'Which company would you close?' poll discussion

Former_MSE_Lawrence

Poll ran 14-21 Dec 2009:

Which company would you close?

If you were given a magic wand to make one of the following 50 companies simply not exist – for the betterment of the UK - which would you pick (in other words, ignore the job loss impact)? The selection includes big name media companies, banks, airlines, retailers and utility companies.

Which company would you make disappear?

01. Abbey - 3% (539 votes)
02. Alliance & Leicester - 1% (224 votes)
03. Asda - 1% (149 votes)
04. Barclays - 2% (448 votes)
05. BBC - 2% (502 votes)
06. BHS - 1% (110 votes)
07. BP - 1% (199 votes)
08. British Airways - 3% (646 votes)
09. British Gas - 4% (811 votes)
10. British Telecom - 4% (948 votes)
11. BSkyB - 4% (923 votes)
12. Carphone Warehouse/TalkTalk - 2% (507 votes)
13. Channel 4 - 0% (30 votes)
14. Daily Mail - 7% (1522 votes)
15. Daily Telegraph - 0% (22 votes)
16. Easyjet - 1% (122 votes)
17. EDF Energy - 1% (138 votes)
18. E.On - 1% (147 votes)
19. Esso - 1% (113 votes)
20. Financial Times - 0% (16 votes)
21. HSBC - 2% (364 votes)
22. Iceland - 1% (278 votes)
23. ITV - 1% (107 votes)
24. Lloyds/HBOS - 5% (1071 votes)
25. Marks & Spencer - 0% (71 votes)
26. Morrisons - 0% (44 votes)
27. Nationwide - 0% (60 votes)
28. Natwest/RBS - 4% (874 votes)
29. Npower - 2% (322 votes)
30. O2 - 0% (93 votes)
31. Orange - 1% (185 votes)
32. Ryanair - 8% (1605 votes)
33. Sainsbury - 0% (36 votes)
34. Scottish Power - 1% (145 votes)
35. Scottish & Southern - 0% (41 votes)
36. Selfridges - 0% (42 votes)
37. Somerfield - 0% (85 votes)
38. Tesco - 7% (1426 votes)
39. Texaco - 1% (121 votes)
40. Topshop - 0% (50 votes)
41. The Express - 0% (64 votes)
42. The Guardian - 1% (129 votes)
43. The Independent - 0% (18 votes)
44. The Mirror - 1% (152 votes)
45. The Sun - 23% (4863 votes)
46. The Times - 0% (13 votes)
47. T-mobile - 1% (144 votes)
48. Virgin - 1% (282 votes)
49. Vodafone - 1% (155 votes)
50. Zara - 1% (184 votes)

Total Votes: 21140

This vote has now ended, but you can still click 'post reply' to discuss below. Thanks

PS. Please take care in what you post about companies - and ensure you do not defame them - subjective opinion is ok but things must be factual and keep language polite. If you see a post that breaks these (or any other rules) please report it to [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL]

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angelflower_2

interesting one.....

Would have voted for HBOS because have had an awful time with them but they have been now put with Lloyds and I have had nothing but positvie experiences with them.

I have therefore gone with the BBC for no other reason than I object to the TV licence

wildthing01

i went for british gas - when we moved to our house, the previous owners were BG customers. we wanted to move to our prevous supplier, and there was an overlap of 6 days before we made the switch from BG. when they sent us the final bill, for 6 days worth of electricity, they wanted to charge us over £500! obviously some error had occured, but they would not be persuaded that this must be the case. we had a nightmare trying to get them to accept this. every time we phoned, we spoke to a different call centre person who claimed no knowledge of our situation, and they occasionally re-submitted new bills, some for even more than the original,with various late payment charges etc attached. one guy we spoke to even admitted that it would be physically impossible for us to use £500 worth of electricity in 6 days.

even after we had moved to our own supplier, they continued to send us new bills, claiming that they were still supplying us (they weren't, the other suppliers were, we were getting bills from them too).

it took us 18 months to sort out. turned out, the previous owners has missed a digit off the beginning of their final meter reading that they submitted when they left the house, so when we submitted our accurate final reading, it looked like we'd used much more than we had. BG never apologised, although they very generously waived the late payment charge that they had imposed! it ended up that they owed us money!

quite apart from the hassle caused to us, i worry that if they do the same thing vulnerable people who don't have much money and are reliant on their gas/electric supply, people may feel harrassed into simply paying, to vovid trouble/losing their supply.

wildthing01

angelflower wrote: »

interesting one.....


I have therefore gone with the BBC for no other reason than I object to the TV licence

but the licence fee pays for such quality programming as 'hole in the wall'. how else would they pay all those d listers to get wet in cheap lycra?

dvr80

Tesco got my vote, think of the damage they're doing to our high street... their dominance was I think partly to blame for the Woolworths closure and Borders (they are the only 2 large retailers affected off the top of my head) and who knows how many smaller independant shops have closed because of their overbearing presence in all of our lives.

I know I sound like an anti-Tesco protester but I believe the monopolies commission (or whatever they're calling themselvs nowadays!) should have stepped in a long time ago before they had the chance to get this big. Think of a product or service and you can probably get it from them... I realise that we are mostly to blame because they make it so easy for us and with time being at a premium I am regularly tempted however I do make an effort to avoid them when possible.
x-peace-x

caxia

I also went for British Gas.
We had a small shop that closed 2 years ago. We paid off all our creditors. This summer I suddenly got a bill for £600 for gas.
I wont bore you with the details except to say that after 4 months and me spending hours on the phone and visiting the old shop and poring over our old bills, I discovered that the new tenants had written the serial number of an old meter (from a sticker on the new meter) down in error on their meter reading.
After all the hassle and worry I didnt get so much as a "Sorry".
Awful customer care.
Moral: ALWAYS KEEP YOUR OLD RECORDS!!!

Oooh. Feel better for that!

C_Mababejive

I wouldnt close any of them. They are all big companies with varying levels of success who employ British workers. Sure they make mistakes but who doesnt? You only hear the bad..not the good.

Olderbutnotwiser

I went for the truly awful Ryanair, but to be fair if Capital One were on the list they would have been my first choice.
You ever tried to communicate with someone on the end of a phone that does not listen to your questions but just keeps re-reading a script? :mad:

ThrowingStonesAtYou

I voted Sainsburys (having worked there) but I missed The Sun so would have voted for that if i'd seen them.

Where's Royal Mail? Laziest bunch of wasters ever.

cheapscate

Royal Mail would have my vote as well

Navvie

Sky. Or any of Murdoch's other tv stations/newspapers.