I refuse to EVER open a bank account at an HSBC bank. The branch on my campus has the WORST customer service I have ever seen. A few examples:
I had about twenty Canadian dollars that I needed to exchange into US currency. I went in, asked if they exchanged Canadian money…they did…but only if I had an account with them. WTF? Why do I need an account to exchange foreign currency? It makes no sense. That, to me, says the bank does not value it’s customers.
Another, similar, instance. I had a bunch of change that I had rolled (Yes, I’m one of those types.) Well guess what? Yup, they only exchange coin if I had an account with them. Why the Hell do I need an account to give you one kind of money and get another kind back?
The only reason I even go in anymore is because they cash checks less than for students if we have our college ID’s. I wouldn’t even do that, except that my bank’s closet branch is a mile away, and sometimes I need to cash a check in those ten minutes between classes.
There’s a Mongolian Buffet/China Buffet type restaurant that my family used to patronise–at least 3 times a months, anywhere from 4 to 14 people in the party when we went. Last September, my sister, her husband, my brother and his then-fiancee-now-wife went out to dinner there. Less then 5 minutes after they walked in, my sister went into labor–long enough to get seated and place their drink orders, not long enough to even walk over to the buffet and start getting food. They tried to explain to their waitress, and then to the manager on duty, what was happening, but they still had to pay for 4 dinners.
So, for the price of 4 dinners, this restaurant lost the immediate patronage of 20+ people (my family, my brother-in-law’s family, and my sister-in-law’s family) plus whomever we passed the story on to.
In the 60s, my father bought a circular saw blade from them that split in half the first time he used it and missed him by about two inches
In the 70s, they were infamous for bait-and-switch tactics
In the early 90s I gave them another chance; both the stores I visited (in two separate malls) were absolutely filthy, including a pool of dried vomit on the floor of one.
In addition, they’re overpriced and always have been.
CrankyAsAnOldMan, companies love good feedback, you could send a handwritten letter to Avis describing how the Avis employee saved your outing with her excellent customer service skills and attention to child safety. I bet you’d get a nice letter back and a handful of discount coupons.
Don’t laugh, I once wrote a letter to Coffeemate stating how much I preferred their non dairy creamer over Cremora and I got a coupon for a free large-size Coffeemate.
A month ago my wife got hit from behind in an intersection. This caused her car to bump the car in front. Minimum damage to our front and rear fenders. The driver in front took off (guess he figured it was not his problem).
The driver behind my wife (whose fault it WAS) stopped, exchanged insurance info, etc.
The next day my wife spoke to the claims adjuster from the other drivers company who told her the driver had told HIM that my wife hit the car in front BEFORE being hit from behind. Was that correct?
My wife said like hell it was. Then she called the other driver to give her a piece of her mind. Of course, it turned out the second driver hadn’t said anything of the kind. The claims adjuster was hoping my wife would be confused enough to agree and let them out of paying for the damage to the front bumper.
But the key thing is this: if my wife hadn’t had the presence of mind to call the second driver we would be walking around right now telling people what a liar she was…
I called a catalogue store to order a computer desk. “Are you interested in joining our price discount club? You get 10% off of all your purchases and it’s only $49.99 a year.”
No I just want to order this desk.
But if you join our price discount club, you will save $8 on this purchase alone.
Look, I told you I am not interested. If you mention it again, I will hang up.
But I was just explaining that, if you join our Price Discount Club…
I didn’t hear the rest of it, cause I hung up. Fortunately, she hadn’t taken the credit card information.
There’s a restaurant in New Brunswick, NJ (Old Man Rafferty’s) that has the same thing.
There’s a few places that I won’t shop at because of bad service. I vote with my dollars. But when I saw this thread title, one incident immediately sprung to mind.
There is a Sherwin Williams paint store in my town. I like to patronize local businesses. I went in there a lot, because we had just purchased a “fixer-upper” house. But the owner was always a jerk to me, so I rarely bought anything. I even told him that we were fixing up a house in the hopes that I would get better service, but he was always rude and condescending. Well, I finally bought a gallon of paint from him anyway. I asked about the return policy. He said that I could return it if I didn’t like it–unconditional guarantee. Great. So I went to use the paint, and the texture and consistency were horrible. So I brought it back. And the guy started laughing and making fun of me. I said, “I thought this had an unconditional guarantee.” He said, “not if it’s open!” Well, duh. How am I going to know if I like it until I open it? So we started walking out, and the guy and his henchmen started yelling after us, “I’ll bet you like that Behr paint they sell at Home Depot! You probably think that’s good paint! You don’t know anything about paint!”
Now I buy paint from Siperstein’s, a local NJ chain. They are very knowledgable and very nice.
I don’t know that I’ll NEVER shop there again, but Best Buy didn’t carry the two best Consumer Reports mid-range 32" TVs. Never did. I found that to be out of touch with the public, so we went to circuit city and got what we wanted. And a better “no interest” purchase plan, too!
I had a very similar experience as yojimbo at a Mastercuts. Walked up to the front desk where a girl was having a personal conversation on the phone. She proceeded to talk on the phone for five minutes without acknowledging my presence. When she got off the phone I told her I was just there for a haircut she pointed at a clipboard and said “Write your name here and we’ll call you in about ten minutes”
I am very used to bad customer service but this crossed the line.
Of course, the classic response to this is to open a free checking account (most banks have 'em nowadays), get your coins or canadian money exchanged , then immediately close it. Takes a little of your time, but maybe the bank will change it’s policy after 2-3 people do this.
There’s a local overpriced pretentious bar/restaurant that many of my friends inexplicably like. Despite my dislike for the place, we end up going there pretty often.
Thursday night we went there. I ordered coffee; one of my friends ordered a gin and tonic.
The waitress asked for her ID. When my friend showed her the ID, the waitress said, “This says you’re seventeen. I can’t serve you.”
Uh, no, lady. 2002 minus 1978 does not equal seventeen. We explained the math to her, and she apologized. She then had to get all our orders over again, because she’d forgotten.
On bringing us our food, she informed us that she wouldn’t do separate checks for us, because it was too difficult (there were four of us in the party; we wanted two checks). She only relented when I told her we’d both be paying with credit cards.
The coffee was lukewarm. When she refilled coffee, she sloshed lukewarm coffee from her pot into my lap. And walked away without so much as an “Excuse me”.
I’m not going back there, unless wild horses are involved.
I don’t go to Circle K convenience stores because they refused to pay for insured employees to have treatment for AIDs because “it was their fault because of their lifestyle”. Likewise, I refuse to eat at Cracker Barrel because they refuse to hire gays and lesbians because “This is a ‘family oriented’ business.”
I once went to 3 electronics stores (HH Gregg, Circuit City and Best Buy). I must’ve been wearing my Magical Cloak of Invisibility, because I never once was offered help. I couldn’t even catch the eye of a salesperson. However, let a man walk in and they were all over him like sharks on chum. I knew what I wanted, I havd cash in my pocket. Finally, I went to Service Merchandise and was courteously help and made my purchase there.
They understood the rules quite well, haj, that’s why they didn’t sell it to him. If you’re apart of a party that’s buying alcohol, you must be of age. And as far as I know, there are no exceptions.
If you wanna bitch at people, bitch at the people that not only created the stupid law, but send people in to test whether or not the law is being enforced, and revoke the businesses privileges if they fail.
I recently went back to Subway for the 1st time in 5 years. This is because they refused to cut the bread for my sandwich right down the middle. It was store policy to cut the bread in a canoe-like fashion. I went to three different stores and they all refused. I said: “But Blimpie’s cuts it the way I want.” The manager’s reply: “Well then go to Blimpie’s.”
A party that’s buying alcohol? I’d sure like to see a cite for a liquor law that’s worded this way. I’ve never heard of anything except the person who is actually paying for the booze being carded.
(If my friend stands way back behind me in line, and makes a separate purchase of a pack of gum, is it OK then? What’s the minimum distance at which a person is no longer considered part of your “party”?*)
*Any sarcasm here is directed at the stupidity of any such “law,” not at any posters here.