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Most incompetent companies

A comment on another thread got me thinking about some of the best (or worst) examples of incompetence I have suffered at the hands of various companies (not necessaarily ISP related).

I thought it might be a fun to hear some of the stories of incompetence we have all experienced at some point or other. Below are my entries - some were very stressful, others quite funny, but all are the result of companies incapable of joined-up thinking or gormless automatons seemingly following and equally gormless script.

Nationwide BS (now I know what ther BS stands for)

Having to go through 8 iterations of my mortgage, because the lender (Nationwide) kept screwing up (to be fair, one iteration wasn't their fault). They refused to fax copies to me, so every version took anything from 1 to 2 weeks to be processed and sent out via snail mail. It took so long that if there had been a chain, the whole deal would have collapsed.

I am 33 years old, and the stress this saga caused resulted in the one and only time I have ever genuinely lost my temper.

OFSTED
My partner has taken over 7 months (so far) to jump through all of the hoops demanded by OFSTED to become a registered childminder, because their "support" system seems designed to make sure no-one has any ownership over problems, no-one knows what to do or what the rules are (different response every call), and their attitude stinks (with one or two exceptions).

The really stupid thing is the biggest issue was a delay in applying for CRB checks. My partner has been a nursery nurse or manager for over 10 years therefore has been CRB registered for a long time, but they insisted on going through the process again for the childminding. FFS.


O2 mobile
"Thank you for for sending your account details, but I can't pull up your account on my computer. Please can you send me your account details...."

Perhaps the daftest email I've recieved in some time. For the record I duly sent exactly the same details again, and my query was then answered.


Be Unlimited support
No connectivity for a week, different story every time I called them (at one point they tried to blame the issue on me and wanted to charge me a second connection fee, despite the fact I had only been connected for about 3 hours). The problem was with BT, but Be's support was useless, and often unintelligble.

Every call started with the usual "have you checked the cable/plug/interplanetary interference bullsh*t they always make you go through.

They also charged me for not returning their router when I left. I had to call them and point out I had proof of delivery, though I did recieve a refund quickly. The daft thing is I was moving to O2 (same company, same network) so I could have just kept using it and saved the the cost of sending out a new router.

When its working, Be is great. When there is a problem, it is not.

Microsoft Xbox support
"my wired headset isn't working, its less than 1 week old, please can I have a replacement"
"please give me your Xbox serial number....ok, your Xbox is out of warranty"
"I know, and its working fine, its my headset that doesn't work"
"I'm sorry but your Xbox is out of warranty"
"I know, the headset is the problem"
"I'm sorry but your Xbox is out of warranty"
"If your are reading from a script, now would be a good time to skip to the next page"
"I'm sorry but your Xbox is out of warranty"
"please stop saying that"
 
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Can't really think of a company where I've had a particularly bad experience in recent memory, I suppose I must have been lucky. :hrmph:
 
l cant think of a company but l sure as hell can tell you l have had problems with the education system, which technically is a company run by the government.

rather than go into great detail a basic run down of the story is l was sort of a bad apple, l was an outcast from a young age due to having an uncle who decided it would be a good idea to go around and doing the dirty with the mothers at the primary school l was at, this lead to allot of kids resenting me and lead on to quite severe bullying..

now l was told all this crap about having a voice and all that but when push came to shove no one believed me over the groups, the stupidest part of this is our school had a club called the bully busters, it was supposed to be like kids of my own age getting together to tackle with the teachers issues with bullying informing us of what we could do and how to help others who were affected, but the ppl who bullied me were all part of that, so l got no help there.

secondary school (first school), this was where l got kicked in the face chipping two front teeth and other major beatings, yet again the teachers were of no help.. in fact l got expelled for disobeying a teacher even though he had actually assulted my by hitting me and running me into a wall because l wouldnt have a shower (no one else did so why should l?) suffice to say when l met the head teacher l was blew off and told l was a liar.

second secondary school l was at, l was at the wrong place at the wrong time but because l was there at the scene of a trash can fire and had been expelled once before a reputation l didnt deserve got me kicked out.

after that no school would take me, so l was left let down by the system l have no qualifications from school all because they didnt listen, reminds me of those scripts you get at indian call centers they never deviate from
 
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1&1 Internet

Claims to offer 24/7 support for dedicated server owners but if you actually call any of the 5 to 8 different numbers they give you for this then it just goes to the same telephone exchange, while the dedicated server team at weekends is manned by just 1 person (always the same chap) so good luck if several servers hit problems at the same time.

In fact, don't expect anything constructive to happen at the weekends - PERIOD. They'll tell you the issue is being worked on but in reality NOTHING is ever fixed until the following Monday.

BT

They're fast to pick-up the phone but on many occasions I've had to call back repeatedly because something that's been requested hasn't been done and only to find that they have no record of the request. They've also put me through to the wrong department on more than one occasion.
 
ASUS

Good products, very poor uk service center. Takes ages to fix anything and returned my laptop with a different PSU and a missing memory module.

HP

Been stung with getting an item that wasn't as described twice now. A laptop with an intel gfx card instead of an ATI and a duplex unit which didn't actually fit the printer it was for. Its website is also next to useless compared to Dells.
 
BT

They're fast to pick-up the phone but on many occasions I've had to call back repeatedly because something that's been requested hasn't been done and only to find that they have no record of the request. They've also put me through to the wrong department on more than one occasion.

In my experience they only have 2 departments in the entire company.

1 - the department you eventually get through to

2 - "another department" this seems to be something of a myth, as whoever you end up being passed on to invariable says that you need "another department" and passes you on again.
 
I remember the security and the pretty gormless girls at the BT centre where I used to go to try and get ISP discs that worked on my computer.

I wasn't going to pay 50 pence per minute indefinitely for something a disc should do out of the box. I am sure we all remember stories about getting online with BT.

Then they charged me 1p a minute and surftime plus my telephone calls. Hilarious. I wrote their managing director and they seste my fees but kept onto the money till I'd spent it properly.

Like you do.

I am a lot more easily angered now. And regrettably, an hostile consumer.
 
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the most incompetent companies are those who can't make their employees happy working for them. there are a lot of reasons and there should be an observance of employee happiness..
 
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