The worst company you have ever dealt with?

Jarren

Meteor

Not as company but their customer service.
I made hundreds of calls followed by emails but the messsage got through
When I started threatening them with Comreg .
Basically they owed me money and I kept getting fobbed off constantly.
I was promised that the issue will be sorted within 5 working days,yet it
Took them whopping 5 months.
I can't fault them for providing me with a good quality phone network,
They are know for having good phone plans but when something goes wrong...... It really does!!!!!

flas

upc...

LH Pathe

Girl I mentioned old pal to on first encounter.. "so you're one of eds ex's eh.." suddenly I was the asshole.. Baggage?

Bless my naive inexperienced concern. n booze for compounding it n turning it to misery

CarMe

Three! Absolute fcuking horror story! My mam died in June just 11 days after my first baby was born, in August I could eventually bring myself to cancel her bills-phone,esb and three- well to my embarrassment I welled up while on the phone to three, they asked for her death cert, I explained that the coroner hasn't got all the reports yet and all I have is an intrim cert, they refused this and despite my tears accused me of being a liar. Absolutely horrible, I offered to pay the outstanding myself but no they spoke to me like I was a piece of sh!t! Esb however were lovely, offered their deepest sympathies and happily cut off everything there and then.

I hate 3 I think the management are vile and the staff are horrible

retalivity

dell - a shower of pricks
continental airlines - "That return flight you booked last month? Oh yeah we changed it because it didn't suit us, and if you want to change it it will cost you E150 + fees and taxes"
eircom - I already know the what the problem is & it can be solved with buying a cable for 4.99. So when my mother calls you before calling me, do not offer her a new wireless modem, router and 3 ethernet cables totalling E200 you bunch of parasitic c*nts
tesco - no words

Stinicker

CarMe wrote: »

Three! Absolute fcuking horror story! My mam died in June just 11 days after my first baby was born, in August I could eventually bring myself to cancel her bills-phone,esb and three- well to my embarrassment I welled up while on the phone to three, they asked for her death cert, I explained that the coroner hasn't got all the reports yet and all I have is an intrim cert, they refused this and despite my tears accused me of being a liar. Absolutely horrible, I offered to pay the outstanding myself but no they spoke to me like I was a piece of sh!t! Esb however were lovely, offered their deepest sympathies and happily cut off everything there and then.

I hate 3 I think the management are vile and the staff are horrible

Sorry to hear about your mam, My gran died in 2008 and I had no problems with the ESB either in this regard, still get letters from the "Sacred Heart Missionary's" to her though, I must notify them next time I get a letter from them. I would have literally exploded there and then had Three done something like that to me especially after the death of a loved one.

Paddy Cow

Bank Of Ireland and their stupid rules. I had a load of bank accounts with them, AIB and Ulster Bank. Most were made when I was in school and wanted the free stickers and Henry Hippo saving box and when I went to college and wanted all the free first year stuff. It doesn't look good when you are getting a credit check if you have loads of dormant accounts so I decided to close them all. AIB and Ulster bank closed them no problem (Ulster Bank even sent me out a postal order for the 28c balance on one of them lol).

Bank of Ireland is my main bank and I have a very active current account with them. I had an old account, opened when I lived at home so it had a different address to the one on my current account. They said they couldn't close the dormant account unless I could provide them with proof of address for that address. I explained that I haven't lived at home for 12 years and I would never have any bills with that address on it. They refused to close the account. WTF???

kraggy

3.

By a mile.

Had to go to comreg over them.

daithimacgroin

very interesting thread
As regards Broadband

Are there any good companies?

UPC awful by the sounds of it
Three even worse
Eircom incompetent
sky don't offer it

Any good broadband company?

Cill Dara Abu

I'm on three for the past year and have had no problems with them. The only thing is when you're put through to some call centre in India its very hard to understand what they are saying.

Although the same could be said of Cork.

Duggy747

UPC - I've dealt with router problems which I knew what the problems were which required replacements. On occasions I'd either be held on hold for eternity (max was 24 minutes - on loudspeaker, good thing they're freephone) and be forced to hang up or I'm stuck with a CSR who insists I go through baby steps ("Have you tried turning it on & off?") on fixing it before finally considering that I may be right that said product is fecked.

HP - The organisations I've worked with use their products and I would frequently ring them up for replacements / support. If you get the right person all is well. If not (terrible line / CSR with brutal English since their support is in India) then you're fùcked, have had so many fùck ups on their part because of some of their CSRs jotting down the wrong information.

Some of their CSRs are rude bastards, too. Last one I dealt with gave me a tone that I was lying about a dead-on-arrival machine with a busted motherboard. 2 phonecalls with the same CSR and too many days had passed with HP doing anything about it. Rang again, got onto a different CSR who got the whole thing sorted immediately and the machine replaced within a few days.

I always dread ringing them when I have to.

That being said, I'll never forget one CSR who was fascinated with Ireland and asked me all sorts of questions about the country. He then asked if I liked The Doors and put LA Woman on as hold music

ardinn

Thread needs poll - three - are - unbelievable - I would be ashamed to have any connection to them to be honest and any company or affiliates that work with them I tend avoid now because of them.

I See some people said they are ok with 3 - wait till there is an issue - or create an issue for the laugh, see what happens!!!

Frowzy

westendgirlie wrote: »

I don't get the volkswagen one. If it's not suitable for irish roads, the why are they allowed to sell them here? Surely it means it doesn't conform to safety standards???

I don't know about conforming to safety standards, although I think that rating is based on how the car performs in a crash.

All I can tell you is that I was out of pocket!

Will NEVER buy a VW again!

HalloweenJack

Good ones:

TAM - Brazilian airline. Maybe I'm just use to flying short-haul flights on cheap European airlines but I was amazed when I went to Rio with them. Great friendly service, great entertainment for the flight, nice food and I was equally impressed that, seemingly, all the staff could speak three or four different languages. Also, on a short-haul flight from Sao Paulo to Rio, about 45 minutes, they gave us free drinks.

So-so:

Aer Lingus/Ryanair - you get what you pay for. For all the complaints about Ryanair approach, the flight's are pretty much always on time and never any messing around with luggage, etc.

Bad ones:

AIB - When I got my first job, at 17, I had to get a bank account so went to AIB. So I applied for it and then never heard anything else about it again. I went down to BOI a few weeks later and they gave me a bank account straightaway, got my ATM card about a week later. About a year later, I got a bank statement from AIB but still no sign of a card or anything. When I went to close the account, as I hadn't used it, they gave me a idiotic attitude as if I were mad for wanting to close a bank account I'd never used and never been told about. It really put me off them.

Apple - I don't know if this is standard or not but I got an iPod about five or six years ago. Was told the guarantee was only for one and would have to pay another €150 (iirc) for an extra two years. Considering the amount of problems I'd had with the iPod I had before that, I thought they were being really cheeky. In the end, I still have that iPod. Although the battery doesn't last as long, it's still fairly good.

rambutman

Quinn Direct for sure.

rambutman

Duggy747 wrote: »

He then asked if I liked The Doors and put LA Woman on as hold music

Now that's service

Susie_Q

Lots of people saying UPC are terrible without saying why. Can anyone enlighten me on what makes them so crap? I haven't dealt with them myself, luckily.

AeoNGriM

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Your ma's message parlor.

Is that a small room where people pass notes to each other then?

4leto

Susie_Q wrote: »

Lots of people saying UPC are terrible without saying why. Can anyone enlighten me on what makes them so crap? I haven't dealt with them myself, luckily.

I thought they are excellent, I always had satisfactory dealings with them, I can't fault them, but I only get my broadband from them.

Just reading down the thread, there is a whole gang of the usual suspects.

Eircom, Sky, Meteor, Three, Quinn direct

Davidth88

CarMe wrote: »

Three! Absolute fcuking horror story! My mam died in June just 11 days after my first baby was born, in August I could eventually bring myself to cancel her bills-phone,esb and three- well to my embarrassment I welled up while on the phone to three, they asked for her death cert, I explained that the coroner hasn't got all the reports yet and all I have is an intrim cert, they refused this and despite my tears accused me of being a liar. Absolutely horrible, I offered to pay the outstanding myself but no they spoke to me like I was a piece of sh!t! Esb however were lovely, offered their deepest sympathies and happily cut off everything there and then.

I hate 3 I think the management are vile and the staff are horrible

That is truly shocking . My sympathy on your Mother's passing . If any company did that I would want to do something unspeakable .

Yahew

CarMe wrote: »

Three! Absolute fcuking horror story! My mam died in June just 11 days after my first baby was born, in August I could eventually bring myself to cancel her bills-phone,esb and three- well to my embarrassment I welled up while on the phone to three, they asked for her death cert, I explained that the coroner hasn't got all the reports yet and all I have is an intrim cert, they refused this and despite my tears accused me of being a liar. Absolutely horrible, I offered to pay the outstanding myself but no they spoke to me like I was a piece of sh!t! Esb however were lovely, offered their deepest sympathies and happily cut off everything there and then.

I hate 3 I think the management are vile and the staff are horrible

Thats utterly appalling.

Badgermonkey

SKY TV

Endless billing anomalies, repeated meaningless apologies.

Got a Freesat box with Sky+ functionality giving me BBC HD, ITV HD, CH4 HD.

Got Saorview for RTE HD, RTE1 +1 etc.

Monthly cost: €0.00

Cavehill Red

Quinn Direct are a howling shower of b'stards in my opinion.

The latest of many hell-stories about them came my way yesterday. A mate of mine rang up looking to renew their motor insurance. The car's been parked in a lock up while my mate was abroad, looking for work, after being made redundant earlier in the year. No joy with the work abroad, so he came back, realised the car was out of insurance, so rang up Quinn to renew, albeit a week or so past renewal date.

No problem, the quote's a little higher than the renewal quote they had posted out (first alarm bell - why?) but they're sure they can match it. Why did he leave it so late to renew? He hasn't been driving the car uninsured? Nope, says my mate. I was abroad looking for work. Uh-oh. Change of circumstances, sir. We'll have to see if that affects the quote.

Sure enough, it does. It more than trebles it instantly.

No other detail has changed. Address, age, no claims, car details all identical. If anything, the car's getting a lot less use now he's not taking it back and forth to work. Plus it's been in a lock up for a month. The fact he's been insured with them years doesn't move them one iota. He's on the scratch, so they don't want his business. Nor did they get it. A quick look around and he ended up with a quote close enough to his original renewal with another firm.

Not the first (or likely the last) horror story out of Quinn that I've heard. I can't wait for them to go bust to be honest, and would never, ever deal with them personally.

At this moment its Pixmania. God help you if you have to return anything to them.
I sent a video card to them about 6 weeks ago to get repaired/replaced. Due to the weight of the thing it cost me €22 to send. It took them one week to acknowledge receipt, then I heard nothing else for 2 weeks. When I inquired they told me to wait 21 days from them receiving it and if not replaced they would send me a new one. Needless to say 21 days went buy and despite my protestations they refused to send me a new card, made me wait another two weeks and eventually sent a repaired card back to me.
Except it wasnt repaired, no work was done to it at all. Looks like they ignored the detailed description of the error and left it sitting on a shelf!
So right now I will be pursuing a case through the European Small Claims Procedure.
No way am I spending another €22 for them to ignore me, lie to me, then send the faulty card back to me!

CYHSN

Had right problems with Perlico and the broadband service that we never had. They charged us for the broadband for months and they could not fix the problem with it even though they knew what was wrong. We changed back to eircom again, but we got letters threatening legal action. Customer service was terrible, no help.

sudzs

When I still lived in Ireland it has to be Clearwire.

In the UK BT have to be the worst.... countless calls to their call centre and 4 visits from "engineers" over 3 months to get a proper broadband service that actually worked. :mad:

Optimalprimerib

Game good: bought a second hand version of assassins creed which was very badly damaged, the disk was not shown On purchase. Needless to say it did not work. Brought it back and it was replaced no bother by a lovely girl behind the counter.

Game bad: witnessed an older woman (obviously a non-gamer) trying to do the same thing with a game for her son. The manager refused her point blankly saying that it is policy to show the disk before purchase of any game so if the disk is damaged, the onus is On the customer to refuse the game.

At the time I was in the queue buying a second hand game, and was dealing with the same guy. Did he show me the disk? Of course not.

4leto

Optimalprimerib wrote: »

Game good: bought a second hand version of assassins creed which was very badly damaged, the disk was not shown On purchase. Needless to say it did not work. Brought it back and it was replaced no bother by a lovely girl behind the counter.

Game bad: witnessed an older woman (obviously a non-gamer) trying to do the same thing with a game for her son. The manager refused her point blankly saying that it is policy to show the disk before purchase of any game so if the disk is damaged, the onus is On the customer to refuse the game.

At the time I was in the queue buying a second hand game, and was dealing with the same guy. Did he show me the disk? Of course not.

Something similar, with their advertised 5 meg which turned out to be a shared line so it was usually 2/3 if I was lucky, or none, so I switched to UPC and telling them I was doing so. But I broke the contract and they wanted me to see it out. I said no and over the phone I was told I will be receiving the usual court threats (I was aware the girl was only acting on instructions from her bosses) but I told her I did not get the service I paid for and I look forward to ignoring the letters, they stopped after a while.

the groutch

Good: Gamestop.ie

Bad: Gamestop instore

Il Trap

Bord fcuking Gáis!

SeaFields

**Big generalisation alert**

People who work for mobile phone companies to be absolute cnuts.

Latest experience was a young one in a vodafone shop in cork getting really snotty with an elderly woman who couldnt get the credit to go onto her phone. Costs nothing to be nice :mad:

tonsiltickler

Amazon have the gold standard for customer service I think. A book I ordered was lost in the post, they replaced it free of charge.

BTW for everyone complaining about the ESB and Sky; there calls are handled by a call centre in cork. The company treats people like subhuman turds and offers very little training which explains your bad experiences I guess

Immaculate Pasta

The company on After Hours - BOOM!


I love you all really

turbot

In recent times, Three, represent the worse company I have dealt with.

5live

Dell

I ordered a PC from them for internet access and stated it was primarily for that purpose. The PC arrived a few days later with no modem installed. I rang up to explain and they denied i had ordered one with a modem. Eventually 4 days later they admitted it and sent me out a modem in the post with a promise that someone would come out to install it in 2 days. A week later no one had come so i asked to return it. They refused and promised to send someone to install it the following day. 2 days later and no call so i looked to return it all. They refused as they said i didnt order with modem. Numerous calls later they arranged to collect it and return my money but not the modem. A week after it was returned i recieved a call looking for directions to my house to install a modem:eek:.

I wasnt surprised that they went to poland. I will NEVER let any Dell product inside my door, not even if they pay me:mad:

Bruthal

Three seem to be winning anyway.

Nead21

First Assist....they handle the travel insurance with Ryanair.

Took them 7 days to figure out how they were going to get me home after an accident....endless phonecalls to complete clueless shower of braindead, ignorant monkeys...i could go on, but i won't, as even while typing this i'm in danger of bursting into flames! :mad:

Moral of the story, NEVER EVER book tick the travel insurance option with Ryanair.

endabob1

leonidas83 wrote: »

Internationally

B M I - British airline company, absolutely disgraceful

I flew BMI at very short notice when my dad was dying, they couldn't have been more helpful, I missed the return flight that I had booked because of the funeral. BMI let me pick any flight I wanted back to London at no extra charge, I would always recomend them & fly with them when I can.

Another +1 for Amazon who are a pleasure to deal with

Sky & British Gas were particularly difficult, that is until I moved to Cape Town where I discovered what poor Customer Service really is.

steve9859

SeaFields wrote: »

**Big generalisation alert**

People who work for mobile phone companies to be absolute cnuts.

Latest experience was a young one in a vodafone shop in cork getting really snotty with an elderly woman who couldnt get the credit to go onto her phone. Costs nothing to be nice :mad:

I doubt they are cnuts to begin with. The company makes them like that. The staff have to sell a certain number of top ups and contracts per person that walks in the door. And three have sensors on the door which measures that. So while the staff member was having to help someone with their phone, 5 people might have walked in and out of the store. And they would get it in the neck. So I'd guess it's hard to be patient when the company is treating you like that

spoofilyj

Quinn Direct: Nightmare

I was insured with them in 2009 with Fully Cpmprehensive insurance.
It was the fourth year i'd had insurance with them.

My Car at the time was a 2005 Toyota corolla, i had it valued with them at 12,000 euros, a bit above the actual market value.

I had an accident and the car was written off.
The assessor came down and looked at the car, she said it was all good and I would be taken care of. I was out of work as I had 18 stitched on my head and needed time to recover.

Anyway two days after the assessor came back with the price they were willing to pay for the car. 2500 euros, needless to say this was not even close to enough to "put me back in the same situation I was in before the accident" which is supposed to be the point of paying insurance.

I told them that this price was not acceptable and they came back the next day with an offer of 3000, again not realistic in the slightest.

This went on for about three weeks until eventually they said 5000 was the final offer, take it or leave it.

I got two seperate letters from Toyota dealerships stating the market value of the car was 10,000, Quinn would not accept this and again said 5000 was their final offer.

I said fine I'm not accepting the offer and not to call me again until they were willing to agree to 10,000, I told them that they would be hearing from my solicitor and the insurance ombudsman.

Not two hours later they called again, all apologies stating that I would be given 9950 for the car as there had been a mistake with my policy and they though I had a fleet car (nonsense) and that had I accepted the previous offer they would have come back and corrected it (bull****e) and that they had not accounted for VAT when giving me previous offers.

Needless to say I didnt renew my policy with then and will never use Quinn for any insurance again.

Three are another company who's Customer service are a shower.

Paparazzo

Funny, Three came to mind straight away when I read the thread title too. When my contract is up with any provider now, I don't even consider 3, they're that bad.

StaticNoise wrote: »

Eircom, PC World, Bank of Ireland and BT.

I've also never had a problem with Ryanair and Three. People expect too much when they are paying feck all. They're my airline and mobile network of choice.

Rubbish, rubbish rubbish.
If you go to McDonalds and get a cold burger covered with hair that someone shat on, it's not acceptable because it's "cheap".
I couldn't send or receive text messages for the first 2 months of my 12 month 3 contract. Is that expecting too much? Didn't offer a penny discount to me or apologise for the shíte service. Was on to their poxy call centre every 3 days going through the same shíte questions. The most enjoyable part was telling them to fúck off at the end of the 12 months.

Best customer service is Gunns Camera shop on camden street.

du Maurier

Stinicker wrote: »

So guys and gals, lets hear your horror stories? The good, the bad and the ugly for me.

At the moment I am involved in this mess with Three, they are the worst company I have ever dealt with taking incompetence, arrogance and sheer pigheadedness to all new levels. I won't go into the details but in all my dealings they are far the worst.

Sky Tv gets a notable mention on the list of bad service, however when they wanted to charge me for repairs I simply cancelled and resubscribed and that fixed them.

Axa Travel Insurance should also be avoided at all costs as they will do everything in their power to prevent a payout and would spend €1,000 fighting rather than payout a claim ever if it was only for €10. Total conmen.

Dell Computers: Very bad back in the day, a good knowledge of IT has since allowed me to fix any problems without going near them.

Irish Rail: Tried to refuse me entry to a train back years ago as I forgot my student card until my father who was with me told the conducter, ok fine I will be leaving you in charge of my underage son and I will hold you legally responsible if anything happens to him, alot of huffing and puffing and grunting saw me get through.

Tesco: Getting told "Will you ever F off" at in the till for pointing out an overcharge takes the biscuit, threw me a €5 coupon card in the post a few days later.

Good Companys:

HP Computers: I bought a laptop in the US with only a US warranty and had no proper rights if they were bad enough and wanted to screw me. Three months later the keyboard malfunctioned, called them up, couriered it back and when it came back it had a new Keyboard fitted, two weeks later that went, couriered it back, got a new higher spec replacement valued at €1,200 and I bought the HP fo $600 which was around €450 @ €1 = $1.55 back in 2008. A great company to deal with and the emphasis was on fixing the problem and not that the customer was the problem.

Aer Lingus & Ryanair; I know you'd imagine Ryanair to be in the top list but I must give credit where it is due, I have never once been held up, lost bags or gotten screwed at the Airport by either Airline.

SouthWest Air; had my flight cancelled from LAX to Las Vegas last year, myself and about 15 other people had made it to the gate very early in time for the flight, the South West agents rounded us up and rushed us over to the earlier flight as there is like a flight ever hour or two anyway. She took our details and my checked in baggage which I was very worried might get lost made it onto the earlier flight also. That evening I had an apology email in my inbox with a $50 coupon off my next SouthWest flight. Fair dues to them, they messed up, yet still got me there an hour ahead of schedule and gave me a $50 coupon. Next time I'm state side I will fly them again, my cousin was able to use the coupon there so it was all good.

satellite.ie a small Irish company who does sat gear, ordered a few things down through the year, always had next day delivery. Superb service couldn't fault them in a million years.

I just read the title and 3 mobile automatically came into my mind. Absolute scumbags. I won't even furnish you with any details. I hope they crash and burn.

Yahew

du Maurier wrote: »

I just read the title and 3 mobile automatically came into my mind. Absolute scumbags. I won't even furnish you with any details. I hope they crash and burn.

Wow. 3 are really getting it. Convinced me never to try em.

homerjay2005

Meteor....absolutely shocking. their customer service is the worst ive ever dealt with. i refuse to ring them anymore or contact their info@meteor email and deal only via personal email or their twitter.

drBill

Worst:
TalkTalk. Transferred my line, did not honour my cancellation within the cooloff period, blocked 3 subsequent attempts to transfer back to Eircom.

Best (well maybe not the best but think they deserve a mention for this)
53 Degress North, Blanchardstown.
Bought a few things, including a can of insect spray using my credit card. As I was leaving the shop I noticed I was charged one euro more than was displayed on the can. Went back and told the girl at the desk. She immediately handed me one euro from the till and apologised. No quibble.
Not the cheapest of places but service like that is why I go back there regularly.

du Maurier

Stinicker wrote: »

You have a 14 day cooling off period, use it and get out now before it is too late. Buy the iPhone new sim-free and take a 30 day contract with whatever company (even if it has to be Three) you will regret joining Three if you go into a contract for this long.

Well said. I can only echo these sentiments.

du Maurier

jarecki1976 wrote: »

Meteor

Not as company but their customer service.
I made hundreds of calls followed by emails but the messsage got through
When I started threatening them with Comreg .
Basically they owed me money and I kept getting fobbed off constantly.
I was promised that the issue will be sorted within 5 working days,yet it
Took them whopping 5 months.
I can't fault them for providing me with a good quality phone network,
They are know for having good phone plans but when something goes wrong...... It really does!!!!!

Yeah, their Customer Service can be tough work, but they work okay as a company. I left to go to 3 regrettably. I won't harp on about that as I've posted a few times about them already in quick succession.

I find that Fatcheese website to be completely hopeless. I was expecting cashback on items bought through ASOS but received nothing. Even when I inquired about it they said they couldn't get through to the representatives of ASOS. This of course, is a lie, as I have easily communicated with ASOS regarding previous problems.

The 3 month wait for the cashback is quite a long waiting period too. You'd nearly forget about the website it takes so long. That's what they probably want.

280special

3 ; We had broadband with them on a 12 month contract and cover was at best marginal.Then it packed up completely at 11 months ! they didnt answer our queries, requests for help or notice of termination.

BT ; same as the above , but even worse, took ages to recover over changed subscriptions !

Munster Joinery; Crap windows, installed with a sledge hammer, and some that didnt fit at all !

Dunne Stores; Rude, unhelpfull staff and management (apart from Limerick where the Foreign guys and girls are great !)

Rachiee

Three by a mile i've had a complete nightmare of a time with them so unhelpful nightmarish internal systems rude staff rubbish tras
nsperency i have a reminder set on my phone for when my contract is up I'm stuck with them until end of march 2012 cant wait until its all over awful, awful, awful

ESB have been bad recently

I Have had a lot of difficulty with SKY

Good Companies

Amazon are great

admiralofthefleet

bord gais - had terrible trouble closing my accounts (both gas and electricity) with them and getting my final bill. ended up going into the head office in person and standing at reception til a suit came to talk to me. eventually one did

months after closing my accounts and getting in writing that i was finished with them and clear they sent me a bill for €68

it went straight into the green bin