I boycotted the local Roy Rogers restaurant for a while due to their sloppy service. I even boldly stated “I’ll never go there again”. It only took about 6 months for them to close, only to be replaced by a McDs, a place I avoid like the plague. Roy’s food is much, much better BTW. So I’ve learned to use my boycott powers more selectively or, should I say, to be careful what I wish for.
I try to boycott any company that uses rock songs in their TV or radio ads. At the very least, all such ads that come on TV are instantly muted.
When I hear those songs I don’t want to think of Chase or whatever wretched capitalistic scum that is trying to exploit them.
I don’t donate to the Salvation Army because I don’t agree with their politics; I am, however, occasionally dragged to the store itself by my SO, who’s not bothered enough by it to look and see if there’s anything for purchase that he may like.
We avoid Wal-Mart when we can, partly because of the way they treat employees and partially because the two closest Wal-Marts in our area are heavily employed with people who roll their eyes at us if we come up to them and speak English instead of Spanish. What makes this more annoying is that it’s often difficult to find an English speaker who’s not on a managerial level, and none of the managers sympathize with the non-Spanish-speaking population about the difficulty of having someone around who speaks your language to help you in their store.
We don’t shop at Winn Dixie, and we avoid the Albertson’s that’s closest to us because they’re always so grungy. The prices are almost never worth the food available, either.
There’s a sandwich shop next door to my local comic book shop that I’m unlikely to ever visit again. The other day, I came in, was in the middle of placing my order when a man and his son came in; the person taking my order stopped and decided that their order was more important than mine and ignored me while chatting with him for a few minutes. Instead of actually walking out (I should have), I ended up finishing my order and paying. When did I become such a pushover for bad service?
Microsoft, for being Microsoft.
CitiBank turned me down for one of their uber credit cards, but then promptly added me to their mailing list for their crappier credit cards. I don’t want their stinkin’ card anymore.
I’ve also decided to not fly American Airlines because of their stupid $15/first checked bag policy.
My SO worked for Target and was doing a great job, but the raise he got was so low it was insulting. I’ve added them to my list of places I’d rather not spend my money.
I never could find a Pepsi machine on U of I’s campus. I don’t track bottled water, having only so much time in my life… I think it’s a blanket policy, actually. There is Pepsi available on Green St, which has tons of eateries–and it’s just off campus (across the street).
Re the Domino’s Pizza thing: it IS lousy pizza, so I’m not tempted to change my purchasing habits.
I’m proud to say that I’ve carried an empty gasoline can right on past an Exxon station. One of the employees gestured and said something (probably something along the lines of “hey crazy lady, in case you hadn’t noticed, this is a gas station and you obviously need one and the next closest one is half a mile down the road AND you’re wearing high heels”), and I was thrilled (thrilled!) to say, “No, thank you, I don’t patronize Exxon”.
Also, Wal-Mart, not just because of their scumbag employment practices, but because of other scumbag business practices. They treat their suppliers like they treat everyone else, and I refuse to patronize an organization that is so fundamentally dishonest. Admittedly, I probably wouldn’t shop there very much - if at all - anyway, but the Walmart option is just not an option for me.
Do any of you people who have something bad happen and swear never to go there again write a letter or anything? Because they can’t read your mind - why not give them a chance to fix it?
I’ll never spend a dime at Maurice’s Barbeque, but neither will any right-minded individual. He keeps opening new ones, though, so I guess there’s a lot of asshole racists in South Carolina.
Seriously, it isn’t even good barbeque.
Who would know? He drenches it with so much sauce that it’s impossible to tell if what he is serving could even qualify as barbeque. Of course, that makes me suspect that it must truly suck ass when served by itself.
Like some other posters, I have quite a few of these even though I’m not really a ‘boycott’ sort of person.
First and foremost, British Airways. I’m lucky enough to travel a lot. I’m not very fussy about airlines, because in my experience they are all kind of the same. When it comes to booking flights, I tend to just go online, punch in the destination and see who is offering the best deal. My one and only rule is: not British Airways.
This company, and everyone who works for it, simply could not care less about customer satisfaction or any related concept. They just want to get your money, and after that you’re on your own. They have been caught and prosecuted for their ‘dirty tricks’ campaign against Branson’s Virgin airline. They don’t care if they run out of half the meal options on a flight so that you get no choice. They don’t care if they promise great in-flight entertainemnt and then, on the day you actually board the plane, the system is ‘out of order’ and there’s no entertainment system. They don’t care if they tell you to use the automated check-in system and then, when you try to, you find it doesn’t work. They just don’t care, end of story. If you want to be treated with contempt, with utter and complete indifference, then book your flights with BA and you’ll see how it feels.
More than any other company I know, BA are perfectly happy with a business model that says ‘Take the money, cut corners and then just get by on insincere apologies’. Here’s a typical BA experience. ‘The check-in system is out of order today, we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause’. ‘Your flight will be delayed by 9 hours, we apologise for any inconvenience’. ‘We were offering chicken or pasta, but we’ve run out of chicken so, sorry, there’s no choice’. ‘There is a technical problem with the in-flight entertainment, we apologise for any inconvenience’. ‘We were unable to put your luggage on this flight, so it will follow on a later flight about 12 hours from now. We apologise for any inconvenience’.
I will never, ever give this mendacious, indifferent, disagraceful organisation another penny if I can help it. In the airline business, there are so many other players who at least seem to make an effort and who gets things right more often than not, and who deserve my money more than BA.
I also refuse to have anything to do with the** large fast ‘food’ chains** such as McD and Burger King and KFC. I resent the lies they peddle. I resent the impact they have had on the nation’s health. I resent the way so many young children end up thinking that what they get in these places is actually ‘good food’ (it isn’t) and I resent the rabid expansion they pursue, so that everywhere you go it’s the same few options and small, local cafes and restaurants - ones that might actually have charm and character and an interesting local menu - are driven out of business.
Just to redress the balance, even though it deviates from the OP for a moment, there are two companies that have won my ‘brand loyalty’ over the years: Panasonic and Hewlett Packard. They both seem to have a simple business model: keep up with the market and what people actually want, sell stuff that works, slap a fair price on it, and if people want a refund for any reason then apologise, give them a refund, and smile.
Nestle. Since the 70s.
I will not patronize any business having to do with grayhound dog racing. The way they treat these poor animals is apalling, and I refuse to spend money to help people exploit these dog’s misery! 
Agreed. Back in college I was talking to someone and mentioned my complete lack of drinking, drugs, smoking and he replied “So you’re Straight Edge?”
My response was “What the fuck is Straight Edge?” He explained and I told him I guess I wasn’t (because I don’t do the whole “hardcore lifestyle” part of it) and then he got on my case about being anti-Straight Edge.
So I guess you could say I boycott Straight Edge ass holes.
Apple for me. Just cannot stand their advertising - computer as fetish lifestyle item for smug bastards turns me right off for some reason. I guess this is not a boycott as such, just getting rubbed entirely the wrong way by an ad campaign. I’ve used Macs before and liked them, so I might buy one if no one saw me. The phone or the ipod is out of the question.
Last weekend I was in the bike shop, buying a rack to hang up my bikes on a wall. I settled on an expensive one, because it looked nicer than a simple hook. As I was paying for it, I noticed the packaging had a picture of the rack holding a bike up, in a flat, whilst metrosexual cycling man relaxed on a bed with his macbook! I gave the rack back to the guy at the till and put my money away. Apple does that to me.
True, but I’ve always found the underlying meat to be gross and fatty. Go to the Little Pig; they got all three kinds of barbecue and the best hushpuppies to boot.
You think right. Just before being bought out, they decided to enter the Albuquerque market. They built LOTs of stores…3 that are within easy bicycle distance of my house, but after the buyout, NONE ever opened. Two of them near me are ACE hardware stores, and the third is a bookstore. Excellent trade there, as with a Walgreen’s on every other corner we really didn’t need another drug store, but were really hurting after Baldridge’s TrueValue went under. It was worth having them stand empty for about a year.
I boycott Sears. They started the whole “peak horsepower” bullshit with first their vacuum cleaners, then their air compressors. Others were forced to follow, but without Sears, HP would still mean HP. For the record, If it can operate from a “normal” 115V outlet, and is UL listed, it is 1.5 HP or less. I spend a LOT of money on tools, none of it at Sears.
(continue hijack) Hudsons Barbecue is the best!! There’s one in Lexington and one in Columbia. They have four kinds of sauce and the world’s best sweet potato fries ever! Mmmmmmmm.
I wish I was back in SC for lunch!! (/continue hijack)
ETA: I could never boycott Hudsons!
ADT Home Security.
OK, not that we purchase home security systems all that often, but… The year Dweezil was born, a women a few doors down from us was raped late one evening. Outside her house. She was arriving home at 11PM or thereabouts, and someone grabbed her between the car and her front door (townhouses, no garages) and dragged her to an unlit area and raped her.
Every 48 hours for several weeks after that, we came home to find an ADT brochure stuffed in our front door.
Yeah - the company saw this misfortune as a marketing opportunity. Not just once, but day after day after day they kept stuffing these brochures in our door.
The kicker? THEIR SERVICE WOULD NOT HAVE HELPED THIS WOMAN. IT WAS NOT A HOME INVASION!!
So when we decided to get security monitoring on our current house, we didn’t even consider ADT. Nor will we ever use their service.
They were trying to make a go of it here in Maryland for a couple of years, but they’ve all recently been converted into Rite-Aids.
EuroFly Airlines.
Left JFK 5 hours late for no apparant reason. Flight was JFK - Rome - Naples. Flight to Naples was long gone. Took a bus. Arrived at destination 10 hours late for a show we were to perform in… Coming back to US left 7 hours late - for no aparrant reason. Limited AC on plane. No movies, no magazines, cold food.
Yes, we wrote and called. Their response? " Wow. sounds like you had a bad time. Here’s a $25 voucher. It’a all we can do"
Screw you Eurofly. And the horse you rode in on.
I didn’t realize this until this thread, but the only two boycotts I’ve got have to do with breastfeeding. The first, as jali mentioned, is Nestle, for their practices of marketing formula to third world mothers.
The second is Applebee’s. Last year a mother here in the town where I live was asked to leave when discreetly nursing her son. Local demonstrations followed, and then national protests. They never apologized or said they were wrong; they would only say that they were concerned about the “comfort of all their customers.” Utter bullshit. I’ll never eat there again.