Your worst Retail experience

[sarahj]

sarahj - What store was this, just out of curiousity?

It was JayJay's.

[Bardmaiden]

My worse retail experience was with British Gas some 10 years ago. I moved into my flat in June, I call all the relevant people to get the utility's connected and find that the gas is with some fly by night company I want nothing to do with so I call them to say I want it transferred. I then contact the BG to get it set up with them, all okay so I think.

I get a letter a month later from BG addressed to a MR (I'm a Miss and I have a nicely female voice...) saying the company I want to transfer from has no record of me. So I call up and tell them I am not a Mr and that I contacted the company and they confirmed that I am registered. I wait a month and get another letter address to a Mr and saying the same thing. Now I ring up, state in plain and firm language that I am a Miss and that I really wish they would get this sorted and that I confirmed with the company again that I am a customer.

Time passes its getting cold, my heating is gas based...I begin to call BG regularly very regularly, at one point every day for two weeks and the manager I was regular talking to leaves, didn't mention it to me...which might have been nice so I didn't ring up the next time and look like an idiot. Eventually this mess is sorted and I have gas one week before Christmas, yes folks it took 6 months to transfer me. Apparently this occurred because somebody at the company my gas was originally with could not scroll down on their computer

I won't even go into the fun I had getting my meter changed from

[BigBird]

Another Lousy Phone Company Story..

This happened last year

Where I live, basically the only decent phone service is through the company that's (I think), the largest phone and internet company in Canada. I've heard many horror stories about the company, but up until then we'd had no problems with them.

Story starts on a Friday afternoon in June when I went to use my internet, and could not get on (different internet provider from the phone, but it's tied into the line). I pick up the phone to call the internet provider and find no dial tone. Hubby has a cell phone, so I wait until he gets home from work to call the phone company, but of course by then there was no one left in the service department we were calling.

So I phone back early on Saturday, and have to wait a good thirty minutes to talk to anyone. She's not much help, can only say that an order has been put in to transfer our number to an "outside provider." Can't tell me anything else, so she transfers me to someone else, blah, blah, and I basically find out nothing. One CSR tells me that I must have put in the request since it can only come through the customer, and despite my insistence that neither I or my hubby did this, I get the distinct impression that they think we requested to have our own number transferred to some new, unknown provider and then forgot about it?!?!?! They even went so far as to suggest that one of the kids had phoned them up and made the request. Not likely.

I finally get to talk to someone with a clue by Tuesday, and they arrange to get us a temporary number later that week. Still no one can tell me who approved the transfer since it didn't come from us, nor could they tell me who the "outside provider" was since they weren't allowed to give out that information for security reasons.

Long story short, we finally got our original number restored THREE weeks later, but they had to route it through a new connection (???) and we were without our internet for over a month. They were supposed to open an internal investigation to determine how the transfer got approved in the first place, basically to determine if someone had accessed our account, but that never panned out. We never did get an apology, though they agreed to waive the reconnection fee, and gave us a $30 credit (the amount for one month's service). Nobody would tell me what was going on, but I did have one CSR admit that it was probably something simple like someone writing down the wrong phone number.

I thought it was all done with by September, but got a surprise when they sent me a notice that my phone was going to be disconnected because I had failed to pay the last three months' bills. I paid the bills online, but it turns out when they reconnected the phone, they gave us a new account number, and had failed to tell me that, so that my payments were going to the old account number that had been closed. They would be able to transfer the payments, but not before the disconnect order was to go through, so I would have to repay the amount owing to the new account immediately. Needless to say, we ended up with a nice balance on our October bill.

Oh yes, we also found out that the "outside provider" that the number was supposed to be changed to (the one they said they weren't authorized to tell me for security reasons), turned out to be the cellular phone division of the same company.

Since then, all has been fine, but when they called last week asking if I'd be interested in having my internet account transferred over to them, I politely declined.

[Kogarashi]

My worst experience is rather mild compared to these, but watever. Maybe I just don't attract too many sucky experiences (when I'm on the customer-end of things, at least).

Sometime in late high school, I started up with one of those CD music clubs. This one in particular was quite nice, since you got 12 CDs for the price of 1, with no extra commitment. Sweet, I thought, I can get a bunch of CDs I'd like for way cheap. I ordered up my CDs, receiveed them, and all was great.

A year or so down the road, I was in college and still a member. Mostly it was to take advantage of the sales they periodically offered, where I could get CDs half off retail price or something. They'd also started up a system where you got one point for each CD you bought, and when you racked up enough points you could cash them in for free CDs (one point equalled one dollar). I'd ordered enough from them that I had enough points to get a free CD, and was all set to do so.

Problem was, when I tried logging into my account on their website to redeem the points, I couldn't get in. My account apparently didn't exist. I called up the company and spoke with a rep, and after some explaining of the situation, the rep told me that someone had authorized to close my account, and didn't I do that?

I had done no such thing and told them so, and they agreed to reinstate my account. No bonuses, no 12 CDs for the price of one or anything like that, just reopened my account. Great, I thought. I waited a day or two, and logged in again.

No rewards points. Zilch.

I called up again, explained the situation (account closed without my permission, points no longer there), and asked if there was some way to reinstate the points so I could use them. I was promptly told that no, there was nothing that could be done, and I would have to earn those points again. With a sigh, I thanked them and hung up.

I bought maybe three more CDs from them before my account was mysteriously closed again. When I called this time, I explained that it had happened before and I lost all my reward points, and would it be possible to keep the three I'd earned this time? I was told no, they had to open a brand new account in my name and couldn't give me free points like that.

I told them not to bother.


(Other bad experiences include the cell phone company reps (in-store) that don't do what they say they will, and the Evil Cable Internet Company that couldn't figure out what was wrong with a whole building's internet (maybe a whole neighborhood's; who knows) flaking out on a frequent basis for six+ months.)

[almigi]

Worst experience I had was with Verizon.

...

Long story short, after many hours talking to Turing-test failing techs and listening to muzak on hold, they finally figured out what the problem was.

I can just imagine what talking to a turing-test failing tech would be like,

You: I'm calling about my internet connection. I've been dealing with this issue for several weeks now, I'm getting real upset. Please, I would like this resolved as soon as possible!

Tech: Whoa! That's a lot of words. Try to limit yourself to one sentence at a time.

You: *grrr* I'm calling about my internet service.

Tech: Tell me more about the you are calling about your internet service.

You: What?

Tech: If you don't know, neither do I.

You: Listen, turn my internet back on NOW!

Tech: How would if help if I listen, turn your internet back on NOW!?

You: *aahhhhhhhh!!!!*

[Custard Chick]

My horror story involves my apartment complex. My boyfriend and I moved in in October of 2007. Not once has our rent been late, we religiously drop off a check on the first of each month.

June 2008 comes around. I write out the check, the BF drops it off. A week later we get an eviction notice taped to our door (even though were had been in the apartment ALL DAY and never once heard a knock... ??). It said we had to pay up hundreds of dollars in late fees, plus our normal rent, or be evicted in 5 days times.

We both FLIP OUT. Luckily, our checks had individual carbon copies, so I found our last rent check and gave it to my bf to bring down to the office. He storms down there and shows the carbon check copy to them, telling them that we did pay and there was no reason to evict us.

Once of the office staff does mention that they were surprised that we didn't pay since they had never had any problems with us before.

They go through all the checks and end up finding ours! The problem? They had MISREAD the damn check!

Now, we pay $1444 for our rent and our apartment number is 707. I write my 7's with a dash in the stem. When I wrote out apartment number in the Memo field of the check, the dash and the top of the 7 connected a bit and looked like a 4. So they assigned the check to apartment 407. What gets me though, is that I write my 4's like a square with no top, a hard right angle instead of the triangle like my connected 7 looked. THERE ARE FOUR 4'S IN MY RENT AMOUNT! WHY they didn't quickly check is difference between the 7's and the 4's I have NO FUCKING CLUE.

ALSO? Our ADDRESS is printed plainly on the check - with 707 as our apartment number! Now I just circle the 707 in our address on the check so their dumbasses don't try to evict us for no reason again.

Grrrr....