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It's a fair challenge from OOO up there re: Chiltern. I had somehow forgotten the joyful experience of the 5:53am First Great Western train from Ledbury to Paddington. Or West Reading as I like to think of it. Passing and stopping at about 100 stations in the Cotswolds where the local time is 1963.
I've been marooned on that line so many times, I could be charged rent. Slam door trains and single lines. Apparently the old steam train from Ross on Wye was 3 minutes quicker than the 2013 diesel. Says it all really.
So I'll revoke my claim for Chiltern Railways if I can have FGW instead.
KLM (Air France) for their awful website and a host of other issues.
KLM are not at all like Air France, despite being the same company. KLM are very efficient and polite (as much as possible for a Dutch company) and they respond very quickly to complaints. Air France ... err ... aren't, and don't.
For airline incompetence, I give you SAS.
A few people have mentioned about payday loan companies.
Why, exactly?
Yes, the rates on said loans are high - but when you sign up for one you're made well aware of the rates etc. yet people still go ahead with them. Comments are made that these companies are taking even more from people who have nothing, but if that's the case, maybe you shouldn't borrow £600 for a new television and end up repaying nearly double or whatever the amount is.
I remember speaking with a chap once who had an involvement with one of these companies and he mentioned that people constantly go on about the immorality of such a business, but what people don't realise is the amount of money that is lost through people just disappearing as soon as they have received their loan money.
It's quite simple, if you don't like the way they work then don't use them.
Not one person has mentioned Starbucks, a company that has avoided paying millions in taxes by employing people to use and abuse the system which in turn effects everyone in the country.
Well, gently caressing the thread back on track hasn't worked.
Starbucks might be worse than Hitler but they appear to have a business model which works well and I get to imagine the names I'd like to be called and try to keep a straight face when I tell them. I finally failed at "Dirk".
And the most pleasant airline with which I've dealt in recent years has to have been KLM.
For airline incompetence, I give you SAS
I'll see your SAS and raise you Alitalia.
Never again.
Singletrack for being about cross bikes
ahem..
There's a bunch of Premier vouchers over there at the moment that need claim... er.. BTW 🙂
British Gas
BT
Dave Hinde
KLM are very efficient and polite
That's possibly so, but their website is awful, it keeps crashing and cocking up, one of the results being I ended up flying Economy while on a Business ticket, now that's value for you 😕
A bit harsh, but all them local bike shops that bemoan the tough climate, yet when you go in and ask for parts an enthusiast would consider standard (external/press fit BB, 9 speed mechs, hydraulic disk brakes, integrated headsets etc) there's a look of confusion, or worse still an attempt to sell you a square taper BB or some other outdated kit !
Keep with the times or die, like any other industry guys.
Alex - go on then, you can have FGW!
Ticket Master
shiesters.
When tickets for the upcoming tour by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band went on sale in February, potential ticket buyers, myself included, were left out in the cold. It seems that Ticketmaster conveniently decided to perform “routine maintenance” seconds after tickets to see one of the most popular artists in the world were made available for sale. But fear not, fans of The Boss: Tickets were available through TicketsNow, an online ticket broker selling seats at 10 times their face value. In a shocking coincidence, would anyone care to take a guess which company owns TicketsNow? If you guessed Ticketmaster, you are correct, but you win nothing.
I used to be postierob - came so close to "going postal"I loved delivering scrap paper that went straight in the bin.
I wish it did. You wouldn't believe the amounts I get back, most of it 'neatly*' thrown into mail trays with 'live' mail, leaving me to sort it all out, wasting hours of my time.
I had sixteen trays full today, out of the seventy or so that were reasonably well sorted 'live' mail, and the rest that were just a mixture of campaigns, all thrown in together in an untidy mess. A total of a hundred today. And yesterday. Eighty on Tuesday. And a hundred and fifty or so on Monday. I'm sick to death of 'RTS, Gone Away, Return To Sender' on hundreds of bloody envelopes! There's a bin, or a shredder available, bloody use it!
*that has an invisible /s after it.
Oh, and then there are the large envelopes, clearly addressed to someone in Epsom, Falkirk, or the Indian subcontinent, that are stuck into a tray of mail that's all white DL envelopes, addressed to an industrial estate in Wiltshire.
And that come back to that address, over and over and over again.
The Indian address was the best, C5 envelope, bright pink, clearly addressed to somewhere in India, came back seven times over two weeks or so.
Sadly, the swear filter won't allow me to actually give my opinion of the comprehension level of the goblin responsible for returning it to an address several thousand miles from the one written on the front.
...And breathe. 😀
@konabunny
have you ever tried to claim back? I gave up after being told the delays were within acceptable limits
Never - just read an article in Private Eye in which it was suggested train companies are never penalized for running trains late because no-one ever claims back.
Ryanair
Not sure it counts as a company, but the barmaid in our local. Miserable is not the word. You'd be lucky to get a single word out of her let alone a thank you as you hand over a million quid for three pints.
All the PPI claims companies