Comcast keeps promising that this is the year their legendarily bad customer service gets an overhaul, but consumers don’t seem to be buying it. A national survey asking consumers about cable and internet companies has, once again, dropped Comcast and Time Warner Cable right at the very bottom of the heap. [More]
bad service
Don’t Threaten To Burn Down Applebee’s Just Because They Won’t Refund Your Meal From 2 Nights Before
By 2.13.14
Word to the wise, don’t threaten to burn down a restaurant days after you’ve eaten there. You won’t receive the refund you want and you’ll end up in jail. Just ask a New Jersey man, he knows how it goes. [More]
This Dunkin' Donuts Employee Doesn't Run On Anything
By 9.14.10
I guess it’s not appropriate to force Dunkin’ Donuts employees to drink the coffee they sell, but they should at least show up to work with their short term memory intact. [More]
Sprint Wouldn't Let Me Get My Money Back Because My Warranty Expired 2 Hours Ago
By 6.25.10
“Darth” bought a Sprint phone with a two-year contract, both of which have given him nothing but trouble. He tried to bail out of the deal under Sprint’s 30-day money-back guarantee, but was told he was two hours too late. He stuck it out and his phone continued to torment him, and when he tried to use the warranty he was told — incorrectly, in his view — that the device had water damage. [More]
AT&T Capping Data On New iPhone, iPad Plans
By 6.2.10
AT&T has officially delivered on the threats made by its consumer business director Ralph de la Vega last December: it’s switching to usage-based pricing on data plans for smartphones and the iPad. Starting Monday, all new AT&T customers who buy an iPad, iPhone, Blackberry or other smartphone and purchase the necessary data plan will have two options: $25 for 2 gigabytes, or $15 for 200 megabytes. [More]
This Chase Customer Service Rep Is An Impenetrable Fortress
By 12.11.09
Stephanie just encountered a Chase CSR who I’m pretty sure will never fall victim to social engineering, and who would likely be unbreakable in a courtroom cross-examination, too. Of course, in Stephanie’s situation this just means that the CSR refuses to help her in any way at all, which isn’t the kind of thing you hope to find when you call customer service. [More]
Delta Screws Man Out Of Family Trip, Business Conference, WSJ Interview, And Two Flights
By 7.15.09
Wow, the folks at Delta really must hate the creative director behind and star of those UPS whiteboard commercials, Andy Azula. On the open letter he published today, he notes that he’s a frequent-flyer with Platinum status on Delta, and until this past June one of their “biggest fans.” Then Delta forced him, his wife, and his twin seven-year-olds to wait 13 hours in the Richmond, VA airport, while their luggage remained trapped on a plane that was forever “almost fixed.”
Save Money On ProFlowers Roses, Re-Gift Last Week's Flowers Instead
By 5.8.09
Why pay for ProFlowers when you can get the same effect by dumpster diving for old arrangements that look just as good? Our reader Hakoken3 paid ProFlowers $92 so they’d deliver 18 roses to his girlfriend this morning on her birthday. He paid extra to ensure that the roses would be delivered by noon, and at 12:01 they showed up. Unfortunately, they were so wilted and near-death that they looked like hand-me-down flowers that some luckier person had thrown out.
On Costa Cruises, Your "Waiter" Will Take Your Bread Basket Away And Give It To Another Table
By 4.10.09
There were lots of problems on the recent Costa Cruise vacation that Krista and her friends took, including lukewarm hot tubs, closed buffets, and missing towels. But the biggest surprise was when their waiter was replaced on the second day with a newly promoted, untrained busboy who abandoned them nightly. Well, when he wasn’t taking their sugar or stealing their basket of bread.
McDonald's Worker Screams And Runs Away From Little People, Probably Shouldn't Be Assigned To Register
By 3.26.08
When Ethan Wade, who has dwarfism, went into a McDonald’s in South Carolina recently to order some food, the cashier took one look at him and ran off, waving her hands in the air and shouting “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” She kept shouting from the back, and another employee came up to tell Ethan that she had a phobia of little people. Said Wade:
An employee in the franchise office told Wade about what the woman had said. Wade said, “The employee had stated to her, ‘Imagine if you saw a snake or a spider, how would you respond?’ And that employee said she understood that. And I said, ‘That’s unbelievable. I am a human being.'”
Pepsi & Amazon Won't Fix PepsiStuff Error, Keep Ignoring Customer
By 3.11.08
Jon saved up a bunch of PepsiStuff points and decided to redeem them for an item PepsiStuff is promoting on its website. That’s how these point redemption programs usually work, you see. PepsiStuff.com apparently thinks otherwise—they’ll let you redeem the points for a COBY player (ha ha ha ha), but the Sony alarm clock is just redemption bait. You’re not supposed to actually pick that.
TigerDirect Screws Up Order, Then Screws Up Customer Service Response
By 2.18.08
Matt bought a camera from TigerDirect. He monitored the status of the order online, and saw that it was marked “shipped” a few days after he placed the order, so he returned the other, more expensive, camera he’d bought at Best Buy. Unfortunately, the TigerDirect camera never arrived.
AA Has Devil Lady For Check-In At Huntsville, Alabama Airport
By 12.12.07
Rodrigo writes of American Airlines, “In the last 4 travels between me, my wife and my father-in-law, ALL of them had been pretty bad. But the last one was the worst by far.” However, they had lots of miles to cash in, a tight budget, and travel needs, so it was back into the belly of the beast for one more adventure: “First nonsense of the day was when the lady there claimed the maximum was 50 pounds for the luggage. Ok here we go again.”
Commentors Speak: Responsible Ways To Get Your Waiter Fired
We love you guys. When we launched, there was a concern that our comments section would be filled with one-noted, petulant griping — after all, that’s pretty much all we post. But we think you guys are pretty much on the same ball we are — at heart, we aren’t commune hippies with irrational hatred of capitalism, but avid consumers who love buying enough to try to remain unblinkered, who try to remain reasonable beyond both irrational hatred or the empty titillation of some savvy PR temptress.