking a large black cloth to gigs to cover up any Ashdown products that might be located on stage behind me, so that they don't appear on any photos of me preforming. I haven't had to use it yet...

 

Sorry but it wasn't a Superfly (though I did have one which was problem free).

Ashdown repaired a Giant for me, FOC.

I still rate them as one of the best companies in the UK 

[mcnach]

14 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

When my Tascam audio interface would no longer work after I updated the OS on my laptop, I vowed to never buy anything made by tascam again. I then bought an interface made by Native Instruments. After a few years this too was no longer supported after an OS update so NI was added to my sh1tlist.

 

 

It sounds to me like it's the OS you need to ditch!

 

[Woodinblack]

Amazon - I did have an argument a long time ago, so I got out of the habit of using them, but now I view them as everything wrong with commerce and just don't want to give them money.

Dyson, never realised how much you could hate an inanimate object that wasn't a printer as I did one of their vaccums, but then brexit made it easier to not buy from them.

Any company that supported brexit, so weatherspoons, there is a local phone / ipad repair shop that spends its time going on about the eu on its facebook page (in fact, even if I was anti them for the brexit thing I wouldn't use them just for that).

A couple of other local companies that don't mean much here

Comet - but they went out of business so I won that one

I would be wary of buying any steinberg thing after spending too much of my life dealing with their dongles that don't work and protection things - they kind of protected me from my own purchaces and certainly protected themselves from me buying any more from them!

 

btw - currys / pcworld have dropped the PCWorld part of their name recently.

 

Probably vauxhall. just because of their cars.