Round 1: Comcast vs Menu Foods
This is Round 1 in our Worst Company in America contest, Comcast vs Menu Foods. One company kills pets. Another kills file sharing. Which is the greater crime? The wisdom of the internet will decide.
See the master bracket of all the companies here.
This is a test using rich text formatting and html links. It's the generic "company" ad that should appear on all posts with the Company category if they don't have an ad attached to a specific company.
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Comments:
Seriously people...comcast...your illegal file sharing is more important than the safety of imports and their contents and the life of your pets?
Seriously people...your illegal file sharing is more important than the safety of your pets and the contents of imported crap from China? The people that are voting for comcast are way to jaded.
How/where do you vote? I don't see a poll on this page..
The sad thing is, Comcast never hurt anyone or anything. And yet they'll undoubtedly 'win' this round by a landslide. Good to know even "inteligent consumers" who read this site have priorities.
@milty45654: I think it has more to do with their lousy customer service than with the file sharing. I have yet to meet a person who has had a positive experience with Comcast and is willing to tell me about it.
Kind of a tough choice for me. I have a cat, but I don't buy any menu-foods produced cat food because he needs diabetic cat food. And I have Comcast and I hate them. I still voted for Menu Foods, though, cause the poisoning of animals I figure to be worse than Comcast overcharging me for cable or their lousy customer service.
@milty45654: Killing the pets was very bad, but an unintentional outcome. Comcast's customer service and network blocking were calculated and premeditated.
What's worse, manslaughter or murder 1? (I bet both companies LOVE that analogy.)
Wow. This is a good first battle.
Menufoods did issue a massive recall and made it well known that the pet food was deadly. Comcast service is perpetually horrible.
I'll go with Comcast.
I chose Comcast because they are the worst offenders in their own market place. Unfortunately, there are more drastic cases of food-supply animal abuse taking place daily at 1,000's of processing plants around the world...
Would anybody care to offer their condolences? My cable company just relinquished my region to Comcast... so now, my ISP and Cable company is Comcast.
Schmeckendeugler
More accurate description: One made a stupid mistake that accidentally killed pets, and acted to change the problem. The other has made, and continues to make, deliberate decisions that infuriate customers, then been dismissive and deceptive when said customers confront them about it.
I chose comcast because what they are doing is blatant disregard for their customers. If FCC lets them get away with it then what's next? they'll control what websites i visit? limit skype usage to after 9pm? In menu foods case, yes pets died but I don't think that was intended. Comcast fully intends to screw their customers.
Yeah at least Menu Foods had a recall.
also i would say that menu food acknowledged a problem as seen by their recall whereas comcast denied everything for months on end until they were backed into a corner
My vote for Menu Foods was in honor of all the cute little animals killed by their products.
I can live without Internet/TV more than I can live without my cat.
Wow, people care about their data more than living beings...
Menu Foods was more media driven than consumer. Do you think they had a bad streak of luck with their suppliers?
Comcast is knowingly and willingly denying service to their paying customers over something as nebulous as bandwidth.
Menu Foods has burned long enough, let's put the cable company on the barbie!
Wow. This is a lot closer than I thought. Could Menu foods be a Cinderlla? I voted for Comcast as my dogs get Eukenuba.
@milty45654: Yes, throttling your internet is worse than poisoning your pet. It is censorship. How will we get information about things like poisonous pet food, if our information is censored by the providers?
Two words: dead puppies.
Comcast, when shown that people are unhappy, basically plug their fingers in their ears.
I have to agree somewhat with the other side of the coin BUT...you can live without comcast..pets can't live without food...you would think the quality standards would be higher and things like that wouldn't happen...also, in many areas, I'm sure comcast isn't the ONLY choice for internet service/cable. There are alternatives.
Direct TV and DSL FTW...there's always dialup...again, there are alternatives to receive your information.
I voted for Comcast because in many cases you cannot escape them. They have monopoly power in many areas. Menu Foods I can avoid by simply picking one of the many other pet food manufacturers out there.
censorship is far worse than killing pets....im sorry you can feed your animals something else. but how about finding another cable provider? they monitor your files, somehow they know exact names you're downloading and will shut your internet down until you delete the file....happened at my house with roommates, had to tell comcast we let a stranger use the wifi
Voted Menu.
Seriously, not being able to download your favorite TV show or that album you don't feel like paying for doesn't really compare to the way this company handled things when it turned out that their food was poisoning animals.
On the flipside, being told that you're a worse company than one that killed people's pets has gotta sting. I voted for Menu (because any company that causes death is worse than one that cripples its product to me), but I see the difference between deliberate malfeasance and simple negligence, bad as the consequences were. And as highpitch_83 pointed out, there are worse offeders in the pet food sector.
Comcast: We're worse than puppy-killers.
@milty45654: "I'm sure comcast isn't the ONLY choice for internet service/cable. There are alternatives."
In many areas, you are absolutely wrong about that. However, there are many, many choices of pet food.
@sleze69: Menu Foods produces some Eukanuba wet food.
Still, I voted for Comcast. I really can't see how Menu Foods did anything willfully wrong. Blame the Chinese suppliers for the contaminated gluten--other pet food manufacturers issued recalls too, due to the same contaminated ingredients.
I'm giving the nod to Comcast and here's why.
When Menu Foods had a problem, steps were taken to correct it. Food was pulled from shelves and the public was informed of the danger, potential and otherwise. However much egg was on Menu Foods' face, they owned up to the problem and admitted their error and did what needed to be done as quickly as reasonably possible so as to minimize the damage. Yes, some animals died but on the whole it wasn't a lot of them (about 100, if I remember correctly) and the problem no longer exists. A solution was found and that was that.
In contrast, when Comcast has a problem (or more specifically, when a Comcast customer has a problem) they do virtually nothing. There is no urgency to the solution, and in many cases they make the customer feel like the problem is their fault. Billing problems, service problems, equipment problems, etc....the list goes on. Comcast has never and will never be known for their top notch customer service; it's a problem that's known to exist yet the company quite obviously does not care to correct it, unlike Menu Foods.
Given the choice between a company that accidentailly poisoned some pets and admitted to the problem and solved the problem, versus a company that purposefully restricts service and doesn't admit to it (except under duress) and doesn't solve a huge number of problems for a huge number of people, the choice seems extremely easy: Comcast by a mile.
@milty45654: pets can't live without food...you would think the quality standards would be higher and things like that wouldn't happen...also, in many areas, I'm sure comcast isn't the ONLY choice for internet service/cable. There are alternatives.
Right. And Menu Foods isn't the ONLY choice for pet food. There are alternatives. Heck, you can fry up a hamburger in about two minutes and feed it to your dog twice a day.
"The message is clear. The internet cares deeply about being able to download music illegally." -Consummerist
As with the RIAA winning in '07, Comcast will win in '08. No landslide prediction though. I voted for the puppy killers!
Voting for one matchup every day might take a while. Just a idea: maybe a morning vote and an afternoon vote? Otherwise, this might turn into worst company of 2009...
In hindsight, MenuFoods (and a few others in the list), should have been changed to "Any company unfortunate enough to have to import raw materials from China"
@milty45654: "Direct TV and DSL FTW...there's always dialup...again, there are alternatives to receive your information."
DSL is not always an option and dialup is in now way an equitable choice. Pet food choices are, however, abundant.
@milty45654: "you can live without comcast..pets can't live without food.."
Unless I'm very much mistaken pets don't absolutely have to have food produced by Menu Foods. There are a hell of a lot more pet food brands to choose from than there are high-speed ISPs available for your location.
@jrstren "maybe a morning vote and an afternoon vote?"
Not a horrible idea, but some people cannot get to this site during the mornings and afternoons. Now multiple times in one or the other is highly probable...
@Everyone that uses the 'dead puppy' argument:
You're making the mistake of arguing the results instead of the cause. It isn't the "Worst Company Mistake in America", it's "Worst Company".
MenuFoods made a mistake, but the company didn't intend for it and are sorry. Comcast is not only not sorry, they've made things continually worse in the name of profit. And don't forget that the network blocking is just one of a whole list of customer service issues they have.
Heck, you can fry up a hamburger in about two minutes and feed it to your dog twice a day.
Considering all the ground meat recalls, maybe not!
It's hard to compare these two, maybe the list should be sorted by comparable companies. Both these companies piss me off, but i'm being forced to pick animal life over internet. Gotta do it. But I think the thing to remember in these votes is, everybody loses. We're voting on two terrible companies.
Ooh! Cool new voting dealie! Hope its not made by Diebold.