when i click vote, it give a fat 404.

bummer.

Not sure what you changed about polling, but the last two rounds I can't see a thing (from work). :(

Ticketmaster, because at least you can avoid purchasing Sony garbage.

I would have voted for ticketmaster, but the voting button doesn't seem to work :/

At least with Sony you have a choice

What's going on, Ben? What happened to the nice, stream-lined voting app you had during the earlier rounds? On top of that, we've been seeing some lame descriptions of the companies, if any at all. It's either:

1. "No reason for this submission was given [but we're putting it out there anyway]", or

2. No description of either company's wrongdoing.

As it stands right now: Consumerist "Worst" voting? EPIC FAIL.

Don't own anything made by Sony, that I know of. But Ticketmaster has screwed me in the past, so there.

You should probably still port the descriptions of the company's wrongdoings to the next round so people can remember what they did.

I hate Ticketbastard. My wife and I are going to a concert out of state later this month, and last week, we got e-mail inviting us to buy parking at the venue for $40.

I went to the venue's website, and parking's available for $20. Guess who DIDN'T get my money?

@BigElectricCat: That was the CONVENIENCE charge. They're doing you a favor by charging you just a measly $20 to send you an e-mail! You know how expensive online postage stamps can be these days..

Ticketmaster is the reason I can only afford to go to one or two concerts per year. Excluding Pearl Jam. =P

When I purchased my Bon Jovi tickets from Ticketmaster online, I was forced to pay over $20 per ticket in surcharges and fees--a $129.50 ticket ended up costing me $151.23!

Ticketmaster is evil.

Sony's boys are just a bunch of bumbling fools. I offer Betamax and Memorysticks as an example.

Please don't forget about the rootkits, IMO one of the shadiest things a company has done in a long, long time.

Didn't Sony's DRM rootkit expose FBI (CIA? NSA? DHS?) computers to attacks by hackers?

I'm sure Cory Doctorow blathered about it, but I can't stand the guy, so I tune him out.

National Security breach > Annoying fees

Ticketmaster may rip you off, but at least you get something out of the deal. Buy a piece of sh** Sony product and you're pretty much stuck with it once the warranty expires. Their overpriced electronics are half-assed attempts to copy better products and their customer service has got to be some of the worst in the world. Sony completely sucks!

Voting doesn't work

what happened to the old voting system?

I vote for brief descriptions of nominees evil-doing. Copy/Paste, writers, copy/paste!
(I'm applying a $45 convenience fee for this comment)

Ticketmaster FTW! I can get around Sony, but TM is mostly unavoidable if I want to see a live show of some sort.

(Actually, though, I kind of like some of Sony's stuff -- the rootkit BS never affected me because I use a real operating system)

You know what would be more helpful than finding the worst company in the world? Find the best company.

Everybody on this site has their own problems with individual companies and industries, whether it be Tim Hortons, Wal Mart, big tobacco, big bottled water, big HFCS.

Then the threads become full of complainers.

Lets have a survey about what companies that we least complain about.

This is a no brainer: Ticketmaster is the worst by far.

As much as Sony has dropped the ball in the past with their consoles and utter lack of being in touch with their own consumers, it was a no-brainer that Ticketmaster is a bunch of dickheads. At least Sony is getting back on track lately.

Choosing is starting to get a little more difficult. I mean, they both suck so much...

Rootkits and DRM are evil, but so is adding enough fees to almost double the cost of stinking concert ticket.

In the end though, I had to go with Ticketmaster. Thanks, in part, to them, I no longer bother going to concerts.

perfect timing. I went to get tickets this morning -- despite being in the system five minutes before noon, I was unable to get tickets thirty seconds after sale started.

its a monopoly, its a scam. its not uncommon for the fees to match or exceed ticket price. its virtually impossible to get tickets without an offsite presale or artist sponsored sale anymore.

vote over sony primarily because the situation has been unchanged for the last decade. never gets better, only worse.

At least Sony caved in about the rootkits and discontinued from using that garbage. Ticketbastard, however, will NEVER stop inconveniencing us with convenience charges.

I hate Ticketmaster and all, but the worst they've ever done is nickel-and-dimed people to death on event tickets. They suck hard, but not as much as Sony and their rootkits. At least Ticketmaster never gave virus-writers a back door.

I won't even buy anything Sony makes; DVDs, CDs, consumer electronics, etc. I can no longer trust them, so I will not give them my money, end of story.

Given the results so far, I guess a lot of people share my belief that Sony isn't so much evil as really, really, really stupid (except the PlayStation department), whereas Ticketmaster is deliberately ruining live music for everyone but the rich.

this is like comparing somebody's cranky uncle to friggin' fidel castro. EASY. ticketmaster.

While Sony's insistence of making everything proprietary is super annoying, Ticketmaster easily takes the cake. It's almost impossible to buy tickets for popular shows because ticket consolidators bomb the site. The security they put in place to prevent the consolidators from getting blocks of tickets is completely ineffective. And now they are trying to get into the game, by creating their own auction type service. Super tacky.

Comment on Round 34: Sony vs Ticketmaster I vote that we get the other voting system back. This one gives me a blank page when I click "vote", and the other one was so much prettier.

Go Ticketmaster go! You're in my top 5!

A company that produces frequently poor technology and backs it with poor customer services versus a company that runs a monopoly (try buying concert tickets anywhere else!) providing essentially nothing (a "service" to deliver tickets from one party to another) and makes its money charging absurd and outrageous fees?

No brainer.

@kc2idf: "the rootkit BS never affected me because I use a real operating system"

Them be fightin' words!

But seriously, I agree, I've had quite a few sony products(mostly playstation related) and I have been over all satisifed.

Ticketmaster has never done anything good as long as I have been aware of them.

Sony has their in-house game developers who make some incredible games (even if GT4 did suck). That's SOMETHING at least.

Another no-brainer vote for Ticketmaster. While you have to watcch out for occasional crappiness in some Sony products, Ticketmaster is pure evil.

I also worked for Sony several years back, and the employee benefits were incredible.

A company would have to be really, really bad to make me vote for it over Ticketmaster. Sony is not that bad.

@The Count of Monte Fisto: Agree.

It's unfortunate, too, because Sony's the champion of DRM from way, way back. DAT devices and MiniDiscs were screwing consumers before people had ever heard the term. But at least you have the choice to avoid their products, albums released by their labels, movies released by their studios, etc. Ticketmaster's a straight-up monopoly.

Ticketmaster, for being a monopoly and horrible to deal with. They actually time you out based on how long you take to type!

The worst site in this regard probably on the planet is TicketMaster, which purposefully pulls the plug after as little as one minute during a ticket transaction if you don't type fast enough. (They generously give you three minutes on the page where you enter all your personal information, including name, address, phone, the junior high your mom attended, etc.)


Take too long and TicketMaster drops the tickets you were about to purchase back into the pool for customers who are either younger, not disabled, or don't feel compelled to read the fine print-or even the large print for that matter. When they do so, they throw away all the information you've already entered, expecting you to type it all again, and again. If you're over 20, you are much better off calling on the phone, even if it does cost them much more to handle such sales.

I rather like Sony's electronic products. My discman lasted for about 7 years of hard use, and my over-the-ear headphones are the best headphones known to man. I had a tape and record player by Sony when I was a kid that lasted and were of good quality, as well as TVs and VCRs; so, the Sony name is something I've grown up with and come to trust as a quality product.

Never had any problems with Sony products personally. Granted some PR gaffs by the gaming division recently, but they seem to be righting the ship.

Ticketmaster takes the cake on this one by far. We should probably skip the formality and bump them into the final.

It's been hit and miss for me with Sony, but my lady is guaranteed to get hosed when she buys from Ticketmaster. I opt out. Then again she takes care of the live music.

TM FTL!!!

Yet another poll which I could tell which company was going to "win" because they're so poorly matched.

One company basically maintains a monopoly and charges excessive fees.

The other competes in the consumer electronics market.

hmmmmm

Why did you change the format of the poll? Now it doesn't work.

This one's simple. Sony is an awful company, but as a consumer, I can choose not to buy Sony products. Ticketmaster on the other hand, is basically a monopoly. Sure, there are other online ticket venues, but for any major event, Ticketmaster is your only real choice. They are truly thieves.

Ticketmaster.

One, depending on the venue, you NEED to purchase them through TM. Um, huh? Why am I paying ticketmaster if I can walk to the venue and pick up the tickets? For the printing of the tickets? Here's a nickel. Two, the ridiculous lumped-on charges, somehow a $35 dollar ticket turns into a $50 ticket. WHA?!? Exactly. And we're not talking taxes here. If it's a $50 dollar ticket, say that. Don't say well, it's $35 dollars plus $15 worth of ridiculous surcharges. Include it within the price. Duh.
Three, and I still can't believe this, I had to pay extra to have the "convenience" to print out my own tickets. Yes, you read that right. I saved Ticketmaster money on both the physical printing of the ticket, and the postage, so that I could have it in hand (I bought them the day of the concert and didn't want to go to will call). Yes folks. I was charged EXTRA to save THEM money. And oh, yeah, that wasn't readily apparent until checkout. And I was afraid I'd lose the tickets if I tried over. Ticketmaster needs to either burn in hell, include the garbage fees within the ticket price, or both.