Be sure to read our Ultimate Consumerist Guide to Fighting Back, a go-to handbook for the dissatisfied consumer. Once you've decided to go the executive customer service right, be sure you read this first so you know what to say when you call the corporate avatar of your choice.

The Consumerist Executive Customer Service Index

ACS
Adelphia
Air Tran
Alamo
Alaska Airlines
Allegiant
Aloha
Amazon
America West
American Airlines
American Express
Amtrak
Apple
ATA
AT&T
AT&T Wireless
Bank of America
Barnes and Noble
Bell Canada
Best Buy
Blizzard
Blockbuster
Blogger
Bloomingdales
Blue Cross/Blue Shield
British Airways
Borders
Busey Bank
Buy.com
Cablevision
Charter Communications
Chase
Circuit City
Citibank
Comcast
Continental
cox
Delta
Direc-TV
Discover Card
Dish
Disney
Ebay
Enterprise
Equifax
Experian
Fedex
Frontier Airlines
Fry's
Gamefly
Geek Squad
Georgia Power
Helio
Home Depot
Humana
HSBC
IKEA
ING Direct
Insight
Keybank
Lenovo
Loew's
Macy's
Microsoft (and Xbox)
Midwest Airlines
Motorola
National City
Nicors
Northwest Airlines
Norton
Office Depot
Office Max
Orbitz
Paypal
Pitney Bowes
Qwest
RCN
Regions Bank
Register.com
Ryan Air
Samsung
Seagate
Sears
Sirius
Skybus
Sony Ericcson
Spirit Airlines
Sprint
Sports Authority
Staples
Symantec
T-mobile
Target
Time Warner Cable
TransUnion
Uhaul
United Airlines
United Health Care
UNUM Life Insurance
UPS
US Airways
US Cellular
Verizon landline/DSL/Fios
Verizon Wireless
Vonage
Wachovia
Walmart
Washington Mutual
Wells Fargo

In the event you can't find the info you are looking for here, you can scan our backlog of contact info, or use Google to uncover the addresses yourself. In the event you find something we don't have, feel free to share at tips@consumerist.com.

Researched by Alex Jarvis
Last updated: 11/07/2008

Here's what some of you had to say about these two companies:

Countrywide:

"What a bunch of scammy scumbags."

"It's it's not Countrywide by a landslide, I'll be shocked."

"Countrywide is officially my pick to win this whole competition. "

United Health Care

"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!!!"

"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."

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.

Here's what our readers said when they nominated these two companies:

Chase:
"Nothing about their credit cards is good. They are legalized loan sharks."
"They like to play musical payment-due-dates."
"raises rates without notice, etc."
"I got a credit card with them that was supposed to be 0% interest. The first time I carried over a balance they charged me interest. And than I have received no end to the special offers that they offer through their card. They are the most annoying credit card company out there."
"Their customer service sucks, they abuse their employees and they are one of the big four behind the Payday Loan industry."
"I've been through hell with Chase credit services"

United Health Care:
"Ruining people's lives and/or killing them"
"Their service is abysmal, and they're currently being sued for it. They intentionally underpay both medical providers and consumers."
"All their employees upstairs got to the cafeteria before I did (at 11:55) and bought up all the Chicken Parm Rotellos for lunch. I really wanted one... I had to settle for crappy pizza."
"Any company in the business of letting people die is a bad one."
"operate on "screw the customer" as their guiding principle. United Health also offers the additional service of making life miserable for actual health care providers."
"absolute bottom of the pile insurance company."

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:
Clear Channel vs Toyota
Countrywide Home Loans vs Dish Network
Sprint vs Hewlett Packard
Blue Cross Blue Shield vs CNN
Gamestop vs Monster Cable
Bank Of America vs Toys R' Us
Toshiba vs Microsoft
US Airways vs Washington Mutual
American Airlines vs Blockbuster
Time Warner Cable vs Radioshack
Wellpoint vs Charter Cable
Dell vs Home Depot
Sears vs Citibank
Wal-Mart vs TJMaxx
Mattel vs ATT
Capital One vs Video Professor
eBay/Paypal vs COX
Apple vs SallieMae
Diebold Vs Pfizer
MTV vs TransUnion
CompUSA vs DirecTV
Target vs Best Buy
Allstate vs Verizon
DeBeers vs 1800 flowers
Starbucks vs United Airlines
Exxon vs Crocs
Google Vs Sony
Ticketmaster vs Wachovia
Facebook vs The American Arbitration Association
Comcast vs Menu Foods

A Consumer Advocate named April from the Executive Office left me a message. She said my claim had been "reprocessed appropriately" and that a check was sent to my doctor's office, OB-GYN Associates of Pittsburgh, yesterday with the remaining balance. She said that the doctor I saw was indeed a UHC contracted doctor (no kidding!), and that my only responsibility was the $10 co-pay that I paid at the time of the visit.

The best part is that I just checked my claims online and the statement for this reprocessed claim does indeed show that a check was sent to the doctor and that I only owed $10, with a remark of "We Have Received More Information And Reconsidered These Charges." HA! She also gave me a phone number to call if I needed more information and to ask for her when calling. The number is: 1-800-842-2656. I definitely recommend posting this number on The Consumerist so that more people in my position will have access to the Consumer Advocate department. It only took 10.5 months and a public shaming, but at least I'm not out $90. Thanks so much for your help!

-Alexis

PREVIOUSLY: United Health Care Billing Nightmare

Alexis writes:

Hello, Consumerist. I read your blog daily but hoped I would never have to write in. Unfortunately, that day has come. I am covered by United Healthcare under my employer. On April 23rd of 2007, I went to my OB-GYN for my annual checkup. I did not receive any additional tests, services, etc, just the basic yearly checkup. I paid my $10 co-pay, which is all that is required for routine annual checkups such as this, and I was out the door. About a month later, I received a bill from my OB-GYN stating that UHC did not cover the visit and that I owed them $90, because I had already paid $10 at my visit. UHC stated: "This Preventative Physical Examination Or Related Test Is Not Covered." I called UHC and told them that all I had received was an annual check up. They apologized and said it was taken care of and that I did not owe any other money. Well, it is now February 21 2008, and I am still getting bills for $90 from OB-GYN Associates of Pittsburgh.

I have made an obscene amount of phone calls and wasted more time than I care to think about. After being told different various lies from UHC (i.e. "You weren't covered at the time of the exam," and "They are not in our network"), I finally thought I may have reached the bottom of this mystery. In early December, a supervisor at UHC told me that I needed to have the doctor's office re-submit the claim under a different doctor with an individual in-network tax ID number, because they initially submitted it under the name of nurse practitioner who performed my exam, and she is not recognized nor covered under the UHC network. Easy enough - I called the doctor's office and they complied. (Why did it take so long to get that answer? Why did they lie so many times in between?) The claim was processed on December 4th of 2007 under a doctor's name who is covered and recognized under UHC, and an Explanation of Benefits was drafted showing I owe $0 from this visit. Finally, I thought this $90 had died. I was wrong. Like a zombie, the $90 never dies. Just yesterday, February 20, 2008, I received yet another bill from OB-GYN associates of Pittsburgh asking for $90 in the mail. I thought I was going to hit the roof with anger. I called the doctor's office this afternoon and asked what was going on. They told me that UHC refuses to pay them the additional $90 for the exam because, yet again, it "wasn't covered." I call UHC and get the same BS again regarding re-submitting the claim under an individual in-network doctor's tax ID. When I told Jennifer, the representative, that they had already done this in December of 2007, her response was, "Well, obviously NOT." It's obvious that UHC is just trying to save $90 by forcing me to get so frustrated that I just end up writing the doctor's office a check. While $90 isn't a lot to most people, (and really shouldn't be a lot to UHC) it is to me, and it is also so incredibly unfair of UHC to be doing this, both to me and the doctor's office. The bottom line is that they are NOT going to get that $90 from me, because I don't owe them a cent more than my $10 copay. This has been going on for almost a year. I'm at the end of my rope.

I ended up filing a formal complaint with UHC. If it is not resolved, I will take the issue to the PA Attorney General's section on Healthcare. I would LOVE to do an EECB but I can find absolutely no e-mail addresses for any executives online anywhere. What is my next step?

firstname_firstinitialofmiddlename_lastname@uhc.com
firstname_lastname@uhc.com
firstletteroffirstnamelastname@uhc.com

I would suggest combining that with this list of executive officers...

Stephen J. Hemsley > President, Chief Executive Officer, Director
George L. Mikan III > Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
David S. Wichmann > Executive Vice President; President of Commercial Markets Group
William A. Munsell > Executive Vice President, President - Enterprise Services Group
Thomas L. Strickland > Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer
Lori Komstadius Sweere > Executive Vice President - Human Capital
Anthony Welters > Executive Vice President , President - Public & Senior Markets Group
Eric S. Rangen > Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer
Richard T. Burke > Non-Executive Chairman of the Board
Thomas H. Kean > Director

...And see if emailing your complaint to them gets you anywhere. Most of the addresses will bounce but perhaps a few will get through. If nothing happens, try a notch down the corporate ladder and find a list of regular VPs. You have a completely valid complaint, it just needs to be looked at by someone with half a brain to push your resolution through.

That's basically what United Health Care had CVS tell Kelly when she went to get a scrip filled. Kelly has taken the meds for three years. Her past two insurance companies covered the prescription without fail.

Now United Health Care has decided the drugs are too pricey, and, "...since a generic is not available, they've decided the best way to prevent paying too much for their clients' medication is to put limits on how many pills they'll pay for per client, per month," she writes.

Kelly needs to take 1.5 pills per day, 45 pills per month. United will only cover 30.

That's not the worst of it.

The pharmacist told her that if the pills are a medical necessity, as they are, she should have her doctor call the insurance company and explain the need for the medicine.

Kelly said to the CVS pill pusher, "An authentic written prescription from a medical doctor is not proof enough of medical necessity but a phone call with no real explanation will make giving me 15 more pills OK?"

The white coat affirmed this was correct. In addition, if United ultimately determines not to cover the 15 pills, the cost would be $50.

This practice seems pretty ridiculous and arbitrary on United Health Care's part but we have to ask, if you're going to switch providers, shouldn't you find out whether they cover the medicine you'll be needing?

Kelly's letter is inside.

Kelly writes: