Discussion on:

The five worst companies to work for

I had it years ago (mid-90's), decided to dump it. Don't know what kind of obstacles they throw up now, but back then they would only accept account cancellation by snail mail or fax. Obviously, to make it as much of a pain in the *ss as possible.

I chose fax. And after patiently waiting for it to go through, I can tell you that, at least at that time, their fax machine had a maximum incoming ring count of 99, because that's how many rings I counted before it picked up on their end.

Slimeballs. If AOL were the only option, I'd do without the Internet.

because that was the only way I could dump them.

I had heard they were a bitch to get rid of, so I got a little creative. This took place back in late 2002:

ME: I'd like to cancel my service.

AOL: May I ask you why you would want to do so.

ME: I'm moving in with my girlfriend next week and she already has the service.

AOL: Oh. We'll take care of the cancellation immediately.

ME: Thank you.


Note: My girlfriend and I had recently broken up, but I just wanted to get rid of the service.

I had AOL for about a year until the USAF reassigned me. I tried to cancel the service over the phone, but received the fax/snail mail disclaimer. I chose snail mail, sending a registered letter to AOL. It was returned: refused!


I took all that to the legal folks on base. Legal sent it all back to AOL with a letter advising AOL that their failure to follow their own procedures amounted to fraud and the AF legal system was taking steps to place AOL on the military "Proscribed businesses" list (the blacklist).

My account was cancelled immediately and AOL refunded my last three months' charges!

but it is when the lawyers start talking that you get their attention.


When my boys were first born, I bought a trailer, as an affordable place to live while I finished school.

After a few years, I bought my first home and sold the trailer.

The assclown I sold the trailer stopped paying his lot rent and then finally just moved out and abandoned the trailer.

The manager of the park tried to go after me in court because the assclown had never transfered the title and I was the one with money that he could find. I CLEARLY explained to him that it was not my problem if the guy hadn't transfered the title because I had my signed and NOTARIZED bill of sale showing that I no longer owned the trailer.

The went ahead anyways.

My lawyer showed the judge the paper I had originally sent certified to the park manager, asked if they knew about it. He said yes, and the judge told him to quit wasting his time and threw the case out.

Park manager was replaced not too long after that, for some reason.....

The apartment complex I lived in when I was stationed at Edwards had essentially the same lousy manager thing happen.

Pacific Gas & Electric was looking to collect on an unpaid bill, so they contacted the owners to see if there was a forwarding address. The owners checked their records and told PG&E that apartment had been standing empty for over a year. PG&E provided copies of the power usage and bills.

The owners waited until the manager was on vacation to do an apartment-by-apartment audit. The manager came back off vacation to find that not only did her keys not work anymore, there was a nice man in a brown uniform waiting for her with an arrest warrant!

Seems she had been skimming about 10-15% of the rents for the past several years. The only person in the complex sorry to see her go was the guy behind me where she had been spending her nights...

When I lived in Manhattan I had to go out of town for 3 months on a contract. The only thing turned on in my apartment was the refrigerator and an alarm clock that was plugged in. Everything else was off.

I got a notice from the electric company that they had done an actual reading and that monthly usage that they estimated was way under. I would have to pay what amounted to $200/month for the past 6 months that they had estimated. I wrote back and asked how that could be since nobody was in the apartment and then told them the only things turned on. They checked it all out and then cancelled the charges finally. It seems the landlord had all the common lights in the hallways and the laundry room hooked up to the meter for my account and I was to be charged for all of that. A quick call to the Public Utilities commission got that one taken care of immediately.

When I got home after the contract was ended, I immediately moved out and dared them to try to hold onto the deposit or come after me for anything. I got it all back and then made sure that any apartment I looked at in the future had nothing to do with that company.

I love it when things work out well!

US Army had to do the same thing for me when I was deployed to the former USSR during Kosovo War.

AOHell waited though in sending the letter back until I had left the country and thought they could bill for the year I was gone. Ended up they only got to bill me for 2 months but ended up refunding almost a years worth back.

A long long time ago, when AOL first offered free trials of their internet service, I subscribed only to find that there was no way to cancel. I didn't even bother with fax or snail mail, just told my credit card company to send me another card.

Currently having a similar experience with a company called true credit. I accidently gave them my credit card details when signing up for my free credit report.

As the saying within Microsoft goes - 'Friends don't let friends use AOL'.

Les.

My wife and I wound up doing the same thing. Funny thing is, AOL tried for TEN MONTHS afterwards to charge the card, even after we called and told them the card had been killed. We got hate mail from them every month. Hell, we still get a 'bill' from them every so often, seven years later. God how dumb we all were when AOL promised great customer service.

I still remember 10 years ago - I had to cancel my CC also.
This is after AOL charged me after I cancelled(or thought I
did) 3 months prior.

I can agree with most on the bad companies to work for, many in my personal experience are not in business anymore, or have exited that particular line of service so I won't count them. Wal-mart, Kmart and Sam's are among the worst, but I place Target at the top, only from personal views. To hire an employee and then not have them do their job is a waste of money but that's what their security people do, NOTHING. They stand at the door where people come in and ignore the alarms at the exit door. Ring, Ring, there goes your pay raise out the door. Working for minimum wages does lead to more employee theft, but if the security was doing their jobs and the wages were reasonable, they wouldn't have to worry about the employees. I see this happen daily and am appalled at the attitudes of the management.

It's amazing how much difference the manager can make in a store. I've been to Targets where the employees appear to love their jobs and I've been to others where it's obvious the employees wouldn't be there if they didn't need the money.

I suspect it's the same in any chain.

I worked at target for about 6 months. I gotta say there are a lot of immature battles there. The managers shouldn't even be managers, half the people do nothing, and the security guards are pointless! I had a key that I had to carry around for the pallet jacks and the wave, everytime I walked in and out of the store I set off the alarms, not even one time someone came to see if I had anything else in my pockets which is pointless because half of the employees were stealing everything anyway.

The numbnuts employed there are from the same breed of retards that you dealt with at Target.

by comparing them to Costco and Wallmart employees.

Though, I will say that the folks at wallyworld are at least equipped with opposable thumbs...

costco though....

I think it's because they get paid by the hour and it shows. I can check out faster through a self check out lane than if a checker was doing it for me.

I agree with you 10,000%!

Just say no...

.... has security guards???!!! Never would have thought!

The Target on RT. 59 in Naperville, IL is patrolled by an intimidating figure if ever there was one:

4'10"
85-95 pounds
18 or so years old
No pepper spray, batons or tasers

Never will you feel as secure shopping as you will at that Target!!!

P.S. As a martial arts practitioner myself, I am open to the possibility that she is a Gracie jiu-jitsu black belt. However, as she is usually found flirting with the stock boys, I somehow doubt it.

I appreciate your opinion however, unless you have ever worked for Verizon Wireless, You really have no right to comment on how Verizon Wireless is to work for. I have worked for the company for 12 years and worked in the industry for 18 years and have had nothing but an excellent experience. As with any company there are managers that are less than desirable and things that we don?t always like to do. I challenge anyone who works for a major employer to say that they can do what they want when they want! Unless you sign your own paycheck, you have no right to talk about how a company is run! They obviously know what they are doing or they wouldn't be the only wireless provider in the black and actually making a profit. I do not see any other provider putting cash back in to the employees like Verizon does. Regarding the morale - Verizon is split up in to Regions and I am not sure which Region you are located. I will say that I am in the South Region and the morale is the best that I have ever experienced. Yes we have had lows as we are not perfect but again unless you sign your own paycheck what right do you have to complain! Open your own business and then you can dictate how the business is run and operated!!!
As far as your store that you were discussing for "horrible customer service", then I challenge you to go to verizonwireless.com/survey and report how your experience has been. Verizon Wireless prides itself in its customer service and I would guarantee that you will get results if you will just tell someone who can make a difference. They cannot fix something if they know nothing about it. Verizon Wireless has not named #1 in J.D. Power for Customer Service for the past 2 years for nothing!!

Morale isn't that great. I work at the regional HQ in the south. In the call center section we had some people just up and leave after getting out of training becuase the call volume was so much that everyone (even supervisors) had to get on the phones. So, they couldn't even have their coaches help the new hires with any issues they might have since they just started answering the phones. So, some just got up and left. You get 2 15 min breaks and an hour 1 lunch (which isn't paid) and the rest of the time you're stuck to the phone. And dont even think of having to go to the restroom unless it's your breaktime.

kelly, you are a vzw troll. ive seen your exact same post on about half a dozen sites ???defending ??? verizon wireless??? the company is great unless you get stuck with a twit of an ad and a horrible sup. the only way to progress is to sleep your way to the top??? maybe the south region is alot better than the west region, specifically the chandler call center, where you cant get promoted unless you kiss ass???

I spent about an hour trying to talk an Indian person out of talking me into staying with AO-Hell.

...I can attest to the fact that they're among the worst companies to work for. My direct supervisor (although she was not my "boss" in the hire/fire sense) made it clear that because my experience came from outside Verizon, it didn't count. Also, because I was a sub-contractor and not an employee, my expertise in general was suspect. I was not permitted to make any suggestions, no matter how inefficient a procedure was. I also was not permitted to question those procedures. NOR was I permitted to offer any assistance to take some of the extremely simple administrative tasks off her plate. She wanted to do it all. She was about 10 years younger than I am and had been with Verizon since she got out of high school - 24 years. My presence was a great threat to her.

We got into it once (because I talked to her like a peer instead of scraping and bowing) and she asked my manager to fire me. He refused, but he made it clear to me that if she asked again he'd have to come down on her side, not mine. He also made it clear that he didn't like having to toe that line.

Verizon also refuses to hire in from its contract labor pool. If you start there as a contractor in order to get your foot in the door, you're fooling yourself. You pretty much have to be related to an existing employee to be hired on full time permanent.

I do have their service. They eat their young.

They cannot facilitate an overseas call- regardless.

They suck in so very many ways.

And their CS bites. Over a month ago they were supposed to figure out why I couldn't make an international call. They were supposed to have an answer in a week.

I'm still waiting. And I can't hear you now.

I've had to dispute numerous so called "late fees" that they would charge simply because their staff are incompetent and careless. I would rent a few movies and would return them a few days before their due date or a few hours before on the day and time they are due. I would use the drop box and then simply go about my business. Anyhow, their moronic staff would purposely scan the movies the day after I drop them off and claim that I returned them late, charging my credit card for late fees. This has happened to my friend as well and every other person I have spoken to. I've called my credit card company to dispute many of their charges and was surprised to learn that Blockbuster was being investigated by my credit card company for fraudulent and unscrupulous billing practices because they've gotten many complaints. I've since cancelled my Blockbuster subscription in favor of Netflix, but even with Blockbuster copying the whole Netflix idea of DVDs' by mail, they'll never get my business again.

I contacted the my credit card company and refused to pay the bill in its entirety. Now I refuse to go to Blockbuster.

because they laid off all their experienced staff after loss so they could hire cheaper people.

But I guess that doesn't fit here,
would go under
"Worst Companies I'm Not WOrking For Anymore"

And they gave their fired CEO humongous bonus

Because their staff suck at customer service and don't know squat about what they're selling.

IN Canada, Radio Shack was bought and renamed The Source (by Circuit city).

As Radio Shacks have been few and far between for many years now, Source actually retained many of the old Radio Shack staff. RS was great for all those little ends, couplings, and cheap cheesy RF modulators and extenders. I now work where one of my manufacturer's makes the same products but very high end, so I no longer use the Source, but they stayed about the same as Radio Shack as far as knowledge was concerned, even though some of the staff will always be brain dead and useless.

Back in the day....before Tandy bought out a little company called Allied Radio, most of the stores that became Radio Shacks were staffed by ham operators, out of work electronics techs and moonlighting computer geeks. Most of these guys stuck around in the early days of Tandy's renaming to Radio Shack, and you could usually find a larger store in a metropolitan area that was their 'Computer Center', that they migrated to. Anyone who is old enough to remember the TRS-80s, and struggled to do something useful with them, will remember those days. By the early 80's, Tandy had assimilated Grid Systems to make their laptops and Tandon to make their desktops, but commodity pricing of PCs in the mid 80s combined with Tandy's questionable product and marketing choices hammered these two "old school" suppliers into the ground. This was probably the last of the hardware that passed through the doors of a RS store that could be construed to be "quality". When all the local stores got commodity PCs to sell in the mid 80s, the majority of the old timers had left, and the remaining sales staff was hard pressed to handle flashlight battery sales. The closest you could get to knowledgeable advice on electronics came from the 16 year old stock boy who spent all his free time playing video games on the display PCs.

Most of the Radio Shacks in my area have almost fully converted to gadget stores. They do a boomtown business in RC models and cell phone sales.

They do sell various patch cables (they are THE source for oddball cables around here) and each one of them still has about a 4-foot front with a minimal collection of components. But the books and manuals are gone, as is anything else remotely related to radio.

I was a frontline manager for Circus City for almost 10 years in their service division, here in SoCal. One day, a mgr colleague of mine, a guy that was teaching electronics classes in the evening and one the techs really liked, and I were beginning our day and he couldn't log on to the system. 3 guesses. When I spoke to him some time later, after he'd gotten a higher level position, at twice the salary, he told me the headhunter told him Circus City had a reputation for chewing up mgrs and spitting them out. While I won't bore you with my story, I can confirm that wholeheartedly.

I had exactly the opposite experience at Circuit City. I went in there with an idea of what I wanted, the clerks showed me that one and a couple of others so I could see the difference, I was right and bought what I wanted. They agreed with my choice.

I noticed that the people beside me were looking and obviously did not know a thing about computers. The guys helping them out went way out of their way to help them, asking what they wanted to do, what experience they had with computers, whether they wanted laptop or desktop, etc. Then they showed them exactly how to hook it all up before they turned it over to them. Very nice people to deal with in my local Circuit City. I buy all my stuff there and could not be happier with the service.

Best Buy, Compuware, Staples, Office Depot, etc on the other hand are terrible to deal with.

I trying to cancel my service over the phone. The lady was asking all these questions about why I wanted to cancel and tried to get me to keep the service. I shut her up quick when I said "Lady I'm 16(really 20), jobless, and have to poop(didn't have to poop)can we speed this up?" A minute later, my service was cancelled.

Here in the UK I've found that small businesses are generally better to work for than large ones. If you can put up with the foibles of a megalomaniac boss (it normally goes with the territory, unfortunately) then at least you get treated like human beings, not cattle.
The above points probably explain why most small companies stay small - maybe you have to get mean to grow big?

The comments about AOL are focused on the customer's experience, not on why it's one of the worst places to work. Granted, I wouldn't want to work for a company with a reputation for mistreating fleeing customers, but the article should focus on the employee's perspective rather than the customer's.

It states: "AOL trains employees on how to charge credit cards of those trying to cancel their accounts." I think if you're an employee and are pressured to perform acts like that, it could make for a bad work experience.

I agree.

There is nothing more stressful than having a company push you to do things you KNOW are wrong.

I've quit jobs over ethics before.

LOL I had to quit my one-and-only sales job because I'd be danged if I was going to get reprimanded for not lying properly!

Of *course* the worst companies to do business with are the worst companies to work for. Whenever I am getting shafted by a company, I always tell the person who is giving me the "company line" that they should start looking for a job, because companies that scr&w their customers have been doing it to the employees long before; by the time they extend their dishonesty and disregard to the paying customer, they're on their last legs.

Whether it's a mom and pop operation, or a Fortune 500 company, the lying and stealing start at the top. Management's behavior sets the ethical tone for the whole operation. Moreover, if you want your employees to steal from you, treat them like thieves, and they will. Most people are honest and honorable, and will step up to the highest expectations if given a chance. The small percentage who will steal, will do so in spite of any precautions against it, and will succeed more often then not.

I worked for Office Depot outside of Detroit, MI in 1996 as the Business Machine Specialist - which means I mainly sold computers, peripherals, and software. At that time, CD ROMs were still new, and most commercial software still installed from floppy disks.

Office Depot had a policy of not accepting returns on open software packages unless it could be demonstrated that the software was defective. Period.

About six months into my time there, local management decided that software would enjoy the same return/refund status as any other item sold in the store - bring in the product and your receipt within 30 days, and you get a replacement or refund.

Naturally, as word spread, software sales - and returns - jumped several hundred percent, literally within days. When I advised my manager that this was unethical and against company policy, he turned a deaf ear. I explained that customers were purchasing the software, copying the floppy disk, then returning the software. His response? "So what?"

So I associated it with his pocketbook - this is theft because the software companies will not honor the refunds and pay for returns. That would increase his shrink percentages and would count against him in the audits, affecting his management bonus.

No, he said, it was not, because we he just sent them back to the manufacturer and they were honoring the refunds. "How long do you think it will be before the software companies realize they're being ripped off and stop accepting the returns?" "Not my problem," he replied.

My response? "I quit." The look on his face, with his mouth hanging open, as he watched me walk out the door 30 seconds later was priceless.

Of course, I WAS disappointed that he didn't beg me to stay and agree to stop accepting software returns. LOL

and have all sorts of software auditors and the Feds breathing up their asses for promoting software piracy.

I was not that young, but pretty new to the PROFESSIONAL field of computers. Up until then, I was on my own and didn't know about where to report such stuff. Actually, I should have reported him to corporate, because he was in defiance of company policy.

They tell you that your account is cancelled, but those bastards still continue to bill you for services that are no longer available. I beg to see the day that AOL files chapter 11 and gets bought out by another company that will completely rip AOL apart.