Your votes are in and we have seeded the initial brackets for Worst Company In America 2008. It’s bigger, the companies are badder, and the bloodshed and gore is going to better than ever before. Inside, see the full bracket breakdown. Tomorrow, the first battle begins, Comcast vs Menu Foods!
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Exciting!
On one hand, you have annoying, but relatively harmless companies like Comcast, Sears, best Buy, etc. who have the pleasure of annoying vast numbers of people. Then you have Bank of America, United Health care, Trans Union, etc. that don’t have the sheer numbers of people to piss off, but really harm all of us indirectly by their tenacious and destructive policies. This is going to be a tough battle.
@rdldr1:
Watch what you say, CITIZEN.
I’m going to go ahead and make some predictions about who will win the preliminary rounds:
-Comcast will advance
-Facebook did some bad things but they have nothing versus Arbitration who will inevitably advance
-Bank vs Ticket Agency: Wachovia advances
-Google vs SONY: On the sister site of fanboy nation? -Sony advances.
-Exxon. Period.
-I hate United Airlines. Advancement.
-1800Flowers
-Insurance company vs Telco/Wireless Carrier/TV? That’s a tough call… Insurance company.
-Best Buy. Period.
-CompSUA. Period.
-Transunion.
-Diebold.
-Bad Customer Service vs Loan company: Sallie Mae.
-Cox vs eBay/PayPal? Holy smokes… PayPal.
-Capital One. Hands down.
-AT&T.
-Wal-Mart
-Sears
-Dell
-Charter Cable
-Time Warner Cable
-American Airlines
-Washington Mutual
-Microsoft
-Bank of America
-Gamestop is bad… Monster Cable extorts. Monster Cable.
-Blue Cross Blue Shield
-Hewlett Packard
-Countrywide Home Loans
-Clear Channel
-United Health Care
-Hallmark/Westland Meat Pack
I’ll make my next round of predictions once the next brackets have been created. Or who knows… I might create my own bracket and release it.
What?? There’s no play-in game ?
There are companies on the bubble that want in on the action!
(sorry can’t edit my post)
This is a great idea. I’m pretty new to the Consumerist, but I’d like to publicize the brackets here at my office where people are always trying to get me to participate in those stoooopid sports tournaments. Seems like a fair trade-off to me . . . .
P.S. United Airlines is evil; how could they ever lose?
it could be 2009 before this bracket is over, how fast are we going to be doing these?
@yesteryear: I am in agreement that Crocs deserves to be there purely on being both hideous and pervasive. But I was sure there had to be something else to it
Thanks for all the explanations.
$20 on American Arbitration Ass.
@Bladefist: there’s only 63 matchups. Three a week and we still get done around Sept. I’d rather see this play out for a while, so we all have some time to enjoy the show/recoil in horror.
If we do it MWF I can sync it with reading xkcd, which makes those days even better.
I thought the point of these brackets was to put the #1 seeds against the #12 seeds. Otherwise, it’s like choosing which child to kill when some sicko forces you to.
That’s why Duke plays some no-name school in Montana in the first round.
Google is one of the worst companies how again?
Menu Foods almost killed my cat, but what was worse is all of the “premium” cat food companies hawking the same crap at high prices.
man, i wish there was a facebook app for this thing. that way i can get my friends in on this, and keep the bracket up to date.
@ExecutorElassus: Ah, do you use morning coffee for firefox?
Our office pool has picked Countrywide twice, Exxon, Capital One, Ticketmaster, and Blockbuster for winners. This should be interesting…
LOL, I noticed inclusion of Video Professor. I’m wagering it’ll be a war between Comcast and Bank of America. It’s a clash of the TITANS I tell’s ya’s!!!
Look, I’m sorry about the subprime fiasco and the cute dead animals, but I just paid $90 for two $25 tickets, and don’t play the “nobody MADE you” card, because there are some bands one has a moral obligation to see live.
TICKETMASTER FT”W”
@humphrmi: What if I’ve hired an extensive mercenary army from Blackwater?
I’ve already filled mine out and posted it next to my computer. This ought to be a good season.
How can you put DeBeers against 1800Flowers?
One is directly responsible for slave labor and price fixing on a global scale, the other delivers crappy flowers.
???
@Papa Midnight: Ok, my preliminary chart is done. I’ve got my predictions set. The chart will fill out as the rounds play out. I believe it will be about 90% accurated (give or take 5%). Based on this, I will re do my chart once the second round begins or the reflection of votes cause me to do so.
[i54.photobucket.com]
Why is Google on there? Replace Google with Halibuton. Not sure Video Professor should be on there. They donate a lot of money to the community.
what?? no tracfone???
@BuddyGuyMontag: Winner gets a basket of lemons.
I’m kind of disappointed that Comcast is going against the American Arbitration Association in round 2.
Very disappointed.
by Snowblind at 12:51 PM
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@RandoX: Bush and Cheney made you say that.
George W.? Maybe. But Cheney??? Don’t be so hard on Dick.
AT&T = bunch of shit-eating bastards.
Glad to get that off my chest. Not as bad as UHC, and I’ll probably feel better if they ever actually ever ship me my phones or refund my money but why should people have to contact customer support ten times to get them to honor a contract or simply refund money?
Thought after leaving AT&T half a decade ago they might have improved. Nothing’s changed.
When we play softball tourney’s, the way these things are picked is the names are drawn out of a hat. Looks like that’s what happened here…
This bracket makes no sense. Google (a company that offers mostly free products) is in, but not Crocs, or even MLB that got a couple of write-ins. On the other hand, CompUSA on its last year, should have some sentimental votes. Sears has maybe a year or two left, so don’t leave it behind.
My bad, I didn’t see Crocs spot. It’d been fun to see it competing against Uggs.
I really dont think CompUSA should be on the list since they dont exisit anymore really. I know they are still around but not as the original company so it shouldnt count.
You know, it would rock if a satirical news source like “The Onion” or “The Daily Show” could do mock up locker room interviews with some of the “teams.” Like a fake interview with one of the execs at Menu DOOFS.
Even better, maybe The Consumerist could award an MVP (to the one person in the worst company that truly made it all possible) this year. I know that the DOOFS won’t win, but they probably killed more family members this past year than any other company. That should at least get them an honorable mention.
IMHO, Stank of America (Bank of America) and Walk-all-over-ya (Wachovia) should reach the finals against each other. But which could possibly be worse? They have both ripped me off. And I’m sure many, many others.
First Onion (First Union), now a part of Walk-all-over-ya, stole money out of my checking account when a lone teller, handling four drive-thru lanes came up short one day. The teller was missing $100 dollars. Somebody got an extra Benjamin. I didn’t get it. I checked my ATM balance one day and was $100 short. Their explanation: “We don’t know who received the missing money, but to make sure it is returned, each customer would pay for the mistake.” WTF? Every person that went through the drive-thru had $100 stolen from them by the bank. Let’s see, if 50 people (very conservative at this busy branch, 6101 South Blvd) went to the drive-thru, that’s an extra $4,900 for the bank (50 X 100 – 100). Think this money propably went to an branch manager to have a track day at Lowes Motor Speedway? Kid’s braces? Who knows?
Stank of America (before that Nations Stank, before that North Carolina National Stank – NCNB), has jacked my interest rates all over the place. And the customer service is the worst I have ever used. DO NOT allow an automatic checking account withdrawl with, say, your insurance company. Stank of America will allow them to withdrawl at any time they like, even twice a month is not uncommon. And, they let them withdrawl whatever they like. It is never the same from month to month. Talk about messing up my monthly budget. One would think that a bank would make it harder for an automatic bill pay, so the bank would hold on to the money longer. This way, they make more interest on my money, while I make nothing. Instead, they let the money fly out of my account like I was the Treasury.
Charlotte really is the bottom of the barrel as far as banks are concerned.
BEST BUY SUCKETH………..
Ironic:
Pfizer vs. Diebold
Who can keep it running longest? (or not)
hmm… comcast, sears, exxon, best buy. i think all of those have an excellent chance. let the battle commence!
Menu Foodsd FTW!!!
Killers should burn in HELL!!
Exxon, too.
@midwestkel: They existed in 2007, didn’t they? This is about what’s happened in the past year not just what happened last week.
Consumerist:
You need to implement a wild card for this tournament.
Even if you’ve seeded this in a non-random fashion so that those companies that received the most nominations are pitted against those that had the fewest for the early rounds of the tournament, there should be a way for low seeds who give top seeds a run for their money to make it to the next round.
As an example:
Menu Foods doesn’t have a hope in hell of beating Comcast even though Menu Foods is probably more despised in its narrower market than Comcast is given Comcast’s ungodly market foot print. Crocs also doesn’t have a hope in hell of beating Exxon. Menu Foods versus Crocs – that one could go either way.
Seriously! How do you set up the bracketing? Shouldn’t the round 1 match ups at least *try* to be close to being in a related industry? For example, Dell vs Apple or Toshiba? Or Toshiba vs Sony?
MTV vs. TransUnion? There’s a 1st round heavyweight right there.
Please, please people……….CHASE is the hands down winner. Those slime buckets would run over their grandmothers for a penny!
This is bullshit. Who determines the initial rankings? And each side of the chart?
I know its going against the grain, but I <3 best buy, sprint and walmart. BB sold me a 42″ LCD and PS3 for 500 bux and walmart gave me 20 free blu ray movies. All is forgiven. Oh and Sprint gives me tons of minutes, unlimited texts, and unlimited tetherable internet for like 40 bux a months so i love them too.
Regardless, ifn I were a bettin man, I would pick -
Comcast vs BestBuy
WalMart vs Gamestop (ooh i fucking hate Gamestop…)
as my Final Four
Comcast vs Walmart
Winner/Loser is … Comcast! So evil.
Is there any way you can link the names to the tags for the stories? That way people aren’t making blind votes.
Which BlueCross BlueShield is that? Each state’s BCBS is a different company. Some plans are merged, but BCBS of Michigan is a different company than BCBS of New Mexico…
@RAREBREED: Definately the AAA. They are the backup for nearly every company listed.
I agree with WillScarlett and vastrightwing…BestBuy is annoying but pretty harmless in the grand scheme. Ditto Comcast.
As for Halliburton, this site is the Consumerist and though Halliburton is a pretty bad company their interactions with consumers is zero.
@Sasquatch:
I can think of no appropriate reply that is remotely polite so I shall just roll my eyes at you and move on.
OMG. This bracket is taking FOREVER!!! I know this thread is old, but if anyone reads this: the NCAA finals took place weeks ago, and we’re still on the FIRST ROUND in this thing. See you in June!