Worst customer service you've ever experienced?

Had an incident today that's by far the worst customer service I have ever experienced.

So I'm in the process of handing back my car, Mercedes SLK, due to reaching the end of the 3 year finance term, and getting a Lexus CT200h. The only reason I'm moving away from a Mercedes is because my commute to work has gone from 18 miles each way to 70 miles each way, so I'm needing something much more economical. I've loved the Merc over the last 3 years and am really sad to see it go, but the economics of keeing it, or getting another SLK, just don't work out. The current value of it is also a good bit lower than the outstanding finance, so haning it back is going to work out much cheaper than it would've been to trade it in.
At the beginning of the week I called the collection agent who advised that they couldn't collect from myself until at least the 28th October, but they could collect from my local Mercedes dealer, Sytner Teesside, where I originally purchased the car, on 22nd October. The collection company don't collect at weekends, and working so far from home meant getting it collected from work wasn't practical, so dropping it off at the dealer to be collected would be absolutely ideal. So I called the dealer and was assured by the receptionist that this would be absolutely fine, that I could just bring the car down today (18th October) and leave it at the dealership for a couple of days until it was collected. Perfect right?
So I go down to the dealer today, all set to drop the car off and say goodbye. Walk into the dealer and speak with the duty manager, who promptly announces that there's no way I can do that. I ask why I was told something totally different, but no real answer was forthcoming. He said that they couldn't/wouldn't hold the car for several days, that leaving it on the forecourt would mean it was completely uninusured and that the dealer would have no responsibility, and they weren't willing to sign for the collection by the collection company either. He advises me to get it collected from work. I advise him how far away I work, and advise him that by handing over the car I would be stranding myself in a city 70 miles from home and asked him how I was supposed to get back. The response was, and I quote "Well you'll have to get the train". I think that's one of the most appalling things he could have said from a customer service standpoint.
I don't expect this level of customer service from anywhere, but especially not from somewhere that's had over £20,000 from me in the past 3 years between deposit and monthly payments. Looking after a car for 4 days is, I think, the very least they could have done for me after all that.
I argued a bit, but the manager stood firm. I asked for some contact details for someone higher up, as I intend to take this further. All I got was the details for the 'Dealer Principle', essentially the manager of the place who's in Monday to Friday. I asked for details of someone higher than this but this request was flatly refused. I was told that the manager would forward on my issues after reading it through. When I asked what guarantee of this I had, I was told there "There's no guarantee" and "This is all you're going to get" when I again asked for direct contact details of someone higher up.
I fully intend to write not only to the Dealer Principle, but research the contact details of higher ups in the Sytner group. I also intend to write to Mercedes themselves directly to express my dissatisfaction and let them know of the damage that Sytner are doing, in my opinion, to the Mercedes brand.

This threw a complete wrench into my plans, as the plan was to drop off the Mercedes tomorrow and pick up my Lexus tomorrow, meaning I could transfer over my insurance. Sytner Teesside going back on their word and changing to a refusal of what they had offered meant I would need to cancel the collection of my Lexus. So I went to the Lexus dealer down the road to sadly explain the situation to them.
What a world apart their service was. Without my even asking, they immediately offered to hold the car for the next few days and that it could be collected from them. Now THAT is how you do customer service.

TL;DR - Car dealer told me at the beginning of the week that I could leave my car with them for a few days before collection by Mercedes collection company, I made arrangements based around their assurances, I turn up today as discussed and they do a complete 180 and almost screw up getting my new car tomorrow. Manager is uncaring and unmoving on any kind of compromise for the sake of 4 days. Hands down the worst service I've ever encountered, and I used to work at PC World.

So, what's the worst customer service you've ever experienced Grcade?

''look at me i'm getting new car bla bla bla''

Yodel or the TV License people.

Since i've started working in a call center i've realised just how strawberry floating good my company is at it so it really pisses me off when I talk to people who are just shitheads on a phone now.

Sounds a bit rough - but I'm not surprised that the company that has had £20k from you but now no more gave you crappier service than the one that is about to get £20k from you over the forthcoming years!

Worst I probably had was from BA this year when we had repeated delays to our flight (to do with the plane, not weather), with further problems with connections and continual contradictions from staff. Meant I got home 36 hours later than planned from Canada, and had to travel by train part of the way at additional expense. Then they were equally appalling when me and whole bunch of other passengers put in our compensation requests as per EU law.

Rejection seems to be the standard for airlines when people make claims under the compensation laws. Typically they back down in individual cases when people actually file court papers, but they rely on the majority of people simply letting it go or just threatening court without ever actually following through.

[iup=3593053]Lagamorph[/iup] wrote:Rejection seems to be the standard for airlines when people make claims under the compensation laws. Typically they back down in individual cases when people actually file court papers, but they rely on the majority of people simply letting it go or just threatening court without ever actually following through.

Oh, we got em - no problem! That 500 Euros went nicely towards my next holiday. 8-)

British Airways - I was about 14 and going on a family holiday with my parents and had been assured a front row seat as it was extremely difficult for me to be lifted into any other seat without causing injury.

Upon arriving in the departure lounge we were told that we couldn't have our reserved seat due to "health & safety" reasons and that two BA staff had to get me onboard instead of my parents for the same reason. I was basically treat like cargo and carried onto the plane and plonked into a third row seat, bruising my knees and back in the process .

My dad wrote several furious letters of complaint to BA's head office and received no reply at all.

banana splits.

Greater Anglia trains. I'm sure most train companies are equally poor, but these are the ones I deal with the most. Train stations barely functioning, no infomation on the next train cos screens are frequently out of order, ticket machines often not working then getting treated with suspicion by guards when they wonder why I have no ticket. I now refuse to put bank notes in the ticket machines after one stole about £13 quid from me.

Trains frequently late. The hilarious statistics plastered over the station points out that they only considering a train 'significantly late' when it's half an hour late or more. Anything over 5 minutes late is inexcusable, and 3 mins late seems significantly late enough for me, especially when you are getting a connecting train or bus later in the journey.

From my own experience, Asians often give the worst customer service in shops etc, it's clear a lot of them don't give a strawberry float and will often just hand you the most popular brand of tobacco instead of actually listening to what you asked for. Either that or they just don't understand, in which case very poor judgement for the company (tesco is the prime offender I have encountered) hiring someone that barely speaks English for a position that demands communication.

Classic Faust.

Won't go into specifics, and I don't want to comment on particular experiences or individuals, because you'll get good or bad individuals anytime and any place. But...
...organisations I have been less impressed with over the last few years have been;
Talk Talk, terrible call centres and products.
Virgin, really bad call centres based in India. Pretty sure they were able to manipulate my service at will as soon as I called to complain.
BT. Almost as bad as Virgin call centre. Again, based in India. Takes a long time speaking to someone who you can barely hear, doesn't understand your problem, and really does not understand how to empathise in any realistic way. It's very telling though that once you start to actually complain, you'll get passed over to the UK department.

BT recently accidentally disconnected my phone line (a second line in my parents house) whilst upgrading the main phone line to fibre optic (I intended to ditch my current ISP in a few weeks and pay 1/2 of my parents BT infinity bill).

Rang them about it and they said it's not their problem and I should contact my current ISP (Orange/EE) as they're who I pay my phone bill to.

Rang EE and they say it's BT who should fix it as they're just 'leasing' the line from them.

FFS

All while speaking to some poor sod in Mumbai who had as much a grasp of english as I have of punjabi.

I think it was Bulldog Broadband years ago. Useless strawberry floaters. They took a deposit for broadband and kept saying they would arrange an engineer in 3 days. Every 3 days for about 3 weeks I called and they kept saying an engineer would call me back within 3 days. Never happened.

So I told them to go strawberry float themselves and to give me a refund. I think I spent about a month trying to get that refund from them, in the end I called up my card company and they did a chargeback. Awful set of banana splits and they probably aren't around anymore.

EE.

Was on T-Mobile until May this year when I was due an upgrade. Basically got told the best deal was an EE plan. Go to the shop and get the phone, ask if I need to sign a new contract or anything. 'Nah, we move it all over mate'.

Three weeks later I get a final bill from T-Mobile for £120 (billing period of one day, all for data charged to my unlimited data plan). I also get a threat from EE saying they'll cut me off if I don't pay my bill.

Basically I shat a brick at this point as I'm going for a mortgage. Rang EE to ask why they hadn't moved my direct debit across.

'We're two different companies so we can't move DDs over.'

'Didn't you spend millions telling everyone that T-Mobile and Orange had merged into EE, and rebrand all the shops accordingly?'

'Well we're one company but we run each network separately.'

'So why did your branch in Wimbledon let me walk out without organising any payment method for my phone?'

'I dunno...'

So I set up a new Direct Debit, then asked about my erroneous T-Mobile bill, fully expecting to be told to call a different number (separate companies and all).

'Just let me switch over to the T-Mobile system sir.'

Plod along with my phone for a few weeks and run out of data when I'm away (my biggest concern about a limited plan). Call EE to get info.

'We don't give out data balances over the phone sir, you have to use our app.'

'I can't register, I don't have any data. Can't you just tell me?'

'Well we listened to our customers and found that this was what they wanted.'

'Why couldn't you have both options for people?'

'Well we listened to our customers and found that this was what they wanted.'

'But this isn't working for me, can you please tell me?'

'No, because we listened to our customers and found that this was what they wanted. Go to a shop and they'll help you.'[They didn't.]

So I call to complain.

'Hi, I'd like to make a complaint please. I bought a new phone and was lied to about the Direct Debit arrangements and this led to...'

'Sorry, can you make this quick, we're closing in five minutes.'

Eventually I got a months line rental free. I'd have moaned more but I was sick of Geordies trying to placate me.

[iup=3593201]Dowbocop[/iup] wrote:
Eventually I got a months line rental free. I'd have moaned more but I was sick of Geordies trying to placate me.

I know a couple of people who have just started at that call centre :lol:

[iup=3593190]Fatal Exception[/iup] wrote:I think it was Bulldog Broadband years ago. Useless strawberry floaters. They took a deposit for broadband and kept saying they would arrange an engineer in 3 days. Every 3 days for about 3 weeks I called and they kept saying an engineer would call me back within 3 days. Never happened.

So I told them to go strawberry float themselves and to give me a refund. I think I spent about a month trying to get that refund from them, in the end I called up my card company and they did a chargeback. Awful set of banana splits and they probably aren't around anymore.

Oh man, Bulldog strawberry floating Broadband! I had similar turmoil getting an installation and then the service itself barely worked, pretty much any time a device connected to the wifi it would crash the router requiring a reset. Additionally the whole connection would drop a couple of times a day. I complained dozens of times over the first two months because the service was barely usable. In the end I cancelled it both over the phone and in writing and they gave the whole "you're in a 12 month deal" bollocks. They ended up billing me about a grand in missed payments and "late fees" which they took me to court over. I went to court and explained their service was completely non-functional, with a diary of all the complaints I'd made. Judge found in my favour and made them repay me for the two months I'd actually paid them. :datass:

My old phone company.

Here in Canada, until recently, there were only 3 large phone companies, and to make it seem like there is more competition they often spin off smaller subsidiaries. When I first got a cell phone I was with one of these smaller companies (I can't remember the name anymore) since they let you just but pre-paid minutes. Not only were the minutes incredibly expensive, if you were calling during "peek hours", before 6pm on weekdays, a local call was 50 CENTS A MINUTE!!!! and texts were 15 cents each. So after a while when I started using my phone more I tried calling them in order to upgrade my plan to something fixed and monthly that gave at least unlimited texts.

I called them and was stuck in a maze of phone options, finally I got to the option "To speak to a representative a $3 charge will apply"

That's right, they wanted to charge me $3 to speak to a real person, which was the only way you could buy something from them.

strawberry float them, and their parent company (Bell).

Corazon de Leon

First Scotrail, and they plumb the depths of customer service on a regular basis.

[iup=3593081]Faust[/iup] wrote:From my own experience, Asians often give the worst customer service in shops etc, it's clear a lot of them don't give a strawberry float and will often just hand you the most popular brand of tobacco instead of actually listening to what you asked for. Either that or they just don't understand, in which case very poor judgement for the company (tesco is the prime offender I have encountered) hiring someone that barely speaks English for a position that demands communication.

Racists gonna racist.

Well this page got racist quickly.

[iup=3593261]Ad7[/iup] wrote:Well this page got racist quickly.

The Faust Effect®

Glad nobody has said EDF Energy yet :slol:

Worst customer service you've ever experienced?

Who is online

Affiliates