Forbes Lists Top Corporate Hate Web Sites

windowpain writes "You've seen them. Maybe you've made one, like Walmart-blows.com or Paypalsucks.com. Now Forbes.com has a 'Special Report' devoted to what it considers the best of them. 'The following nine sites--there were ten, but one went unexpectedly dark during the editing of this story--are the crème de la crème of online rage. Note that we substantially cleaned up some of the posts, editing out odd capitulation schemes, iffy grammar and plain incoherence. Apparently blinding anger does not go hand in hand with dotting your i's and crossing your t's.' Maybe this will become an annual thing like the Forbes 400 and the Fortune 500." (I wonder what a capitulation scheme is.)

Best Buy

[kidgenius]

I'm surprised Best Buy Sux [bestbuysux.org] didn't make the list

Chrysler and Epinions

[BWJones]

A number of years ago I wrote an opinion in Epinions regarding a brand new Dodge truck I had purchased (the new ones in 1994 just after the redesign). The opinion was written after about four years of ownership. One week after writing the opinion I had a lawyer (presumably from Chrysler) call me and threaten libel. I replied all I wrote down were the facts. Nothing more and that I had all documentation to back up my claims. If he would like, I could create a website with all of the documentation. I never heard back, but it was that kind of treatment that unfortunately convinced me to never purchase another product from them again. it's too bad, because they do have some of the most exciting products out there, but they simply cannot build them reliably and their customer service (even at the supposed 5 star dealerships was atrocious).

Re:UPS positive attitude

[kidgenius]

What I found rather shocking was verizon's very unprofessional reply. They resorted to calling the website "patheric" and "lame". Hmm...I wonder if VerizonPathetic struck a nerve of some kind.

Where's Dell?

[Hollins]

I'm surprised an anti-Dell site is not on the list.

The experiences I have had lately from Dell in getting hardware repairs made under service contract are some of the worst experiences I have ever had dealing with any company. And I've talked to a number of folks who have had similar experiences.

Ten years ago, Dell was one of my favorite companies.

Re:Well...

[networkBoy]

See link in sig :-)
well timed story. :heh:
-nB

nothing like a bit of rage

[loraksus]

Although, to be fair, a bunch of these companies have recurring issues.
Paypal, with its "we can suspend your account and you can't do fuckal about it, hooray, we get to keep your money". Allstate, with it's "musical chair claims adjusters".
Don't even get me started about UAL.
It isn't like people don't know about the shady shit these companies do, it happens pretty often, and if the company is a bunch of shits, contacting the BBB won't get you anywhere. State attorney generals haven't stepped in either in the cases of most of these companies.
I interviewed at UPS and we did a tour, a monitor fell off a conveyor belt. Everyone heard the tube pop, and the crash of glass, but one of the employees just tossed it back as if nothing had happened. As we were walking away, we heard another one drop and the sound of smashing glass.
Un-fucking-believable.

Fighting the good fight...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm kind of disappointed that they didn't list Radio Shack Sucks [radioshacksucks.com]. RSS was instrumental in organizing a class action against RadioShack, and in response RadioShack tried to lawyer them to death.

we actually have one for the company I work for...

[rogabean]

And it's actually company policy that anyone accessing it from work is to be terminated.

But it's over 5 years going strong on the (mycompany)sucks.com site...

Crappy Tire

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada, Canadian Tire actually bought out a corporate hate site that was really gathering steam - www.crappytire.com.

It was a real dilemma for them; buy it out and implicitly acknowledge that the site was pissing them off, or try to ignore the dreadful press that this guy was generating. They went with the former, though it must have hurt to have to register a nasty play on your corporation's name.

BTW, Canadian Tire is just awful - ask any Canadian.

Re:Best Buy

[loraksus]

Agreed. I'm surprised that their "forced illegal door search" policy hasn't resulted in a shooting, or at least a firearm being drawn.

Someone could technically make a citizen's arrest for false imprisonment, assault, battery and possibly kidnapping against store employees.

I believe there was a case not too long ago where Best Buy employees used several vehicles to box in a suspected (and, of course, innocent) customer's vehicle who was attempting to leave the lot. Police were called, charges were filed against the employees.

Fucking moronic, if you ask me, to use your personal vehicle in such a manner, or even considering using force to stop someone stealing from your store if you're not in loss prevention, but hey, if you're working there, you're not the brightest bulb in the tree (or you're desperate for money and are stealing shit left and right)

Citizen's arrest laws violate from state to state (I believe in KY you are permitted to kill fleeing felons, while in some states you can't sue private parties for false arrest)
What I'm trying to say is, that if a shooting should happen, it shouldn't exactly been unexpected. Best Buy has had a history of illegal searches / false imprisonment, and the courts are aware of this. How they don't get bitchslapped by a judge with a nice juicy judgement, I have no idea.
At least the dead employee's family should get a couple bucks after a lawyer buys a new yacht with the legal fees.

Re:nothing like a bit of rage

[hawk]

Years ago, I had an ehman monitor--back when a 19" display was gargantuan.

I apparently had an early one, too. The developer discount was great ($600 instead of $900, including the controller car [yes, it was 1-bit]), but . . .

Eventaully, it had a problem. Flyback transformer, iirc.

So I called.

"No problem. Just send it back in the original shipper carton."
"There was not carton."
"pardon?"
"It came on a shipping pallete with a huge cardboard wrapped around and a cardboard boxtop."
"Oh. One of *those*. just send it back in whatever."

I could almsot hear him shudderingover the phone . . .

Re:UPS positive attitude

[networkBoy]

Farmers reply to my site was a C&D letter threatening doom if I didn't run away. A few hours on findlaw and I'm fairly certain I'm in the clear. Too bad they (farmers) don't understand there is more to loose by being assholes. If they had let me be the site would have likely died when the 1 year registration ran out. Now I'm going to hold on to that domain like a bitter asshat forever. It's amazing how much you enjoy free speech and how much you under respected the first amendment until someone tries to take it away from you.

-nB

A good way to deal with such sites

[techno-vampire]

I used to work for an ISP. (Won't name it for reasons that will be obvious.) We had a hate-site set up by a former employee with a grudge. When we learned about it, it got lots of hits because we all had to take a look at it. I never heard anybody at work agree with the site, but nobody thought we should do anything about it. Then, the owner changed the site to look almost exactly like our own home page. In short order, he'd gotten a letter from our lawyers, telling him to change his site's appearance to one that didn't mimic ours so exactly. He did, and posted a big complaint about it. From then on, he kept his site looking at least a little differnt from ours and we ignored him. It's been years since I've visited it, but I'll bet it's still there, and my former employers still don't care.

Sweet

[Headcase88]

This is the perfect compliment to go with the new article on The Best Page in the Universe [xmission.com].

Re:Epinions

[joeljkp]

Epinions is great and all, but it doesn't cover everything. What if I want to know which brand of salsa is the best? Or if Budweiser sucks as much as I hear it does? Or if Crest is better than Colgate?

Rateitall.com [rateitall.com] does that stuff, to an extent, but their site isn't as polished as it could be.

I want a site that categorizes every product under the sun by UPC and lets people comment on and rate them.

Re:UPS Anecdote

[bluGill]

So why isn't there a little sticker they can put next to the address: "Note, this package was accidentally dropped in shipping, please inspect it carefully. Our apologies for any damages." And the driver can live a little instruction sheet on how to file a claim (in this computer age it could be printed in the truck, and have all the tracking numbers on it already). You know they will have to do it, anyway, so you can at least make it as painless as you can.

Perfect no drop shipping is ideal, but accidents happen.

UPS really does suck

[kacymartin]

I've always had my doubts about UPS. Whenever i order anything online (frequently) i try to opt for FedEx. Whenever something gets shipped by UPS it either is laying in my yard! sitting on the sidwalk in the rain! (yes just the box, no protection or anything!) or just plain late (i mean weeks late not just a couple days). FedEx always either knocks or places the packages behind the door if im not home, and in plastic if its raining (yeah i know not as safe but at least its concealed behind the door). After seeing all the pictures of damaged packages on that UPS site im going to stop using them for sure.

Hate can lead to better service

[TheBracket]

A while ago, my employer had some real problems with CenturyTel, the only phone company in town. They messed up some (presumably virtual) paperwork and our DSL line went dead. Our first call resulted in a promise that as a business customer, we were a high priority - and it would be fixed soon. Our second call was greeted with "sorry, our engineers have gone home for the day, try tomorrow". Our third call resulted in "sorry, our engineers have all gone away to enjoy the holiday weekend, try again in 4 days!". Not acceptable!

So, frustrated (and tired after switching everything over to our other DSL line), I posted a blog entry with the title "I hate CenturyTel" and a big explanation as to what went wrong. Monday morning, our DSL line was fixed. The engineers on the other end were VERY apologetic, but I just assumed that they were trying to make amends - when the next day we got a call in the office from an executive at CenturyTel who had Googled for "I hate CenturyTel", found my blog, and yelled at some people to get things fixed. He then called us to personally apologize, gave us a bunch of freebies to make amends, and chatted with my boss for over half an hour about how to avoid this problem ever recurring. I came in from a client, my boss said "we just got a call about your blog" - and I assumed I'd libelled someone, was in trouble, etc. He then said "make sure you politely insult everyone who screws us over, it did wonders this time!"

Re:Why Slashdot didn't make the cut

[freeweed]

That's because bonch, like a lot of others as of late, seem to think that 800,000+ people are only allowed one collective opinion about anything. That way, they can decry 'hypocrasy!!!!!!!' all day long.

I swear, he must have had 5 or 6 posts to that effect on the recent CherryOS story alone.

He's also notorious for decrying "Slashdot's" "anti-Microsoft bias". Over and over and over in some stories. Again, we're all one person here, apparently.

Textbook trolling, but like-minded moderators don't seem to catch on. It's more useful to those types to post and moderate up the same lines again and again, because they feel they've somehow stumbled upon some great hidden truth that must be exposed to the world.

Re:Best Buy

[CAIMLAS]

You better believe that if BB pulled that shit on me, they would have some combination of the following occur:

* I would ask for their manager, and failing that, I would go about the store looking for him/her and ask for a formal written apology.
* If they were to touch me, even gently, they would be sued and I would call the police alerting them to the fact that Best Buy was trying to hold me without cause.
* If they tried something drastic like blocking my car in or holding me physically (forcefully), they'd get a fistful of pain quickly followed by me relieving them of their bladder control with my .40. I would then go out into the parking lot (with my protection once again concealed), and I would be on the phone with the police letting them know that I was assaulted, where I was, etc. I would not go to my car or anything like that, so that they could not accuse me of "stashing the goods", etc.

This kind of behavior is fascist to the extreme. Next thing you know they'll have armed guards at the doors and shoot people that resist, to no consequence.

Note: A cell phone is always a good thing to have on your person. They are an invalueable tool, not only potentially saving your life, but potentially saving you jail time due to the false word of others. With something like this, who the police believe will likely be the first person to call.

This is also why I have not shopped at Best Buy since I heard of such criminal abuse. Not. One. Red. Cent.

Re:Why Slashdot didn't make the cut

[Leo McGarry]

Don't blame somebody else for the "Slashdot only has one opinion" thing. That's built right into the system. Have you looked at the way comment moderation works around here? Comments that don't toe the party line are moderated down until they get filtered right off the page.

Also, I don't think you know what "troll" means. Hint: It doesn't mean "he keeps saying something I disagree with, which infuriates me because I am disinclined to tolerate opinions which differ from my own."

Re:Its the same for anti-gov websites too

[el_chicano]

They tried to discipline me, sabotage my computer access, intimdate me with lawyers, and harass me with school police.

Sounds very familar to me: Houston Community College managed to get a bogus trespass injunction slapped on me and used their campus police force to harass me after I filed a Whistleblower lawsuit against them.

The state District Court judge handling my Whistleblower case agreed with me that my anti-HCC website was protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution so that website is still online: Houston Community College Sucks! [hccsucks.com]

As an aside, it was really hilarious seeing the a State District Court judge examine a photoshopped picture of HCC Chancellor Bruce Leslie in a Nazi uniform leading his HCC stormtroopers which I called HCC Uber Alles [hccsucks.com].

Even though I did not get my job back and eventually had to drop my Whistleblower lawsuit because I was broke and could not afford a lawyer, setting up the website really opened up my eyes, i.e., since HCC sucked so much why in Hell was I trying to get my old job back?