Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
bursty said:
Based on what? If its personal experience, what happened? I have owned ungodly amounts of Sony products and havent had an issue with any of them.

a PS 2 that never actually worked
A TV that basically blew up
a reciever that the sound stopped working after a month
a PS 1 that broke down
a VCR that can only be used to change channels for my sound system as recording wont work.

basically the most ridiculous company on the face of the planet.

I would deal with MS before i would deal with Sony again.
 
gwuMACaddict said:
i'd like to see people give reasons for why... otherwise this thread is worthless... what do you hate, and why?
Well, if you insist...

My pick is Kingston Communications – they're our local telephone/internet company. The city where I live retained its own telephone network when all the other local phone companies were taken over by the Post Office, back before the First World War. For years we were the only place in the country not served by British Telecom, which basically means that KC was able to establish a complete monopoly over the local telecommunications market. Want a phone line? Has to be KC. Need an ISP? Once again, you're stuck with KC. Strictly speaking, other companies can come into the area and compete, but because KC charges them so much for the use of their lines (and we're not that big an area geographically) it's not financially viable to do so. So no one does, and KC's stranglehold is preserved.

It wouldn't be a bad thing if they provided a good service, but unfortunately they appear to be completely staffed by incompetents who don't have a clue what the hell they're doing. They've recently launched a new line rental tariff scheme which has substantially increased many people's phone bills (mine included), their customer services people (when you can actually get through to them) are rude and unhelpful (and, naturally, baffled by Macs), they've cut me off twice for not paying my bills after sending them to incorrect addresses... all this and much more besides, while charging us all through the nose for their substandard service.

Anyway, rant over. Suffice to say, if you want to really upset someone from these parts, ask them what they think about KC. :mad:
 
McDonalds

Those damn "I'm lovin' it" ads. I don't even have TV, so fortunately I don't have to hear the little jingle that goes with it, but I'm sick to death of seeing that slogan all over billboards. Seems like Mc-D's billboards outnumber all other b-boards two to one these days.

What they ought to show with those "I'm lovin' it" ads is a 400-lb. woman looking in the mirror, utterly depressed because she's huge from eating that crap.

I also hate how McDonalds is trying to change its image by offering "heatlhy" stuff on their menu. Who do they think they're fooling, anyway? The sad thing is, they probably are fooling quite a lot of people into thinking that Mc-Ds isn't that bad for you...
 
Microsoft: Obvious

GM/Ford/Chrysler: All 3 of them sell the crappiest cars on the road and refuse to do anything about it.

All shipping companies (FedEx, UPS, ect): They all have screwed me over at one point in my life and they continue to screw things up.

CompUSA: Worst customer service ever. Maybe the stores wouldn't suck if they hired people who knew what a computer was.

Best Buy: They'll try to sell you a warranty on anything and high pressure you like a used car salesman. At least Circuit City takes no for an answer. I've had to fight with BB employees before in order to not buy a warranty.

Wal-Mart: I think that speaks for itself.

Cingular: Raising what bar? The bar that measures how much their service sucks?

Charter Communications: Incompetent techs, crap service, horrible equipment (I'm on my 5th cable modem and we usually end up exchanging a digital cable box at least once a year for some reason)

AOL: So difficult to cancel, no wonder they're number 1.

Every single gasoline company who has us bent over at the pump
 
yg17 said:
Charter Communications: Incompetent techs, crap service, horrible equipment (I'm on my 5th cable modem and we usually end up exchanging a digital cable box at least once a year for some reason)
I haaaate Charter. :mad:
 
bursty said:
I haaaate Charter. :mad:


Yep. So does everyone else in STL :D

Fortunatley, we live like 5 minutes away from their office in Chesterfield which makes it convienent for exchanging busted equipment. Heck, yesterday I had to go exchange a digital cable box
 
Ford/GM: Cheapest cars in the world
Chrysler: Invented the mini-van; ugliest cars in the world
Wal-Mart: Nothing to say here
News Corp: Owns Fox News and FOX
 
yg17 said:
Yep. So does everyone else in STL :D

Fortunatley, we live like 5 minutes away from their office in Chesterfield which makes it convienent for exchanging busted equipment. Heck, yesterday I had to go exchange a digital cable box
Yea we had to switch out our HD box twice last month. :rolleyes:
 
Nanda Devi said:
McDonalds

Those damn "I'm lovin' it" ads. I don't even have TV, so fortunately I don't have to hear the little jingle that goes with it, but I'm sick to death of seeing that slogan all over billboards. Seems like Mc-D's billboards outnumber all other b-boards two to one these days.

What they ought to show with those "I'm lovin' it" ads is a 400-lb. woman looking in the mirror, utterly depressed because she's huge from eating that crap.

I also hate how McDonalds is trying to change its image by offering "heatlhy" stuff on their menu. Who do they think they're fooling, anyway? The sad thing is, they probably are fooling quite a lot of people into thinking that Mc-Ds isn't that bad for you...


Interesting observation about McDonalds. But to let you know, McD's was offering healthy food back in the mid '80's when I worked there. And they had a packet with the nutrition information in it, that they would give out for free (calories, amount of fat, etc). BTW, I never could stand the clown. :p
 
Lloyds TSB
Once I was charged £5.00 per day for going 50p overdrawn. Thats 0.50p below £0.00 - not over an agreed overdraft. Was not advised that I was overdrawn until I received a letter 2 weeks later - and the reason I was taken overdrawn? A £75.00 charge from Lloyds-TSB themselves for reasons I never really got to the bottom of, but the explanation I received seemed to suggest that it was to see the manager when I wanted to query why I was getting seemingly high charges for no reason. I now bank with HSBC and wish that I had the sense to tell them where to go when I was 18.

Northern Trust International
For buying my company and making myself and my friends redundant.

Cable and Wireless
For having a monopoly on this island and providing a sub-standard service at outrageous prices - up until last month 512kb ADSL at £26.99 a month. Now 1mb at £26.99 per month

Next (Clothes not Steve Jobs' old company :))
For clothes sizing that would make an anorexic appear to need a XXL.

ITV
For lowering the IQ of Britain considerably for the last 50 years.

Islands Insurance
For telling me that they would not chase a pay-out from the driver that knocked me of a motorbike as he had been found guilty by the police of dangerous driving, and that I would have no problem in claiming it myself. After nine months i finally got a pay-out, but only after taking out two loans to pay for medical bills.

Budwieser
For the greatest case of advertising hype over substance ever.

Lynx (Axe in the states)
For the 2nd greatest case of advertising hype over substance ever. My teenage brother seems to go through a can of this stuff every other day - and trust me, he's not experiencing 'the Lynx Effect'

I'm really not as bitter as this post makes me sound :)
 
bursty said:
Yea we had to switch out our HD box twice last month. :rolleyes:

Ouch.

One of our worst experiences was when we first got digital cable. One of the boxes quit receiveing digital channels (>100) after a few days. We'd call, they'd reset it, and we'd be good for another few days. This continued on, meanwhile, 2 other boxes in the house were fine. So, we got sick of this, and finally set up a time for the tech to come out. Had a 2 week tech for the wait, and then one of those deals where they'll show up sometime between 8AM ande 5PM. 4:59, there's a knock on the door and the tech is here. He spends an hour trying to figure out what's wrong, then finally discoveres that some genius at the office made a typo while entering the MAC address of the digital box, so the box kept thinking it wasn't authorized to display digital channels. I understand people make typos. But you'd think after numerous tech support calls and an error message on the screen that said NOT AUTHORIZED (which is a good hint as to the problem), they'd realize the MAC was wrong. Morons.

One good thing about Charter is that since we got cable internet, we paid for the cheapest speed, 384kbps I think. Sometime a couple years ago, the modem somehow got configured for 3mbit so we got the 3mbit speeds for the 384kbit price. Earlier this year, there was a power outage, so the modem reset and dropped back to 384. We got used to the fast speeds so upgraded to 3mbit, but we had a good run.
 
Nike - They once ran an ad in a hiking magazine for their air-dri goat shoe. The ad belittled the disabled, so I haven't bought anything with their logo on it ever again.
 
bursty said:
One more thing, I'm surprised to see so many people that have problems with Sony. By far one of the best electronics companies out there. Interesting...

Same, I've had no problems with any Sony products I've ever owned. From cassette tape based walkmans, through to their KLV series LCD TVs. My PS1 and 2 worked without problems, my VCR is still going strong (not that I use it anymore), the DVD player, HDTV receiver, etc are all perfect.

As for worst company ever - probably Apple Australia - they have the worst customer service I've ever had to deal with. I had a problem once with a 20" ACD not displaying colours properly and I wanted it replaced. I had AppleCare so I tried to arrange for someone to come out and replace the monitor, Apple told me it would take up to 2 weeks for someone to call me back to arrange a time to come out and look at the problem, it would be up to 2 weeks from this call before I'd actually get to see anyone, and when they turned up they wouldn't be bringing a replacement monitor, and it would take up to a month for them to replace it if they wanted to. They then went on to tell me I should take the monitor to a reseller to get it looked at. Which I ended up doing and I had a replacement in 3 days. Go Apple! I've had plenty of other retarded problems with Apple, like them refusing to look at something under AppleCare because they can't find anything to say I've got AppleCare even though I am quoting them the receipt numbers, etc. I am sure Apple are better around the world, but here they are a joke!

edit: I forgot to mention in the story above about the monitor I was on the phone to Apples Indian call centre for an hour trying to explain to them that no I didn't want them to look at my iMac G5s external monitor, after an hour they finally put me through to someone in Australia (where it got worse).
 
Aeolius said:
Nike - They once ran an ad in a hiking magazine for their air-dri goat shoe. The ad belittled the disabled, so I haven't bought anything with their logo on it ever again.
What a great reason. Dont bother basing your decisions on which product is better. Just base it on their ads. :rolleyes:
 
quagmire said:
Nintendo- They think their innovative. They are not. I mean their Revolution controller is a remote control!

A remote control with tilt sensors, the ability to judge its position in space and an adapter allowing it to have dozens of peripherals attached. I have to admit, that is innovative.

As for me, Microsoft and any company that has stupid buzzwords in their advertising (most beauty products).
 
Epson. Three out of three printers failed a month after the warranty expired; the drivers were buggy; the replacement ink tanks were expensive; the inks clogged if not used frequently ...
 
yg17 said:
GM/Ford/Chrysler: All 3 of them sell the crappiest cars on the road and refuse to do anything about it.


How about the HHR? Not a crappy vehicle. How about GM reviving Cadillac and into the 3rd most reliable luxury/performance brand on the road( just behind BMW and Lexus being first by a wide margin). How about the Malibu getting a J.D Power and associates award for the long term reliability? How about Chevy killing the POS Blazer and Cavalier and replacing them by the Trailblazer and Cobalt? How about the new Impala which regains a V8 with DOD in the SS model? The Impala is built in the #1 assembly plant in quality. How about the Pontiac G6? The Pontiac Solstice? How about the upcoming Sky and Aura from Saturn? How about the Zeta platform that will be under many new vehicles like a Camaro if it returns, a Velite from Buick, the new Pontiac GTO, and Pontiac G8/Grand Prix? And many more. How about the Y-bodies that underpin the Chevy Corvette and Cadillac XLR? How about Sigma that underpins the CTS and SRX crossover? Sigma II will be even more impressive. Buick may have a image of old mans vehicle, but their reliability and quality is unquestionable awesome. Now main complaint against GM now is interiors. How the the Hummers H3 interior? Very nice, IMO. The HHR's interior is great. The new GMT-900 Tahoe and Yukons interior is awesome. The Impala's interior is great. The only interiors that need work is the Trailblazers and Colorado's. Now I admit in the 80's and 90's GM made POS vehicles. In the 60's and 70's the Japanese brands did as well. So did the Koreans have made POS vehicles, but now quality and reliability are improving.
 
Nike - because their overpriced shoes are no better than the cheaper, obscure brands. And they tolerate slave-like working conditions for their overseas workers.
 
Walmart - business tactics.

Starbucks - business tactics.

Nike - Bad products, bad company, and dodgy history when it comes to using child labour, and yet they didn't even admit it. Their marketing team made fun of disabled people, and ripped of "Major Threat" (remember the thread I started about this 2-3 months ago?)
.
Microsoft - Need I say more?

GM (I'll exclude the companies they bought, like Saab) - horrible designs, bad cars, and bad experiences with them. Too many SUVs as well.

Ford (I'll exclude the companies they bought, like Mazda and Volvo) - bad cars, bad experiences with them (no brakes, almost killed my (deadbeat)father who I haven't spoken to in 8 years anyway), and other Taurus only lasted 6 years.

Chrysler - Crap. Mercedes isn't included, although their cars have gone downhill as well since the merger.

Motorola - The "development" of the G4, and their mobile phones suck.
RIAA and the 4 major companies.

Dell - their products suck my ass.

De Beers - Because their diamonds, like all diamonds, come from a dodgy place in the world, and they're the biggest buyer of diamonds, as well as the biggest marketer of diamonds (along with rap videos :p ), making them seem priceless.

Best Buy/Future Shop (in Canada) - Their staff are just there. They exist. They don't know about their products at all.

Hummer.


And I don't agree with Sony being on everyone's list. They've only been bad recently. Their stuff used to last for absolutely ages.
 
quagmire said:
Microsoft
Dell
Toyota
Honda
Motorola/Freescale
Intel(Viva La PowerPC!)
Sony
Scion( I know Toyota is parent company)
Acura( Know Honda is parent company)
Nintendo
DCX(Chrysler/Mercedes)

Ok, if you hate MS, Sony and Nintendo... what game station do you have? :confused:
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.