Have you ever boycotted a business, and why?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Thread title basically explains it all, have you ever boycotted a business for any reason? What business, and why?

By “boycott” I just mean that you have chosen to not buy their products and services on a personal level, not necessarily that you were involved in a larger movement against the company/business.

I can think of two instances, personally.

One is Exxon. When the Exxon Valdez wrecked, I felt that Exxon’s response was one of the worst examples of poor corporate citizenship I have ever seen. Exxon should have taken much greater responsibility. Yes, it sucks they had a drunk captain–maybe they couldn’t have known. But the fact of the matter is, it’s your ship, he’s your employee–TAKE RESPONSIBILITY.

I had been a very loyal Exxon customer for years. About a week after the event I tore up my Exxon credit card and wrote a letter to the corporation explaining why I had canceled my card and why I would never again buy a single drop of gasoline from an Exxon branded pump.

It’s been many years since then, and I haven’t broke my word on that yet.

The other is Circuit City. A few years ago I bought an LCD monitor from them. The advertised price indicated in clear lettering there were three rebates that you could apply after purchase to knock about $100 off the product.

I got home, and inside the box the UPC needed to redeem the rebates had been destroyed (the outer packaging didn’t have the UPCs on it.) Furthermore, each rebate required the original UPC of which there was only one. I went to Circuit City and the manager refused to do anything to fix the problem, so I haven’t given Circuit City a cent since then. Unlike ExxonMobil, it actually looks like Circuit City is having a rough time these days–and I’m very pleased with that.

(Edit to add: Circuit City was also involved in another problem I had. A few months prior to the LCD incident I bought a PC game from them. Inside the box, NOWHERE could I find the CD-Key required to install the game. I’ve been playing PC games since the 80s, I’m not some idiot who doesn’t know all the places to look for a CD key. I even looked for a slip of paper that may have been thrown in with the packaging. There was absolutely nothing. I took it back to Circuit City who offered to exchange it for another copy. This was fine, but I insisted on being able to look inside the box to see if the new copy had a CD-Key. Not a single copy of the game in the store had a CD-Key, the manager refused to give me a cash refund so I went to the game’s publisher. After explaining my issue, they refused to issue me a CD-Key or do anything to solve the problem. In this case, it was the only occasion where I’ve ever pirate software, I cracked the game and didn’t give a second thought to it.)

2

Chick-fil-A. The owner donates money to various far-right causes that I don’t agree with, so I don’t give him money to donate. Since I live in Idaho this isn’t difficult, but I did even when I was in the South. Mostly. I admit to breaking down a time or two for their chicken fingers. Yum.

And my other is the usual suspect in these threads, but it is personal since I am an ex-employee – Wal-Mart. I’m not giving them a penny ever again if I can help it after the way I was treated. Suffice it to say I could have sued them, but I didn’t have the emotional/physical energy or the money for legal fees at the time.

3

A McDonald’s in my neighborhood.

When the line was out the door and only two registers was open, I asked to speak to a manager. When I asked if she was going to open up any more registered, she said she couldn’t because they were shorthanded.

When I told her they had only two open registers three other times that I had been there at different times of day and evening, she replied, “Well, it too hot to deal with this right now. Besides, complaining is not going to help.”

Never been back.

4

Circuit City. I bought a computer from them, using their credit card and their “same as cash deal.” I made the first payment 14 days early. They didn’t cash the check until after the deadline and then charged me 35 dollars late fee.

Neither their bank nor Circuit City would help me address this. (The bank first ignored me, then when I asked CC to intervene, they said they couldn’t help me.)

Had I charged it and paid the interest it would have been cheaper than their nonsense.

I explained to CC that if they did not find a way to make it right I would never be back. I also let them know how much I would have spent in the next two years if they did make it right. (Thousands of dollars as I bought a high-end computer and a big-screen TV.)

I have never been back.

5

The Pasand Lounge and associated restaurants in Berkeley, due to this enormous douchebag.

6

BP Amoco. Earlier this year they lobbied pretty strongly and got the Indiana legislature to let them essentially double the amount of mercury and other pollutants into Lake Michigan. Other states and cities got involved and had the increase cut way down, but the fact that they adamantly fought for their right to dump into the lake pissed me off.

A prominent wannabe politician out here owns a dairy company. There are stores, home delivery options and to be honest - the stuff is pretty good. But a couple campaigns ago he ran a really offensive about his stance on immigration reform. I cut his stores off my list. Last year he was in my town’s parade. As he came to where I was standing, he was all smiling and crap, walked up to me and held out his hand. I stared at it, said no thank you and kept my hands in my pockets.

Oh, ok, since you asked, it’s this dairy.
Owned by this jerk.

7

Herbergers department store, but only the ones in Montana. The Bozeman location was horrifically rude to an overweight, pregnant friend. As in, when asked where the maternity clothes might be, the womens wear manager replied “You’re too fat for me to help you,” and then turned to fawn on size 3 me. Five years later, I went to the Butte Herbergers for a new (size 12) interview suit. The clerk there, after trying to ignore her customers for far too long, told an older woman that they just didn’t have anything for women like you.

Those Herbergers don’t care to have money from old people or fat people, so I patronized JC Penney’s or went to Dillards in Missoula.

The Herbergers here in Minot, North Dakota has very polite, helpful staff.

8

Walmart. The only time I’ve ever been in the place have been with other people or on the job. I just don’t like their business practices. Not a big deal to me, I’d much rather shop at Target.

Boycotted the local Kwik Trip for the better part of a year after the Ass(istant) Man(ager) screwed me over by reporting me as a drive-off while I was working as an Armed Courier. Just the accusation could have cost me my job. Told this story here before. Went over with the cop, they counted out the register and found it over by almost the amount I had paid, so no charges filed. Made a complaint to corporate, they reviewed the tape of the transation (they have cameras pointing down at the counter tops) and found that I had indeed given him the full amount, he just rang it up incorrectly and then “forgot” that I had paid him for the gas.

He asked me for the $28, then rang it up as $3, forgetting the $25 in gas. Didn’t stop him from taking the $28 from me, so I don’t know where the fuck his brain was at during that transation. He was also incredibly rude and obnoxious while I was there with the cop trying to sort it out.

Even with a corporate apology and attempt to bribe me (I never used the bribes), I didn’t feel like giving them any more of my money for a long while afterwards.

There’s a Chinese restaurant in Robbinsdale Minnesota that made me so ill that I will never eat there again, nor allow anyone I know to go there either.

There are other individual restaurants that I simply will not eat at, because of their cleanliness, because they’ve messed up too many times, because of their prices, repeated bad service, or what have you. But I’d call that being smart, not a boycott.

And there have been plenty of other businesses over the years that I stopped frequenting because of shady business practices, rude staff or what have you. I wouldn’t really call them boycotts either, just a choice of where to spend my money.

9

I have so many…

First of all, any ski area in Austria. At the time Kurt Waldheim was President of Austria my wife and I went on frequent expensive ski trips. So we just decided that we would muttle through life limited to Alberta, Colorado, Utah, France etc., for our big trips. Somehow we survived the sacrifice.

You know, there are so many companies that gave bad service that we stopped buying from that I couldn’t even get into half of it here. OK, just one example since Circuit City is mentioned tice above…I’ve only had good results at Circuit City, and Walmart, BTW, but Best Buy really screwed us once. We paid for a refrigerator, they didn’t deliver it, they wouldn’t refund the money.

OK, one more example: Dell Computer. Got a lemon of a laptop. They said if I’d ship it back they’d give a refund. I shipped it; still waiting for the refund two years later.

10

This. I didn’t let it get to the point where I could sue them for a hostile work environment; I quit first. Just walked out one day, in tears. I don’t set foot in Wal-Mart anymore, period. It was hands-down the worst, most degrading job I have ever had, and I am actually kind of glad that my walking out without notice has apparently made me ineligible for re-hire forever.

11

Several places are on my shit-list. This place used to be my favorite BBQ place, until the night they threw a block party because OJ got off. Haven’t been back since. Circuit City gets a nod because of generally shitty service any time we have shopped there.

12

I once had a choice when buying a computer battery in the US - two identical batteries, one made in Germany, one made in Israel. As I live in the Gulf and travel in Arab countries all the time, the German made product won. Probably nothing would come of it, but being “detained” in Syria doesn’t sound like fun.

13

Wal-Mart. I’ve heard plenty about how they treat employees, and the store is just nasty in itself. Target doesn’t cost that much more, if at all, and is cleaner with better products. The stupid thing is my roommate gives me grief over avoiding Wal-Mart; she’s one of the ‘price trumps everything’ people.

McDonald’s, though it’s more because I’m pretty sure their food will kill me faster than any other fast food chain’s than because they offended me in some way.

I did boycott Burger King for a long, long time, because every time I went their food tasted like utter garbage. Apparently there is or was a really crappy franchisee down in Tucson, because every BK I’ve eaten at outside of Tucson has given me great food.

14

Yes, that’s a boycott of mine too. He also campaigned (unsuccessfully) to get an amendment to the Illinois constitution to forbid same-sex marriage. His campaign signs (at least at one time) had an ice cream cone/scoop on them, so he wasn’t trying that hard for separation of his politics from his business.

Wal-Mart - my sister used to work there when she was in grad school, and besides not liking their general business practices (yes, I know many other corporations do similar things, more or less), I hate how they understaff their checkouts. I prefer a somewhat higher price and better service, like at Target or Costco. (Costco seems to be a model of how to treat their employees, in contrast to Wal-Mart.) Edit for full disclosure: Once a year I buy a Wal-Mart gift card for a brother-in-law of mine, since he refuses to even give a hint of an alternate present and I’m hopeless at figuring out what else he’d like.

15

As of last month, Dell.
I tried to take advantage of a promotion they were running and saw a discrepancy on their ad that would have been in my favor. So I called customer service to clarify the mistake. They admitted it was a mistake, but wouldn’t abide by the deal. Eventually they gave in and agreed to give me the deal in the ad, which included 2 free webcams.
I got the computer, but no cameras. I gave them a couple weeks and emailed. No response. A week later, I email again. I get a call from corporate and explain the problem. He tells me there has never been such a promotion that Dell has ever had, and he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. So, I email him the link that I still have for the ad. Oh, that promotion.

He puts me on hold for about 10 minutes to say, I’m still looking into it, hang on. Comes back to inform me that that promotion was only available online. Funny, the guy on the phone seemed able to match the price and the specs of the promotional computer, and there doesn’t seem to be an online-only stipulation unless you’d care to show me.
Oh. Well hang on.
Sorry, we can’t show you the stipulations, it’s not written down anywhere. It just is.

I email again demanding to see some reason for why they seem to not want to honor half the promotion they earlier agreed to honor, and further if they are unable to provide me with proof that I will have to see what the BBB has to say because I feel like they’re engaging in misleading advertising practices.

Good news, we’ve reviewed your claim, and decided to send you the cameras!

Bastards.

16

Chrysler.

My first car had one of their infamous 2.2 Litre Turbo engines. When the head gasket exploded (they always did I found out later), Chrysler refused to honor the 7-70 warranty and repair the engine. So I had it repaired elsewhere and took the bills to arbitration (per the small print in the 7-70 warranty). Their arbitration board in Armonk NY (nicknamed the ‘Rubber-Stamp Division’) claimed it was 100% not their responsibility & too damn bad anyway.

I’ll never have a good thing to say about Chrysler and I’ll never cut them any slack. Ever. By the way, I used to work for Chrysler and I was cornered by not one but two different managers and told point blank that my next car purchase had better be a Chrysler product (which is how I ended up driving Chrysler-crap in the first place). “If I worked for them and they’d screw me over so easily and so completely, just imagine how quickly they’d screw you over should something ever go wrong with your car” is how I phrase it to anyone I know even considering buying from them.

17

The Godfather’s Pizza chain, after having me wait (in restaurant, mind you) for over two hours for my order to come, admitted that they lost the order. They then refused to give a refund.

Never came back, and, when the CEO ran for public office, I donated money to his opponents.

18

I’m not sure that a lot of this stuff is “Boycotting.” I mean, of course you’re not going to use a service that you know stinks, or buy a product you know sucks. I won’t drink Starbucks coffee because it tastes like shit. That’s not a “boycott,” though. ladyfoxfyre isn’t “Boycotting” Dell, in the sense that word is generally meant. She’s just not buying Dell because their service is bad. (And believe me, she’s right.)

A “boycott” is when you refuse to do business with a company, with which you normally would do business, for a reason other than the quality of their product or service, usually related to a matter of morals or ethics.

If you won’t eat at Chick-Fil-A because you don’t like their Christian politics, that’s a boycott.

If you won’t eat at Chick-Fil-A because you don’t like the food, that’s not a boycott.

19

Walmart for their “interesting” janitorial staff policies. And their minimum wage/PT crapola. Plus, our local Walmart is dirty, the staff unfriendly and it give me the creeps just to go in there.

Oberweis Dairies for much the same reason as MBG–but I didn’t need that much. Just knowing he(Oberweis) is a staunch conservative Rep is enough to turn me away. I’ve heard him on local NPR at times, and each time he sounds like an ass.

Macy’s–for abolishing a Chicago and an American landmark. I worked at Field’s, as did all my sisters. I registered at Field’s and my china/sterling/crystal were on display there before we were married. I took my kids to lunch under the great tree at Christmas and to see the windows. It was an institution. I make a point to not shop Macy’s–so far, I’ve been able to do so (Carson’s has benefitted).
Coca-cola.I’m a Pepsi girl anyway, if and when I drink pop. But, U of I in Chambana is a “coke campus”–you cannot buy a Pepsi product on campus. No doubt there are Pepsi campuses, but the thought of this just pisses me off and so, I won’t drink Coke.

Domino’s Pizza–I don’t frequent them because of their anti-choice position (the owner/founder is pro-birth–I refuse to call it pro-“life”).

20

I boycott Walmart, also. Haven’t been in one in years. I just can’t abide by their business practices.

I’ve never been in the local Shell station, it was built on a wetland, and the construction crew literally ran over a protester.

There’s a local restaurant that always gives me (and just me) crappy service. It’s surreal – I’ve been in alone, with my wife, with friends, and different servers and staff. My order is always wrong, I can’t get the condiments I want, bill is wrong, etc. It’s always multiple problems, and only with my meal. Everyone else raves about the place. I figure that my karma must conflict with the place, so I don’t go there anymore.

I boycotted McDonalds for a few decades, but I’ll go to them occasionally now.

I’ve been ignored several times at Men’s Wearhouse, but instead of boycotting them I’m just obnoxious and pushy.

I don’t buy any services from Boy Scouts, or other religious groups – things like car washes, etc. Girl Scouts get my dollars, but Boy Scouts have gotten weird with their homophobia and being hosted primarily at Mormon churches.