(Photo: Getty)

United Health Care vs Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company 2166 vs 1170
Countrywide vs Clear Channel 2439 vs 1773
Blue Cross Blue Shield vs Sprint 2937 vs 2139
Bank of America vs Monster Cable 3908 vs 3222
US Air vs Microsoft 2787 vs 3087
Time Warner Cable vs American Airlines 2513 vs 2480
Home Depot vs Wellpoint 1607 vs 2358
Wal-Mart vs Citibank 4849 vs 2516
Capital One vs ATT 3590 vs 3109
Sallie Mae vs eBay/Paypal 3623 vs 4288
TransUnion vs Diebold 1858 vs 4323
Best Buy vs CompUSA 7137 vs 3507
DeBeers vs Verizon 4741 vs 2451
Exxon vs United Airlines 6232 vs 1659
Sony vs Ticketmaster 1466 vs 7310
Comcast vs The American Arbitration Association 4133 vs 3455

"We've seen a fall in customer service as we've gone into a recession," says a customer service consultant in the article. "As the cost cutting occurs . . . they start to cut the wrong things." But that implies that AOL had good customer service before the recession, doesn't it? Wait, what?

All but one of the top 10 companies are either in communications or finance, with the one weird exception of Abercrombie & Fitch (4th place, 38%).

"Most of these companies actually aren't thriving," said Michael Shames, the executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network, a California nonprofit that monitors business practices. People don't look at companies with poor customer-service scores and say, "Here's where I should invest," he said.

"The Customer Service Hall of Shame" [MSN Money]

United Health Care:

"United Health Care failed to notify me that I was no longer eligible for insurance under my father's plan. The assholes told him they were sending out a notification "packet" to me. I'm pretty sure I would have noticed that. Now I have to scramble for the lesser evil of BC/BS from my employer, if I'm eligible for that at all. Their last open enrollment period was in January. My UHC insurance expired in... December. Screw you, UHC!"

"United Health Care is probably the worst of the worst out of the big health insurers (who constitute possibly the worst industry in America). They should easily be in the final four. Their CEO received $1.1 BILLION in stock options as compensation (yes, "billion" with a 'b'). Read about it here. This, while they were claiming they needed to retroactively cancel people's coverage and routinely screw providers on payment. It's clear where the "savings" from those shady practices were going."

"I had to vote for UHG. They are the sort of company that gives capitalism a bad name, and Bill McGuire is the poster boy for it all.

He's actually not worth $1.1billion anymore. He had to give back several hundred million dollars to clear up that little stock option backdating problem he ran into.

UHG's new CEO, Stephen Helmsley, really isn't much different. Just that he's sitting on $600million+ instead of $800million.

The latest UHG scandal involves their Ingenix subsidiary. They compile health care cost information used to determine 'reasonable and customary' charges. It's alleged that Ingenix has manipulated data in order to lower payments to doctors and hospitals which, of course, greatly helps the part of UHG that is paying claims."

"They have been systematically screwing healthcare providers out of reimbursement, while also pulling shady practices on policy-holders. We aren't talking about just stingy stuff, but things that are essentially outright fraud in my opinion. I'm not talking about UHC specifically here, but a lot of problems that are common in the health insurance industry. UHC is just a particularly egregious offender and one whose executives are making a killing, quite literally.

And obviously you aren't familiar with the background on retroactive policy cancellations (something that isn't limited to UHC)...this isn't due to the customer letting their coverage "lapse" or not understanding the terms of the policy. It's things like someone getting cancer and your insurer unilaterally deciding they are going to retroactively cancel ALL your coverage because you failed to disclose that you occasionally suffered from seasonal allergies. It specifically targets people that have expensive covered conditions. That isn't an attempt to prevent fraud by patients...that's an attempt to weasel out of responsibility for paying.

There is a laundry list of nasty practices by health insurers that I could go into. These things are just getting more prevalent because of the rising cost of healthcare. It's becoming pretty much a high-stakes gamble whether or not your insurer will actually pay any given medical bill. They are bordering on massive organized criminal organizations. "

"I HATE United Health Care. I took my three children in to have their teeth cleaned. Untied DENIED the clam becasue it had been less than six month since the last cleaning. Turns out it had been five months and 29 days since their last cleaning. Had I waited one more day United would have paid the claim. When I complained I was told by several reps that I was SOL. JERKS!!!"

"Read this

(The above link is about a case involving WellPoint, where they cancelled a woman's coverage after she got breast cancer because of undisclosed minor preexisting conditions that were totally unrelated to the cancer). I agree that insurers should have some remedy if the pre-existing condition that was not disclosed is directly relevant to a condition for which a claim is being made. But what they are doing is basically auditing accounts of people who get diseases that will cost a lot of money, and trying to find ANY pretext to cancel their policy (by comparing their medical records to what the patient put on the disclosure form). The link above says that during a lawsuit employees testified that it was policy to do this to people who made expensive claims, and that it didn't matter whether it was a willful non-disclosure or not.

If the insurers are so concerned about catching fraud, why don't they just perform the records audit themselves before issuing insurance and collecting any premiums? It seems to me that they want to just collect premiums from people who pay on the grounds that they will be covered, and then not pay out when something actually does happen. I'm glad insurers are getting sued (and laws are being changed) over this practice. "

"For a concrete example of UHG's most recent problems, try this:

Cuomo Announces Industry-Wide Investigation Into Health Ins...

The gist of the complaint:

Under the United insurers' health plans, members pay a higher premium for the right to use out-of-network doctors. In exchange, the insurers promise to cover up to 80% of either the doctor's full bill or of the "reasonable and customary" rate depending upon which is cheaper.

The Attorney General's investigation found that by distorting the "reasonable and customary" rate, the United insurers were able to keep their reimbursements artificially low and force patients to absorb a higher share of the costs.

Cuomo's investigation also found a clear example of the scheme: United insurers knew most simple doctor visits cost $200, but claimed to their members the typical rate was only $77. The insurers then applied the contractual reimbursement rate of 80%, covering only $62 for a $200 bill, and leaving the patient to cover the $138 balance."

"UHC specifically is notorious mainly for their obscene executive compensation and for their practices involving their dealings with healthcare providers (though I wouldn't be surprised at all if they are playing the retroactive cancellation games too)."

"United Healthcare denied my mother breast reduction surgery for the last 5 years because they said it was cosmetic. Did I mention she's 5 feet 3 inches and a 34J? And has 15 years of doctor's records about neck and back troubles including muscles randomly tearing?

My parents (who are not rich by any means) finally had to break down and pay the $8,000 out of pocket as my mother needed the surgery.

UHC deserves nothing less than the 7th circle of hell. "

"they cover men's breast reduction surgery... but not women's!"

Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company:

"a company that abuses animals and messes with the food supply"

"the callous disregard for the animals' well-being is just gross neglect"

"poisoning the food supply"

"poisoning the lunches of unsuspecting children. The kids had no idea what they were getting."

"Here is nothing that enrages me more than cruelty to animals, especially those that are harmelss to begin with and have falled sick through mistreatment and neglect. What those workers did to those creatures is evil personified."

STILL OPEN FOR VOTING: Countrywide vs Clear Channel, Blue Cross Blue Shield vs Sprint, Bank of America vs Monster Cable, US Air vs Microsoft, Time Warner Cable vs American Airlines, Time Warner Cable vs American Airlines, Home Depot vs Wellpoint, Wal-Mart vs Citibank, Capital One vs ATT, Sallie Mae vs eBay/Paypal, TransUnion vs Diebold, Best Buy vs CompUSA, DeBeers vs Verizon, Exxon vs United Airlines, Sony vs Ticketmaster, Comcast vs The American Arbitration Association

Countrywide:

"Countrywide gets my tick for destroying a lot of lives and homes. As far as i'm concerned, they and Citi should burn in a special place in hell made just for them for taking advantage of the deregulation to go hog wild on the mortgage market like that."

"Countrywide's involvement in the mortgage meltdown cannot be overlooked though we have been with them for a while and never had an issue. Guess there is something to be said for not being a sub-prime borrower trying to live beyond their means though. 30-year fixed and not overextended...not that hard."

"What a bunch of scammy scumbags."

"My only complaints with Countrywide are their unavailability on weekend and their lack of detail on their web site. Sure would be nice to find out things about my HELOC — like due dates."

"Countrywide is such a huge lender that it has obtained bad loans from second rate mortgage companies that had no business being in the business to begin with."

Clear Channel:

"wrecked FM radio"

"Homogenizing radio sucks!"

"Clear Channel is so vile. Every radio station that I've enjoyed before it was bought up by them has gone to right to hell — in terms of crappy music and the ads ads ads ads ads. If it weren't for WEQX, I'd suck it up and subscribe to satellite."

"As for Clear Channel, gosh, there are so many ways you can hate them even aside from what they've done to FM radio. You can hate them for perpetuating the visual blight of billboards across the landscape. You can also hate them for their efforts to dominate the live music venue booking business. They're not quite as unavoidable as Ticketmaster but they're obnoxious enough."

"CC not only wrecked what you hear on the radio, it wrecked it for those of us who work in it. They are the devil. Jocks for that company do a shift live in their home city and then voice track shows that run in smaller markets since CC is to cheap to hire talent. Bastards."

"They win this hands down just for turning FM radio into a wasteland of screaming, obnoxious car dealer ads, annoying DJs, and homogenized music. They are pretty much single-handedly responsible for the fact that I no longer listen to any radio except NPR (they bought out and destroyed the decent local radio I listened to before)."

"Clear Channel ruined radio, making portable music players move to the forefront for personal music. They grew too fast and look at them now, barely scraping by in the face of declining ad bucks and booming satellite radio. They so rightly deserve to fry."

"They've changed the formats of 3 radio stations I used to listen to down here in Atlanta in the 7 years I've been here."

"Clear Channel has contributed majorly to the uglification of the landscape with their garish and innumerable billboards. Even worse, they're the ones behind those #$@%ing video billboards. A pox on their thrice-damned house!

And that's on top of the generic radio they pump out 24/7 across the country. Clear Channel must die! "

"I have XM in the Scion, so I never have to listen to Clear Channel's crap any more."

"clearchannel" is a result of media deregulation back in the mid 80's. they own ALOT of stuff.

i love the list of 'objectionable' songs they told their stations to refrain from playing after 9/11

[en.wikipedia.org]

clearchannel killed broadcast radio.. RIP"

"Clear Channel just DESTROYED the Atlanta radio market by wiping out every single station that had been here for 30+ years and filling the air with generic crap."

"Clear Channel is the worst thing that can happen to any media outlet. They have ruined so many radio and TV stations. Their lips mutter "in the interest of the community" but we all know that's a big pile of BS."

"Clear Channel destroyed the radio."

"Clear Channel should make a ad channel that's interrupted by actual shows at every 15 and 45 of the hour."

STILL OPEN FOR VOTING: Blue Cross Blue Shield vs Sprint, Bank of America vs Monster Cable, US Air vs Microsoft, Time Warner Cable vs American Airlines, Time Warner Cable vs American Airlines, Home Depot vs Wellpoint, Wal-Mart vs Citibank, Capital One vs ATT, Sallie Mae vs eBay/Paypal, TransUnion vs Diebold, Best Buy vs CompUSA, DeBeers vs Verizon, Exxon vs United Airlines, Sony vs Ticketmaster, Comcast vs The American Arbitration Association

Here's what readers said in previous rounds about why they hate these two companies...

Blue Cross Blue Shield:

"BCBS is just plain evil. They make a profit from deliberately denying service not based on your medical needs but on their bottom line. I personally have had nothing but trouble with them since the very first day I was "covered" by their organization.

BCBS is the best rationale I can think of for government run healthcare, and that's saying a lot. "

"Blue Cross bid our contract for insurance assuring us that they would provide the exact same services, THEN turned around a year into the contract and denied claims we could take with our previous services."

"Big Pharma, shame on you."

"So I was just reading an email that I received from my insurance carrier (Aetna) about their delay in their ending coverage of monitored anesthesia for colonoscopies. They said because of misinformation given to the public from websites (like the consumerist I'd imagine) they delayed pulling the plug on covering anesthesia. They didn't say they were abandoning their plans just yet just delaying them until they can strong arm their members into agreeing to stop using monitored anesthesia in favor of the cheaper sedation methods. I would guess most of the BCBS affiliates will do the same and drop their coverage of monitored anesthesia if they haven't already.

As I get older, insurance companies make me very nervous and anxious. That's a shame."

"Did you know that if you lose your job and are told your coverage is "through the last day of the month," so July 31 or whatever, that only means through midnight ON July 31? So nothing on July 31 is actually covered? Standard procedure for them."

"As I've posted before, health insurance companies take 40-45% of every dollar WE give them and pocket it as pure profit. Consumers have GOT to wise up to what's going on and demand their representatives do something about it NOW. Health insurance is something that should not be allowed to operate in a 'free market' fashion - health care is something that should be inviolate, highly ethically bound. MDs are supposed to abide by high high ethical standards, so should health insurance, pharmaceuticals, biotech, and hospitals. This is a very fixable problem - one that the f$#@ing politician piece of feces are great at pointing OUT to us, but are useless in coming up with a viable solution. (like so many other failed governmental policies such as the 'war on drugs', the penal system, the social welfare system, etc.)"

"Blue Cross Blue Shield hands down. CNN can't hold you hostage when your life hangs in the balance. And BC/BS was in it up to their eyeballs (late 1960s) when health insurers were theorizing how to convert their product from a function of the free market into a commoditized necessity shifting costs from what consumers were willing to pay in a competitive pricing environment to the five stage process of creating socialized healthcare which guarantees their profits. They suck beyond all comprehension. Further I cannot say without risking banishment."

"Health insurance companies are murdering swine whose practice of denying services ultimately kills people."

"Blue Cross Blue Shield just dropped my 85 year old grandparents with no warning. Oh yeah, my grandmother just was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Coincidence? What a bag of flaming @*&%#s!"

"Anthem BCBS turned me down for individual coverage because I had cancer six years ago, and take an anti-cancer med. They told me to feel free to reapply once I've been "sign, symptom and treatment-free" for 15 years. My oncologist says the anti-cancer med I take is considered "treatment." So in order to get Anthem to cover me, I would have to go off the drug that keeps me from getting cancer...for 15 years.

Does that make sense to you?

My consolation in all of this is that I expect Anthem BXBS to be gone in 15 years. And I'll still be here. "

"Any health company that tries to screw their own customers in a proactive way deserves to burn in hell."

Sprint:

"My family has been with them for upwards of 10 years and CSRs treat us like garbage. Granted, we stick with them (it works for us), so some people will inevitably say "stop being part of the problem", but really, they do need to improve customer service. The last few times I've called, I've spoken with people who barely, barely speak English."

"A good friend of mine (a Sprint Customer) is from Kansas City, home of Sprint's corporate headquarters. He tells me that when he drives by the corporate compound, he gets no cell phone reception, making the sprint office an invariable "dead zone" of cell service. What else could you ask for?"

"My friend has had Sprint for years and has gone through three different phones, all of which get poor signal and don't receive some incoming calls."

"Sprint is absolutely abysmal. After my friends dropped them, Sprint said they would be getting a $45 check from Sprint since they were canceling after a month to month. Sprint went ahead and billed them again for the next month and wanted $60. This is two months after he canceled service with them."

"I made the mistake of signing up with Sprint several years ago, and immediately learned that Sprint has the worst customer service I've ever experienced anywhere. My bill was paid via auto debit, so from day one my history of bill payment was flawless. They thanked me by giving me too many bad billing and customer service experiences to describe here, but I can summarize it as a culture of meanness with customer service reps and store salespeople that seemed to be playing a game of "beat the customer.""

"Sprint had found numerous ways to screw me over when I was with them—up until they renewed my contract without my permission (which took away a discount I had with them for being military). Screw you Sprint, AT&T treats me far better than y'all ever did."

"Every encounter I've had with Sprint Customer "Service" has been negative. Used them as a LD provider 20 years ago; gave up after three or four months of having them change access codes without warning. Tried again a few years later when I had a Sprint-USAA co-branded calling card. The one time I tried to get a question answered about a bill resulted in me cutting the card up and mailing it back. About 5 years ago, my kid purchased a Sprint cellphone plan, decided it wasn't working as desired, and returned it within the 14 day grace period. Took two letters and a threat of small claims action to get the deposit refunded.

It'll be a cold day in Hades before any telecomms service labeled "Sprint" is used in this household. "

"Sprint. I've actually been with Sprint for about six years, mainly because I get a discount on my bill as a perk of a job I had, well, about six years ago. The problems I've had with them have been pretty minor in the long run, but a real pain in the ass in the short run. For instance, they have a spending limit on your account; when you've exceeded your minutes and reach your spending limit, your service is disconnected. Without warning. This has happened to me at least twice, when I've been traveling and find myself in roaming areas for extensive periods of time. Even an automated text would be nice, Sprint!"

"Years ago - I think this was in the early 1990s, we had Sprint long distance. I called customer service because there were dozens of little $1 charges on there that I didn't call. Now, some years before that (mid-80s)I and some friends of mine were teenage hackers who "bounced" through legitimate phone numbers, also no doubt leaving a little trail of $1 long distance bills, to eventually get to a point where you could make a long distance call and not pay for it. I doubt this can be done nowadays, but back then it could. So when these little fees to numbers of people I had never heard of showed up on my own bill, I knew exactly what it was. So I called customer service and complained someone was "bouncing" on through my account in this manner and the service rep told me there was no such thing as I was describing, and refused to credit my account - and his manager said the same thing. When this went on for 3 months, we canceled our long distance account with Spring, because every time I called I got the same idiotic answer - even after I explained to one manager, finally, how to do it! Clearly they were idiots then I don't see that they've improved any since."

"Until recently I had no problem with them. I'm in a rural area, and my reception is questionable sometimes, but so are all the other carriers here. Our network is still 1xRTT, but the only carrier who isn't is Verizon, and they're insanely expensive for the same plan. It's irritating, especially since Sprint has promised us EVDO upgrades for two years now and has completely failed to deliver.

The straw, though, was that Sprint has been calling me over and over and over trying to sell me new phone/new contract. The people are nice enough about it, but I've asked them over and over to stop freakin' bugging me to buy a new phone. I've told them I'm not getting a new phone until they go EVDO. They're all very nice, all promise me I'll never get another call, and I usually get another one in a week or two, lather, rinse, repeat. So that's two things now that they've promised me that they can't deliver on. In the grand scheme of things, I suppose they're minor quibbles, but it all adds up to Sprint promises not being worth the time it took to get them. "

"I worked for Sprint, so I know how bad they really are. I quit after a year working for them. I was put on written warning for not hitting my quota of new sales. I guess all the customers that I saved for them that were spending hundreds of dollars a month just didn't matter to them. Or the fact that in every other performance metric I scored in the top percent (customer satisfaction, accessory sales, upgrades, renewals, lowest number of cancellations, etc.). I was often sidled with doing the manager's job because he would hide in the back room from irate customers or would leave early all the time. I'm good at diffusing situations and good at problem solving, so I would end up fixing mistakes made by other reps all the time. When they put me on written warning, I told them that they could put me on written warning all they want because I refuse to do anything that I find morally reprehensible (such as adding 3 lines to an old lady's account when she's on a fixed income, telling people they can't keep their phone numbers when they upgrade so the have to add on another line to get a phone cheaper, etc.). The funniest part of all this is that after I left, they called me to offer me a job training their staff on customer service. Glad they see value in keeping their customers happy now(not!)!"

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

STILL OPEN FOR VOTING: Bank of America vs Monster Cable, US Air vs Microsoft, Time Warner Cable vs American Airlines, Time Warner Cable vs American Airlines, Home Depot vs Wellpoint, Wal-Mart vs Citibank, Capital One vs ATT, Sallie Mae vs eBay/Paypal, TransUnion vs Diebold, Best Buy vs CompUSA, DeBeers vs Verizon, Exxon vs United Airlines, Sony vs Ticketmaster, Comcast vs The American Arbitration Association

Our favorite polling question takes aim at people who support mandatory binding arbitration, but don't quite know what they're supporting:

A majority of those who were initially supportive or unsure of binding arbitration disapprove of arbitration when important information is given about common provisions in consumer contracts. With added information, Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of binding arbitration.

Big shift among binding arbitration supporters. Those who said they approve of, or were not sure about binding arbitration were presented the three following facts:

1. The arbitrator who decides the outcome of the dispute will be selected by the company
2. The consumer may never take legal action against the company over the dispute
3. Binding arbitration applies even in cases where the consumer has been seriously injured by the product or service

When presented with this information, two in three (66%) disapprove of binding arbitration and only one in five (21%) approve. Among those who initially said they were unsure, disapproval is very high (64% disapprove, 6% approve). Disapproval is high even among those who initially approved of arbitration (67% disapprove, 28% approve).

After learning the specifics of contract provisions, Americans overwhelmingly are against binding arbitration. When initial and final disapproval ratings are combined, binding arbitration loses by more than eight to one (81% initial/final disapproval, 10% final approval).

Congress may be unable to do anything about our unpopular President, but 64% of us want them to get off their asses and pass the Arbitration Fairness Act. When they return tomorrow, rested from their holiday break, give 'em a call and tell them to channel our collective hatred of mandatory binding arbitration into action.

New Poll: Americans Say "No Thanks" To Binding Arbitration [Consumer Law & Policy Blog]
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(Photo: Getty)

Bank of America:

"Can u say overdraft? Lets take billions from the poor every year and feel good about it!"

"I've been a Bank of America customer for about 3 years now and have not had any major issues with them at this point. But I know sooner or later they'll find their opportunity to screw me, I can't wait."

"Bank of America has be bad since they were founded. They invented the West Coast evil bank. They make Countrywide and WaMu look like amateurs."

"BoA is not just "a" bank, they're a bank with some of the least customer-friendly policies in America. Re-opening closed accounts then charging $35 for it? That's not a courtesy, that's fraud."

"BOA = Satan's Bank."

"To say nothing of BofA buying MBNA, then stealthily sending their credit card customers 8 different letters, all inconspicuous, all 10pp affairs where, buried in the fine print, BofA tries to make the credit card deals even MORE screwed than they were to begin with.
Things like, "If you wouldn't like your APR to go from 9% to 32% next month, send a snailmail letter with the following 4 pieces of information to this special address within the next week." Only buried on page 4 and written in 50 words of well-neigh incomprehensible legalese. And repeated for changing ave daily balance, binding arbitration, etc.

Evil!

On a different note, I have to crack up at the posters that say, "Since nothing personally happened to me, I'm going to ignore reams of factual data and vote for EvilCorp."

Since if nothing directly impacts them while they obliviously trudge thru their pale, sad life, it obviously doesn't exist.

Jeezus - develop you empathy muscles, guys: we're humans, not cockroaches."

"I find it hard to believe anyone still uses Bank of America for anything. I closed my accounts and tore up their visa card right after I heard they were giving mortgages to illegal aliens."

"My vote went to BoA because of the like 5 bucks I pay to them for ATM transactions. I fucking hate that on top of the random ATM fee, I have to pay BoA because they didn't have an ATM within like 20 miles. Fuck you BoA."

"BofA: Cash Deposits Post Immediately! After midnight. After we post debits. And bounce your checks. And take our fees."

"BoA for that stupid "we're gonna make lots of money" video. f them."

"Ugh, BofA is a complete joke. I switched to HSBC a year ago and I am very happy with my decision. BofA charges you death, and their high yield interest rate is a joke.

At least I can that the branch manager at my branch was awesome, and closing the account wasn't a hassle, except they charged me a $2 fee. "

"Band of Assholes is right. We briefly had a BOA credit card, but I quickly sized up this was a stupid move on my part and cancelled it. Got a relative in the business of cyber security at an international level and I asked her afterwards "what's up with BOA?" Without hesitation she said, "Besides PayPal, the least amount of interest and budget spent on securing their platform. Get Away From Them.""

"My BOA troubles started in a little state called Rhode Island. Pre-1984, the largest bank in RI was called Industrial National. In 1984, they change to Fleet. Now anybody in Rhode Island would tell you never bank with Fleet. Awful fees, etc.. etc..

Fleet in the early-mid 90's then buys Bank of Boston become FleetBoston which then buys Shawmut and host of whole other banks. And then finally gets bought out a few years back by BOA. Geez, I thought Fleet was bad after they took over my Bank of Boston (or was it BayBank account).

BOA made them (FleetBoston) seem like my local friendly credit union."

"Take that Band of Assholes! Raising that rate to 20.99% from my nice MBNA 7% - we'll see you in the Final Four of the Worst!! "

"Late to this particular voting party, but of course it's BofA.

Every time I would deposit a check, they would clear it in the branch only to put it back on hold at midnight. I escaped them by moving to a city where they're not around, but even then they held on to my relocation check for EIGHT business days!

PNC Bank has non-local checks cleared in 2... "

Monster Cable:

"Their entire business is based on lies about the superiority of their product and is then sold at very high prices to cement the illusion of higher quality."

"can't top trying to compare your component cables to diamond jewelry"

"Their markup is insane, and their cables aren't anything special above what you can get for a 1/3 of the price."

"My father bought a $200 Monster Cable brand power strip at Magnolia Hi-Fi a few years back. I tried to convince him why it was a bad idea, but the salesman hooked it up to some kind of meter to show the "noise" in the power between a standard power strip and the Monster one, and he was persuaded after being told that standard power would result in a worse picture."

"Monster conspires with every electronics retailer to rip off unsuspecting customers. We can avoid Monster, but that doesn't make what they do to everyone else right."

"They're as bad as the audiophiles for spreading nonsense and hokum about electronics."

"All I need to hate Monster Cable (although all the rest helps) is what I discovered when building a Monster Cable Demo Station when I worked for CC. The station had two speakers hooked up side by side and then to a DVD surround sound system with a switch to choose between the two and demo what the station called "Monster XRS Speaker Wire" or something against "Offbrand speaker wire."

Sure, the Monster sounded better... until you cracked open the back and found that there was about a 1 foot length of the Monster Cable wire running to one speaker and about 100 feet of the thread-thinnest, poorest-quality wire I have ever seen ziptied and sitting in a coil.

I'm not surprised at the misleading way Monster promotes their product because every company does the same thing, but it still amply bolsters what we all already know about this company. "

"Monster Cable's entire business revolves around a lie."

"I bought one of their "wireless" transmitters for my iPod so I can use it in my car, after 3 months the thing just fell apart. Talk about your shoddy merchandise. I will never buy a Monster Cable again."

"Just because someone is rich, doesn't mean they should buy overpriced products. Rich people can stay rich by saving their money, not blowing it."

"I voted Monster Cable, because they sue everybody"

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

STILL OPEN FOR VOTING: US Air vs Microsoft, Time Warner Cable vs American Airlines, Time Warner Cable vs American Airlines, Home Depot vs Wellpoint, Wal-Mart vs Citibank, Capital One vs ATT, Sallie Mae vs eBay/Paypal, TransUnion vs Diebold, Best Buy vs CompUSA, DeBeers vs Verizon, Exxon vs United Airlines, Sony vs Ticketmaster, Comcast vs The American Arbitration Association

US Air:

"They are the worst of the worst among one of the worst industries in America."

"US Airways is just sad. I have a friend who had been with America West since its inception, who is deeply unhappy at how bad things are now. He can't understand how, in the merger, US Airways' business model and policies prevailed over those of AW. Supposedly AW was doing well financially at the time, and customers were pretty happy with the airline."

"Airlines seem to have been waging a war of attrition on the whole idea of customer service for the last 20 or 30 years. When it gets to the point that it's less painful to take two days to drive across the country with all of horrors of inflated gas prices, fast food, nothing on the radio but Rush Limbaugh and country music, and the state of Nebraska, you know something is terribly, terribly wrong."

"I would rather have a colonoscopy than deal with US Airlines!
Oh wait its about the same only worse! Maybe a colonoscopy and a root canal at the same time.....???!!!"

"I can't use my miles."

"Thanks for turning my 7 day vacation into 2 and lying about it every step of the way. I hate you. And I hope your drunk of a president crashes his car with his kids in it."

"US Airways is still the worst airline in world history (and I flew Aeroflot in the Soviet era!)"

"US Airways has the worst customer service of any airline, and thus the worst customer service in the world. I was told by a ticketing agent, "We have the power to accommodate you, and we have accommodated others in the same situation as you are, but it's too hard in this situation, so we won't do it.""

"My recent experience of horrible customer service by a USAirways rep at the airport counter - and that I got no response to the complaint email I sent - wins out here. You can tell some of the USAirways employees hate their jobs - but please don't take it out on the traveler. And management needs to be more responsive."

"The only time my luggage was ever lost, it was flying US Scareways. I was flying to Maryland for my aunt's funeral last March. I was in a terrible state of mind to begin with (my aunt died in a car accident), and after nearly missing my connecting flight in DFW because we were running late, got into BWI three hours late to discover my baggage was missing. The staff was unbelievably rude. They told me I would just have to wait until they delivered it (their exact words). I left my sister's address in Laurel and they said it'd be there in the morning. Next day, nada, not even a phone call. Meanwhile the funeral was the next day and I had nothing, not even a toothbrush.

I ended up borrowing a dress from my sister. To add insult to injury, they had the nerve to finally deliver my luggage the morning I was supposed to fly back to Phoenix (apparently they couldn't find my sister's house in Laurel). That was the last time I flew US Scareways."

"My now-husband's aunt flew me out to the East Coast for his college graduation using her massive stash of frequent flyer miles. My flights ended and began at a small airport in Connecticut (Hartford-Bradley, I believe), which was about an hour away from the college and two away from his house. The way in, we had no problems. There was a massive storm on the way out, though, so I was stuck at the airport for over three hours.

When I got to Philadelphia to connect, I was sent to about five different ticket counters to find my flight which I thought I had missed. After two hours of counter-tag, I found out that not only had I missed my flight, but it didn't even exist anymore.

At first, they tried to pin it on me, telling me that they sent me an email regarding the change and that I'd need to rebook. There was no email in my box or his aunt's. Even so, why did the ticketing ladies put a tag with that flight number on my luggage at Bradley? Why didn't they tell me I'd be stranded in PA?

They wouldn't give me a free room, only an $80 voucher. I had no money to my name, so my guy drove another three hours down to PA, then drove another hour and change to the closest hotel with vacancies. When I got back to the airport the next day, I tried to use my free food voucher at the food court. Nobody accepted it.

I will never fly US Airways again. "

"My fun with US Airways: I was scheduled to fly from Rochester NY to Burlington VT for my parents' 25th anniversary, with a stopover in Philly for a few hours. It was intended to be a surprise, and my brother was going to pick me up from the airport and bring me to the party.

So the plane in Philly gets delayed because of snow. There is another one scheduled to leave later, but obviously, not everyone can get on it, so I talk to a person at the desk about being put on standby for the next plane, because the issue is time sensitive. I am informed that I am the only person on the standby list! Yay!

Later, from a different person, I was told that by being put on the standby list, I had queued myself to be last priority, after the people who were scheduled by -didn't- request to be put on standby. I was now absolutely last on the list. When I asked them why I wasn't informed of this when requesting to be on the next flight, I was told that I should've had an understanding of how the standby list works. I thought I did. I was wrong it seems. The next flight was leaving entirely too late for me to have any chance of making it to my parents' anniversary party.

So I tried to call my brother in VT, and couldn't get ahold of him. I next called my parents' house and explained what happened, and she called US Airways right then and put them through on a three way call and reamed them out. Eventually, they conceded that they had pulled a dick move on me, and suggested I fly to Manchester NH, and have someone from VT drive there and pick me up.

So I ended up sleeping in the Philly airport, flying to NH, and my brother drove up from VT to pick me up, then drove all the way back down again.

So much wasted time. Thanks, US Airways. "

"USAir is probably the poster child for the sorry state of affairs in American-run airlines. They're essentially a rush-hour subway car that flies."

Microsoft:

"MS's proprietary formats and poor OS are why I voted."

"since everytime I play a videogame in the back of my head is a "please don't die", I vote Microsoft."

"M!cros0ft's complete detachment from reality..."

"have you SEEN Vista? The only reason I can tolerate it at all is because of Lifehacker."

"I voted for MS because they didn't integrate the HD players into the 360, like how Sony had BR built into the PS3. "

"Microsoft is the evil empire of software. I hate them with a passion. Forcing Vista on consumers is unforgivable. Then, instead of extending XP until Vista is fixed, they tuck tail and run to Windows 7—which will likely have a couple of year's worth of glitches after it is released.

And umm...I guess that means Vista isn't going to get any better because all R&D will be reserved for Windows 7. Gee thanks Microsoft for making people buy a product even its own company doesn't stand behind.

I am sick of the Microsoft merry-go-round of operating systems and I am not playing anymore. We didn't need a whole new rickety operating system for pretty Aero icons. Sell that crap as a add-on package and leave the rest of us the hell alone. When the time comes when I can no longer use XP, I am buying a MAC. I never had an interest in MACs until Vista. But Microsoft can only anal probe a consumer for so long. Enough is enough.

Microsoft is king of the pointless upgrades in order to turn a buck. But forcing a substandard product on people for a buck...well, they have now gone too far.

Microsoft can kiss my ass."

"Microsoft and not only their forced obsolescence of operating systems but trying to force you to buy new peripherals on top of it.

MS trying to force people into using Vista is really the last straw. If they succeed on pushing XP out of use I will go back to using Mac. "

"the xobx 360 is the worst console ever. Some of the best games, but worst console. I'm including the sega 32x in this also!"

"Aside from hawking their latest steaming pile of crap known as Vista, I have another reason for hating Microsoft: buying up all my favorite game developers and ruining my favorite game IPs. I was pissed off when they bought FASA Corporation (ruining the Shadowrun IP in video game format and eventually killing off MechWarrior). I was very pissed off when they bought out Bungie (thus killing the Myth series, one of my favorite RTS IPs ever, now that Bungie no longer owns the IP).

Now they want to buy Yahoo, buy a stake in Facebook... I even found an article amusingly declaring that "Microsoft Buys Evil From Satan". Whenever Microsoft sees money in a niche they haven't dominated yet, their knee-jerk reaction is to simply buy the company that currently holds the leader spot. It may make good business sense, in truth, but that's what makes Microsoft the company we love to hate. "

"Dirty little secret: the overwhelming majority of the spam generated, sent and received on the Internet today comes from compromised Windows systems. Anyone who knows how to enable passive OS fingerprinting on their mail servers has been aware of this for years."

"My Xbox 360 console won't see/share files with my two Windows XP (SP2) machines. No way in hell I'm paying money for Windows Media Center. Knock on wood, I haven't yet experienced the RRoD on my Costco-purchased Xbox 360. $500 in upgrade parts to make my primary gaming box (which I thought was smoking-fast for my needs already) Vista compatible. Meh!"

"Tra la la, I love my Macintosh and its nifty OS."

"Microsoft - created an operating system that is inferior to their own, "outdated" operating system.
They released a console that they have publicly stated will not support the blu-ray standard, only the outmoded HD-DVD standard. In addition, this console has major design flaws such as RROD. To make this worse, the unit costs in the 300-400 dollar range, is hard to get repaired and can even be DoA."

"Has Microsoft ever released a product that wasn't still in the beta stage of development? They've used the general public as a cash-cow for 25 years while constantly releasing products unready for use. They've become a fabulously wealthy monopoly doing this and have absolutely no motive to change (either sales-wise or legally). If they had invented (er stolen) HD-DVD, it would have won and then wouldn't have worked right for 5 years. And they would have made a gazillion dollars off it."

"dont forget that when microsoft first launched the 360, that every one of their systems could not pass the hardware test enabled to prevent defective 360s from leaving the plant...
What did MS do, they decided to not do the tests that gave off failure warnings... which was all of them, and instead pop a game inside the system and if it booted, box the thing and ship it to stores...
now thats what i call quality!"

"I had a computer built recently and the tech was smart enough to get me XP so I don't have to deal with Vista which I hear is horrible."

"Microsoft. For prolonging the HD DVD wars by supporting Toshiba."

"Broken XBoxes; prolonging/supporting the HD disc war so they could get more time to let their digital download service mature; releasing Vista prematurely; multiple/confusing and overpriced Vista SKUs; removing XP from the market because people weren't buying Vista; Zune not supporting Microsoft's own Plays for Sure standard; DRM and Activation schemes that treat paying customers like criminals. I could go on, but I think thats enough to make my case."

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

STILL OPEN FOR VOTING: Time Warner Cable vs American Airlines, Time Warner Cable vs American Airlines, Home Depot vs Wellpoint, Wal-Mart vs Citibank, Capital One vs ATT, Sallie Mae vs eBay/Paypal, TransUnion vs Diebold, Best Buy vs CompUSA, DeBeers vs Verizon, Exxon vs United Airlines, Sony vs Ticketmaster, Comcast vs The American Arbitration Association

Time Warner Cable:

"My hate for TimeWarner burns with the energy of a trillion gas giant suns."

"I have almost no choice but Time Warner, and they fuck me over at every opportunity. Their CS is a huge pain in the ass, too. You can call them up about a busted cable box, wait on hold for 45 minutes, and get a call center person who instructs you through 5 different ways of resetting your box."

"I have to go with Time Warner—they wouldn't let my mother take my father's name off of our cable bill They inexpicably cut off service whenever they feel like it. If we need help over the phone we're redirected to people that don't even live in the city that we have service in. I'm happy that we have DirecTV instead of Time Warner now—DirecTV is truly a lesser evil than Time Warner. That and stores like Bath and Body Works ask for your address for no reason like Radio Shack but they didn't make the Worst Company in America cut."

"Um, I had like 5 different (cracked out) Time Warner "employees" come door to door in during dinner hours and ask me if I wanted to "upgrade" from FiOS to Roadrunner."

"TWC is the most obnoxious company I have ever dealt with in my life.

Even better, they know it's either not have cable, or deal with their shit. So they win. "

"Time warner installed my cable and internet a couple months back. Afterwards, the internet wouldn't work. For over a week they kept asking me to try all sorts of stupid things trying to figure out why it wasn't working. I had just moved and had Time Warner at old place and internet worked fine, but somehow they still insisted the problem was somehow my fault. Well finally after much hassle I basically got a "oops, we forgot to turn it on." Thanks Time Warner, for the week of no service and blaming your stupidity on me."

"Time Warner won't answer the damn phone!!!"

American Airlines:

"Kinda disgusted that they were able to fly putting lives at risk."

"AA constantly tries to route me through Dallas, despite my origination point or intended destination
DISAPPROVE"

"You might as well as "which business model is more doomed — renting movies from a store, or the hub & spoke airline system?""

"AA is a microcosm of the entire Airline Industry. Maybe if we let foreign airlines operate domestic flights, the healthy competition would alleviate these problems."

"Last time I flew on an AA flight they forgot to put a single bag on the plane. I know the blame probably lies between AA and the airport (who hires all baggage handlers). But seriously, how do you leave without having a single checked bag on board? Then they had a very sketchy dude deliver the bag at 1am to my girlfriend's parent's house after knocking on every door to the block because the douche couldn't read the address numbers on the mailbox. Fail."

"AA is worse because they can trap you on an aircraft for hours on end, or in an airport in a strange city where you know no one and are hungry, tired and filthy. They can ruin your honeymoon or your family's long-awaited, long-saved-for trip to (God forbid) Disneyland or that booze cruise."

"Flying American Airlines is hell. My mother hates flying with them because of them constantly overbooking flights(yes, all airlines do it, but my mom was pissed bc my uncle had to drive 3 hours each way to/from the airport for 2 days even though she was early to check-in. My uncle lives abroad and it's very expensive for gas there and for him to take off work to drive my mom to the airport). And this was before flyers' rights to hotel, etc were being promoted so much."

"The problem with American Airlines is NOT with the recall of the planes... that is a condition of a much larger issue. Lets take a look at how many of the employees who took a pay cut for the COMPANY after 9/11 have gotten their pay and benefits back. The mechanics are now in negotiations with the union and the head company and since AA has taken a first quarter loss, due in fact to the planes being taken out of service AA now once again has the upper hand in the negotiations. Is it a coincidence? NO! Look at how much money the management gets for bonuses. It is an insane way to run a company- screw the guys who are actually making it all work and greedy corp america gets paid. And by the way- mechanics do not get to make decisions on what they begin to repair. They could not have changed those wore bundles without first getting direction from the Corp office. They go by a manual. Feeling better about flying with America's Largeest Airline? Greedy Corp America spells bad conditions for you and me."

STILL OPEN FOR VOTING: Home Depot vs Wellpoint, Wal-Mart vs Citibank, Capital One vs ATT, Sallie Mae vs eBay/Paypal, TransUnion vs Diebold, Best Buy vs CompUSA, DeBeers vs Verizon, Exxon vs United Airlines, Sony vs Ticketmaster, Comcast vs The American Arbitration Association

Here's what readers said in previous rounds about why they hate these two companies...

Home Depot:

"These are the guys who took four tries to get my living room carpet installed, coming by three times with defective carpeting. They sent the same defective roll out to my house twice, and before the third try the installation coordinator in the store swore up and down that the new roll had been opened and checked in the store before it was brought out— lies, it was still sealed in the factory bag and it, too was defective. The first two installation crews spoke no English at all, and one of them cut himself on the tack strips and wiped his blood all over my freshly painted walls. And the first crew came out with someone else's measuring and cutting instructions, and no clue how to get the right ones. I called the store and had it faxed to my house so they could get started.

And I'm looking for someone now two and a half years later to come back and reinstall it correctly since it's rippling all over the place from not being stretched and anchored properly in the first place. Bastards. "

"I've never really gotten the impression at Home Depot that they give a damn about what I need. Especially when the area is also surrounded by Lowes stores."

"After spending 5 years of my life working for home depot (they offer tuition reimbursement....sweet sweet college tuition money), my vote will go to home depot. I can't even begin to describe the horror stories. 8000$ cabinet orders being ordered wrong...3 different times, then blaming the customer for the designer's mistakes. Installers faulty wiring their kitchen leading to electrical fires, basement flooding, not honoring warranties (extended or normal 90 days), not honoring signs....sweet jesus I could go on forever."

"

Home Depot certainly did a number on me when it came to installing two external doors on my house. They got them both crooked, and one had a gap so large that the wind blew through it. The guy spent 2-3 days trying to install them, even staying until 4am. He was CLEARLY incompetent. He brought his girlfriend/wife with him to nag at him.

Home Depot's solution? No, we won't look at it to see if it was done right. But we'll be happy to send the same guy back to do even more work. Oh? You refuse to let him work at your house ever again? There's nothing more I can do. Okay. I'll mark this job as "complete".

Yes. For real.

BONUS: The crackpot installer, I am told by two people at Home Depot, was promoted to the position as an installation manager in Arkansas.

My further folly: A year or two later, I paid Home Depot to come look at the mess (which they agreed was f'ed up) and then they charged me $300 to fix it. "Because I didn't complain while it was in warranty."

Of course, I complained and complained when it was in warranty. Even wrote a letter to the store manager (who never replied and then was replaced). But their only solution was to keep sending the incompetent fool back out to my house.

I've since switched to Lowe's for everything. "

"I had a really bad experience with Home Depot this winter.

I bought some carpet from them to be installed. It was the nicest stuff I found for what I wanted to spend. I was given a rough quote based on my own measurements (46 sq yards) and set up dates.

I was told they'd match an installation price from Lowes. Then after they came out to measure (for which I paid $50 just for that), they told me they *wouldn't* price match, because it was different carpet. (Lowes doesn't carry that exact model.)

Then they tell me that although I have 46 sq yards of space, but they must sell me 56 sq yards of carpet (and 56 sq yards of padding!), because it comes in rolls. At this point if I wanted any carpet installed before Christmas, I had no choice and had to pay the inflated cost, and did.
But HD will never get another dime from me again."

"Home Depot because they take advantage of people who think they are the experts (or at least semi-qualified) and don't know any better. Their asshattery affects a lot more people in much worse ways."

"Isn't Home Depot the one that sent a contractor, who was also a registered sex offender, to a female customer's home?"

"Home depot sells it's lumber at loss when it comes to town to put local competitors out of business. As soon as they close up shop, prices skyrocket."

"Ive only had one good service experience and that was from the door greeter who did his best to help me find glue (the actual guy who KNEW where it was didnt bother to help me after pointing it out.

"Glue's right there, its all the same, bye". "

""replaced them with surly low-paid workers".. Boy is this ever true. We have completely given up going to HD for anything. The people working there are total morons. They don't know how to do a damn thing and they act like you're bothering them when you try to order something that's not stocked...Bunch of f*ing idiots!"

"I had to vote for Home Depot, primarily because of their former CEO Robert Nardelli. He has to one of the worst when it comes to the "heads I win, tails you lose" style of corporate leadership. He's the one primarily responsible for turning Home Depot into a joke.

His stupidest idea was the effort to get into contractor sales. So long as HD is selling 'installation services' that makes them direct competitors with the local contractors. If I were one of the latter, why in the world would I do anything to help HD's bottom line.

Last but not least, you have to admire Nardelli's diabolical genius: he was able to walk away from his legacy of incompetence and mediocrity with over $240 million in compensation. Like I said, "Heads I win, tails you lose.""

"Just this weekend, it took them 40 minutes to check in a rental sod cutter I was returning. The problem? The guy had thrown in ramps "for free" so I could roll the thing in and out of my van. However, the "free" ramps ended up being $8, a charge which they didn't show me until the contract was "closed." It took them about 35 minutes to figure out how to open the contract back up and delete the cost of the ramps.

When I was renting the sod cutter, they had 2 in stock, one with a full tank of gas and one empty. They tried to push the empty one on me. WTF???

Oh, and the previous time I rented equipment from them, the guy tore up the door gasket in my van, then proceeded to swear at me for his decision to help me load the equipment. Home Depot's insurance paid for a new gasket and I got an apology from the guy's manager for that one."

"My last trip to Home Depot was to involve getting a piece of material cut, only to have a nice old man tell me that the cutter is broken and he has asked management to get it fixed for weeks now and he is pretty sure that they will never bother to fix it because that would cost money. At least he was honest!"

"The managers at Home Depot are little more than gatekeepers. They just open and close the doors, they have no real authority. Everything is micromanaged from Atlanta, even the air conditioning is tied to the weather there!"

"My vote goes to Home Depot, if only because its stores in Central Florida haven't banned con man/handy man Jim Metts from trolling for victims in its aisles. A link to the latest development in his saga is here, courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel"

" It's American big business in general. American corporations reduce customers to sheer numbers. The individual consumer is meaningless. Stock price is all that counts

Rather than spend a God damned dime on customer relations, companies will instead spend billions on asinine TV and print ads touting how wonderful they are and how they LOVE their freespirited customers.

All their ads use the same basic formula: HAPPY HAPPY CHEERFUL INTELILGENT employees who in turn are EAGER top help and serve HAPPY HAPPY CHEERFUL customers.

If you, the individual, don't have the same HAPPY HAPPY experience in real life, then YOU are the problem. Probably because you hate America. It certainly couldn't be the fault of our company. Heaven forbid.

Rather than build a company's reputation on solid customer care, quality and service, most companies find it more economical and profitable to create the ILLUSION of customer care, quality and service through expensive TV ads."

"out here in the pacific northwest home depot is using general contractors who refuse to hire union workers. specifically, carpenters. guess lower wages are the reasoning behind the former ceo's 300 million dollar golden parachute, right? don't know about you but i no longer shop home depot, period."

"I work weekends at HD, where we're forced to use 19th century (or so they seem) Dell computers. Both suck, but I voted HD because our equipment is always broken, we carry far more products than we can reasonably fit on the shelves, and we're severly understaffed. Today, I covered 6 departments."

"

I have worked for the Home Depot for a number of years. I voted for the Home Depot, and I hate Dell. HD stores are completely understaffed, and it might get worse. This is a bottom line issue for corporate. I once inquired at a district meeting as to the problem of having only 5 associates covering an entire store during the hours of 6-9 am. The response from district leadership was to respond to my question with a question "How many customers do you help between the hours of 6-9 am?". You early morning shoppers are NOT important to the business.

TRUE: Stores replaced master electricians/plumbers/generally useful retired workers with underpaid kids who don't give a frack if you leave unhappy.

TRUE: Since the replacement of Bob Nardelli, stores have been required to rehire one experienced plumber and one experienced electrician per store. My store fulfilled this requirement with 2 kids in their late 20's who studied in each trade, but never made master.

But my biggest problem with the Home Depot is their hypocritical stance about going 'green'. Over last weekend we handed out earth bags and pamphlets about how to save the earth. Tomorrow we are celebrating earth day.

TRUE: Today we threw away a cart load of brand new sockets, socket extensions, and other brand spanking new hand tools that were on clearance that wouldn't sell. Because it is better to put them into a landfill than donate them or sell them on the cheap. This happens EVERY DAY. Light fixtures, ladders, tile, wire, virtually anything in the store, if it doesn't sell, we are forced to put it into a dump rather than donate/sell at a significant loss.

Today a woman asked me to get a yellow tagged discounted fountain down for her. It was marked ~$50. When she got to the register, it rang up .01. ONE PENNY. The cashier asked me what to do, and if I had followed company policy, I would have denied her the fountain she wanted, taken it and put it in the trash. That was the 'Right' thing to do, according to THD. I gave a generic sku and charged the woman $20. It was originally $299.

But honestly, many of the complaints I am reading here are just bad luck with bad people, possibly with bad moods. I am not without sin. On a day to day basis, I am either the best associate you can encounter, or the biggest prick you have ever met. I will cut you deals that you won't believe, or I will make you feel stupid and inferior if you rub me the wrong way. We are instructed to discount merchandise if customers mention they want to look elsewhere. I was commanded to do this by a "Senior Merchandising Executive" for the company. If we are out of a product, and you are told you can come back and get it in X number of days, that associate is not doing his job. We are supposed to offer you the next best product for the same price you wanted to pay. If you mention you want to go to Lowes/other local competitor to shop around, we are instructed to discount merchandise, even if it is only comparable, not exactly the same.

FRAK THD and every money grubbing, faceless multinational earth-raping corporation. FRAK Capitalism. "

Wellpoint:

"HMO that believes colonoscopies don't hurt beat incompetent cable companies any day."

"HMO's have been a thorn in the side of the health care industry that needs to be pulled and burned. More people have died under their care from bureaucratic stupidity vs being insured by a regular insurer, even BCBS."

"$2600 root canal - they covered about $435. filling? $16. right, like any licensed dentist is going to do a filling for $16. the freaking novocaine dose costs more. it's at the point that i'm trying to convince my employer to drop the dental coverage & switch us over to a savings plan w/ some sort of employer contribution."

"Personal information that may have included Social Security numbers and pharmacy or medical data for about 128,000 WellPoint Inc. customers in several states was exposed online over the past year, the health insurer said Tuesday."

"I don't want market forces to decide whether I should go see that doctor for that infection. No gas for a thing shoved up your ass? Not a chance."

"I just had a colonoscopy done. No freaking way would I get it without sedation. With sedation, the worst part was the prep. I wasn't even aware they had done anything as I went right to la-la land and woke up an hour or so later feeling more or less funky-fresh."

STILL OPEN FOR VOTING: Wal-Mart vs Citibank, Capital One vs ATT, Sallie Mae vs eBay/Paypal, TransUnion vs Diebold, Best Buy vs CompUSA, DeBeers vs Verizon, Exxon vs United Airlines, Sony vs Ticketmaster, Comcast vs The American Arbitration Association

Wal-Mart:

"I am voting for walmart because of their low wages, the dead eyes in many of its employees (I know..... I used to be one long ago),and their tendancy to drive their manufacturers out of business/into bankruptcy by demanding lower & lower costs."

"To me Wal-Mart is the epitome of everything that is bad in our country right now. Outsourcing of jobs to China. Low quality dangerous goods. Putting mom and pop stores out of business and making the entire country look like a homogenized genericana wasteland."

"in a battle of evil, it's always Wal-Mart. Always."

"Wal-Mart's biggest crime? They stole the smiley face. Give us back Mr. Smiley Face!"

"I knew they pushed manufacturers to lesser quality items for their stores, but I was not expecting this to trickle down to frozen pizza. I know they have committed greater evils, but man, screwing with a DiGiorno should be punishable by death."

"walmart knowingly uses its size against its manuafacterers. When walmart says they will sell a manufacturer's product the manufacturer first gets a decent deal from walmart, but has to retool & buy more manufacturing facilities in order to meet walmart's demand. THEN once the manufacturer is in debt & dependant upon walmart.... walmart puts the squeeze on.... demanding lower costs. And this happens every time the contract is negotiated and eventually the manufacturer goes under."

"Walmart is actively evil. Eviscerating middle class family stores? Evil. Workers rights violations, shoddy pay, dangerous products made for the poor, ironically made by the poor of the third world. Evil. They make a profit off of screwing people over."

"They drive smaller stores out of business so people have to drive to their instead of walking to the smaller ones. "

"I will say that it's usually the terrible store managers that ruin the experience for both the employees, and the customers end up getting the brunt of it. As a former supervisor, I'd probably still be there part-time if it weren't for the constant belittling that my coworkers and I went through."

" Not shopping there isn't always easy. In some areas, pre-existing businesses crumble in Wal-Mart's wake, and those who don't may drive their prices up, or resort to selling crap as well.

I'm not sure that Wal-Mart hasn't "allowed" instances of identity theft and fraud. Given the number of stores they have, and the amount of business that they do, I don't think it's implausible. Maybe we just haven't heard about it yet.

Wal-Mart DOES cost taxpayers. As of 2004, they had received at least 650 million (and that's a generous, low end estimate. I've seen figures as high as 1 billion) dollars in government subsidies — free/low-cost land, job training funds, sales tax rebates, tax credits, infrastructure assistance. This doesn't include the Wal-Mart employees who have qualified for -and taken- food stamps (or other forms of public assistance), or those who have enrolled themselves/their kids in health programs run by the states. How much unemployment has been paid out to those who have lost jobs in their communities when Wal-Marts rolled in?

I'm sure Wal-Mart has done some a great amount of good in some of the communities they've entered, but many of their actions have been/are worthy of contempt. "

"I bought a GE Skillet from them a while back and it was a piece of shit. To find out why, I checked the box and it said something like "made for Wal-Mart" and ever since then, when I do venture into Wal-Mart I always check for that label.

Actually, come to think of it, the last thing I bought after that skillet was a small grill, otherwise I haven't bothered with Wal-Mart for any appliances."

"Has Wal-Mart given any money to the gay and lesbian cause here lately? I hear they are running out of rainbow posters."

Citibank:

"Best Buy lost (stole) my mothers laptop that was left @ the Geek Squad. It was a lemon junker so we disputed the charge with the credit card company (Citibank) when Best Buy refused to do anything about it. Long story short. We actually LOST that dispute. Couldn't believe it. We had a clear cut case with a police report even. 100% legit FRAUD on Best Buy's part. Citibank said they were "unable to secure a credit from Best Buy's bank" therefore there was nothing they could do. We would have to sue Best Buy in court. Nice dispute handling Citibank. Two months later we get an advertisment with our Citibank statement with special offers from Best Buy in it. NO WONDER they couldn't do anything for us. Bastards."

"

Once I was locked out of my online Citi account after entering my password correctly (seriously-no caps lock, I pecked each letter to get it right). I called because I had a payment due that day, and I was asked what my reminder word was. I said, "It should be [x]."
"Sorry that's not right."
"OK, then it's it's [x] with an Z at the end."

From this point on, he chose to completely ignore my second answer.

"When you submitted this you picked a pet's name."
"No, that's just the subject I picked. I never use my pets' names."
"But you picked that."
"That's not the word I used. How stupid would it be to use a word so easily guessed?"
"Well look, it says a pet name. What are your pet names?"
"Tima, Janeane, and Raz."
"None of those are the answer."
"I just SAID it's not one of those. Look, if it's not [x] it's [x] with an Z at the end. I already said that."
"Neither of those is right. I won't discuss this any further."

At this point he got a lovely explosion in his ear about his inadequate level of intelligence and various other lovlies I shouldn't repeat. I hung up and immediately called the same number, getting a woman this time. I explained my situation, that I'd already spoken with a Mongoloid, and was hoping she could help. She asked my word, and I said, "It's either [x] or [x] with an O at the end."
"OK, wait about five minutes, and your account will be working again."

That guy's only one of various CSRs who have been relatively useless. "

"citibank's lending practices seem to be similar to payday/title loan shops"

"Citibank held my savings account funds hostage for almost 3 months. It was an epic saga. Then again, my parents met while they both worked at Citibank. Can I vote against the place that allowed my parents to meet, and therefore allowed me to be born? What a dilemma."

"

Citibank (I prefer to call them "ShittyBank") had a legit promotion going for a "free ipod" where you HAD to apply online for a checking account.

Did that, filled out everything they requested, then waited. And waited. And Waited. about a couple three weeks, with calls in to them to check on it. Then the idiots decide that you need to bring ID to a local branch because anyone could be anyone online - (OK, that's true, but if I have to go into the bank anyway what's the point of applying online, eh?). So I go to my local branch, show IDs and such to the manager and have them contact their seemingly incompetent online banking division to (hopefully) move things along. Also opened up a savings account while I was there to get interest on the minimum required balance for the promo. The checking account needed to come from the online monkeys because they initiated it.

So I took my savings account info home, and waited and waited and waited.... more screwing around over the phones with their online people and wasted calls to the manager of a couple local ShittyBank branches just to open a checking account(!). About a month-and-a-half in I had my checking account and ipod on the way, and couldn't wait for the 366th day when I could cancel that account and never have to deal with these idiots again.

If that's the caliber of intelligence floating around our financial centers then I'll go with the opinion that it was stupidity and not *all* corruption that led bankers to believe houses would never stop increasing in value and that poor people would suddenly become rich under Republican policies. I'm going mattress shopping soon, as the S&L's were killed off by the Reaganite deregulated greed + corruption and Banks seem to be headed in the same direction now. Lay off the Koolade, dummies. "

"its contribution to the subprime mortgage crisis is inexcusable."

"Way back when I was a young thing in college, I came home one day to a very nervous roommate who had taken a screaming, angry call from a Citi rep (I had a student credit card). Said rep refused to believe my roommate's telling her that I was in class and therefore unavailable, and berated the roommate at length, telling her "you'd better make sure she calls me back".

Mystified, because I was paid up, I called back. Turned out there was some minor discrepancy in their records regarding my address and they wanted to call me to confirm it was correct."

"Sure, let's sell you a mortgage you can't afford, then package it for speculators. The US Government will bail us out when it all comes crashing down. We're a bank, so we deserve huge fees for basic customer service, but when it comes to actual banking, we forgot how to do it right. Our bad."

"I voted Citibank because they had my student loans while I was an undergrad. In my senior year, they refused to process my in-school deferment and one of their reps told me that if I had continued taking out new Citibank loans they would have acted differently.

Despite my efforts to get them to acknowledge that I was in school, fulltime, and filed my paperwork by registered mail, they still refused to defer my payments and as such, I ran into default. It took a year of garnished wages before the DOE finally helped me move my loans over to Sallie Mae.

I hate Citibank and I know that I have cost them at least $100K in business by insuring that none of my friends or family ever open or use Citi accounts for anything. No one has a Sears, Home Depot, or other company card that is handled by this horrible company and I will continue to dissuade everyone from using them.

And no...there is nothing Citi can do short of erasing my loan debt to them completely, before I ever forgive them.

Congrats Citi...you made a lifelong enemy out of me and I will tell everyone I know what you did to me and I hope I can deny you $1 million or more in business by spreading the word."

STILL OPEN FOR VOTING: Capital One vs ATT, Sallie Mae vs eBay/Paypal, TransUnion vs Diebold, Best Buy vs CompUSA, DeBeers vs Verizon, Exxon vs United Airlines, Sony vs Ticketmaster, Comcast vs The American Arbitration Association

Here's the gist of her argument:

I'm reasonably sure that many people do not make the same purchases when they pay with plastic. This isn't just a feeling or anecdotal evidence. Researchers have found that people's willingness to purchase more products or services increases with the use of plastic.

In their groundbreaking research, Drazen Prelec and Duncan Simester of the Sloan School of Management at MIT found that study subjects paid more when instructed to use a credit card rather than cash. In fact, they found people were willing to pay up to 100 percent more with plastic.

Credit cards empower us to spend more on the same junk we would normally buy with cash. According to science, this has many causes:

• The delayed payment makes us treat credit differently from cash.
• Charging several items to a card doesn't help you identify overspending on any single item.
• Forking out cash provides a strong visual clue that your wallet is getting lighter.

Singletary ultimately argues that credit may be fine, so long as you realize that it may exacerbate spending. She challenges all non-believers to put down their cards for a month and pay only with cash, and then compare their spending to previous months.

What do you think?

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Like it or not, it's unwise to use credit [Seattle PI]
(Photo: Getty)

Capital One:

"they're a bunch of dicks that constantly send me auto loan offers even though they won't give me a credit limit of more than $500 and a shitty as hell APR."

"If you've EVER had to call Crapital One's customer service, the decision would be very clear to you. Being passed off to one incompetent rep after another, then transferred to the Spanish speaking line, then hung up on (elapsed time: 1 hour) is not awesome."

"I'm tired of them wanting to know what's in my wallet."

"They issued my daughter, who has terrible credit and no job a credit card a few months back. I'm sure they must have known, with her credit score and rating that she would never make the payments. So of course now she has late fees on top of late fees on top of an unpaid balance. Not saying it is their fault she is not paying her bill of course, but what the hell kind of business sense does it make to give someone a credit card when they have such bad credit?

America, no wonder we are on the road to ruin."

"Capital One sends us two credit card offers a week. Like clockwork."

"I have a personal history with capital one & really HATE them with a passion. Back in the day when I was not as consumer savvy.... I had a card through them. Even though I ALWAYS paid my bill on time every month, for some reason (at least 3-4 times a year) I would incur their $25 late fees. I believe this is because they have a special "processing facility" (in atlanta I think) that's sole purpose is to delay mailed payments before sending them off to the final payment processing place. This was just a theory I had long ago to explain why the bills I sent off way ahead of time didn't make it on time somehow.

There was also an issue when i went to cancel the card because of their late fee shenanigans. They kept keeping minute interest amounts on my card so they could keep me as a customer (talking about like less than 3 dollars). I had to LITERALLY OVERPAY to get it to where they would finally cancel my account. The miserable bastards!"

"Capital One sucks. I frequently carry a small balance on my card, always pay on time and never go over my limit, they're bombarding me with home loan offers now that I'm looking to buy a house, and I have a 780 credit score... YET, for some reason, will NOT raise my card's credit limit over $700. WTF?

I can't even buy a new fridge for the house I'm planning to purchase with that limit. I have the cash to pay, but want the added benefits/protections of buying it with a credit card, and don't want to have to open a new card to do it. Looks like I may have no choice..."

"

Voted for Crapital One... I have a card with them.

A year back, I applied for a secured card, where I had to put a deposit on it. Granted, I didd't have a credit history, and only had 1 other card open at that time (with my bank, and the limit was $500.00) I could see why they would charge me.

Fast forward 11 months later.. I now have 6 (yep thats right) 6 credit cards. That old card I had before Capital One, well now it's a gold card (Gold Cards in Canada, excluding Crapital one have to be a credit limit of $5k or higher), I have another US dollar card with a 5k limit, and 2 other gold cards from major banks.

What does Crapital do? Well they see I am not using my card, so they raise the limit to $1500.00 and dont want to budge on ever getting my security deposit back or getting rid of the damn annual fees! All my cards have 0.00 annual fee with the major banks, if Crapital wants to play, why dont they play fair!

Now I am getting purchasing checks every 2 weeks like clockwork... I am waiting until next month, thats when my 1 year anniversary with them is up and either they are changing my card to no annual fee and refunding my deposit, or I am cancelling "

"C1 sends my son, the unemployed college student, at least three offers a week. I usually intercept them (the Postmaster General can bite my hairy white ass) and run them through the shredder unopened, but just in case, I also made sure the kid gets the utter illogic of someone like him being in possession of a credit card. I'd almost rather see him join the Marines than get hooked up with Capitol One."

"I voted for C1 because the amount of paper they mail out, and the resulting ecological impact of all the dead trees and all the spent fuel of the mail trucks is atrocious."

AT&T:

"AT&T's willingness to help the government illegally spy on citizens that elevates them pretty much to the level of absolute scum."

"knowingly illegal colluding with the government + blatant attempt at monopolizing the telecom industry is really, really bad form."

"Now the problem I'm having with Ma Bell right now is that she's charging me Utility User Taxes for a jurisdiction I don't live in or have any connection to whatsoever. It's about $15 a month and it's adding up. I've called and faxed over official statements from my city's clerk and they insist I have to pay the taxes of the neighboring city. My zip code bleads into the big city so they insist I should be paying their taxes. I had this same problem with Verizon and they cried the whole administrative burden defense and said sorry we can't help you. After awhile I gave up because it was at the time an immaterial amount due to having a lower bill."

"Gee, didn't AT&T get broken up just a few years back into a lot of baby Bells because it was a huge, arrogant monopoly. And now it's right back to AT&T and being a huge, arrogant monopoly again. WTF. Don't we ever learn?"

"AT&T got my vote for helping W take a dump on the Constitution and for having poor customer service. Bonus points for that time in college when they charged me $7 for a 1 minute payphone call."

"hey sent my 84 year old father a CD for the $10 DSL which gave instructions for him to click here to finish and they left out the button to click to finish. I thought well maybe at 84 he can't see the button so I checked and sure enough it was missing so it couldn't be downloaded. So I tried to call the DSL number to find out why the click here button was missing and why when I tried to order the DSL online (after spending hours trying to find the $10 deal), it said they have no phone account for my father even though he has BOTH local and long distance service with AT&T. I got routed to 8 different states, not one of which was mine (NY). Each time they said let me send you to NY and each time I ended up talking to someone in another state who told me that they could not help me because I was from a different state. I said can you just tell me if they have DSL in New York. The answer from all was NOPE. The guy from Alabama asked me if the service he was providing was excellent causing me to spit out my coffee but I said well let's see if you can send me to a person in NY and then I will let you know. He sent me to Kentucky. I hung up. I will never do business with this company. I am in the process of changing my fathers phone service as well."

"AT&T is one of the worst companies ever. Even when dead, they managed to come back to life. They have screwed me out of some much money for cell phones and even back in the day for "long distance access". Remember that crap? I would love to have an iPhone, but will never buy one until they get rid of AT&T."

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

STILL OPEN FOR VOTING: Sallie Mae vs eBay/Paypal, TransUnion vs Diebold, Best Buy vs CompUSA, DeBeers vs Verizon, Exxon vs United Airlines, Sony vs Ticketmaster, Comcast vs The American Arbitration Association

Here's what readers said in previous rounds about why they hate these two companies...

Sallie Mae:

"Sallie Mae has a program with my university where they let you divide your tuition for a semester up into monthly payments. But they charge you a $14 service charge for any payment made with a credit card! The only free way to pay is to have it automatically taken from a bank account... and we all know how reliable that is. Needless to say, I don't use this payment plan anymore."

"I recently had to change my home phone number due to harassment by SallieMae and the collection agencies they sold a debt to.

Someone has a similar name to mine (only the middle name is different), and they have been bugging me for 6 months. Once I finally got SallieMax to stop calling, they sold the debt to someone, and now THEY won't stop calling.

Problem is, the new collector does not show up on Caller ID (shows up as Name Unavailable 000-000-0000) and they refuse to tell me which company they work for. "

"they have ruined the lives of many of my friends. They use scummy debt collectors, and are more than willing to garnish paychecks that are already too small to live on."

"Was SallyMae also the one that paid bounties to schools that steered loans their way?"

"

I pay my student loans on time but I still have a horrible time dealing with Sallie Mae for consolidations and other regular issues.

They outsource their customer service overseas. Financial aid is a complicated business that doesn't need to be further complicated by adding cultural barriers. I have no problem with accents, but I have a problem when the person on the other end doesn't understand the concept of "half time grad student in thesis hours."

They also cheated me out of my grace period, refused to tell me why and instead, just threw some economic hardship deferment forms at me to get me to stop asking.

Also, their marketing is insane. I was receiving consolidation offers even after I called to find out I couldn't consolidate until after I graduated!

Now that I'm in repayment I get bombarded by emails about their special programs and services. It's difficult to sift through the crap to figure out what is important.

They don't have to worry about customer service because once they've got us we can't go anywhere else and the government subsidizes them. "

"Way back when I was going to grad school, I decided to take the minimum amount of credits (all credit requirements already met) while working on my dissertation. Sallie Mae (or one of its progenitors) promptly started requiring me to repay my student loan. I called and asked how I could get it postponed. Their rep told me I had to become at least a half-time student. So I added a few more credits (at several hundred dollars a credit). The notices for repayment continued to arrive. I called again and was told being a half-time student didn't entitle me to receive a postponement. I told them I had been told otherwise by one of their reps. They said tough, they couldn't be held responsible for misinformation by their reps. Ended up my paying some $500 (a nice chunk some 20 years ago for a grad student) more than I should have. A really great organization. We're not responsible for any information we might give you."

"

Sallie Mae is terrible. My wife has student loans through them and while she was still in school, she was constantly bombarded by credit card offers, "deals" on MP3 players and TV's, car ads and freaking LIFE INSURANCE offers.

Now that my wife is out of school, I have begun repaying the loans. The latest thing Sallie Mae emails us constantly about is this thing called UPromise. Basically it supposedly helps you save to pay off your loans by automatically putting aside the change on debit card purchases (so if you spend $2.48, it would put $0.52 in your UPromise account). For me, totally unnecessary, but it would seem on face that this is a genuine program. That is until you really check it out and see that it's just another way to expose you to more ads imploring you to blow your money on anything BUT student loans.

On top of that, Sallie Mae will not automatically withdraw monthly payments from my bank account in excess of their preset payment plans. Surprise, surprise, all of their plans are as close to the minimum payment as possible with no indication that this will end up costing you thousands of dollars during the lifetime of the loan.

I understand they are running a business not a charity, but I just think it's sick the way they prey upon college students and recent college graduates. I would never consider them for any loan of any type ever again."

"I dislike Sallie Mae for the simple fact that they send me TONS of junk mail, even after changing my accounting settings and submitting a request in writing."

eBay/Paypal:

"In the early days, eBay used to be a flea market shopper's paradise. I could find one-of-a-kind items sold by honest sellers cl