People Share The Dirty Secrets That Made Them Stop Supporting A Company
Reddit user Wetter42 asked: 'What's a dirty little secret you found out about a company or service that made you stop using them?'
In the 1987 movie Wall Street, actor Michael Douglas' antihero Gordon Gekko infamously said:
"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good."
The quote became a perfect representation of rampant corporate greed and corruption prevalent in the era during and after Republican President Ronald Reagan's stint in the Oval Office. The Reagan administration pushed deregulation and elimination of consumer protections.
While the government may not always step in to thwart shady or harmful businesses, consumers have one way to control them—their money.
Money talks.
Reddit user Wetter42 asked:
"What's a dirty little secret you found out about a company or service that made you stop using them?"
Poor Working Conditions
"Ashley Furniture—abysmal OSHA record, repeat and willful violations."
"People are not expendable."
~ surfinwifsharks
"I assure you, it's worse."
"That's just what OSHA made public, but I live near their factory in Arcadia and know people who work there, or used to work there."
"Someone bled for your dresser."
~ Wild_Question_9272
"I used to work as the lead designer for BLUENOTES in Canada. YM Inc knowingly uses near slave and child labour and denies everything in the press, but they do know, and they don't care."
"Money is more important."
~ Pkactus
"I used to work for Goodwill and in the back I saw one of my coworkers who has a physical and mental handicap come out of the office of our store manager crying. I really liked this coworker, I remember her as one of the nicest people I've ever known."
"I asked her what was wrong and she said that her wages were going to be cut substantially. She stated the store manager was told by corporate that it was since she was not able to work as fast as others in the back doing pricing.
"I asked if she would mind if I asked what they had cut it to and she said $3.30 an hour."
"WTF!"
"It turns out that Goodwill has a policy to pay disabled workers the legal subminimum wage."
"Sec 14 (c) allows corporations to pay people with disabilities a subminimum wage. According to Labor Department records, Goodwill pays some of its disabled workers as low as $0.22, $0.38 and $0.41 per hour depending on the state laws."
"Goodwill does not show much goodwill towards their workers."
~ Red_Beard_of_Tucson
Questionable Spending
"Susan G. Komen for the Cure."
"The pink ribbon is a scam!"
~ worldsokayestmomx3
"Most people also don't realize it just because something is pink, has a ribbon on it, says breast cancer on the front or is sold in October it doesn't necessarily benefit anything other than the company that made it!"
"There are no patents or trademarks on pink ribbons that mean that anytime it's used it has to benefit breast cancer research or awareness. Literally anybody can sell something pink with a ribbon and it doesn't mean a damn thing for actual cancer patients."
~ Crystal_crone
Shady Business Practices
"H&R Block used to do something like this with their tax preparation service. Not sure if they still do."
"Their slogan was something like, 'Come on in and we'll tell you if there's mistakes in your self-prepared return, for free!'."
"So you go in, they spend 5 minutes looking at your self-prepared return, and they tell you, 'Yes, indeed, there are mistakes here'."
"And then you ask them to tell you what the mistakes are. And that's when they tell you it'll cost $75 for them to tell you."
~ whomp1970
"Intuit lobbied the government to keep taxes complex."
"F*ck TurboTax."
~ lifesavingsgoboom
"Angie’s List (aka Angi). Did work for a person and they left a good review on Angie’s List.
"Next thing I know I’ve got a guy from their call center blowing up my phone. He wanted me to pay them to put more good reviews under my company’s name and to steer potential customers towards my business for an additional fee."
"Basically everything they say they don’t do on their ads. I’m sure it was a trustworthy company when Angie still owned it, but it’s scammy as hell now."
~ Tangboy50000
"My mother is terminally ill and closing her business. Angie’s List called about promotion and she kept saying no."
"Finally had to tell them she was dying."
"They offered her a cheaper promotion. They suck."
~ StitchingKitty897
"The sheer amount of people who still use uTorrent, even among my friends boggles my mind."
"It's basically an adware at this point. They even used to bundle a cryptominer at one point that secretly used your computer to mine bitcoin (or some other crypto)."
"ALWAYS use open-source Torrent clients."
~ vpsj
"There is a vintage toy store chain near me called the Toy Vault. The owner, Dan, has been ripping people off for years, offering them very little money for their toy collections."
"He treats his employees terribly. Many toy collectors in the area have their own Dan story."
"One time a couple of years ago I was setting up a pop-up shop to sell a massive collection of toys that my friend's parents had hoarded."
"We had been advertising for a couple weeks and were excited to make some people happy offering great deals on a lot of cool toys."
"The Thursday prior to opening Dan messaged me asking if there was a price we'd sell the whole collection for, saying that he could bring a truck that night and rid us of the burden."
"I said no because neither of us had the time and told him he could come Saturday with the rest of the buyers."
"He replied angrily calling me an 'amature' and said that if we were 'serious about selling' we would make the time, and that he knows we shop at his stores."
"Well I don't anymore, Dan."
~ ancient_scully
"There used to be a comics and collectibles store near me that was run by the same type of people. They would take the current month's comics and bag them and mark them up by at least 50%, so you would have to pay a premium for even the most recent issues."
"If they thought the comics were going to be hot, the marked them up even more). They were pretty much the only comics store in the area, and they were one of the few that sold a lot of independent comics, so it sucked that I had to boycott them."
"What's worse was their policy towards collectibles and action figures—the owner would buy case upon case of whatever the latest fad toy was and pull out the rarest figures and charge $100+ for them."
"Then he would drive his pre-teen son to the local Toys R Us with the rest of the figures, and have the kid walk in and claim that he had gotten all of them for his birthday, but he didn't want them, so could he trade them in for store credit.
"At the time, Toys R Us had a pretty loose policy towards returns—if you brought in something still sealed in its original box and it was an item they sold, you could get store credit for it. This worked for a while, but eventually this guy was banned from every Toys R Us within like an hour's drive."
"Eventually, the comics and action figures craze died down and this guy went out of business shortly thereafter."
~ WaldoJeffers65
"Companies like BetterHelp (mental health platform) exploit clients data/info and breached privacy."
"Yet they still advertise everywhere. Somewhere like 3 lawsuits about it."
~ Friendly-Jump-5307
"Therapist here. BretterHelp is total garbage."
"I feel bad for the clients who go through several green therapists to find someone who's actually a good fit and then the therapist leaves (understandably) because BetterHelp treats and pays them so poorly."
~ SpuddyBud
"The Weather Channel app collected and sold user location data without disclosing it would it be shared with advertisers."
~ KawIsTheLaw
"I will never buy anything from LG."
"Sometime around 2008ish, they (like many other hardware/software companies) were messing around with what was essentially adware, seeing how far they could push things to get borderline-malicious advertising onto your home computer."
"Stuff like the pile of CDs that came with your new Gateway, the 'do you also want to install X, Y and Z? We're going to imply it's necessary' when installing messaging apps, or the huge unnecessary printer 'software suite' when all you needed was the driver."
"LG went a step further."
"LG embedded adware in the firmware of their CD/DVD drives."
"Every time you opened or closed the drive, you'd get a little popup from your system tray that served you an ad—pretty much indistinguishable from the legions of adware/spyware your aunt would get from clicking 'yes' to all her popup ads."
"Except nobody clicked yes on anything, and it couldn't be removed. It was embedded in the drive itself, essentially performing an AutoPlay exploit on a virtual drive to show you the ads, then disappear again."
"They eventually were threatened with legal action and had to post a firmware update/removal tool on their website.
"The ad software was called BlueBirds, and LG scrubs all mentions of it from their Wikipedia article every now and then."
~ DJ33
Cruelty And Greed
"Nissan spent a decade ruining the life of the guy who owned nissan.com."
~ zonker77
"Crumbl Cookies. Their VP of HR did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on LinkedIn that I happened to see because they are fairly local and I have a few mutual connections."
"Anyway, she went off on why they were always understaffed in an area because 'everyone one else is paying above market value for employees and [we] only want to pay market value and hire people passionate about [our] brand and making cookies'."
"It really rubbed me the wrong way, because if everyone else is paying more than you it doesn’t mean they are paying above market value, it means you are paying below market value."
"I haven’t been back since, besides they also sued another company for also selling cookies in square boxes… and honestly the other companies cookies taste better."
~ Luckyfinger7
While we as consumers and customers can't directly dictate anyone else's morals or ethics, we can choose who we will and won't give our money to.
Use your buying power wisely.
The Worst Examples Of Corporate Rebranding Ever
Reddit user onlyahippowilldo asked: 'What's the dumbest corporate rebranding?'
Companies often chase change when profits dip.
But if they aren't careful, they can destroy the very thing that appealed to consumers.
Anyone remember "new Coke"?
Intended to be a permanent replacement for their flagship product, it was branded New Coke by the public.
Backlash lead to "Classic Coke" being reintroduced to the marketplace.
The product was a reformulation introduced by The Coca-Cola Company in April 1985. It was renamed Coke II in 1990 then finally discontinued in July 2002.
It's now taught as a lesson in what not to do in business and marketing.
But Coca-Cola isn't the only one to stumble.
Reddit user onlyahippowilldo asked:
"What's the dumbest corporate rebranding?"
Who Are You?
"Ditching the name 'HBO' is certainly a decision."
~ 44035
"And now they're releasing HBO originals on Netflix. It's like they're literally destroying a household name that was the only thing going for them."
~ esoteric_enigma
"HBO Go -> HBO Max -> Max"
~ nthroop1
"I loved how Peacock responded with a statement not to get excited, they weren't doing that."
~ Ok-Cheetah-9125
"Haha, had to look it up and sure enough:"
~ fixedtypo
Then Whose Is It?
"Not really a rebrand, but when Oldsmobile went to the 'This is not your father's Oldsmobile' campaign, they basically alienated the only group of people who actually were buying Oldsmobiles at the time.
"And now, nobody is buying Oldsmobiles."
~ jpiro
So, Where Is It?
"The University of Western Sydney just recently spent millions of dollars to rebrand to Western Sydney University."
~ Orion2200
"The Canadian version of this is when The University of Western Ontario spent a bazillion dollars rebranding to Western University."
~ VonVilhelmVilhelm
"What’s western about it? It’s not in the west of Ontario."
~ theducks
"That’s easy. It’s west of the centre of the universe (Toronto). It doesn’t matter that it’s eastern canada and eastern Ontario."
~ skippy2893
"I thought I heard that even after they did this, they're still legally called University of Western Ontario in an official capacity."
"So what was even the point?"
~ aureentuluva1
GiphyJuicy Details
"Tropicana; removing the famous red-white straw directly into the orange imagery for...an unbranded clear glass of orange juice in a generic-looking (white-labeled-looking) package."
~ KBeeFree
"They lost $65 Million! They spent $30 Million on the rebrand and lost $35 Million in sales."
~ Wearesyke
When Your Office Logo Is NSFW
"The former UK Office of Government Commerce, which spent £70k on a logo redesign circa 2008."
"The logo was the initials OGC, which when turned 90° looks like a guy having a wank."
"The best part of that fiasco was the response of a spokesman."
"'It is not inappropriate to an organisation that's looking to have a firm grip on Government spend'."
"firm grip"
~ MonseigneurChocolat
GiphyIf You Don't Know By Now...
"It’s been years since Angie’s List was rebranded to Angi and they’re still running ads that clarify who they are based on the old name."
"Great work, everyone."
~ patopatogris
"I haven't heard anyone explain the rebranding, but I strongly suspect that morons were confusing them with Emily's List and assuming they were a pro-choice group."
~ Cultural-Company282
Laser Kiwi!
"New Zealand spent 26 million on a new flag and then it lost to the old one in a vote."
~ thorpie88
"The insane thing is... They. Didn't. Hire."
"They crowd sourced. I sh*t you not."
~ davetenhave
"Did it actually cost millions then?"
~ sbenfsonw
"The design of the flags no, but the referendum to ask the populace if they want the new flag did."
~ confused_yelling
@ThompsonLars/Twitter
The Jokes Write Themselves
"The parcel delivery company Hermes which became Evri."
"Now Evri parcel is lost."
~ AHat29
"I used to have a subscription with a company that used Hermes, I had two parcels that hadn't shown up in the same month so I requested new ones, these too didn't arrive so I cancelled the order completed."
"A few months later they were back in touch to offer me a new deal, I declined and when pushed said they had a new courier; the 'new' courier was Evri..."
~ E17AmateurChef
THAT Pat
"ABC Family to Freeform. I never understood."
~ Kai-Tlyn
"That particular cable channel has probably rebranded more than any other:- Christian Broadcasting Network
- CBN Family Channel
- The Family Channel
- Fox Family
- ABC Family
- Freeform"
"They’ve been trying to distance themselves from Pat Robertson’s (yes, THAT Pat Robertson from 700 Club) who owns a significant portion of the network."
"They are legally required under a long standing contract to play Christian Broadcasting Network content. It’s a good way to not have the ABC/Disney brand connected to that religious content."
~ jimb575
New Name, Same Great Service
"Comcast -> XFinity"
"I was involved in some of the meetings for that as a outside contractor. It was the dumbest move ever."
"90% of the people involved knew it was dumb, but a handful or morons at the top really thought Comcast's bad reputation would just magically disappear with the rebrand."
~ woogychuck
"I was a third party contractor who would sometimes get contracted out troubleshoot or install Comcast internet or cable."
"It was right around the time of the rebranding and let me tell you, it confused the hell out of every single person."
"The consumers, the techs, the bosses, nobody knew what to call anything for a while."
~ IWearBones138__
"I can't imagine what it was like as contractor."
"One of the websites my company was hired to build was intended to convince contractors to pay to have their own vans painted to match the new branding."
"When we told Comcast/Xfinity marketing folks that literally no contractor was going to willingly spend $3-6k to rebrand their vehicles, they acted like we were crazy."
"They geniuinely thought installation and repair contractors we be so excited about the 'earning potential' of the rebrand that they would spend thousands to do it. We fortunately lost the project to another company."
"They were seriously disconnected with reality."
~ woogychuck
"A marketing department disconnected with reality‽‽ No way!"
~ chapswithnocaps
GiphyNot Comic Sands?
"In 2010 the Gap paid an ad agency a bajillion dollars to rebrand. They came up with the name typed in Arial (Helvetica?) font.
"The Gap announced the rebrand. They were roundly mocked for spending a gorillion dollars on something that it takes two seconds for anyone to create."
"They decided to just continue using the old logo. The rebrand lasted six days."
~ VonAether
"'We believe this is a more contemporary, modern expression. The only nod to the past is that there’s still a blue box, but it looks forward'."
"It always cracks me up hearing big market whiz guys trying to explain the most mundane, boring attempt at innovation."
"Not a single consumer in the world is going to look at the Gap logo and thinking that."
~ IWearBones138__
And the Winner (loser) Is...
"Twitter to X"
~ squid1891
"This is the answer. Twitter had a brand name so recognizable, it became a literal verb that was widely used in the cultural lexicon."
"Sure, Facebook had posts and statuses, instagram had stories, but the word 'tweet' is synonymous with and unique to Twitter."
"Companies spend millions on marketing to try and get something to catch on and stick like that, it’s like striking gold, any marketing exec would kill for it."
"Baby Huey Elon threw it in the trash like it was yesterday’s news for literally the most generic, garbage branding imaginable."
"It’s stranger than fiction."
~ aveganrepairs
"Now instead of tweets we have 'excretions'."
~ Bikrdude
"On an app called X(sh)itter."
~ bobjoylove
"Cue clip of Uncle Eddie emptying his RV septic system. 'Xitter's full!'."
~ Jesus_Is_My_Gardener
"Xitler"
~ valeyard89
GiphyCompanies—and countries—have various reasons for wanting a rebrand.
When it works, the results can be phenomenal.
But when it flops, no one will ever let you forget it.
GiphyDon't be alarmed: There are some terrible corporations out there (looking at you, Nestle) but there are also some great brands that are selling decent products.
I know, surprising, right? Maybe we've all just gotten used to brands selling things of questionable quality that when we stumble across something worthwhile it stuns us.
Hold on tight when you find a brand deserving of your loyalty!
People shared their thoughts with us after Redditor spwf asked the online community,
"What brand(s) do you swear by and why?"
"Their cast iron pans..."
"Lodge. Their cast iron pans are super durable and can last a lifetime."
StillForest989
Not just a lifetime. Your Lodge cast iron will outlive you, if (and even if you don’t) take care of it. Even if they get rusty they can be resurfaced. And damn is it satisfying to resurface a forgotten cast iron pan.
Asics, specifically the Gel-Nimbus series. I've suffered from joint pain and unbearable plantar fasciitis from a relatively young age... These shoes are life savers. Very pricey and I don't love the look of tennis shoes of any type but nevertheless I will praise these shoes to the end of days. Hopefully, I will always be able to afford them once a year.
Glad to hear you've found some much-needed relief!
"Warranty and service..."
"Victorinox. Excellent pocket knives, multi tools and their kitchen knives are probably the best ones you can get under 100 USD. Warranty and service is top notch."
CharacterComb3039
Anyone who cooks, but can't afford or doesn't want to invest in a professional-grade chef's knife should get a Victorinox. They aren't nearly as good as a top tier professional chef's knife, but they are night and day compared with everything else in their price range.
"This one brand..."
"This one brand of granola bars called Sunbelt Bakery. Every other granola bar brand is so dry I can't eat them anymore."
[deleted]
Yes, these are so good! An excellent choice.
"Very comfortable."
"Dickies. High quality pants. They're meant to be work pants so they're pretty durable and breathe well. Very comfortable."
GargantuanCake
"High quality" is right. Those pants last forever.
"It helps clean..."
"Dawn dishsoap. It helps clean dishes and it's great when one of my kids has an accident and I have to wash their clothes. Sometimes leaves a small stain but no smell. It has saved so many outfits."
[deleted]
Fantastic – it sounds like you should be their salesperson.
"They don't use..."
"New Balance. They don't use slave labor to make shoes."
Tink2013
They are comfortable and fit well.
I personally still don't like the aesthetics of many of their shoes, but still recommend them to people who want a good shoe.
"They are a retailer..."
"REI. Stand behind everything in their store. They are a retailer but you can beat something up they sell and they give you a full refund."
bigturkey1738
Many people use them for shoes, for camping gear... all kinds of stuff. They're very reliable.
"I wear my Timberland boots..."
"I wear my Timberland boots almost every day, I’ve had them for almost ten years, and they’re still just about as sturdy as they were the day I bought them."
RedWestern
These shoes tend to last forever. "Durable" is the perfect word.
"One large bottle..."
"Dr. Bronner's Castile soap. One large bottle lasts me about a year and I use it for everything. No toxic BS in them like pretty much every other soap and they smell fantastic."
"Also when I say everything I really mean it. All purpose cleaner, dish soap, body wash, shampoo, carpet extractor wash, dog shampoo, it’s called 18 in 1 for a reason."
drumkid74
If you're interested in the story behind the company, the documentary Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox might be right up your alley.
See? Not all brands are terrible. After reading about some of these, it might be time to change of your buying habits.
Have some suggestions of your own? Tell us more in the comments below!
Few topics get me as riled up as unpaid internships. They can take up the time of a full time job, making it difficult for some students who may need additional sources of income.
At the end of the day an intern is doing work for a company and they deserve to be paid for their labor.
But it's crazy to think about how much companies have normalized this practice. How many students do you know who are or were burned out by the stress of their internship, their actual job, and the need to keep up with their assignments?
Companies have normalized a lot, by the way, thanks to having the resources to produce enough propaganda.
People shared their thoughts after a Redditor asked the online community:
"What is something that's considered normal today but is actually successful propaganda made by corporations?"
"Attaching..."
"Attaching health insurance to your job and if you have a family and leave your job, you're f*cked."
Ennion
Ah, yes. The United States is quite behind compared to most of the world.
"I don't ask my mechanic..."
""Ask your doctor if JDGYRHKX is right for you!" WTF isn't that his job? I don't ask my mechanic or plumber if I need a certain product. Pharmaceutical marketing is a total ruse."
patches181
I can't imagine falling for one of those commercials. They really boggle the mind of people in other countries.
"Politicians being..."
"Politicians being a middleman for corporations to influence government policies, instead of middlemen for the people to influence government policies."
OneTwoKnow
"Sugar industry blaming fatty foods for obesity, sparking the low-fat trends and ignoring how bad sugar is for your health."
BlackSage8
Interestingly enough, being poor did wonders for my palate.
"People eating KFC..."
"People eating KFC during Christmas time in Japan because of KFC's marketing campaign that promoted their products as a traditional Western Christmas treat."
ClementinaGriffe
I heard about this from a Japanese person once and it blew my mind.
"Most products..."
"Most products made for the care of babies. Babies need very little in the way of furniture, gear, special foods etc. But people are so willing to buy so much stuff."
lexrp
The same is true for pet products too. It's a total money pit.
"Companies like Intuit..."
"Companies like Intuit have lobbied to make sure filing taxes can't be free and easy."
FunnOnaBunn
In Norway you only have to check the government’s calculations of your taxes and file any deviations or potentially unreported income/wealth.
They have it so easy.
"It was pushed..."
"Plastics Recycling."
"It was pushed by the plastics industry back in the early 70s when laws were about to be passed to deal with the environmental impact of plastics. In reality a lot of the plastics that have a little recycling symbol on them are not feasible to recycle at all."
"They are still pushing the lie to this very day."
FriendlyWisconsinite
When I learned about this, it filled me with rage.
"The way we celebrate holidays is much more of a production than it used to be - Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day. Just more excuses to consume crap en masse."
[deleted]
The commercialization of holidays is a big reason why so many people dislike the holiday season.
"Not discussing your income..."
"Not discussing your income with coworkers. At least in the US, employees are protected, so they are allowed to discuss income amongst each other without fear of getting fired for it. However, a lot of companies have kept the idea that it is taboo or that your job may be at risk for doing so and a lot of people still buy it to this day."
Chico119
Fun fact: Your employer can't stop you from discussing your wages. It is protected by law and you should do the work to keep such discussions as transparent as possible.
You're annoyed now, aren't you? It's astounding the amount of influence that companies have–and continue to hold–over our daily lives.
Have some thoughts of your own? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.
Loyal customers who patronize a variety of businesses tend to look the other way if they sense something about the company is up to no good.
But when a corporation has such a terrible reputation that is beyond the pale, it leaves a once faithful patron no choice but to no longer require its services.
Curious to hear from strangers who refused to associate themselves with a company, Redditor lubedupduck asked:
"What's a corporation that nobody seems to realize is evil?"
When it comes to handling your finances, these are the corporations apparently ones to look out for.
Not Free Or Easy
"Intuit, the maker of TurboTax. They’ve worked very hard for years to make sure filing your taxes is neither free nor easy. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free"
– Allied_Biscuit
Credit Bureaus
"The credit bureaus - Equifax, Transunion, Experian."
"Their business model is based on building up as much information about you as they can from sources you can’t vet, control, or have the ability to approve. You can’t look at the raw data (just their compiled reports). It’s your job to correct the data that they gathered (vs them validate the data). You have no control and can’t stop them from gathering the data. And their analysis has direct implications on many of your financial activities."
"Ohh and my favorite above all - they are a data company having some of the most personal information about you which has direct financial implications on your life, but if (when) they are breached and that data is exposed it’s your problem to deal with the repercussions."
– Tifoid
Missed Payment
"I had a Credit Card with Elan for years that I didn’t use. I had it on auto payment and the only thing on there was yearly fees. I never closed it out because it was an older established line of credit and closing it would impact credit score. Randomly they had an update and their system rejected my bank routing. So I missed a payment and surprise surprise nobody contacted me to let me know I was delinquent on the $20 (from their yearly fees). My credit dropped 80 points from that one missed payment. Elan, Equifac, Transunion, Experian all gave me the run around and basically said tough sh*t. Took months to settle and my credit is still stuck in low 700’s despite only missing one payment in a decade which I paid the entirety of the balance and closed out the card."
– snacknslash
A Costly Reputation
"Goldman Sachs. The other financial companies think they're evil, which is saying something."
– Cyberzombie
These are companies whose alleged dealings in other affairs make negative impacts.
Bearing Rotten Fruit
"The Dole and Chiquita fruit company . The things they did in the mid 1900's would have been evil by 1600's standards."
– Diddy_Block
Not So Slick
"Shell. This company started wars in Africa."
– radeakins
"Every oil company is insanely evil. I think most people realize this. In fact, a picture of Steven Donziger (an American political prisoner who dared to cross Chevron) was on the front page earlier."
– nirad
A Bad Connection
"Verizon"
"In 2018 A California fire chief said Verizon throttled his crew's Internet speed during a wildfire crisis to 1/200th of its original data plan, even though the fire department had an 'unlimited' plan."
"Fighting wildfires and their data is throttled."
– Alston518
Not So Wholesome Grocer
"Whole Foods."
– theCurseOfHotFeet
"I worked for Whole Foods from 2007-2013. I remember a mandatory 'unions are bad' presentation that every employee had to attend. The whole thing was basically 'oh we treat our employees so well, we don’t need unions!' And then they warned us about sneaky union folk who would try to trick us into signing up for a union."
– imaginaryblues
Earning The Uniform
"I worked for Best Buy for like 6 months during college and they did the same thing. It was really aggressive training, and pretty laughable considering how dogsh*t the pay and hours were. They seriously made employees 'earn' their blue polo shirt, you had to work with no uniform until then."
"Even sadder was that several people in my training class actually believed it, I remember one girl thanking them for 'educating' her about how bad and unecessary unions were."
– rachelgraychel
People refuse to engage with the following services, and it's understandable as to why.
Reviews Suck
"YELP Bunch of leeches."
– AllTheCoconut
After The Flood
"I ran a store years ago. In 2011 the area had torrential rains in the spring. My store flooded, but that's an understatement. The entire city block flooded like you see on the news - cars floating, people being rescued, etc. The day after the water had subsided and cleanup started. The street was still blocked off. Anyway, I had the door open to my store with fans helping to air it out. I even put a sign up outside that said 'closed due to flooding, sorry'. Well my employees and I are in there cleaning away and out of nowhere I turn around and this young guy is standing in the middle of the store. I said, 'sir, sorry but we're closed'... He said, 'well your store hours say you're open'. At this point I'm about ready to kick him out - we're literally shoveling mud out of the store, how could any sane person think the store was open. I explained that the whole block flooded and all my merchandise was ruined."
"He got pissed off, yelled at me about not being accommodating and threw a glass cup across the store, shattering it and giving me even more to deal with. A few days later I found out he left a one star yelp review. He said I was abusive and racist (we're both white). He said the store was in deplorable condition and said he was filing a safety hazard concern with the city. I appealed to yelp with pictures of the flood and some jack@ss from yelp responded to me with something rude like, 'Next time you close your store to the public, maybe actually keep the doors closed.' F'k that company so much."
– Any_Ad_7571
All Those Extra Charges
"Ticketmaster."
– choref81
"The f'k they need to add all those extra fees for a digital f'king ticket for its not like they are actually printing a ticket and having someone post it out."
– Mccobsta
Even the Mouse was put on blast.
Not So Magical
"Disney..i will die on this hill."
– LordofMushrooms
"They alone are responsible for f'king up copyright law."
– BlartIsMyCoPilot
A Testimonial
"Former cast member Disneyworld - I can attest to this being true. 2005-2006 was when I was down there. A kid died on the Rockin' Rollercoaster in MGM Studios (now Hollywood Studios) - a seizure, I believe. I worked at the other end of the park in Sweet Spells. The guests were asking about the death because they were there. We were strictly told not to discuss it and just say we didn't know or hadn't heard anything. That poor baby died and we had to act like everything was ok - happy in fact. Another incident was the winner of the marathon that year dropped dead of a heart attack after crossing the finish line - everybody saw it. They drag your body out in a way as to not disturb guests (so if that means lifesaving help could get there faster, they don't if it would upset the guests) once they drag you off park grounds local teams can declare you dead. Even if you were dead. Even if everybody saw you die. It's traumatic."
– InterrobangDatThang
Following Traditions
"Yep. Worked there 2005-2006. Very racist. It is written in their rulebook. The 'traditional look' - I was made to straighten my natural hair because Black hair is 'unprofessional' to them. And because in their College Program your housing, transportation, and food is based on you working there, I had no choice."
"I worked with a lot of kids who had nothing - fleeing Hurricane Katrina and had nowhere to go, also kids from overseas whose families sacrificed so much for them to be there -- Disney banked off the fact that many of us there came from nothing and we're just scraping to get by. We were told we were lucky and not to question what they'd do. I hate them."
"Two words: Grocery Bingo. These mfkrs made us play real hunger games for our food. Imagine splitting a bag of Chef Boyardee, Pop Tarts, and Cheerios amongst four roommates - and that might be your food for the week. I stole food from my shop for us, but you can't live off of cookies and fudge. I hate them."
– InterrobangDatThang
If the product itself is satisfactory, it's one thing. But when a company is involved in controversial matters that tarnishes their brand, it it worth being loyal?
How much do you not know about the businesses you wholeheartedly are committed to?
These questions are definitely something worth exploring if you care to.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.