Welcome to Consumerist’s 7th Annual Worst Company In America tournament, where the businesses you nominated face off for a title that none of them will publicly admit to wanting — but which all of them try their hardest to earn. So it’s time to fill in the brackets and start another office pool. That is, unless you work at one of the 32 companies competing in the tournament.
Readers responded in record numbers to this year’s call for nominations. And it turns out that you all are still angry at the telecom companies, which dominate the brackets with a total of 9 slots, and the folks in financial services, which accounts for 7 spots in this year’s battle for the Golden Poo.
Even though Microsoft gets this year off — perhaps you all felt bad for them because of the whole Windows Phone debacle — there are plenty of other technology and Internet companies in the bracket. There is the always-divisive Apple and the perennial pugilist Sony. Since Facebook and Google are so good at tracking your browsing and reading history, they shouldn’t be surprised to be in the tournament.
This category also has two fresh-faced WCIA rookies. Video Game giant Electronic Arts and a company that not so long ago had a relatively sterling reputation among readers: Netflix, which saw its nominating votes increase tenfold after the company effectively doubled its monthly rate.
Also new to the WCIA tourney is Spirit Airlines. Someone might want to mention this fact to the company’s CEO Ben Baldanza, who has called it the “most consumer-friendly airline.” In the first round, tiny little Spirit will go toe-to-toe with Delta, the only other airline in this year’s competition.
The first round also sees a face-off between the U.S. Postal Service and UPS. As more and more people use the Internet to shop, the services that deliver those packages to your home are apparently struggling to deliver decent service.
If you want to share your brief testimonial on why any of these companies should win — or maybe you think they shouldn’t be in the tournament — shoot us an e-mail at wcia@consumerist.com.
For the first round, we’ll be posting three bouts per day (there will be four first-round fights on March 19). The full schedule is below if you want to mark your calendar to make sure you remember to vote.
ROUND ONE BOUTS:
* Target vs. Best Buy
* Bank of America vs. Chase
* Charter Communications vs. CenturyLink (Qwest)
* Wells Fargo vs. Citi
* EA vs. Sony
* Sallie Mae vs. Ticketmaster
* DirecTV vs. Dish Network
* PayPal vs. Capital One
* Sears/Kmart vs. Walmart
* Netflix vs. GameStop
* USPS vs. UPS
* Comcast vs. Time Warner Cable
* Spirit vs. Delta
* AT&T vs. Verizon
* Facebook vs. Sprint
* Google vs. Apple
SWEET 16
* Best Buy vs. EA
* Facebook vs. USPS
* Comcast vs. DirecTV
* Bank of America vs. Citi
* Ticketmaster vs. Spirit Airlines
* PayPal vs. Charter
* AT&T vs. Apple
* Walmart vs. GameStop
ELITE EIGHT
* Bank of America vs. Ticketmaster
* PayPal vs. Walmart
* Facebook vs. AT&T
* Comcast vs. EA
FINAL FOUR
March 29:
* Bank of America vs. Walmart
March 30:
* EA vs. AT&T
WCIA FINAL DEATH MATCH
April 2
The Golden Poo winner will be announced April 4
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Sallie Mae should make a strong showing. One of the happiest days of my life was when i consolidated my loans to another company. Sallie Mae’s costumer service is non existent, and outsourced. Nothing like trying to take care of an financial issues with someone who speaks broken English. I’ll pay hidden fees, just so I don’t have to use them.
So happy my company is not on here this year!!
We get a bad rep….
My company is here, but I don’t think it will pass the first round as it really isn’t evil and actively tries not to be. No, I don’t work for Google.
This is going to be hard..
Capital One, Google, Best Buy and Sallie Mae..
I think Sallie Mae wins the final round..
But for round one..
I know my 2 out of 3
Best Buy
Qwest
Chase
The only bad experience I’ve had was with Capital One – all the others are good with me, but that’s mostly based on minimal interaction.
..and Google, really? They’ve been ad-free forever and help me every day when I want to.. well, google!
Not a PC manufacturer in the bunch, other than Apple. No HP, no Dell, no Lenovo. Obviously, The PC is dead.
HOw about putting something in where it it noticeable quickly that your ask the lawyer segment charges $48 for their service? This was really disappointing. I can pay less money to my local bar association and get an answer.
I nominated Spirit Airlines–glad to see they made the cut. But with so many despicable choices, it’s going to be a heated race to the bottom.
Oh boo! Netflix deserves to make it to at least round 2 but up against GameStop, I don’t see how that is possible.
Good grief… there are so many companies that are horrible that aren’t even in the brackets. There are so many truly horrible companies out there that the brackets can’t even hold all of the viable contenders. It is troubling there are so many bad ones out there…….
Bank of America is gonna blow this right out the water! BofA FTW!
The Battle of the Ages- Bank of America vs Comcast. Pure hubris at its best. Like the Celtics-Lakers of the 80′s, you can pencil these 2 in the finals every year for me.
How can Sears/ K-Mart make the bracket? No one shops there. Ever
Quick question for anyone. Who have the past 6 winners been?
Ticketmaster vs. FedEx. What? FedEx isn’t up there? Why not?
Well, at least the stupidity of Apple being in the bracket will be over quickly.
Facebook vs BofA at the end!
Ahh… Is it that time of the year already.
finalist will be AT&T and comcast, but AT&T will win out due to their 150GB cap for DSL users
comcast will get a gold poop along with at&t because they are just as bad with their poor service, bandwidth caps and slow evening speeds.
As a former employee of Gamestop, you could put a tall steaming hot turd against them you wouldn’t have to guess where my vote will go.
http://anotheramerican.hubpages.com/hub/Another-Ex-Gamestop-Employee
Seriously, how is Goldman Sachs not on this list? How is the Federal Reserve not? With all of the new articles about how much money they were lending/stealing… collapsing governments, creating millions of unemployed… it makes this tournament feel hollow for “worst.”
Tomorrow can’t get here soon enough.
Oh I want to see some internal e-mails from these companies like we did last year about this voting on the bracket..
So how does one vote?
My thought is I can’t see at&t completely winning. I do see paypal, ticketmaster, facebook, and comcast go for it. truthfully I have a dual Wan router so if the DSL goes down I probably wouldn’t worry too much about it as I can cancel and get a new provider and stay on my other WAN channel till replaced.
Actual worst company in America:
MINDSPARK INTERACTIVE NETWORK.
Creator of detestable adware/spyware/homepage hijackers including the some of the most rampantly prominent offenders:
* Mindspark Interactive Network
* MyWay (MyWay Search Assistant, MyWay Speedbar, MySearchbar)
* MyWebSearch toolbar
* MyFunCards
* Cursor Mania
* Zwinky
* Smiley Central
* Webfetti
* Popular Screensavers
* MyWebface
* OurBabyMaker
Parent company INTERACTIVECORP is also the parent of Ask.com (best known as an annoying toolbar sneakily installed with other programs including Java)
The only reason they’re not a shoo-in for poo’in is nobody knows who the hell is behind all that stuff.
PayPal, surely, has to be the winner …
And, just for a laugh, a critique of ‚ÄúThe New Way To Pay In-Store‚Äù via eBay’s clunky PreyPal.
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=24611
eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking
Spirit Airlines is a formidable competitor for the Golden Poo, though it’s going to have a hard time against Ticketbastard, Skank of America, WorstBuy and Crapcast
Actual worst company in America: The New York Yankees
NETFLIX?
Netflix is a great company. Even after they raised the price, it’s still an incredible bargain, and I’ve had nothing but good customer service from them. If only more companies were as good.
Did I miss the Apple / Google poll?
Is there going to be a Bronze Poo this year?
My top 2 are…
Facebook – for having the world’s WORST website “experience”, and tracking people.
UPS – truely awful CS if you call the 800 number. And World Ship is the program on my computer I HATE THE MOST! When you open it to ship, it tells you you have updates to apply, so you apply them, and restart. Then, you enter the fields for the package you’re sending. Then, a freaking popup comes up saying there are updates that need to be applied and you need to immediately close World Ship. Reall?! And $1/$100 of additional insurance?
How disappointing; in a photo finish, Walmart (51.15%) has defeated PreyPal (48.85%). And I thought PreyPal would be odds-on favorite to win this contest. Still, if Walmart does go on to be the overall winner, it indicates that effectively PreyPal is considered to be almost equally as bad. Maybe if the organizers had seeded the contestants better PreyPal would at least have made it to the final round.
Maybe PreyPal will have better luck next year as undoubtedly it will be nominated again.
In the meantime, and just for a laugh, some serious analyses of PayPal’s “The New Way To Pay In-Store”, PayPal Here, PayPal Digital Wallet, PayPal Debit MasterCard, PayPal Local and Watch With eBay …
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=24611
eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking