Person Online Asks “What’s A Company You Refuse To Support And Why?”, And 30 Folks Deliver
For us, the consumers, one of the greatest things about business, economics, and everything in-between is the freedom to make a choice.
Don’t like the taste of a particularly soft drink? Switch brands. Don’t enjoy a given company’s corporate practices? Screw them and go to the competition. Don’t like the idea that some retailer is abusing labor laws and its employees? Do your shopping somewhere else.
While everyone’s experience is different, it’s still worth noting that being an informed customer will quite likely help you avoid any bull's pies you might run into given a particular company.
And Reddit is here to help. A thread asking folks to share companies, and subsequently their experiences with them, that led them to swear to never support them ever again. Nearly 15,000 upvotes and over 10,000 comments later, the thread went viral, and here we are, presenting to you the most upvoted responses.
Scroll down to see how people online feel about various brands and companies based on their findings and experiences with them, and while you’re at it, vote and comment on the submissions you found most useful!
More Info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
Any MLM. Just, no.
My mother is law is a saint, but she’s really gullible. She had a “friend” convince her into buying into Doterra and convinced her she would make a lot of money.
Mother in law now has boxes upon boxes of Doterra [dung] cluttering up her house. Every year I get essential oils as stocking stuffers. LOL, I don’t mind it, I think they smell nice. It just [angers me] that she was roped into this pyramid scheme and lost a lot of money.
She’s such a sweet kind woman and someone took advantage of that.
funeralxfog95 said:
Walmart
I used to work there and refuse to go there ever again. I put in my two weeks July 2020 and I haven’t gone there since. I refuse to step foot in any Walmart ever.
offspring515 replied:
Yep. After I lost my job I got a job doing stock at Walmart until I could find something in my field.
The hiring manager told me he could give me about 30 hours a week and he knew I needed to work overnights or weekend shifts because of my wife's work schedule so I could watch our young son.
After a week of this they schedule me for 12 hours the next week. 3 noon to 4 pm shifts.
I go to my manager and explain the two issues. Not enough hours and hours I cannot work.
He shrugged his shoulders.
Like a fool I went along with it. I was desperate for any money coming in as my wife was just returning to the work force after six months and I lost my job right before she went back. We finagled it so my father-in-law could watch our son that week.
The next schedule comes out and I have 16 hours and all morning shifts. These I can't work at all because my FIL's work schedule wouldn't allow him to help and he was the only local relative we had who could watch our son. We couldn't afford (and didn't really trust tbh) outside help.
I go to my manager again and he starts to chew me out for complaining about the schedule. I lost it on him.
"[MOTHER-SHUT-YOUR-FILTHY-MOUTH] YOU'RE THE ONE WHO PROMISED ME 30 HOURS AND OVERNIGHTS WHEN I STARTED TWO WEEKS AGO! BUT I GUESS YOUR WORD IS LIKE THIS STORE A BUNCH OF [FUDGING BULLPIES]!"
I am very easy going. I do not get upset like that with people. Especially not in a semi public place where others can hear it. But the combo of no sleep because of a new baby at home, stress over losing the lions share of our income unexpectedly and this a-hole lying to me then chewing me out for asking how we could fix it was too much.
He just stood there stunned and I walked out of the store never to return. [F] Walmart and their scummy tactics, anti union [BS] and the lies they tell poor, desperate people to keep them working there.
Yuuup my mom with medical issues had to move to a new area where there wasn't much for work, she got hired at a walmart. She was always on time and had no problems, she was a door-greeter. She had an allergic reaction to a cleaner that wasn't part of her job to use but she was just doing what she was told. She asked for accommodation so she didn't have to use that chemical or be around it, she was told yes, it would be done. Then the next day a manager changes her mind and fires my mom instead. Even after my mom was told she would be given accommodation. I've never liked Walmart much and avoided it as much as I could, but now I'm never giving those jerks money for the rest of my life. I know they're still one of America's biggest retailers so my not going isn't anything to them but I couldn't give money to such a garbage corporation. After that incident my uncle who's from the south told me half his family was screwed working for Walmart too.
State Farm.
Before we met, my wife was in a car accident that permanently damaged her neck, forcing her to drop out of college and abandon her dream to play violin professionally, and requiring her to get an injection in her neck twice a year for the rest of her life. She's been in a 4-year legal battle with State Farm as shes entitled to over $100k since she was no way at fault for it.
But they will not budge and keep demanding ridiculous things from her. Next month she's actually scheduled to fly back to the state where the accident happened so she can undergo a 10-hour psychological analysis (when she asked her attorney why they're asking for that, he pretty much said "because they can"). State Farm also recently requested she shoot a video of her attempting to play the violin and then talking to me about how it make her feel that she can't play it painlessly anymore. In a recent deposition, they actually asked her if she had intentions to get medical treatment were they to award her with the money back when it happened. They even at one point asked for a printout of everything she ever posted, commented on, or messaged on Facebook so they have proof her life was indeed affected by the accident (fortunately her lawyer talked them out of that one). The list of demands from State Farm gets more and more insane.
They've become such a pain but we've made the decision to fight it out as long as we can, because giving up is what they want us to do, and we want to prove to insurance companies that they can't screw over their clients like this. So yeah. Screw State Farm (and honestly most insurance companies)
To clarify, she has had a lawyer since the day after the accident, separate from State Farm, and he isn’t getting paid a dime until the settlement is met. State Farm was her insurance; the other guy’s insurance paid out $25k which barely covered her initial doctor’s bills. She filed an underinsured motorist claim, which is what she’s currently in the lawsuit over.
Iceman1701 said:
Literally any that interrupt my YouTube videos with their ads.
Ifonlyihadausername replied:
Basically how I live, if your adverts ruin the content I want then I will never buy your products.
People are always advocating to get ad blockers, and its your choice do it if you want, but then dont you dare to complain about sponsored content and in video ads, the content creators need to get creative to get paid because youtube cant pay like it used to because they dont get the same ad revenue as they did in the past.
Firearm owner here… the NRA. I’ve avoided joining since, well, forever. Something was always fishy about the group. I own my guns for my own reasons and don’t need membership dollars funding PACs I don’t agree with, nor do I need to be listed as a gun-owning member anywhere but the places necessary for legal outright purchase. They fear and lobby against gun registries, but truthfully they’ve essentially established one of their very own through membership! What [shirt] show as of late…
In the famous words of Ludacris, stay up out my bizna$$…
One of the most corrupt organizations in the United States. Should be forced out of business. They wield too much power in our government. These people profit over gun deaths. They care about no one.
PaticusGnome said:
Starbucks. It’s just too easy to support a local coffee shop if I’m in a situation where I can’t make my own coffee at home.
Nordseefische replied:
I live in Vienna, and i will never understand how someone can go to a Starbucks in Vienna. It's the city of Kaffeehäuser (coffee houses). It's cheaper, better tasting and most importantly so much more beautiful in almost all of them than inside a Starbucks.
username987654321a said:
Ticketmaster - too many fees. Just don't go to live concerts anymore.
Soulphite replied:
Ticketmaster:
- Ticket price: $40
- Service fee: $20
- Paperless fee: $5
- Fee fee: $3.15
- Because we can fee: $2.00
- You wanna go fee: $12.00
- Print-from-home fee: $6.50
- No physical copy fee: $16
- No refund policy agreement fee: $8.00
- Total: $112.65. [Screw] you very much.
Sucker.
NFL
- stadium scams: they threaten to move the team unless the city gives them a new stadium at basically the taxpayers expense. Atlanta took money from their public schools to fund a stadium that they get 0% back on .
- taxes are never what is promised. A city has never made money on a stadium. The tax revenue has never been enough to cover the investment.
- use of eminent domain to build these stadiums
- concussion coverup
- use of slave labor to the point that CBP (American customs) has rejected shipments of official NFL merchandise because it is illegal to import anything made by slave labor into the US
- many of the BLM shirts that the NFL (and to be fair the the NBA) were wearing were traced back to Haiti where black children were making these shirts for pennies an hour.
- Total disregard for CTE, as soon as it became apparent that safer helmets weren't going to work they tried to hide it, then they got "lucky" with the protests.
- most employees of the stadiums employee people at poverty wages in major cities, most are the minimum wage
- cheerleaders getting paid minimum wage (or less)
- the NFL does not give a [frick] about domestic violence, there is more of a penalty for players who dance in the end zone than who beat women.
- alumni of the NFL get arrested at rates much higher than other sports team's alumni.
TLDR: The NFL is evil
theflash207 said:
DuPont, it's insane how soo many people have no idea of what they did.
[Writer's Note: DuPont are the creators of Teflon, which was later identified as being highly toxic to the human body.]
DaFightins replied:
You beat me to it, I will always say DuPont. They withheld medical records from my father and his fellow coworkers for years; which would have revealed they had work related cancer. When it was finally discovered, DuPont could not cover it up fast enough and all their lies were uncovered. Many of the employees were young and had so many years taken from them.
The suffering all of them went through, I still am disgusted by that company.
There's a nice documentary on Netflix about DuPont and their shocking standards.
sleeo_xoxo said:
Goop because I’m not a sucker.
CaptKnight replied:
Seriously though, why name the company Goop? Bad enough it’s all [bullpies], but it’s not even something classy sounding. Gwenyth Paltrow is on my boycott movies list with the only exception being minor roles where I don’t have to see her much.
ok_ad748s_alt said:
Nestle for both reasons
[Writer's Note: quite likely referring to aggressive baby formula marketing, slavery and child labor, anti-union activities, among other possibilities.]
poopybuttfacehead replied:
FYI Starbucks and Nestle are best buds now and have signed a multi multi million dollar partnership.
[deleted] said:
Of course they do.
Educational-Ad2063 said:
Amazon. Sometimes it's hard because they are the only place to get some odd ball crap. But I've ordered from them only twice in the past year or so. I might use their search engine to find what I'm looking for and get part numbers and names.
Them go to the original manufacturers site and order from them. It usually cost me more, but screw Amazon.
vampierem replied:
Came here to say this, I haven't bought anything from Amazon in over a year because they are such a terrible monopoly that I refuse to support. Ebay has been a good alternative for most things I can't buy locally.
This! Didn't buy anything there for about two years. Works fine. FU d**k rocket man.
poopybuttfacehead said:
Wells Fargo. They have scammed their customers so many times (including opening fraudulent accounts) and paid millions of dollars in fines and just keep doing it anyway.
Morgueannah replied:
Before the whole scandal dropped about opening accounts, I interviewed for a teller job at Wells Fargo. During the interview, I was told in order to get a "jump start" on the yearly goals, all tellers were expected to get "all of your family and friends" to make new Wells Fargo accounts each January. I forget the precise number but it was more than 20 new accounts in one month (and you couldn't count the accounts you actually got while working from clients looking for services). When I said that none of my family lived in state they got really hostile, talking about how I'd have to commit to having them make accounts at a bank 500 miles away if I wanted to be considered for the job.
I walked out of that interview confidently knowing I would never bank with Wells Fargo if their poor tellers were under that much pressure to upsell me on everything. I was so far from shocked when I found out what was happening because just the idea of being put under that much pressure made me walk away from the interview. I could definitely see that as something people that actually accepted the job would sink to to get those managers off their backs.
There's a documentary on Netflix for anyone interested, I think it's a different company per episode, I seem to remember it does HSBC America too.
skycatminepokie said:
Meta. What if I don't want to share my private info with you?
Ok_Butterscotch1549 replied:
God that name is so bad.
canadianformalwear replied:
Not as bad as the stink of Facebook
Yes, friends I know it’s the same company. That’s the point. They’re trying to obfuscate their bad press and company baggage, and walk away from FB being considered the foundation of what they are as a tech company. Still evil.
Progressive
A few years back, an idiot crashed into my parked car with a lawnmower while I was at work.
The owner of the lawnmowing company decided to play games and not pay for the damage.
My Progressive agent ghosted me and his supervisor never returned my calls.
I eventually got the money but Progressive didn't do a damn thing.
I'm surprised Yelp isn't in the top comments. Harassing business owners to pay for advertising, and if they don't, they filter out all the legitimate positive reviews and their employees leave fake negative reviews. Check out the documentary "Billion Dollar Bully."
Nike
Just say no
I don’t buy Nike. Has zero to do with the quarterback.
It kills me that their shoes are made in sweat shops in Asian countries. They don’t manufacture anything in the USA. They’ve sold our youth on this idea that they can’t be happy without a pair of their shoes. Even their basketball camps are suspect. I remember when kids were getting jumped at their bus stops and their shoes stolen off their feet-this was a recurring news story for awhile. Can’t even give Mom or Dad a job, pay pennies on the dollar for every shoe sold. Nope. Make fun of my New Balance all you want, but supporting families in Maine & Massachusetts means much more to me than a swish & a dollar for Taiwan.
John Deere. They're working with apple and others to lobby against right to repair. They also have unnecessary software traps to prevent the user from repairing anything themselves. they recruit tons of people from my school to develop this garbage since we're near their HQ. Every person says they're absolutely terrible to work for which doesn't surprise me one bit.
John Deer is overpriced garbage and they don't honor their warranties. F-I-L bought a brand new JD yard tractor. I came over and mowed his yard exactly 3 times. The 3rd time, I ran it completely out of gas. The next week I bought a can of gas, filled up the tank and went to mow. It started, sputtered and shut off. Would not run for anything. Loaded it up, took it to the John Deer place and they had the nerve to tell me it because of "Bad gas" and that's not covered on warranty. I said it's brand new gas! Fix it! They swore it was bad gas. I said, load it up, I'm leaving. Took it to a small engine repair place that I trust and the fuel pump was bad. JD refused to cover it. Assholes. I'll not use another JD POS again.
Basspro shops and other big box fishing stores. Rather support small local stores. The owners and staff are usually knowledgeable about the area.
Short story. Angling Outfitters in Woodstock On. Highway 2.
Joslyn the owner took me outside in the parking lot and taught me how to properly cast a float road/centerpin reel. 20 mins of his time.
Bass pro ain't doin' that.
Support local.
But I bet Angling Outfitters don't have a big ass aquarium in their store that you can try out lures and Rods/reels on. I've had good experiences in their stores and have seen their "pros" giving tips and showing, in that aquarium, different like flipping techniques and stuff. Don't get me wrong, small mom and pop shops are the best and always will be but there are some benefits to the big box places too.
Allstate. Several years ago, our house burned down. Started in garage—part of the house burned to the ground, the rest had to be gutted from attic to basement. Property adjuster tried to say the burned and cracked brick was there before the fire! Also dragged his feet on every decision possible and then lied and said our (re)builder told him that the 2 feet of water in the basement did not ruin our water heater and other appliances so they didn’t need to reimburse us for those (got caught in the lie when he couldn’t produce email/letter). The Content adjuster cut reimbursement rates to ridiculous levels (eg, Q down comforter=$50). Finally after many months of fighting, got most (but not all) what we were due. They doubled our rates and then they blacklisted us with all insurance companies for 3 years so we couldn’t leave. I wish they’d go bankrupt.
Outrageous_Click_352 said:
Bank of America. Way too fee happy.
heaven-in-a-can replied:
When I was in college (‘08-‘12) I had an account with them. It was supposed to be a student account that would stop unnecessary fees and stuff. Accidentally overdrafted my account and got hit with a $35 fee. Couldn’t pay the fee so it charged me AGAIN. All in all I ended up in the red $110 in various overdraft fees. As soon as I could close the account I did. [Screw] BoA.
i love that concept: "you don't have enough money, so we'll keep taking away what you do have and that'll teach you to have more" Conversely for rich people "You have lots of money, so we'll give you free stuff that you could easily afford yourself!"
Lenovo from this point on. Absolutely abysmal customer service and desktop PC’s. It died after 7 months, a tech came out to repair it 3 times and failed. The final repair attempt was a new CPU (that’s important for later)
Lenovo wanted me to send the PC back to their depot and told me it may be 2-4 months before I get it back. I needed a PC so that wouldn’t work and asked for a refund since the PC was still under warranty.
Lenovo closed out my case as “resolved” and ignored me. I tried again and the same thing happened. Even though it was under warranty, they closed out my case.
I tried a third time and got transferred between every department imaginable for two hours before someone finally said this treatment is ridiculous and agreed to help me. I never heard anything else.
Now, I’m trained as an IT field tech and thought maybe I could revive the thing. Turns out the tech bent two pins on the CPU and killed it and the motherboard. Then I noticed Lenovo had sent a dual core Athlon 200GE to replace my Ryzen 3200G!
I called again and was told that there was nothing they could do since it was out of warranty. I mentioned the incorrect part, and that all of this happened under warranty and it was never resolved. They still didn’t help.
The ONLY way I got any help was to file a complaint through the Better Business Bureau. It got sent to a Lenovo case manager who was able to verify everything in my complaint using their call logs and even sees where they sent the wrong part. She said I should have received a full refund the very first time I asked.
I’m finally getting my money back after a year of fighting with this damn company.
Before you purchase a Lenovo product, read their BBB page to see what you’re getting into. This was the second nightmare repair ordeal I’ve had with Lenovo and that’s enough for me.
This is a case that can actually happen with any of the big box names. All computer companies have their flaws. I don't deal with lenovo because of a completely different reason but whatever.
BP.
After the Deep Horizon oil rig catastrophe they have lost my business. I realize that crude is co-mingled for processing, but I still refuse to give my $$ to their stores.
I did the same. I cannot support a business that willfully ignored industry standard safety practices.
[deleted] said:
EA. They started the monetization of the video game industry. Ever since they developed pay walls and battle-passes, the quality of games has been absolutely [shalala].
[F] you EA.
yavimaya22 replied:
Related: Blizzard. [F] Blizzard.
HappyHippoLord said:
Blizzard. From covered up sexual misconduct, to silencing Hong Kong protestors, and then denying it all and trying to say sorry for nothing! 😅
Comcast. For monopolizing cities, which prevents other options, charging you ridiculous fees. Data caps (complete [bull feces] they only do it in certain cities where they can get away with it). Till the day I die I will NEVER.
Marriott:
For years, as a road warrior, I would show up late night at a Marriott where I had a reservation and they would have given away my room because they overbooked. Of course, if I dared to be a 'no show' they would have charged me for a room I did not use. Their proposed solution was for me to stay exclusively at Marriotts and become a Black Diamond member then they would promise to honor my reservations and stiff someone else -- no thanks.
The last straw was when they raised rates after 9/11 to make up for lost revenue. Only people who needed to travel were travelling and Marriott price-gouged us.
Why pay a company to treat you that way? Never!
LuvinLife125 said:
Goodwill
They are a horrible company who exploits the disadvantaged, while raking in huge profits under the guise of charity.
akjd replied:
What's a good alternative?
I recently moved, and got rid of a lot of junk that was still marginally useful. Took it to Goodwill just because it was an easy way to get rid of stuff that wasn't just filling a landfill.
zimbabwe7878 replied:
I would just google "Thrift store" in your local area and find ones that are nearby.
I did see somewhere that 90% of donated items get thrown out anyway, so the best thing you can do is try to get more use out of things yourself or give them to people you know that will use them, or even sell them cheap so you can find people that want the stuff.
If you have nice stuff I'd say look at the more upscale thrift stores or consignment places since they are selective in what they take, which to me hopefully means they are more likely to sell the item than throw them away.
Match Group
They're the ones who run the most popular dating websites (Tinder, OkCupid, PlentyofFish, etc.)
Their sites are specifically designed to keep you hooked by making you insecure and unhappy, so you'll keep spending money on them.
But those sites don't charge also I don't see how they make u insecure. Met my husband on plenty of fish 10 yrs ago. Maybe they have new features I'm not aware of. I mean yeah there r allot of scum on dating sites but that's to b expected
TurboTax. Lobbied against free taxes. Completely rips you off with their services and tries to deceive their costumers into paying more with their web design. Charged me for their service up front in the middle of the pandemic even though taxes were late because the "deadline had passed". Just a [shoddy] company all around.
This was a long time ago. But as a former tax examiner, I can tell you that a whopping portion of tax returns i handled were filed by people who would be owed thousands in credits and deductions for children, which the IRS would've happily given them, except they paid $50 to use H&R Blockheads. See, when you use a tax preparer, you assert the taxes are done correctly, and the IRS can no longer presume you just didn't realize you had thousands of dollars coming to. H&R Block doesn't want to spend 3 seconds asking about kids, so millions upon millions of taxpayers got ripped typically around $4,500 each.
brownguyinthecorner said:
Jaded London, ASOS, Primark, PrettyLittleThing & any other fast fashion brands that I can’t remember off the top of my head.
gozba replied:
Child labour related?
brownguyinthecorner replied:
It does go further than that for me, but my opinion does stem from their exploitation of child labour.
How the hell did apple escape this list? Anti-competition to the point of suing their own supplier, over-priced, have to buy apple products, have to get apple repairs, this company is everything it's users claimed Microsoft was in the 90's, except it actually is...and worse!!
Amazed not to see my two personal favourites: McDonald's (too much to possibly put here about their international practices, destruction of rain forest, disgusting, inedible food that is killing people, adhering to the bare minimum of standards in each country, oh there's just too much). Have never bought or consumed anything from McDonald's in all my 55 years. Exxon is the other. When I was pregnant I ran out of petrol (broken gauge) and I pushed my car past the Exxon garage because I feel that strongly about boycotting them. Just look up what happened after the Exxon Valdez spill. Then there's things like Chik-Fil-A and Barrilla and Hobby Lobby who are basically supporting homophobia. I have a list!
Hobby Lobby is a good one (edit:good candidate for this article). It should be on here.
Load More Replies...How the hell did apple escape this list? Anti-competition to the point of suing their own supplier, over-priced, have to buy apple products, have to get apple repairs, this company is everything it's users claimed Microsoft was in the 90's, except it actually is...and worse!!
Amazed not to see my two personal favourites: McDonald's (too much to possibly put here about their international practices, destruction of rain forest, disgusting, inedible food that is killing people, adhering to the bare minimum of standards in each country, oh there's just too much). Have never bought or consumed anything from McDonald's in all my 55 years. Exxon is the other. When I was pregnant I ran out of petrol (broken gauge) and I pushed my car past the Exxon garage because I feel that strongly about boycotting them. Just look up what happened after the Exxon Valdez spill. Then there's things like Chik-Fil-A and Barrilla and Hobby Lobby who are basically supporting homophobia. I have a list!
Hobby Lobby is a good one (edit:good candidate for this article). It should be on here.
Load More Replies...