Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Companies that Piss Me Off

Andy told me last night that we are going to HAVE to move to Costa Rica because there will be no companies left soon in the U.S. that I will do business with.

I hate Sprint. They just steal your money with all sorts of charges. We don't do business with them anymore and won't do business with them again. See - that's what happens - I get pissed and that's it, no more business with them. They probably don't want to do business with me either.

Then there is this local plumbing company. This one particular company really pissed me off. They were double charging on the trip charges and extra time on the labor time and I just didn't want to be taken advantage of. BTW - I HATE TRIP CHARGES. WTF! So, anyways, I started out talking calmly to this woman there about the charges and I was getting no where and asked to speak to a manager and she refused - the bitch - and so I started to get mad and then she started telling me I should not get upset and should lower my voice - that pissed me off even more. So, I filed a complaint with the BBB and got money back for the extra trip charges, but they said they only charge for FULL hours, so I had to pay for 2 hours when it was only 1.25 hours. Bastards. I don't do business with them anymore. I have not had good experiences with plumbers and have a general dislike for them. Poor Andy had to learn how to do all sorts of plumbing since I don't like them. I hate the idea of paying $250/hr. on a weekend or a night because my pipe burst. We actually had to pay that once but luckily we had this insurance thingy that the sellers gave us and that covered it.

So now, my latest target is Dell. I have wasted 2 hours of my life online with them, 30 minutes on hold on the phone (which they never did pick up and I had to settle for online), 4 days of an unusable laptop & now another 2 weeks of an unusable laptop. First off, if they would give one customer undivided attention they could get done with the chat thing in 10 minutes, but instead last night I was there for 1 hour 11 minutes because it was 2-4 minutes between responses, and those were busy work stuff that did not solve anything. Now I have to wait for them to send me a box so that I can send my computer back and it will take up to 9 days for them to fix it (that's what they say, but the phone also said I would have up to a 10 minute wait and I was there for 30 minutes and still had no help.) I also hate that any Dell part or Dell ink for the printer HAS to be bought from them. You cannot buy it from any other place (except maybe eBay - you can find anything there and it's a very dangerous place for me, at times I am very addicted to Ebay.) So, I still have no working laptop. For some reason it is not recognizing the adapter and is only running off the battery and the battery runs out of juice. So, I am sure I am bound to get more pissed off before I get a working computer. I don't ever want to buy another Dell product just because their customer service sucks so bad!

There is also a seller on Half.com (elephant something) that I don't like. They sell a lot of stuff there and usually have the cheapest prices, but they cancel a lot of orders because "they don't have it anymore" (jackass - take it off your inventory then) and they FORGET to send out your stuff. I had this happen to me twice (both times I ordered several books from them at the same time). Luckily I always have gotten refunded through half.com, but it takes a LONG time to get your money back. So, now I just don't buy from them. Always check out feedback of people on half.com & ebay. That is what it is there for. There are some crummy people out there. I have to say that half.com has been good about refunding for crummy sellers and paypal has gotten my money back a couple times when sellers did not ship their products (so - kudos to half.com & paypal - both eBay companies.)

I am sure there are plenty more companies out there that piss me off, but that's the list of ones I won't do business with anymore because they piss me off so bad. Why put myself in a situation that I may potentially get upset? It makes no sense to me.

3 comments:

McBean said...

Sounds like you're having one of the days I often have. I hate the city I almost live in. I don't live far enough in L.A. to go to L.A. shopping places (or I choose not to because I don't want to drive in too much traffic). Anyway, the people there can't drive, are rude, and mooch off the freaking government when have of them are not citizens, they drive luxury cars and have Medicare. They live in apartments with their legal relatives, so that there are 12 people in a two bedroom apartment. Which means there are sometimes 10 extra cars on the streets because of these people. Which means nobody who comes to visit me can't find a parking spot.

I also have problems with cell phone companies. Or had. Cingular was a pain in my ass and had crappy customer service. They charged me roaming fees when my plan was supposed to be roaming free throughout the country. I disputed (because these charges were $100 for 7 minutes of phone calls--how, I don't know)...and they gave me shit. So I cancelled with them and went with T-Mobile. My phone still doesn't work in my apartment.

I'm surprised about Dell because I heard they have good customer service. But maybe that was when they were still relatively small. They're freaking huge now. I'm going to get my next computer from Gateway I think.

About plumbers...my dad is one. He works for a school district but used to work independently. He doesn't charge that much, even for emergencies. There are some good ones (plumber crack free). I just don't think there are that many out there anymore. My dad works for a school district for a reason...he had problems billing people. So now he does stuff on the side for some of his old (paying) customers.

Andy said...

I don't think we can do business with -any- of the plumbing companies. Two of them overcharged us (remember, the $250 was an overcharge), and one didn't show up or something. Can't remember.

Oh, and don't forget -- I can't buy Fords anymore, because my 1978 F150 was a piece of shit. Nevermind that my current Ford has 150k of (mostly) trouble free miles...

Lame Shrill Owl said...

I think a lot of people have issues with cell phone companies. We had Sprint first, and they sucked. After that we had Qwest, but their coverage sucked. I thought customer service wasn't too bad, but I couldn't stand that we basically only got coverage at home. Right now we have T-mobile and I think we have been relatively happy with them. There have been times they upset me, but they took care of the issues. In May our contract is up with them and I think we'll stay with them for at least another year. They have good coverage and the plan is decent too. Andy doesn't like his phone - but I think we'll be able to get new phones when we sign up for a new plan.