Outrageously Bad Customer Service or Companies to Avoid if you Can
Don't get mad, get even. If you encounter horrible customer service check out the competition and give them a shot if you can. I will maintain this list to remind myself and perhaps warn others about companies with horrible customer service. It would be naive of me to think I can possibly change any of the companies involved. So it seems the simplest, easiest, least stressful, way to deal with these issues is to move your business elsewhere. If you want to comment or discuss these or other companies please feel free to start a thread on our forum.
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PayPal
Summary
Circular phone/email maze with no option for other or speak to representative.
Action Taken
None. Unfortunately there is no viable competition for PayPal at this time for eBay sellers. Buyers: you can offer to pay by check, many sellers will appreciate that.
Advice to Managers
Always allow a choice for "other". You can't anticipate every problem your customers will have. PayPal should make agents available 24/7 like the credit card companies do.
More Details
EBay bought up PayPal. They have manipulated their auction process to make it difficult for buyers to use checks or other payment methods. It would be extremely unproductive for sellers to deny PayPal payments. As a seller I feel stuck and see no alternative.
I had a technical issue with the PayPal website. I could not find help online. They to offer a phone number. I called and was offered a list of options to choose from. None of the options came close to my problem so I choose "more options". None of those worked so my only option was "main menu". I started yelling at the automaton, I needed to talk with a person. So I give up and tried email. Again there were no options that were close. I gave up and wrote this essay.
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CitiBank
Summary
Failed to deliver promised service with no communication to me. Had I not double checked auto payments would fail harming my credit.
Action Taken
In process of moving all business from Citi to a competitor. Have sold all Citi stock I owned.
Advice to Managers
If you can't deliver you must tell your customer. Even better if the failure was no your fault.
More Details
I filled out an online form so CitiBank would automatically take payment for my credit card from my Chase checking account. I did this one month early. I also did this for my other credit cards. When a competitor messed up the process and a payment was denied naturally I was concerned. The competitor was apologetic and fixed things up. I called Citi. They said yes indeed I had applied but they were unable to set up the automatic payments and, oh happy day, I am eligible for a free account balance transfer to Citi.
The payment date was 5 days in the future! They could not complete what their competitors could. They didn't even tell me! The many companies that automatically charge my credit card would be denied and my credit compromised if I hadn't checked! The bums even had the gall to try to get me to move more money to my Citi card account. Hah! The business will go the other way, there are lots of Citi competitors, one of which will have a new credit card customer. But not the competitor who also messed up.
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Will your company be next?
Copyright © 4/2/2010 Carl Wohlforth
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