I don’t buy Sheldon Adelson’s newspaper. Fuck that.
Years ago I took my pickup to a local shop that specialized in 4x4 transmissions. They did a crappy job. And then they closed. Here’s why. But I was boycotting them.
Not going back because of bad service doesn’t really count as a boycott, does it?
Doesn’t boycott generally only refer to an organized protest for a purpose (I mean, a purpose other than having a better experience elsewhere)?
And wouldn’t a one-person boycott be essentially pointless anyway? I mean, if I decided that my local barber was consuming excessive fossil fuels by oiling his clippers too often, and I stopped going there but didn’t make a big public stink about it, how effective could my protest be?
So… I think for it to be a boycott, (a) it has to be about a side issue, not about them being bad at their business; and (b) there has to be a big public campaign, not just an individual making a decision. Without those two things, IMO it’s called “Oh, we don’t go there anymore”, not “boycott”.
Apparently they had them just barely loose enough to (barely) engage the valve stems and allow the air to slowly leak out. Which means it was done deliberately.
Another that’s against Chick-fil-A and similarly bigoted places.
Let’s see…
Also won’t go to a Sonic. Just so many things wrong with their business model. Ever tried walking up to one of those? I have. Did not go well.
I did, where I used to live. One local convenience store and 3 different pharmacies, for 3 different reasons. The store because it did things like try and charge double if the guy on the till thought you were drunk (which basically meant if you came in after 10pm on a Friday or Saturday night). They also had mouldy stock on the shelves, and just shrugged if you told them.
For the pharmacies, I used to work very random shifts, in different locations, so it was easier for me to pick up my repeat prescription from the doctor, and take it to a pharmacy I was passing. It was really common stuff, not controlled or anything so most places took about 10 minutes to fill it. 1# boycott was the nearest to my house, I took my prescription in, and there’s one other customer in there, sign says pharmacist on break 1-2, it’s about 12.45. The counter assistant took it and handed it to the pharmacist. So I stood and waited… and waited. Place is now empty, aside from two counter assistants gossiping, ignoring me. Eventually asked what was keeping the prescription to be told the pharmacist had gone on an early lunch break, and wasn’t going to be back for an hour. Apparently they were planning on leaving me standing there for the full hour without even bothering to tell me…
#2 was one near a friend’s house, not near mine. They didn’t have half of the stuff, but didn’t tell me, filled half of it and then said they couldn’t give it back to get the rest filled elsewhere, they’d order it in and I’d have to come back tomorrow. When I said every single other place told you if they didn’t have an item before filling it, they said ‘Yeah, we normally do that here, I think it’s policy’ then shrugged and wandered off. Went in the next day, really not happy (having driven halfway across town) and they hadn’t even got it. They’d ‘forgotten to add it to the order yesterday’. Took me 2 days and 2 extra trips to get a cream I could have picked up on the way home.
#3 was not a prescription screw up, it was a supermarket pharmacy, where I was trying to get hydrocortisone cream. All that is required to get that here is to confirm that it’s for you and you’re not planning to use it on your face. This woman, however, decided that she needed to see that I had eczema (which was what I was getting it for), despite me explaining that showing her would require stripping off in the middle of the supermarket, and I was not going to do that. She didn’t see that there was a problem with that :eek:
Until it went out of business, there was a local liquor store that I would never shop in and discouraged others from using. The owner was a bigot and probably a sexual predator. He once tried to “search” me for stolen merchandise. I told him call the police if you think I’ve stolen anything otherwise, get out of my way.
I don’t really have any that qualify as a boycott. There are several places that I have ended up never going back to, but it’s not really a conscious decision, just that I had a bad experience that means that when I’m choosing between my options, they’re always ending up lower than the others. For example, there’s a restaurant where service was just stupidly slow when I went, so I remember them for that. I don’t derecommend them to people, if a friend actively wanted us to eat there I wouldn’t object, but if I’m thinking about a sit down dinner, I’m always going to choose one of the other options. Technically it’s a chain, but it’s only the one location that I have an aversion to.
I am thinking about boycotting a local Chinese buffet because they started showing OAN (One America News, for people who think Fox News is too liberal) on the monitors but thankfully without sound. Then they switched to Fox but once I noticed it I’m not going to un-notice it so I was still thinking about not going there anymore. Last time I was there they were showing ABC news, which I don’t watch but at least I don’t have to read blatantly stupid headlines by mistake several times an hour. (I’d only give them positive kudos if they were showing BBC or NPR news if that even exists in a 24 hour format. I hate airports where CNN is blaring in the terminals so loud that it is hard to sit where you can’t hear it, because they are so friggin shallow and content-free.)
I never send food back. A guy I worked with at the Library told me a story about a cook when he worked at a steak joint. It involved a steak sent back, and the cook throwing it around the kitchen. It was retrieved from under the freezer with a mop handle.
I quit using a garage because they didn’t tighten the lug nuts and a wheel almost came off as I drove away.
Sears screwed me on lawnmower repair several years ago, and I don’t deal with them, even though their stove and water heater cost less.
Not only would I not go to my former employer’s business, I bad mouth them very loud and long every chance I get.
I’m looking at the gas/convenience store down the hill.
They use special dead dinosaurs for their gas that cost, on average, 10 cents more per gallon than anybody else.
They charge more for credit cards, a violation of state law and the CC ToS.
They were the first to charge for air.
The inside is skanky, and the outside makes Mogadishu look inviting.
The rusticles dripping down the pumps and canopy make me wonder how long before the whole thing comes crashing down.
Low-hanging fruit, I know, but: Wal*Mart. For their business model and for their crap clone products. In a previous thread I mentioned an experience with valium & a panic attack–that whole episode started with my last experience at Wal*Mart. I get tense just thinking about the place. Fuggem.
This was the cherry on top of that Wal*Mart experience that did it for me.
I also want nothing to do with Chik-Fil-A. And Hobby Lobby. And Church.
Aye; I forgot about Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A. I also don’t eat at McDonald’s, on account of their whole beef-flavor-on-the-french-fries thing; stopped patronizing them back int he late '80s or early '90s when that news came out.
Boycott is too strong a word for what I do. I just gravitate towards a competitor.
I sometimes go to Mall*Wart when I am in a different city and it is the only place I am aware of that has what I want, but the local one is put at the very bottom of the list when I’m looking for something since they always have ads blaring in all locations in their stores despite my negative feedback on this practice.
A big reason I never leave the confines of The Shire. If I stay near home I know where the evil is and I can avoid it.
Ingles grocery store. Years ago I didn’t shop there because they were the cheap, slightly rotten meat smelling store. Now they’re the high priced fancypants store, and no more rotten meat smell, but their produce is awful. Packaged salad greens and cut veggies with mold all over them on “manager’s special,” only marked down slightly. They used to be the only place in town where you could get perfect avocados, but now they order them once a week so they are either rock hard or so overripe they squish out onto your hands, but they still charge $2 each.
Yes. There was a local Shell where the person there treated me poorly once. I have made a point to never get my gas there since. Only that Shell, not all of them. There are plenty of gas stations around.
Thinking about it I realize that all the businesses I will no longer use are local contractors.
(1) Difficult to reach or fail to return calls;
(2) Vague and sometimes bait-and-switch pricing;
(3) Unable to complete work in the period agreed to;
(4) And related, working sporadically on my job, extending the time I am inconvenienced.
Note that I have never had unacceptable results. The contractors did good work and when the work was completed I was happy. But the headaches of poor communication response and the need to nag them to get the job done turned me off to them forevermore.