Deals.Woot

My wife and I boycott Best Buy (especially their online) after a series of terrible customer service experiences.

A client of mine opened a restaurant (diner/grill) next to another client of mine (also a restaurant, pizza) and the pizza guy (who also owns a seafood restaurant across the street) got all territorial and built a wall to try to hide the diner from everyone's view.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa1OAZFeZK0 (jump to 4:45 for the story of the wall)

There's a lot of people who won't go to either of the other restaurants now because of that. The natural area looks much nicer now at Emma Key's. I make all of their signs.

Tmobile, Sonic, Furniture Wearhouse, etc...

If you can get all parties of yourself to sign a temporary release petition, you could suspend the boycott to see if anything has improved in the service area and then take a vote between you and yourself to decide whether to lift the boycott permanently or not.

@captainsuperdawg I've done this a couple of times with McDonalds on long road trips when there aren't many other options for a quick breakfast. I feel too guilty to enjoy whatever it is I get.

The vote has been unanimous "no"

Gamestop - Grew tired of all the upselling and realized I could get new copies of games cheaper on Amazon and other places than I could at GS used. This is especially nice considering so many publishers are going to this online pass rubbish. If I'm going to have to pay $10-15 more for an online pass the used copy better adjust in price.

Dr Pepper - Why you take away my Dublin Dr Pepper? I hate you.

A few local restaurants that blew me away with how terrible their service was. Waitress walks by after I've been seated for >5 minutes "Hi, I'd like to get a glass of wa...oh ok I guess I'll catch you when you come back by..."

I used to boycott the movie theater in the last place I lived because it was such a dump, but now it's gone and so am I.

Yes. 7Up, Subway, Nike and the National Football League.

Apple - because way too much people use their products and don't show the variety of other alternatives out there.

IHop because of deplorable food & resulting inferior customer service by the manager. (Bacon raw, brought back totally burnt. Manager did not believe that warranted a no-charge. I was not rude, nor did I demand anything.) Guess I hold a grudge since that was in another city & I know they're francised. ;-)

CVS because they require a 'card' to buy anything on sale. (Don't know if they still do; don't care to find out.) Walgreen's beats their prices even on non-sale items.

@gmwhit: Wow! Another one I boycott! IHOP! The last three times I've been to IHOPs, 3 different locations, I waited forever to have my order taken, to get my order, then to get the bill. By the 3rd time & 3rd location, I figured it's policy to make ppl wait.

It used to be any Goodyear store and Sears Automotive. They were (don't know now - its been quite a few years) so horribly dishonest. Take your car in for one thing, and they would try to scare you to death about how unsafe it was unless and until umpteen dollars were spent on (what always turned out to be) needless repairs. Not that I trust most car repairs, but I think my new car dealer is fairly honest.

Verizon. I've never had such terrible customer service. On the phone, they are awesome. But in the stores...that's a different story.

Chick-fil-a. I won't support a company that publicly supports laws that strip Americans of a basic civil right.

The sandwiches were nothing special, anyway.

That doesn't mean I disapprove of boycotts as a whole, however. The whole bit up there, that's just me. If a company is exposed to have racist or sexist practices or whatever, or is really screwing their clients, I'd voice my support of a boycott

In line with others - Walmart, Domino's, big banks, Exxon, Mel Gibson movies, high fructose corn syrup. I try to avoid stuff from China, but it's almost impossible (the dollar store should be called the China store).
Really miss BuyBlue.org

(no link 'cause no site)

I boycott Progressive Insurance.

AT&T.

My phone wouldn't work and I had proof from wired and cnet that upgrades to the AT&T network had bricked my phone (Alright not quite, but any battery I put into it would drain in 5 minutes because the phone was reacting badly to a new signal output, and it was a common problem with this specific type of phone).

I walked into the store with my phone and copies of the stories and asked if I could get a replacement phone until my contract was up. They laughed at me and told me that it's my problem and that I'm scamming them. Oh, and they said that I made up the website stories and was putting on an impressive show.

I switched to Sprint and haven't looked back. At least Sprint doesn't laugh in my face.

I started to boycott Radio Shack last week. Here's why.

I went in to add minutes to my cel phone, not everyone can have an iphone. So I choose to use Boost mobile. I have a great phone all I need to do is talk, text sometimes and check my email a few times a day and in a few months, I'll be down to $35 a month for unlimited everything because I am on the shrink plan. Anyway, when I went in to buy mins, the guy working asked my what kind of phone I had to add min to and I told him Boost. He said at the top of his lungs in front of customers...."BOOST, you need to get a Real Phone". I took offense and walked out. I called RS customer service and a week later a District Manager called me. He offered my a 35 dollar gift card. Screw Radio Shack......

Olive Garden - my wife had an incident where they said a giftcard was empty, she called after paying to get balance and had to go back in to get the money back. No apology or discount for making a scene (chased us on the way out) or inconveniencing us.

I'm fine with going along. I could never understand why there was always such a long wait to eat their terrible food in their loud restaurant.

All Apple products & services.

Anything Facebook related. That includes companies that advertise their websites as facebook.com/companyname.

@nageltr: Agreed, Marshall Fields, at least the huge one in downtown Chicago, was awesome. Macy's is blah. Still haven't spent a penny there. I may someday... maybe ten years will be long enough...

We have a local high end Italian restaurant that had become our new favorite about a year ago. On our 4th or 5th trip in, we received extremely poor service that the waiter apologized for...it was unrelated to the food or his service.

Long short was that the owner was setting up for a private party and allowed 35 people to mill around a very small area in the main restaurant while drinking and waiting for their room. During the 20 or so minutes, you were unable to hold a conversation and no food was able to leave the kitchen due to the overcrowding.

My wife and I asked to speak to the manager who turned out to be the owner. She was so over the top rude with her attitude, answers and finger pointing in our faces that we left. We paid for the meal but stiffed the drinks. I tipped the waiter directly with cash for his service.

I have not been back and will not step foot into this establishment ever again under any circumstance. Gave a heck of a review on Yelp though!

Walmart. It's difficult at times, because I'm on a fixed income & their prices are less expensive. But, they treat their employees poorly, pay them as little as possible & don't provide decent benefits (health ins., for example)for part-time staff, which is about 90% of their workforce. With the thousands of employees they have, they have a tremendous opportunity to improve the lives of so many; not just the employees, but their families as well. They could provide free stop-smoking programs, weight reduction programs, college reimbursement incentive programs, classes in nutrition, money management, parenting, etc. & they could encourage participation by having the classes during the employees workday. The possibilities are limitless. They could do all this & still make the "zillions" they currently make in profits. I know it's idealistic, but as "corny" as it sounds, they really do have the opportunity to make the world a better place.

@comicbookguy2085: I completely agree with you about gamestop I haven't set foot in a store in a few years. The mark up for used items are insane. Especially when they started marking used games games for $5 less than new. Fortunately There is a Disk Replay near me, so I go there or pawn shops for my game gear.