How long do you hold a grudge against online / offline retailers?

I generally have very strong product and brand loyalty, however as I generally will buy what I feel is the 'best' option in any given situation I'm often not at the bottom of the barrel so expect an equivalent product or service. I find that either means I either rarley switch brands or products, or get very frustrated when they don't meet my expectations.

That said I would never class myself as a 'fan boy' of any real brand given any time I need to purhcase a replacement for something as much as my automatic choice will be from a manufacturer I've purchased from before, if they miss the mark I will look to move elsewhere. I was a large user of Apple products, mainly as I worked in audio media which (at least 10 years ago) was entirely Apple focused, I've owned most things from most of their product lines however more recently moved away as my original requirements haven't tied me into their eco-system and they just aren't the only option when it comes to quality build hardware anymore.

-- That said if a company mess me around it will take me a very significant reason to ever return to them.
 
Family Pizza in Walton-on-the-Naze will never get business from myself or my family again. The food is fine but their customer service is awful, they wouldn't budge an inch with an issue that would probably have cost them a fiver but in the long term, it's cost them many hundreds of pounds/year in lost revenue.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
I'd gone into B&Q on my run home in the 90s and asked an assistant if I could try and get something in my backpack, if not I'd come back later.
He watched me try and I said I'll have to come back in my car.
Outside I got stopped by security for attempted theft but then spotted the assistant who vouched for me.
Security then said 'I don't want to see you in this store again' and I just said try and stop me because I've done nothing wrong.
Sadly I have to use the place and I went back later and bought the item.
Click to expand...
Yeah this was either very late 80s or early 90s the security company wasn't anything to do with b and q apparently just contracted.
 
Finally, somewhere to list my grievances!

LV - Had an accident in a car park a year after I passed my test, it was probably a 50/50 accident but they kept pressuring me to take responsibility. They repeatedly lost all the forms I sent in and at one point one of the telephone operators put me on hold to personally go and try and find the file and came back after 15 minutes and told me that the file room was a disaster with things all over the floor and she couldn't find it. Didn't hear anything for 3 years when out of the blue they wrote and asked if I wanted to defend the claim in court.

More than - phoned them up about a month before renewal to add an engagement ring to my home policy as it had just been purchased. It didn't cost me anything extra. The guy on the phone kept pressuring me to formally renew but wouldn't give me a new price so I refused. A week later I got the renewal letter in the post and they wanted to charge me an additional £500 a year to insure the ring for the full year. I called them and told them that every other quote was £500 less than them and it took almost half an hour before I could get rid of them (they wouldn't budge on price) and I told them I wasn't renewing. 3 months later I realised they were still taking my direct debit and they claimed I had renewed. Phoned them up and they took weeks to listen to the recording, in the end I got bored and got my bank to use the direct debit guarantee.

Argos - Ordered a set of adjustable dumbbells, guy turns up with two boxes and I sign for them. Turns out it should have been 2 boxes per dumbbell. Phone shop and they think the driver still has the other one. Then they tell me it was a stock error and they only had one. Then they tell me I'm lying and they did deliver it. Took weeks and many calls to get fixed.

Special shout out to Very for claiming it was me that changed my email to something like '[email protected]' and my password to something similar and then attempting to order thousands of pounds worth of stuff on credit to an address I'd never heard of.
 
Gilette for their horrible #me too ad a couple of year back. Only got a few blades last week because of lockdown, but looking into Harrys
 
It would have to be something really bad to happen for to blacklist a company.

Asda failed to bag a few deliveries for me in april, but I still gave them another chance this past week and probably will do again at some point in the future.

Amazon constantly annoy me with their delivery system but I use them repeatedly.

OCUK (sorry guys) annoy me with some silly pricing on some products, but I like the community, and delivery policies, so I still use them on the products they dont gouge. (you are my first choice when the pricing is sensible).

But mud does stick, society can be very unforgiving.

Tesco is the one retailer I have kind of blacklisted. With them it wasnt one big bad thing, but constant reductions in quality of service over a period of time lasting a couple of years. By the time I stopped using them, I was used to horrific use by date's, lack of SKU choice on website, rapidly rising prices, and lower quality of their self branded food. It all just eventually led me to trying the competition and since then havent gone back to them.
 
A bad experience definitely has a negative effect on the way you veiw a retailer ,Ebay is a total minefield the way i look at it ,Amazon better but other sellers on there minefield again ,Currys i see as overpriced ,pushy with warrantys (do they still do this)
john lewis is a posotive one (again all my own perception or from experience) 2 years min warranty ,price matching,always had good customer service ,and in my head i see the big shiny store in oxford (daughter lives up there) that i wander through and splash on the creed aventus from the sample bottle ;)
 
LOL , the old boy has tickled me as he said Currys was called Dixons when they messed him about and said they will never get past him with a name change.

So he's carrying a Grudge over. :D
 
Last edited:
Ice Tea said:
LOL , the old boy has tickled me as he said Currys was called Dixons when they messed him about and said they will never get past him with a name change.

So he's carrying a Grudge over. :D
Click to expand...

Does he know that Carphone Warehouse and PC World are in the same group?
And before you reply about his age my Dad is 84 and visits PC World for stuff regularly and uses Carphone Warehouse.
 
Pretty much forever.

I always avoided Curry's due to a bad experience my parents had when I was a kid. When me and the Mrs went in recently, we were ignored by the staff, so walked out and we'll never go back.

British Gas. Left them in 2007ish to switch to a new provider. We were due a refund. Got it promptly. Twice. Once into bank acct and the other a cheque sent through. Phoned them, sent the cheque back. Thought nothing of it then we received a letter from a debt collection agency a few months later chasing the value of the returned cheque. This was documented as a defulted payment in my credit history and I didn't know back then this could be removed.
 
The key to a good company is how it handles things when they go wrong.


I've found moaning on Twitter to be the best thing for getting a positive result. I never use Twitter except for that lol. Can't stand Twitter.

I'll always use local companies over international. For a fridge I'll hold it for typically a year, try again and see, if same lifetime ban, if better I'll keep using them.
 
helpimcrap said:
The key to a good company is how it handles things when they go wrong.
Click to expand...

Two amazing examples:

1) A PA company called Mackie. I bought a full 3000 watt PA but the tops kept blowing tweeters. Fair enough they repaired them but their repair centres were a distance (30 miles plus). I had the problem for 3 years probably having each speaker repaired around 4 times and in the end they gave me a brand new pair of the version 2 speakers which were around £500 dearer.

2) eBike company Cyclotricity. I had a huge list of mechanical faults and over a year they did keep sending me parts but when my rear wheel collapsed for the second time they decided to drive 140 miles from their headquarters to fix my bike with all brand new parts plus upgrading the electrics/motor also. The only original thing left was the frame.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Two amazing examples:

1) A PA company called Mackie. I bought a full 3000 watt PA but the tops kept blowing tweeters. Fair enough they repaired them but their repair centres were a distance (30 miles plus). I had the problem for 3 years probably having each speaker repaired around 4 times and in the end they gave me a brand new pair of the version 2 speakers which were around £500 dearer.

2) eBike company Cyclotricity. I had a huge list of mechanical faults and over a year they did keep sending me parts but when my rear wheel collapsed for the second time they decided to drive 140 miles from their headquarters to fix my bike with all brand new parts plus upgrading the electrics/motor also. The only original thing left was the frame.
Click to expand...

Good examples. No one mentions companies that do things right, but moan like hell when it goes wrong! I always make sure I support companies who have been really helpful when things have gone wrong and give them a shout out.

Scottish Power is one (not everyone's cup of tea but sorted issues out very quickly and loads better than Eon!), Euro Car Parts another, RJS Superbike another etc. There's more but you get the gist.
 
Any business that is owned or invested in by Mike 'the scumbag' Ashley.

I don't think it needs explaining, but if it does then you are the problem! ;)
 
13ens said:
When you spend £3500 on a laptop on Friday pay £18 for delivery miss the cut off time, so phone up on Saturday morning and get changed to Sunday delivery told it would be delivered the next day and they still don’t bloody dispatch your item.

thanks then overclockers, record currently stands at one order, one screw up.
Click to expand...
How do you know that Ocuk didnt send it? Could very well be that they handed it over to the couriers and they haven't delivered due to extreme demand. You say your self that you missed the cut off with your order and ocuk are doing you a favour.

Yeah you spent a fair amount of money but you're just one of many customers they have to deal with.
 
13ens said:
When you spend £3500 on a laptop on Friday pay £18 for delivery miss the cut off time, so phone up on Saturday morning and get changed to Sunday delivery told it would be delivered the next day and they still don’t bloody dispatch your item.

thanks then overclockers, record currently stands at one order, one screw up.
Click to expand...

So you are expecting a Sunday delivery and post at 7:26am this morning.
I had one delivery come at 7:55pm on a Sunday.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom