Well, folks. This one is for all the marbles and a beautiful lucky golden shit statue, suitable for display in the corporate headquarters of either Comcast or Countrywide (now Bank of America).
It’s been a long, difficult, and sometimes controversial road. In order to get to the final, Comcast defeated Menu Foods, The American Arbitration Association, Ticketmaster, Exxon, and Diebold. Countrywide took down Dish Network, Clear Channel, United Healthcare, Bank of America, and Walmart. Now, the choice is yours: Which company is the Worst Company in America?
Here’s what a few of you had to say about these two companies:
Comcast:
“THANK GOD WE’RE A MONOPOLY!”
“Comcast is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad company.”
“Comcast deserves not just worst company but most evil.”
“Comcast, since I have no choice but to do business with Comcast, if I want cable.”
“Considering Comcast actually rigged a public hearing with paid schmo’s to prevent their opposition from being heard… COMCAST. “
Countrywide Home Loans:
“The evil they wrought on the economy will be felt for years to come.”
“Countrywide aggressively sought to cause evil…”
“Not only did Countrywide wreck the mortgage industry, they wrecked securities and investments market, thereby forcing investors to the commodities market and driving gas up to $4+ a gallon, thereby driving the costs of food and other products through the roof.”
“Countrywide has destroyed the housing market…well…country-wide.”
“Countrywide lent me 7750K on an undocumented, no income, no asset loan, while WalMart demanded an ID for a credit card purchase of $13.71, then wanted the receipt on the way out.”
This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2008 series. The companies nominated for this honor were chosen by you, the readers. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america.
More From Consumerist
-
Worst Company In America Consolation Round: Comcast Vs. Ticketmaster
-
Worst Company In America Semifinals: Bank Of America Vs. Comcast
-
Worst Company In America Quarterfinals: Bank Of America Vs. Walmart
-
Worst Company In America Round 1: UPS Vs. FedEx
-
Worst Company In America Round 2: Sallie Mae Vs. Ticketmaster
I want to see Comcast win here!
It’s Bank of America by proxy, I get my wish! Yay?
Comcast just screwed over their customers, employees and stockholders. Countrywide hurt their customers, employees, stockholders and our entire US economy.
The quote “The evil they wrought on the economy will be felt for years to come.” fits.
@josephsherry: Well, to be fair, we did re-elect Lieberman, so you can’t very well overestimate the pain threshold of CT voters. (It should be noted the Republicans threw in the towel almost out of reflex, so even though Leebs used to be a Democrat, he’s not that liberal.) On the other hand, Dodd seemed to actually be willing to make the big promises on the Presidential trail.
Although I’m guessing you’re not from CT?
If I were Countrywide or Comcast, I would think this a joke.
Comcast 42% (2943 votes)
Countrywide Home Loans 58% (4068 votes)
7011 accounts on some website(that is assuming the poll only allows votes from people logged in) say Comcast and Countrywide are the worst company in America. 1125 anonymous people on the internet think Countrywide is worse than Comcast.
This is a neat little drama for regulars on consumerist but don’t think this has any clout outside of the consumerist culture.
I would like to thank Countrywide. My property taxes dropped this year and will drop further next year because of them. The “housing crisis” is saving me $100 a month in taxes because my valuation fell.
@DrJimmy: No but they sure did ruin my lawn and landscaping as well as the food in my house when then cut my power lines…sad thing is I don’t have comcast.
Sadder yet, when I called to complain they denied that they cut the lines and caused the damage…fortuneatley, I got a bus card from the workers who were waiting for the power company to come fix the lines. Had the power company gotten there earlier I’m confident that Comcast would have split the scene.
With the physical damage they cause, the underhanded filling hearing seats with paid employees, and the throtteling of their all you can eat internet Comacast must be considered the most evil company ever…..
Inadvertently catalyzing economic turmoil vs. making me cancel my cable subscription and read more. Profit-mongering vampires vs. poor customer service. Countrywide, I choose you!
Comcast is making a push for my vote. Last week they somehow deleted all of the series recordings off of my DVR, and this week none of my recorded shows will play. Still not enough to push them over the top though, Countrywide still has my vote.
I personally have never dealt with Countrywide, but I live to hate comcast. But I guess any company that can claim such a huge part of our current housing meltdown deserves this one.
I am sure that comcast will be back in force next year to take the throne.
@Archavious: Are you throwing down a challenge to the national media?
Someone call Andy Rooney!
@Archavious: What’s your point? You’re probably right, but the point is, 7000 people know now not to do business w/ Comcast or Countrywide, or atlest if they do, what to expect.
I think some misinterpret the point of this site. I will say though, it has been extremely effective with some companies. While others, don’t care.
Comcast is worst because of their illiterate employees
Comcast. I have a choice of who to use for my home loans, but if I want cable tv, I have to use Comcast.
comcast may be a horrible company, but they screw over individuals more often than not. Countrywide boned the entire economy, and in doing so every American and every person in the world effected by the economic slump in America.
Way to go Countrywide, you brought SUCK to a global level!
you gotta vote for c-wide, as a current employee of the afore mentioned “great financial satan” who used to work on subprime loans, let me tell you that the golden poop is well deserved!
The CW vote means you are overlooking the fault of the homeowner. CW is still very active in the mortgage banking arena warehousing billions of dollars and their warehousing facility is one of the best in the industry so they still do something good. Comcast is a different story, they are a SERVICE provider that provides horrible service to the customer. So in other words if you blame CW you’re also blaming the consumer, we can’t do that on the consumerist!
As much as comcast sucks, they haven’t played a part in one of the worse economic situations of the past 100 years. You don’t need cable as much as most people need a mortgage to get a home.
@erratapage: But you don’t need cable TV anymore. There’s YouTube and Netflix, and the local news never went away.
No offense to the Comcast haters, but….
Having a decent sized hand in destroying our economy (not 100% all them, but they were a big part) trumps bad customer service for you cable TV/internet/phone.
Worst Company In America: CountryWide Home Loans
I still want to vote for Wal*Mart…watch “the High Cost of Low Prices” it was free on Comcast “On demand”….
Okay, I just voted out of pure spite.
Without any prior notification or warning, our local Comcast station moved National Geographic over to their digital service, when we can only afford the bare minimum. NatGeo is one of our favorite channels, and at the very least they could have given us some head’s up!
I’m in line with everyone who is of the opinion that Countrywide is terrible, but they didn’t INTEND to cause a recession, or to make people lose houses (that they shouldn’t have been in in the first place). They were just greedy. Comcast is greedier, and there is a definite element of INTENT in their terribility.
I vote for Comcast, as they are a terrible monopoly among other things.
While I hate CW with a passion, they are not the only company in America who did crappy loans. Just check out mortgageimplode.com…. The downturn in the housing market is a result of many contributing factors. While CW definitely played a part (one of the biggest), they can hardly shoulder the entire burdon alone.
@PunditGuy:
I am not a Comcast employee and I am not affiliated with them in any way. There are some horror stories out there just like with any other company but I just don’t see Comcast in the same category as Countrywide and few others.
Since Countrywide never came up with a slogan dumber than “That’s Comcastic” it just can’t win.
My vote is for Comcast, hands down, although it really isn’t a fair fight from where I stand because I’ve never had any business dealings at all with Countrywide. I have plenty of things to say about Comcast but I won’t bore anybody with them.
One interesting thing: I’m willing to bet there have been far more stories about Comcast than Countrywide on this site and far more people reading this site have done business with Comcast than with Countrywide, yet Countrywide is currently running ahead in the polls, 58 over 42%. I really really want to see Comcast “win” that Golden Poo, I’m cheering for them all the way, so people you know who to vote for!
@sparks
You pretty much summed up exactly what I was going to say. Much as Countrywide was merely one of many crappy mortgage lenders which helped crash our economy, Comcast is merely one of many crappy monopoly cable companies. The final vote has come down to these two. Somehow, I find the economy more important than bad cable television.
I called Comcast and told them I couldn’t afford their cable service. They cut the cost in half to keep me as a customer, with little hassle.
The reason I couldn’t afford their service?
Housing downturn.
Countrywide FTW!
“Countrywide lent me 7750K on an undocumented, no income, no asset loan…”
Huh? I’m no fan of Countrywide, but if you took out a loan of 7 million (or even 750k, if that was a typo) that you weren’t capable of paying back, the failure lies largely on you. Sure, Countrywide (and many, many other lenders) have been making foolish loans that have landed the U.S. in a crisis, but this avoiding responsibility garbage is embracing the same irresponsibility that got people here in the first place.
It’s the bank’s fault that you lived beyond your means? Nah. They didn’t force a loan upon you, you took it out. Yeah, their practices are awful… but it takes two to play the game, and you’ve got your hands in it just as much.
@Rosstafari: I’m no fan of Countrywide, but if you took out a loan of 7 million (or even 750k, if that was a typo) that you weren’t capable of paying back, the failure lies largely on you.
I am so sick of hearing this from people who can’t tell “lucky” from “smart”. Do you really think people took out these loans anticipating that they would default?
Look, most people have no idea how much mortgage they can afford. They finance a mortgage once every seven years on average — that’s not a lot of experience. Many of the victims have never had a mortgage before at all. They don’t understand about income to expense ratios, debt servicing, or other factors. They are bombarded with advertising extolling the merits of mortgages and other debts. They are probably woefully overoptimistic about their other bills and future income. And if they were capable of accurately forecasting future interest rate movements on a variable rate loan… well, I don’t think they’d need to be working for a living.
So yeah, if their broker told them “you can’t really qualify for this loan, but if we fudge your income a little…”, then sure, they’re culpable.
But if their mortgage company, which has done this calculation millions of times and appears to be running a successful business doing it, and supposedly has a vested interest in them being able to repay their loan, tells them “yes, people in your circumstances can handle this much debt”, should they be faulted for relying on that expertise?
Because you know what? Those of you blaming the victims for being greedy: most of you probably did exactly the same thing. You took what the lender offered. Very few of you, I’ll bet, got an independent evaluation of the debt ratios or the loan terms of your mortgages, or educated yourselves enough to expertly appraise the loan yourself. The only difference between you and the victims is that you got lucky and they didn’t.
@theczardictates: People are greedy. It’s human nature. Countrywide exploited this fact simply because they could. Deregulation, that is, removing the safeguards put in place during and after the Great Depression, enabled CW and others to do what they did and get away with it long enough to create a very serious problem, the full impact of which might still be coming.
They gave self-regulation a bad name, and that is something ‘good’ banks (if there is such a thing) ought to be vilifying CW for. They insisted that the banking industry could self-regulate out of self-interest, and CW proved them to be completely, utterly full of shit. It’s like saying, “yeah, we can smoke while pumping gas. I haven’t been blown to smithereens so far.”
@misterdisco:
Has Comcast wrecked the US economy? Absolutely not. There are worse things in the world than a cable monopoly.
And cable isn’t even a monopoly – get Satellite. And no, your HOA can’t prohibit this, by Federal law.
@theczardictates:
Can I afford a mortgage?
Question 1: Can I afford the monthly payment?
Question 2: Will the mortgage adjust, potentially to a rate I can’t afford?
These are the only two things someone needs to know. Don’t overcomplicate the issue. The BS about debt ratios, etc. is for the banks. A person can and should know what they can afford per month.
BofA bought Countrywide. That’s two evils rolled into one.
Comcast, despite what most people seem to believe, is not a monopoly. Call up DirecTV or Dish and more than likely, you can tell Comcast where to go.
Given the combined forces of evil that BofA and Countrywide now form, they have my vote.
You know what… Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are flush with cash. That cash they have will be moved to bailout the banks/investors and we taxpayers will have to replenish freddie/fannie. Don’t believe me, then read… Freddie and Fannie were not doing subprime lending… all of their borrowers had to pay at least 3% down and document their loans. As far as the accounting scandal of some years back when Franklin Raines was running the place, the restatement was because to present accurate figures up not down. The media and the whitehouse/treasurer wants us to believe the two companies are in financial trouble… Naw. Mr. Paulson and W want to put their hands on the liquid cash thats in FHA’s portfolios and transfer it to help the bankers. We folks, yes us taxpayers will be left holding another bag of hot air… How come this country is no longer the manufacturing giant? The bankers decided its better we manufacture debt! Get it
_________________________________________________________________
Keep your kids safer online with Windows Live Family Safety.
http://www.windowslive.com/family_safety/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_family_safety_072008
this contest goes on too long.
@theczardictates: That’s a really lame argument. All they had to do was ask, “What is the monthly payment?” and, “Will that change?” I signed a mortgage a year ago, but it was at a fixed rate of 6.25%, and the monthly payment was easily manageable. Are you saying I got lucky? Why do people sign things they don’t understand?
CW took a dump all over Milton Friedman’s permanent income hypothesis, which now has to be revised for rational agents only, so Countrywide takes my vote. If it weren’t for that, I’d vote for Comcast.
@pigbearpug: Great minds…
@InfiniTrent: Indeed.
If only this really was a death match…oh well, a trophy of golden poo will have to do.
Common guys, we cannot let comcast think their safe! Keep voting comcast.
I say this with sincere apologies to all the people Countrywide screwed over.
@pigbearpug: @InfiniTrent: Assuming you are two different people and not one person and a sock puppet… Do you actually realize that you just said *exactly the same thing over again* as if you were making a new point?
You: “People should know what they can afford”
Me: Most people are not very good at the concept of ‘afford’
You: “But… but… people should *know*!”
Want to go around again?
Comcast is the bane of my existence. I wish I could bill them for the hours and days of my life lost to their unrivaled incompetence. Could you even put a monetary value on it? The suck thing is Verizon has no plans to bring FIOS to the Bay Area…so I’m stuck. But maybe that says something about Verizon too…no plans to bring FIOS service to the most tech heavy region in the world…
Countrywide wouldn’t have been in the situation if it weren’t for people who thought that a new coat of paint meant that their house was suddenly worth $100,000 more than they paid for it.
And the idiot folks that took Countrywide up on these ARMs that they couldn’t afford in the first place.
Don’t get me wrong, Countrywide sucks, but my vote goes to Comcast. In their case, they’re basically the only game in town and can do whatever they want, and screws over the general population. Why is it we are the number 1 country and yet we lag behind all these other countries with regards to our internet speeds and infrastructure?
(it also has to do with lots of municipalities giving monopoly contracts to Comcast and them thinking there’s no reason to innovate and compete since, well, there is no competition)
Countrywide is responsible in some part for the overall collapse in the real estate industry and again in some part responsible for the recession in the American economy.
Comcast being completely inept pales in comparison.
don’tcha think by now people are starting to vote again for their second and third times using new IPs?
Countrywide has caused between 100K and 100Meg more damage to the economy than Comcast. advantage: countrywide.
@betatron: garg! 100k to 100 million times more damage… mas cafe, por favor!