Most ridiculous lack of customer service you've encountered?
- Thread starter Angilion
- Start date
Soldato
virginmedia I guess. Not because they were rude to me (they werent) but because they favor new sales to looking after existing customers. That to me isnt customer service at all.
Associate
Another one for Santander here, went in a few years ago short on cash for my dinner. I only had about £4 in the account I had the card for, so I had to go to the main desk to withdraw the money. I got to the front and the guy who served me kept trying to tell me to use the machine, even though I explained there was only £4, he then asked for loads of ID. By chance I had my passport with me at the time, but he wanted photo ID, something with my address and a bank statement for that account within the last few months, something I've never had to do before.
After a lot of arguing at the desk I decided that I would be best moving to another bank. I came back the next day with all the proper ID I was asked for previously and explained I wanted to cancel my accounts with them. They happily allowed me to cancel and started running through the process, my eyebrow was slightly raised when they asked if I would like a transfer for the money or if I wanted it all cash in hand, they still hadn't asked for any ID at this point. I asked the lady serving me whether they needed to see any ID and she basically told me that my bank cards were sufficient, extra ID was only required if there was more than £1000 in my account, one of my accounts was for my wage and had about £900-£950 in it at the time. I got really angry again and asked what would have happened if somebody had stolen my cards and come in to cancel, the lady then basically said it would have been my own fault if I hadn't reported my cards lost or stolen
I was in complete shock at how bad it was, I went across to Natwest, set up a few accounts and explained what had happened, the staff at Natwest looked more shocked than me and even offered to help me reach the right department in order to make a complaint.
About a week later I got a phone call saying there was a problem with one of my accounts and that I would have to go back into the branch. Luckily I was greeted by the manager who was quite a nice chap, he got everything sorted and cancelled and offered his apologies with the service I recieved and told me that the he'd be looking into the matter.
After a lot of arguing at the desk I decided that I would be best moving to another bank. I came back the next day with all the proper ID I was asked for previously and explained I wanted to cancel my accounts with them. They happily allowed me to cancel and started running through the process, my eyebrow was slightly raised when they asked if I would like a transfer for the money or if I wanted it all cash in hand, they still hadn't asked for any ID at this point. I asked the lady serving me whether they needed to see any ID and she basically told me that my bank cards were sufficient, extra ID was only required if there was more than £1000 in my account, one of my accounts was for my wage and had about £900-£950 in it at the time. I got really angry again and asked what would have happened if somebody had stolen my cards and come in to cancel, the lady then basically said it would have been my own fault if I hadn't reported my cards lost or stolen
I was in complete shock at how bad it was, I went across to Natwest, set up a few accounts and explained what had happened, the staff at Natwest looked more shocked than me and even offered to help me reach the right department in order to make a complaint.
About a week later I got a phone call saying there was a problem with one of my accounts and that I would have to go back into the branch. Luckily I was greeted by the manager who was quite a nice chap, he got everything sorted and cancelled and offered his apologies with the service I recieved and told me that the he'd be looking into the matter.
Soldato
For me it was Comet. Apology for rather long post ahead.
I have a cottage/rustic style kitchen and my fridge resides in purpose built closet, so any replacement has to be of precise dimensions.
Few years ago around Xmas, my ancient fridge packed up. With Xmas food melting on kitchen floor, there was no time to order replacement from the internet, so I popped into local Comet store to find any fridge that would fit. They had one model, at hugely inflated price, in wrong colour, made by brand I wouldn't buy otherwise, but beggars can't be choosers, anything from internet would take at least week or until after new years to be delivered.
Now, Comet being Comet, never have anything in stock. They are like a large internet page, you come to the store to view the item, but they rarely have any at the back to take home, all they have is just single items for display only. And this particular fridge was no exception - none in stock, can order one for you, will be here after New Years. Luckily the half awaken shop assistant checked their computer and to his utmost surprise there was one store, within 50 miles that actually had 1 on display and additional 1 in stock, to take away, right there, right then. Like a wind I drove though the cold afternoon to the remote store, paid the monies, and returned home with the fridge.
As I unpacked it, two things became evident. Despite the fact outer packaging looked virgin fresh, the fridge inside was absolutely battered. Knocks, scratches, bent shelf, massive dent on the side, clearly an ex-display or used item. This made me really angry, but once again - Xmas food in tesco bags hanging outside the window to keep it cold, we had no choice. As we tried to move the fridge into the closet space it turned out the Comet people measured it wrong, they measured dimensions of the fridge door, instead of the actual outer shell of the fridge, which turned out to be about 2cm bigger in each direction, and thus wouldn't fit. To add insult to injury, hinges of the curved door of the fridge were mounted in rather particular fashion on the outer edge of the wall, so the fridge needed extra 6cm of space on the right hand side for the door to even open to 90 degrees. In other words, completely useless to me.
With about 30 minutes to spare, I managed to return to the shop with the fridge, got hold of shopping assistant, who promptly revealed Comet's return policy, which stated that any unpacked item being returned carried 10% restocking fee. Considering they sold me a fridge that was not as described (bigger than dimensions advertised) and clearly damaged/used/ex-display - and now they wanted nearly 40 quid for my trouble, I asked to see manager. I spent nearly 30 minutes negotiating with the woman in her forties, trying to point out the restocking policy made no sense, considering the item was clearly opened before me and there was no way for me to check the item without unpacking it at some point (to which she actually agreed, that even if I unpacked it in store, in front of her, at the point of sale, and found it damaged, it would still be subject to restocking fee).
The whole argument attracted attention of people queuing to the till, and as she explained "restocking policy" with her risen voice, some chap trying to buy two grand plasma started voicing his concern about what would happen if he takes his screen home and finds it damaged or scratched and promptly decided this was too much for him to risk hundred quid over and walked away from the store. The manager got really angry and demanded that my presence in store is now costing them money, so she would have no choice but to ask her staff to escort me to the door. I pulled my mobile out of my pocket and said that if she won't return my money, in full, right now, and any of her staff attempt to touch me, I will call the police. She promptly started yelling for members of her staff to come to the customer service till (to escort me out)
"All I want is to get my money back, in full" I pleaded "you sold me ex-demo, battered fridge that on top of its condition was not as described on your website and in your store. I bought it today, I am entitled to full refund, if not a full refund and some vouchers as an apology! Or I will call trading standards, watchdog and your local press". She lost her temper and yelled " I offered you refund less 10% and you refused it. Now you are scaring customers. Get out of my store. Get out!" and she yanked my arm towards the door.
With hands shaking in anger I opened dictaphone app and started recording (this was before HD video on mobiles). "Can I get this on record" I asked "are you telling me, that no matter what I do, you are going to take 40 pounds of my money away in the process?". She looked p'd off and said "Yes. And there is nothing you can do about it". I pressed stop button, waved with my phone and said - "Now I have you on record, and I have witnesses (to be honest queue to the tills at that point was already heading for exists, I don't think anyone wanted to do any shoppings any more). You tried to handle me, you threaten to throw me out of the store and you want to keep 40 quid of my money when all I wanted was a refund, within my consumer rights". And I started walking towards the door. Before I reached automatic door, she chased me with her assistant. "Is it in the box?" she asked? "Yes". "All the parts and manuals inside?". "Yes". "I will give you full refund, you delete this" she pointed at my phone and then her assistant "and he will help to remove it from your car".
The store was Comet in Crayford, DA1 4LD, I never got managers name, but if I check my old smartphone backups, I'm sure I still have the recording. I hope she never works in retail again.
I have a cottage/rustic style kitchen and my fridge resides in purpose built closet, so any replacement has to be of precise dimensions.
Few years ago around Xmas, my ancient fridge packed up. With Xmas food melting on kitchen floor, there was no time to order replacement from the internet, so I popped into local Comet store to find any fridge that would fit. They had one model, at hugely inflated price, in wrong colour, made by brand I wouldn't buy otherwise, but beggars can't be choosers, anything from internet would take at least week or until after new years to be delivered.
Now, Comet being Comet, never have anything in stock. They are like a large internet page, you come to the store to view the item, but they rarely have any at the back to take home, all they have is just single items for display only. And this particular fridge was no exception - none in stock, can order one for you, will be here after New Years. Luckily the half awaken shop assistant checked their computer and to his utmost surprise there was one store, within 50 miles that actually had 1 on display and additional 1 in stock, to take away, right there, right then. Like a wind I drove though the cold afternoon to the remote store, paid the monies, and returned home with the fridge.
As I unpacked it, two things became evident. Despite the fact outer packaging looked virgin fresh, the fridge inside was absolutely battered. Knocks, scratches, bent shelf, massive dent on the side, clearly an ex-display or used item. This made me really angry, but once again - Xmas food in tesco bags hanging outside the window to keep it cold, we had no choice. As we tried to move the fridge into the closet space it turned out the Comet people measured it wrong, they measured dimensions of the fridge door, instead of the actual outer shell of the fridge, which turned out to be about 2cm bigger in each direction, and thus wouldn't fit. To add insult to injury, hinges of the curved door of the fridge were mounted in rather particular fashion on the outer edge of the wall, so the fridge needed extra 6cm of space on the right hand side for the door to even open to 90 degrees. In other words, completely useless to me.
With about 30 minutes to spare, I managed to return to the shop with the fridge, got hold of shopping assistant, who promptly revealed Comet's return policy, which stated that any unpacked item being returned carried 10% restocking fee. Considering they sold me a fridge that was not as described (bigger than dimensions advertised) and clearly damaged/used/ex-display - and now they wanted nearly 40 quid for my trouble, I asked to see manager. I spent nearly 30 minutes negotiating with the woman in her forties, trying to point out the restocking policy made no sense, considering the item was clearly opened before me and there was no way for me to check the item without unpacking it at some point (to which she actually agreed, that even if I unpacked it in store, in front of her, at the point of sale, and found it damaged, it would still be subject to restocking fee).
The whole argument attracted attention of people queuing to the till, and as she explained "restocking policy" with her risen voice, some chap trying to buy two grand plasma started voicing his concern about what would happen if he takes his screen home and finds it damaged or scratched and promptly decided this was too much for him to risk hundred quid over and walked away from the store. The manager got really angry and demanded that my presence in store is now costing them money, so she would have no choice but to ask her staff to escort me to the door. I pulled my mobile out of my pocket and said that if she won't return my money, in full, right now, and any of her staff attempt to touch me, I will call the police. She promptly started yelling for members of her staff to come to the customer service till (to escort me out)
"All I want is to get my money back, in full" I pleaded "you sold me ex-demo, battered fridge that on top of its condition was not as described on your website and in your store. I bought it today, I am entitled to full refund, if not a full refund and some vouchers as an apology! Or I will call trading standards, watchdog and your local press". She lost her temper and yelled " I offered you refund less 10% and you refused it. Now you are scaring customers. Get out of my store. Get out!" and she yanked my arm towards the door.
With hands shaking in anger I opened dictaphone app and started recording (this was before HD video on mobiles). "Can I get this on record" I asked "are you telling me, that no matter what I do, you are going to take 40 pounds of my money away in the process?". She looked p'd off and said "Yes. And there is nothing you can do about it". I pressed stop button, waved with my phone and said - "Now I have you on record, and I have witnesses (to be honest queue to the tills at that point was already heading for exists, I don't think anyone wanted to do any shoppings any more). You tried to handle me, you threaten to throw me out of the store and you want to keep 40 quid of my money when all I wanted was a refund, within my consumer rights". And I started walking towards the door. Before I reached automatic door, she chased me with her assistant. "Is it in the box?" she asked? "Yes". "All the parts and manuals inside?". "Yes". "I will give you full refund, you delete this" she pointed at my phone and then her assistant "and he will help to remove it from your car".
The store was Comet in Crayford, DA1 4LD, I never got managers name, but if I check my old smartphone backups, I'm sure I still have the recording. I hope she never works in retail again.
BT: Offering to repeatedly do a line check will not fix my DNS issues! Solved the problem by moving to Nildram (back when Nildram were good). Just signed up to Fibre and have used Plusnet, mainly so I don't have to directly deal with BT (though I have heard good and bad things about plusnet)
B&Q: Had a problem so wrote a long email explaining all the issues I had, they sent there default auto reply of "have a £10 voucher, by accepting this voucher this is resolved and we will never hear from you again" No offer of a resolution to my problem or even any indication that any one read my email. I had to complain again as the voucher never turned up! We have also had an issue with a bath we got recently from them leaking, however I have learnt my lesson and don't want to waste my time on the off change I get another £10 voucher.
In general B&Q are useless, there are usally no staff to be found and if you do find one they don't know but will direct you to a person at the other side of the store that they say does, only when you get there they don't know either and promptly send you back to someone at the other end of the store again!
Thecus: Carp tech support, knew of a software issue with UPNP streaming but took an age to fix it. So long that I returned the NAS to the retailer and bought a Netgear one.
Halifax: didn't send me a credit card statement one month (before online banking) then blocked my card when I didn't pay it and were very rude to me on the phone as they treated me as some kind of deadbeat who couldnt pay his bills.
Dave
B&Q: Had a problem so wrote a long email explaining all the issues I had, they sent there default auto reply of "have a £10 voucher, by accepting this voucher this is resolved and we will never hear from you again" No offer of a resolution to my problem or even any indication that any one read my email. I had to complain again as the voucher never turned up! We have also had an issue with a bath we got recently from them leaking, however I have learnt my lesson and don't want to waste my time on the off change I get another £10 voucher.
In general B&Q are useless, there are usally no staff to be found and if you do find one they don't know but will direct you to a person at the other side of the store that they say does, only when you get there they don't know either and promptly send you back to someone at the other end of the store again!
Thecus: Carp tech support, knew of a software issue with UPNP streaming but took an age to fix it. So long that I returned the NAS to the retailer and bought a Netgear one.
Halifax: didn't send me a credit card statement one month (before online banking) then blocked my card when I didn't pay it and were very rude to me on the phone as they treated me as some kind of deadbeat who couldnt pay his bills.
Dave
Soldato
Virgin:
They did nothing about us getting an average connection speed of 0.1mb on a supposed 20mb line.
Called them up, after going through all of their checks they said oh you have a problem, we will get an engineer to fix it. No fix came, so we phoned again, same story...
Eventually got a small amount of money back.
They did nothing about us getting an average connection speed of 0.1mb on a supposed 20mb line.
Called them up, after going through all of their checks they said oh you have a problem, we will get an engineer to fix it. No fix came, so we phoned again, same story...
Eventually got a small amount of money back.
Soldato
For me Linksys, spent 6 months trying to get them to fix my router as they wouldn't replace it again as this router had the same problem as the previous they replaced. Every time I called I got told to run the same tests and email them the logs and every time I called back to follow up they would tell me they were escalating it to their senior technicians. In the end I RMA'd it back to the retailer and swapped it for another brand so they ended up with the router back anyway. I don't think their support knew how to do anything other than reset the device or update the firmware which gives you no confidence in them that they can actually support their products, which has now lost them a customer.
MW
MW
Evanscycles:
2011:
Ordered a mens single speed bike, ended up with a ladys cruiser bike, While the lady had my bike. They had to collect both bikes and do a swap.
2012 (Today):
Ordered a mountain bike for next day delivery(Wednesday), Turns out they forgot to process it. Finally received the bike today. With no pedals... And a damaged gear changer.. Don't know what they are going to do but I'm expecting compensation.
2011:
Ordered a mens single speed bike, ended up with a ladys cruiser bike, While the lady had my bike. They had to collect both bikes and do a swap.
2012 (Today):
Ordered a mountain bike for next day delivery(Wednesday), Turns out they forgot to process it. Finally received the bike today. With no pedals... And a damaged gear changer.. Don't know what they are going to do but I'm expecting compensation.
Soldato
I'll give you a clue...
You called up on the first day, everything broken. Everyone inc you told to call back tomorrow.
You called up on the second day, everything broken. Everyone inc you told to call back tomorrow.
Everyone calls up the day after, and because systems are up there's a longer call time as people's requests are carried out, hence longer queues.
It's not really rocket science.
Man of Honour
Mine was the company I worked at for 27 years - Indesit/Ariston/Hotpoint/Creda.
Being the Quality Audit Technician I had a direct line to the Manager of the spares/repair department but he still couldn't get our Hotpoint washer fixed until 3 months later.
Mrs Dimple was losing her patience going to the laundrette, her Mums and my Mums to do the washing and having 2 teenage daughters didn't help with the amount.
Hotpoint eventually came and replaced the washer with a new one which broke down after one wash and it then took another 3 weeks to replace that one and in the meantime I'd contacted CAB and Watchdog.
As soon as the factory was sent to Poland I bought the machine that the company always wanted to be like - Bosch.
Being the Quality Audit Technician I had a direct line to the Manager of the spares/repair department but he still couldn't get our Hotpoint washer fixed until 3 months later.
Mrs Dimple was losing her patience going to the laundrette, her Mums and my Mums to do the washing and having 2 teenage daughters didn't help with the amount.
Hotpoint eventually came and replaced the washer with a new one which broke down after one wash and it then took another 3 weeks to replace that one and in the meantime I'd contacted CAB and Watchdog.
As soon as the factory was sent to Poland I bought the machine that the company always wanted to be like - Bosch.
This is unfortunately true, I have worked in reasonable size shops and whilst I would have like to have dropped what I was doing to 'jump on a till' when the queue was big, there is lots of stuff that stops that happening. Individual log ons, not all the tills have a float, using a till your not assigned to was a disciplinary matter and some jobs like standing on the entrance were seen by management as more important and leaving them would be a disciplinary matter.
Soldato
Bosches are made in Poland as well though. Most of things assembled in Europe fail on design/cost cutting in parts production rather than quality of assembly itself.
Soldato
Jesus Christ! She handled that badly.....
Soldato
Wtf? Dust is a feature? Lol. What i do know about hazro is they don't have a number to call if your monitor breaks.
My worst experiance was from a company called Special Reserve. If your from Essex and are jn your late mid 20's to mid 30's you will probably remember them having a store in Chelmsford. I once bought a hard drive for my Amiga which didn't work and I took it back and the manager thier refused to refund it because it had used. God that women was useless. She must have been related to the owner because she worked there until they went under anyone else would have sacked her.
Hazro replaced my 30" monitor a month befire its warrenty was up with one of the best 30" they sell.
It took 5 days from delivery to them for my new monitor to come back.
Hazro are abit slow at emails but condsidering they are a commercial monitor comoany they did a good job for a consumer like me.
Another BT experience here.
Moved house. Contacted BT and my ISP with the details and date of the move. On the day the phone number is transferred to the new house. But for some reason they'd left the previous owners broadband service on my line meaning the my ISP couldn't transfer over. It took BT 3 weeks to remove it.
Moved house. Contacted BT and my ISP with the details and date of the move. On the day the phone number is transferred to the new house. But for some reason they'd left the previous owners broadband service on my line meaning the my ISP couldn't transfer over. It took BT 3 weeks to remove it.
Norway. If it weren't for the oil and gas this country would fall apart. Nothing works, no one has a clue how to fix it since that person and whole department are on holiday up at their cabins. I might be able to contact someone else but since they finish at 3pm like everyone else here that might be difficult, if they bother to pick up the phone.
Man of Honour
Not back then they weren't and I expect the Germans would keep an eye on quality where the Italians don't care.