Consumerist
It's time for Consumerist's 3rd Annual Worst Company in America Contest! Last year, RIAA won. Before that, Halliburton took the prize. Who will climb to the top of the nadir this year?
Here's how it works. Name your favorite company to hate in the comments on this post and why (or send it to tips@consumerist.com). Then we will all vote on the nominees to whittle down the field of contenders. After that, we make a big March Madness style bracket. Every day will be a new deathmatch of reader between two companies. The crown winner receives eternal infamy and a lucky golden pile of shit.
New rule this year: we will only accept nominations for companies that makes or sells products or services that consumers actually buy.
Let the bloodletting commence.
Comments
Best Buy
enough said.
@Phildawg: seconded!
I can't believe I'm typing this, but Best Buy has been getting better, at least in my area.
Office Depot is much worse, imho.
Best Buy!
Thirded
Best Buy
Thirded
Company that SELLS products or MAKES products you can buy? The requirement is a tad confusing.
Comcast. No need to explain why.
@Phildawg:
Damn!
You beat me to it.
But then there's Wally World which has sent more US jobs to China & ultimately is the cause of the housing meltdown here because so many have lost good jobs.
Comcast? They sell a service right? They count.
Does Best Buy count? Do they "make products"?
Does China count as a company "that make products that you can actually buy"?
Comcast
@Kavatar: I came here to say the same thing. If you have to ask why Comcast deserves a pile of shit, then you need to spend some more time reading this site.
Hell, I'd go one step further and send them a real pile of shit - They'd probably just melt down and sell the golden one, and figure out a way to add $5/month to their customer's bills because of it.
United Health Care
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: Best Buy millionth-ed.
Exxon Mobil and their record setting profits can eat a dick too.
Here you go
Sears
R I A A !
Can't I also buy Blackwater's services?
I don't comment much but HANDS DOWN, COMCAST SHOULD GET THIS AWARD. After being given the run around for 3 weeks for cable install, 3 mistaken disconnects, and the same feelings by all my coworkers, we have 6 votes for Comcast!
SPRINT
MEDIACOM
COMCAST
Microsoft (Vista, propping up HD-DVD, 360 failure rates, etc.)
Also, how about running in tandem with this, we have a Best Company in America thread? I know, optimism is totally counter to internet postings, but that doesn't mean we cannot occasionally focus on the good.
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: I'd be interested to see what percentage of Consumerists readers shop at Wally World. You don't hear much about them on this site. I personally haven't stepped foot in one in years. Not for any high-handed reasons- their stores look like a train wreck. Stuff everywhere, long lines for checkout, more crappy merchandise than not. I prefer Target, more better quality crap and the stores are mostly clean.
Oh, my vote goes for Time Warner, long wait times, higher and higher prices, dropping quality... though they don;t sound as bad as Comcast.
SPRINT!
Thank God I got away...
Considering that companies like Comcast and Best Buy are selling non-essentials, I will have to go with Haliburton for first place and United Health Care for second. Ruining people's lives and/or killing them is far more grievous than than getting screwed over by Best Buy or having a technician not show up.
Blackwater...
EVERYONE in the US is paying for their services - and so far they are not really accountable to anyone.
I don't expect it to win "worst company", but I feel Microsoft should be nominated.
We all agree the RRoD was a bigger issue than they acknowledged, they did to the right thing by extending the warranty. Unfortunatly they have had many more problems. Poor quality control on refurbished units that were shipped out, online content that can't be used on the replacment units THEY sent out unless you are online. This means that for the next few years, if you want to play Street Figther II on your 360, you have to contiune to pay for broadband internet access even if you have no other need for it. As well, Live was down for quite awhile, which also resulted in Achievement points being lost, rankings getting screwed up, etc.
Their first line of customer service is also known to be almost no help, which is why so many people just skip past it and contacted Bill Gates.
While this many hardware companies have manufacturing issues like this, and many service providing companies have down time and subscription issues, it is rare to find both in one package.
On top of that, this is for a video game console. What should be (compaired to PC gaming) an easy thing to set up and jump into. Did we have problems like this with the NES? Genesis? Playstation? While some may have had hardware bugs, sucessfuly playing a game was not nearly as stressful as it is with the 360.
On second thought, maybe you need to have categories of the worst companies: communication, health care, debt collectors, private war mongers, etc.
@nakmario: I forgot Blackwater. Yeah, they would be the worst overall in my opinion.
verizon!!!!! these damn locked cell phones are a hindrance and sooo many hidden fees
Damn, I hate typing fast while I'm at work, my grammar is all out of wack!
CompUSA. Let's kick them while they're down. Or we can nominate whomever is running their going out of business sale, which frankly leaves much to be desired in the way of discounts.
how about a category for defective products? microsoft for xbox but chevy for cars
Bank of America
Best Buy 456th'ed
I worked with Best Buy from 1999-2005. Before we became the number 1 electronic's retailer about 2001-ish, it was such a great company! Not much changed between 2001-2002. But in 2003, the company really began to embrace an arrogant attitude as they were the supreme electronics store and they could do what ever the fook they wanted.
They rolled out many aggressive strategies to take advantage of their customers in every way imaginable from eliminating the bad customers by tracking their purchases through reward zone and excluding them from offers.
They forcefully signed up ignorant customers for internet contracts and magazine subscriptions without the customers knowledge (I was trained in the way of how to act like the credit card wasn't recognized the first time through since we needed to scan it once for the contract and later for the purchase, and also to do a little X on the screen for them when they had to sign the contract).
They give the run around on just about anything related to services and warranties. I remember when BBY corporate had to take over handling cell phone exchanges because if we found one single scratch on the phone, we would tell the customer it was sign of abuse and refuse their warranty (I think I saw 1 out of 20 phones handled under the service plan because of that? lol).
They are completely relative on their policies and who they want to apply them too. You better be attractive if you want the easy road through a policy or friends with somebody. If you don't have much on your side, you won't qualify for a 'case by case' policy procedure.
They do lots of false advertising and misrepresentation on services. I remember when best buy first started selling VPR Matrix Computers. The machines came with virtually nothing on them but the Operating system, yet we still heavily pushed a system optimization to eliminate background programs and make it work so much better. I think all we did on this particular PC was turn on automatic updates, and install the latest patches... There was no unnecessary programs on boot.
Hmmm... should I keep saying more?
Xbox / PS2 / Xbox360 forced bundling at launch. You want the 299 advertised core system? We have plenty in stock!!! But it's only available in the package with 10 extra controllers, all 32 games, 15 memory cards, 2 extra hard drive kits, and the Replacement plan! Oh and 10 years of xbox live subscription!
Yea like I said, "enough said"
Any improvement you are seeing at the store level is directly related to this arrogance getting out of control and corporate seeing customers waiting for the next big retailer to emerge that they can jump ship too. The second they feel safe, these practices will all come back. Just like The Scorpion and the Frog, it is only the scorpion's nature to do such things.
Best Buy
Comcast
United Health Care. Why? All their rmployees upstairs got to the cafeteria before I did (at 11:55) and bought up all the Chicken Parm Rotellos for lunch. I really wanted one... I had to settle for crappy pizza.
Toyota & Chrysler
Best Buy
Even though I'd probably vote for Comcast, I want to fill up the bracket, so...
Ticketmaster.
Comcast every time. Price gouging, monopolistic behavior, incompetent engineers, abusive customer service, and I haven't even mentioned P2P traffic interference. They deserve a lifetime achievement award.
How about Disney for being ruthless and hypocritical about copyrights?
1800flowers. Look up my rant in past comments if you need an explanation. 1800fuckups.
BY SMITTY1123 AT 12:21 PM
Microsoft (Vista, propping up HD-DVD, 360 failure rates, etc.)
Also, how about running in tandem with this, we have a Best Company in America
i completely agree.....microsoft is practically sabotaging the market with hddvd and xbox360 using halo like crack. but best company hmm....thats a challenge, im going to take a random whack...Paul Newman's Newman's Own Food Line. It's organic, affordable, good, and 2/3 of america is overweight.
Wow, there are so many...
#1: Best Buy
#2: RIAA
Tied for third: GexaEnergy, Discount Tire, Papa John's Pizza, CitiBank, Chevrolet, AT&T...
COMCAST! ITS COMCRAPTIC!
@FitJulie: I'll second Exxon Mobile. While gas prices go up and up and up, their annual profits match the rise, while their government tax incentives also keep going up.
Not everyone in the country has comcast (and you don't *have* to have cable tv, you choose to), and there are plenty of alternatives to shopping at best buy. But pretty much everyone uses gas or oil and is getting hit by their profiteering.
Toyota for not fixing the sludge issue in the Camry, the tailgate on the Tundra, The Prius for accelerating under its own power, & building the Lexus GS400h and exploiting the Hybrid badge on cars.
I gotta go with Comcast. Or in my neck of the woods...Comcrap.
1) Wal-Mart
2) Best Buy
3) RIAA
Countrywide.
Sprint