What's your worst customer service story from a national company?

mine is probably going to be abbey - their customer service has been very, very, poor.





my son had 拢100+ taken out of his account fraudulently and despite completing the correct forms etc it has taken from october 2007 until february 2008 for him to recover his money!








two more attempts were made on the same day - he isn't old enough to gamble anyway, but that isn't abbey's fault.





you phone abbey, they don't phone back when they promise to.





you ask for another claim letter to be sent, they insist its on its way, but it never turns up.





you phone a given number to speak to an adviser - there's no answer on the phone.





they ask you to leave a message, but theres no answer machine service - apparently its dependant on someone passing the phone and picking it up when it rings...





i went into the local branch yesterday and asked for a return phone call - nothing!





the only reason he got his money back was because he wrote 7 complaint letters to the head office and local branch.
What's your worst customer service story from a national company?
Tescos





Went to tescos, bought a new TV. It cost me lets say 拢400.97 (was alot more than that!) This TV was a tesco brand, EXCLUSIVE to tescos.





Anyway, the story begins. TV broke two and a half months after I had bought it... It broke. So... I went into tescos and asked for a replacement. They said they wouldnt accept as I didnt have a reciept. (I had lost it... but I know my rights and you dont have to hve a reciept if its faulty) so to amuse them I went back, phoned up their technical support. The lady on the phone agreed that it wasnt a fixable fault and that I was in need of a new TV





Great! but it goes on... "can you please give me the number on the bottom of your reciept so I can authorise a refund"





No, I dont have my reciept, So she said that I could go and get a duplicate reciept from Tescos. Yay!





So I walk down to tescos and ask for a duplicate reciept. They refuse unless I can prove I purchaced the Tv from them... (?!?!?!) So I get on to my bank and they issue me with a bank statement which shows up as "Tescos store XXXX...拢400.97 October 17th 2007"





So I take this to tescos and they say "well proves nothing, for all we know you could have just spent that on shopping" I stress that Im not wanting a refund, just an exchange (which the tech support authorised remember) so I tell them to ring up tech support themselves and listen to them authorising the exchange over the phone. So I rang up (It was 5pm and I waited about 45mins...they werent happy as they were paying for the phone call!) Anyways the tech support finally authorised the exchange, but said it was at the managers descretion. The manager refused. I asked them if they would go and get my duplicate reciept, and they said no. I asked again, rguing my rights as a consumer that I didnt need a reciept if a product is faulty. She didnt believe me (honestly! a manager not knowing the rights of a consumer!!!!) and still flat out refused. I asked her how long they kept reciepts for and she said Tescos keep reciepts for 3 months so I asked her to get my reciept, and she refused again, I asked her why and she said that it was later than three months...as we were in January now. And she counted it on her fingers! and gave me that cocky smile and said to me "well, your just going to have to buy another TV if you want another that bad"





I smiled back and said "Its January 15th today"





Yup, two days within the three months! She then said that she had to take my whole bank statement downstairs with her (the WHOLE statement?!) I refused obvioulsy! she got in a huff (I didnt mind) and eventually brought up my reciept!





Yay! what annoyed me the most is that she was the one that actually sold me the TV!!! but I got my exchange... and actually got a better model! as the old one was no longer in production!





So yeah...Tescos...KEEP ALL YOU RECIEPTS!
Reply:Be careful of buying anything in hmv, the back came off my son's psp he had it around 5 months so my husband took it into the shop were we purchased it, they told him it was accidental damage and to phone sony who told us it would be 拢65 for a reconditioned one or拢80 for a replacement without haven even looked at it so i phoned customer services at hmv who were very very nasty and basically accused me of breaking it i was so mad i phoned my local consumers advice and after 3 letters dictated to me by them theygave me a new one i have bought consoles from game and their customer service is excellent.
Reply:Virgin, in all its many guises. Their advertising is good, but the people they employ are half-wits and they never answer any cutomer question satifactorily.
Reply:Local Authorities. The absolute pits work there
Reply:An internist-would not recognize i was deep in pain due to cancer
Reply:That is awful. I'm with Lloyds and the same thing happened to me last year. I went straight in to see them and they extended my overdraft straight away until they could refund the money (a week later) and then looked into the problem. I never found out what they discovered, but internet fraud is so common now that the customer should be given the benefit of the doubt. I'd get him to change to lloyds if you can - I've found them brilliant overall.





The worst customer service probably has to be Natwest. Every branch i've visited seems to employ morons from the Underworld who were born without the ability to smile. I've had so many issues with them; which is why I changed to lloyds.





Barclaycard were also bad. I cancelled a credit card with them about 3 years ago and 2 years later I found out that they'd sent debt collectors to my old address as they had failed to cancel my card and it had a small amount left to pay (due to a computer error). So now they want me to pay 拢200. I called and called and the last time they spoke to me was a year ago. They said they were going to 'look into it' - but never contacted me. And because of them I have a bad credit rating!!! GRRRRR!!!





xx Emmie
Reply:U DONT wanna know believe me
Reply:Mine is with BT. When i switched to them they told me if i had the old phone line reconnected it would be free, so i did, even though it was upstairs and i really wanted one downstairs, because it saved me 拢134. A few days later the phone was disconnected but when i contacted them i was told it was an external fault which would be put right the next day without them having to call at my house. Several days later i was woken without warning by an engineer who wanted to come in and mend my connection (which was in my teenage sons bedroom!!!!!) Eventually it was put right, but then i received a bill for 拢134 connection fee when i had been assured that it was free. I refused to pay it and wrote a stern letter to the complaints department. 6 weeks later i got a call from a foreign call centre telling me in broken english that the charge still stood. No matter how much i explained to them they just kept repeating the same thing. I went mad and asked to speak to the manager, and i was passed on to another foreign person who kept repeating the same as the other woman. When i told them i wanted speak to the person who manages BT i was told that i would be phoned back the next day. I wasn't. It took another stern letter and 3 weeks before an english lady phoned me back and told me that there had been a misunderstanding and they had cancelled the charge.
Reply:Have you tried phoning BT? Don't!
Reply:A Citbank machine inside the bank robbed me of 1,200 dollars and the bank wasn't going to take responsibility. I wouldn't trust them with Girl Scout cookie money.





Verizon I have also had many problems with- Beware.
Reply:Next directory!


I ordered a bookcase from there last Feb. It didn't arrive so i rang them to check where it was, they couldn't trace it so they re-ordered it and low and behold, it never arrived. So i rang again, and again, it was lost so they re-ordered again!


2 wks later 3 bookcases were delivered to my house!


I refused to accept 2 and signed for one.


A month later i got a bill for 3 bookcases.


I spent 7 months writing and phoning to get them to remove the extra bookcases from the bill, all the while i was getting charged for not paying.


I finally got it settled when i refused to get off the line until i had spoken to a manager.





I must be mad because i ordered some clothes from them for my dad who was off to Australia and needed summer wear. Exactly the same thing has happened again.


The delivery guy was driving around for 4 wks with my packages in his van. He just didn't bother to deliver them!





Needless to say i refused to accept them as my dad had already left the country and promptly cancelled my account.





Oh, and the icing on the cake is they charged me for the delivery of every parcel!