What bad service do you put up with because it's cheap?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

For anyone thinking of getting MetroPlus health insurance because it’s cheap, please note the following: There is no auto pay option on their website. And you cannot pay your premiums online unless you input the invoice number that comes with your bill. This is the only service I use where I have to pay the bill like it’s the 1990s by waiting for a bill to come in the mail.

There is also this Italian restaurant I order from which always gets my apartment number wrong when they deliver. They always confuse the “B” with a “D”. But I do not care as long as I get my $6 spaghetti with marinara sauce.

#2

Transportation. When traveling in the third world, I assume that public inter-city transport will cost maybe a dollar an hour or so for travel time. Here in America, there is only Greyhound, and it costs about $15 an hour for me to go two hours down the road. I don’t care that the buses are safer and prettier and cleaner and more comfortable than the chicken buses in Ecuador, I don’t want to pay ten times as much for the privilege.

The whole concept of servility makes me feel uncomfortable. In a restaurant, I want somebody to cook what I point to on the menu, and for all I care they can ring a bell when it’s ready and I’ll go to the kitchen and get my plate. Quite honestly, I’d rather have bare-bones service at the same price, than a bunch of people kowtowing around me.

#3

I go to a lot of mom ‘n’ pop Asian restaurants. It seems to me almost a rule that the better the food, the more brusque and terse the service. I don’t mind; like jtur88, I’m not there for the kowtowing, I’m there for the banh cuon or the vegetarian thali.

#4

My lawn care company is mediocre at best, yet their rates are competitive and whenever I think about switching to someone else I remember that old “the devil you know…” saying. So I keep them.

#5

Tracfone. Absolutely world famous for bad customer service. But as long as you can “take care of yourself” with setting things up and no billing screw-ups happen, it’s good 'n cheap.

#6

Just curious, when you order do you say “B as in boy” or something similar yet they still get it wrong? If so maybe whoever takes the order is just not passing along that bit to the delivery person. Maybe it’s no big deal if whoever lives in “D” doesn’t mind having delivery person knock on their door by mistake.

Also I’ve never heard of MetroPlus health insurance. I’m going to look it up (google is my friend, yeah yeah I know!) but meantime, apart from the antiquated billing practices how’s the insurance itself? Good enough coverage for your needs?

#7

I absolutely hate the whole experience of going to a quick oil change place, from the upsell attempts to the inevitable overtightening of everything and over/underfilling of my oil. I almost always do it myself except that one near my house occasionally has deals on full synthetic oil changes for way cheaper than it’d cost me to buy the materials to do it myself, so I occasionally suck it up and take it in. It also helps that they do free top-offs and my one car that takes expensive synthetic oil also burns it like crazy.

#8

I use a Consumer Cellular flip phone. I can text and send/receive emails, but it doesn’t have all the bells & whistles of a smart phone. It’s only 12 bucks a month. They do have smart phones too, but I really don’t need one.