Retailers that deserve to go bust

I actually think UK customer service is quite good on balance, especially compared to mainland Europe. it seems to me that the more commercially minded and more competitive businesses are, the better the customer service. The US is very commercial, very business-orientated- hence you get fab service. France, Belgium etc- v uncompetitive, crap service. I think the UK's somewhere in the middle.

Primark in Liverpool is hell on earth.

I was in town with a friend (from home) and her 4 year old boy. Friend went into Primark and I waited outside with boy and it took her 90 minutes to get round the four floors and queue. I really wasn't best please but she assured me it was the crowds, not her dawdling.

Every second person in town seems to have a Primark bag, it's vastly overtaken Next in the everyone having the same stakes.

I'd like to nominate Mothercare (although the internet bit can stay)

We went there with a huge list of everything we wanted / needed to buy - probably easily £500 worth of stuff. We came out with a blanket ! They had nothing in stock, and their answer was to order off the internet. So why bother having shops if you are going to have no stock in them ?

I don't how you put up with it. I would have told him to buck up his ideas otherwise I would be taking my business elsewhere.

Please dont say PizzaHut. I am pregnant and have huge craving for Deep Pan Veggie Supreme. Cant even remember the last time I even had one, and closest is miles away. But I still want one.

Argos, you order you item, que and are then asked if you want insurance for that? (no it's a £4.99 watch you fool) and then you're asked if you want to take out an argos card to pay for it and save 10% - again, no!

Then you stand aimlessly (or sit on the multi coloured plastic chairs) clutching your number, the automated computer tells you that your number is up, but it's like bingo for losers because your item isn't actually on the racking amongst all the other waiting items. However the number that follows yours has arrived and so number 856 gets to collect and leave whilst you stand holding 855.

Then when your item does appear the souless drone who is managing the complicated racking / item number system has disappeared and you stand waiting for another 5 mins on their return whilst 5 other members of staff perform worthless tasks like wiping down the laminated books which are covered in toddler snot.

Oh and if the item you have bought is nice and awkward you can guarantee they won't have a bag to assist you in carrying it nor can they assist you in getting it to your car.

Anything like Starbucks, Costa Coffee or Pret a bloody manger etc!! They litter our high st and they stink! They are so overpriced, its a joke.

or you do what i do and reserve it online, go into the shop, straight to the machine, type the number, pay by card, get your receipt, wait in the theatre for the poor whilst you surf the internet or make a phone call, and then pick up the item 3 minutes later. believe me, i am THE most grumpy when it comes to shops, but that way its all very easy, esp if you go in at 10am on a tuesday morning.

I have to say that the guy in Boots yesterday in Cambridge, at about 6.15pm looking after the self-serving tills was great!! H and I were running around like headless chickens (as you do!) as I'd made the decision that I was going to cut his hair, not go to a barber's, so wanted to pick up a comb and some hairdressing scissors.. The guy pretty much had to talk me through the process of using the machine, although I've used them regularly before, and was EVER so patient! Must've thought I was speshul.. To be fair, though, I was in a hyper-mania phase, but I think the cherry on top was the fact that I'd've walked out of the shop had it not been for the same guy alerting me to the fact that I'd actually forgotten the scissors and comb back at the counter! ?

So don't get rid of Boots!

Nope, unfortunately for us the 3 local argos stores to us just miss out stage one when we reserve or use the electronic payment machine (in fact in the one in town I live in you're only allowed to queue if you're paying with cash). Once you have the stuff it's ok, no problems, but argos just about gives me heart failure everytime I visit

Oh but DO get rid of Argos...

1. Their furniture is cr@p. Just cr@p. I know, I know, I should've saved up more before we moved out etc, but they really lull you into a false sense of security. Surely the furniture can't be all bad? ermm, yes, it is.
2. remember when the Wii was launched? Well, we pre-ordered our via Argos, and it was due on x date, then y, then z.. In the end, it was meant to be on the 22nd, but we came home to find that no delivery had been made: called Argos, got put through to department after department, and in the end found out that the delivery guys had all been informed that if noone answered the door, to not even leave a note or try to deliver to neighbour as they were short-stocked on the Wiis anyway. <bangy head man> So, in the end, ended up getting it on the 2nd January. I'd made numerous calls to ask for the delivery address to be changed (to my work address) after realising it wasn't going to be with us before xmas, and then I got a call on my mobile saying it was sent recorded delivery (so why the use for the vans before and not now??) and that the woman had NO clue what I was talking about re: change of address, and it was too late. Meaning that, in the end, H and had each taken 3 days off work due to being told it was Definitely DEFINITELY going to be delivered etc and never was.. Of course, at the time, we were both temping, so that was 6 days unpaid leave.

Gah!

Another vote here for Sports World - not only is it full of spotty oiks but the changing room reeks really badly of sweat! Mr Caterpillar wanted to buy some cheap tracksuit bottoms recently to wear for cricket training but he couldn't bring himself to try them on as the changing room smelled so much!

BHS - full of tat and rubbish - I only go there once a year, to buy a cheap joke Christmas present for my mum.

TK Maxx - it's full of rubbish clothes which are apparently really discounted, but they are still rubbish! My friend is always getting me to go in and then going "look at this, it's great, down from £200 to £40" and I'm thinking, I wouldn't pay £10 for that!

MK1 already has gone into liquidation. Primark blasphemers...I love that place, you lot that hate it should get there when it opens it's luxury because the people that would usually shop there don't get up til gone 11am...and then it turns nasty!

Can I add Superdrug staff....aaaarrrrgh they make me wanna rip my teeth out.

I'm also not a fan of any retailers where the staff follow you round..."is everything ok..." Just let me find out first!!!

oooh can we also add Subway...it stinks ?

Oh yes, subway is completely rank

MrF loves lush, he is such a girl ?

i've never been in a bhs, it all looks like tat. that should go. and i agree with mothercare, i was last in there with inomarka who pronounced that there was SO much wrong with it she didn't know where to start ?

I'm going to make a (partial) stand for BHS. You can get rid of their grubby high st stores selling shoddy clothes which even the charity shops might chuck back at you if offered. However, their few-and-far-between nice out of town, modern, homewares only stores are fab and the bed linen, for one, is excellent quality for the money. You wouldn't know they were the same store if they took the signage off.

Someone, please, get rid of Greggs. I refuse to even enter an establishment selling 'food' (I term it loosely) when the staff all look like they need a good jetwash, a dose of vitamins and some kind of protective headgear to prevent their pus-ridden pimples from bursting all over the produce.

Another vote for BHS - they currently have a great trendy range of clothes for 9-14 year old boys, (the flipback range) that are good value and my son loves them.

Primark - urgh. I do not understand the hype about this shitehole of a place. We've had one in Belfast city centre for ever and I think even the IRA pretty much left it alone as demolishing it would have done it a favour.

Morgan. Sales staff as rude as I have ever encountered. How dare I go to their shop and try to <gasp> buy something.

Land of Leather. Yes, I'd be delighted to pay you up front and then wait 26 weeks for new sofas. Oh, you can deliver the chair within a mere 16 weeks? Well, you've convinced me. I'd love to have one chair. As a family we could take turns to sit on it. Yes, I'll think about it and get back to you. Tossers.

House of Fraser. Full of staff who seem to think they're only filling time until they get a better job offer. Is looking bored an essential criteria?

I'd like to nominate Subway. Yuck place. bhs would be ok if it weren't for the awful, disinterested staff, (I like their jewellery and some of the handbaggy bits). The Primark's I've been in are always complete, messy dives, full of chavs, so they can go. I'll keep Boots, please, as I have always had good experiences with them.

Oh yes, subway. One opened here recently and the stench from it when you walk past is absolutely unbelievable.

BHS - it's a place I'd never, ever choose to go into. The only time I ever set foot in it is when I've parked just outside it at our local shopping centre, and it's an alternative to walking the length of the car park in the cold. Actually last time I did that a few weeks ago I actually got a nice salt and pepper mill set, just walked by and saw it and bought it. But I'd never have thought of going there to actually look.

Any snooty "designer" stores that don't have the prices shown on their window displays, and the staff look at you as if you are something nasty on the bottom of their shoe when you walk in (Rather like Prue and Trude in "Kath and Kim - if anyone watches it and knows who I mean!)

Agree with everything except the last bit. They've always carried stuff to my car for me. Recently I bought something, they carried it to the car, when I got it home it was damaged so I took it back. They fetched it from the car, did the exchange, let me open the new one to check it wasn't damaged, then repacked it and carried it to the car for me.

First Scotrail

Their owner is a bigoted a*** for a start. Their staff don't care, aren't trained and haven't a clue.

I have a long long list of reasons why i wish they would go bust which I won't bore you with but their level of service is quite frankly shocking.

Oohhh I agree with this one, especially since every time I've been to Edinburgh on the train recently it has been a 2 or 3 carriage affair with people having to stand in the aisles / sit on suitcases / perch on luggage holds

Our very local Starbucks has had to close to the locals demonstrating every weekend outside, so small increments, but you shall oneday get your wish. Power to the people!

(they basically flagrantly ignored the fact they needed permission to be a food outlet and just opened anyway, B&H council let it happen like the wussies they are, but eventually caved into the righteous - the street has loads of excellent, independent coffee shops)

I can't believe only one person has mentioned Iceland - they deserve to go down just for employing the services of Kerry Katona and other Z list celebs.

I would also like to put Bon Marche on the list. I guess im not their typical customer but it just seems like a pointless shop.

After a rect expeirence I would also like to put Hamleys on the list of retailers to go bust, their staff are incompetent.

Wilkinsons. Sell lots of things, but not very well.

Home and Bargain. The shops look awful, and smell when you walk past.

Oh god yes! I would be able to get from London Victoria to home without battling the instant headache in my eyes that I get when I walk past their shops.

Clintons may be full of shite, but I was strangely impressed by their card range (and helpful staff!). In Chichester, the most WASP city in the world ever, they managed to find me a hannuka card (sp?), AND they had several "To my brother and his Partner" cards - all of which featured the theme of two boy snowmen (top hats rather than handbags just in case anyone was heading towards the smut!) - I bought one, even though I don't have a brother, let alone a gay one!

Someone said it earlier, and I second it so whole heartedly I am bouncing on my chair.

Halfords, your spotty, oiky "staff" are so incompetent they make me weep tears of impotent rage. It is NOT weird to want to sit on a bike before you lash out 350 buying it. It's NOT being impossibly demanding to expect you to be ablet to explain to me the difference between the gears on one model and the gears on another - it's really not an occassion for eye-rolling to your equally spotty and ignorant sidekick. It's NOT OK to walk off in the middle of our discussion because you "just don't think [you] can help me". And if I complain about your behaviour to your supervisor, you ignorant little dork, is sniggering when he b0llocks you really the reaction of an adult?? This was all two years ago and I'm still astonished. And it's so expensive!

I have to go back there in the new year too <shudder> our stupid work insists that a Bike2Work scheme bike must be purchased through the evil empire of Halfords. Help me. ??

Leave Lush out of it though. Give me Veganese conditioner or give me (hair) death!

Thirded, fourther, fifthed M&S online for a quaint little belief that you couldn't possibly mean it when you pay £4.95 extra for delivery on a specific day...and think that a £10 gift voucher makes up for an upset mother who thinks you don't love her on her birthday because you haven't sent her anything but is too polite to mention it!

Not saying they necessarily deserve it but agree with whoever said BHS is probably a likely candidate. Ditto Laura Ashley, HMV and Clintons Cards.

TK Maxx is just like a jumble sale, who can be bothered to rummage through all that lot?

Hurrah! I'm not sure to be glad or frustrated for you that I'm not alone on experiencing this.

We tried to buy a bike seat there - no idea on how it fitted on to bike, then they tried to sell me bike without the fitting, and then they tried cheekily tried selling the (included) fitting separately when we asked about it. Then we walked out and bought the whole thing in the local bike shop for significantly less after getting excellent advice on how to choose the right seat from a much larger range - and they had an appropriate sized hat, unlike Halfords who were curiously unconcerned their smallest child helmet was way too bigger for a toddler on a bike seat.

Oh and their bikes were up on a balcony so if you wanted to test ride further than 20 feet, you'd have to carry it down a steep flight of stairs. very sensible, not.

? umm I *think* you'll find they say "Boots Hairdressing Scissors! ?

OK so they were the best I could afford/find/have time to find. Did the trick for H, but obviously won't ever use them myself for my own hair!!

Can I please nominate the trains as well as the staff on National Express Trains between Peterborough and Newcastle? When I the stepkids down in the summer, we stood at Newcastle for ages, waiting and waiting for a train.. The train arrived, was packed so had to stand in vestibule. Train didn't leave, 20 mins later (now about 1hr late in total) the train gets cancelled. Noone has a CLUE when the next one is due, and, luckily, the kids are old enough to be left on their own (within eye distance of course) as I walked a little down the platform to see if I could find someone to talk to about when the next train would leave. Noone, I mean, No-One could tell me! Noone cared, just walked off. Needless to say, I am NEVER doing that journey again with the kids - Mr S can do it!! ?

Ooh Halfords. Yes, I am standing here waiting to give you (rather a lot) of money for a car seat. I KNOW it will fit my car as I checked it online and don't need you to fit it for me as it's going in my other car that I don't have with me. So I don't NEED to stand about for half an hour with a bored 2 year old waiting to speak to the "car seat specialist" who's currently on the phone - just ANYONE get me a sodding car seat out of the stockroom! OK?