Big Business

What is the deal with big business lately? Why does it seem that the bigger a company gets, the worse the overall experience is of using them to get products?

Examples:
-Best Buy: Do a quick search on the web combining “Best Buy” and any negative word (sucks, blows, bites, licks balls) and you will find hundreds of websites that go in depth as to the poor customer service and rip-off service plans they offer. They are the Wal-Mart of the consumer electronics world.

-Wal-Mart: What can I say that hasn't been said by thousands of other disgruntled customers? There are so many things bad about Wal-Mart, it would be silly to even waste the time outlining them here. Customer service is shoddy at best. It's hit or miss. I've seen people go out of their way to help me and other people treat me like shit or blow me off. The thing I've always had a problem with at Wal-Mart are the cashiers. Just last week I had an absolutely terrible experience with a cashier who was in a pissy mood and “accidentally” charged me for alcohol she wouldn't sell to me because we mixed and matched some wine coolers, even though the whole shelf was in a state of utter confusion. Luckily I caught it right after she did it so I got the money refunded. I'm pretty positive from her demeanor and the way she was handling my groceries that she wasn't having the best of nights and she did it on purpose.

I think the overall problem with Wal-Mart is the bottom-of-the-barrel experience that it offers. In California, the Wal-Marts are train wrecks. Mexicans are walking around everywhere with their 8 kids trailing around making noise and Spanish is coming in over the loudspeakers. The shelves are in shambles and everything is a mess. Wal-Marts elsewhere aren't that bad, but they certainly aren't that great. The products they offer are usually of low quality, the aisles are usually messy and dirty, and the customer base are bottom-feeders for the most part. F- on experience all the way.

I'll take Costco or Target anyday. I have yet to have a bad experience at Costco, EVER. The workforce is much more friendly and knowledgeable, and the products are high-quality. If not, you can take them back anytime, even without a receipt. Target's workers are friendly and generally knowledgeable and I can only remember one time when someone there pissed me off.

The good thing about Wal-Mart, and quite possibly the only good thing, is the low prices. The food we now buy at Wal-Mart is considerably cheaper than any grocery store I've ever been to. I mean, it is CHEAP.

-Ticketmaster: Let's see, can you say “outrageous fees?” Ticketmaster is the king of bullshit extra fees. They make you pay more for a “convenience charge” even when they email you the electronic ticket? What the fuck is that about? It should be cheaper! Other than that, they aren't that bad. They have a stranglehold on tickets, so there isn't much that people can do...most people would do whatever it takes to go to some concerts, so TM knows they can swindle everyone that comes along. That's why it's nice that some artists support a variety of ticket purchasing companies, not just TM.

-eBay: This crappy service was once a great idea. The thought that you could take all the worthless shit in your house and sell it, but expanding your customer base from your local area to, oh I don't know, nationwide/worldwide, is a great idea. eBay is certainly a dot-com success story that is worthy of some praise. For a few years, they were the talk of the media day in-day out. But, they suffer from two major problems: outrageous fees and if someone rips you off, there is a good chance that they won't/can't do shit about it. After a lot of coaxing by me, Morgan signed up to eBay and got ripped off pretty hard by some douche nozzle in Michigan and eBay wouldn't do shit about it, so we don't even bother with eBay anymore. I refuse to use eBay based on that and the fact that I've heard numerous stories from people I know about getting ripped off. The thing people don't realize is that eBay is nothing more than a website that makes thousands of dollars a day doing almost ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Their customer service is poor beyond description and they don't have any real-world capital. It's all just a website. Sure, there are people all across the country that use eBay as a reliable business model. But for the occasional average-Joe, the chances that some Internet scam artist is going to get something they once cherished is unthinkable. If you get burned by eBay, you'll feel the same way. I'm sure thousands of people have had the same problem. Then there is the evil twin: PayPal. Again, more outrageous fees, even worse than eBay in my opinion. Again, PayPal is nothing more than a website that makes thousands of dollars a day.

-Microsoft: This would take way too long to explain. Suffice it to say that most people don't even consider an alternative to their evil ways. Despite the fact that M$ runs most of the worlds computers, it is a horrible experience. I downloaded Acrobat Reader the other day and it reminded me so much of my Windows days: dialog boxes popping up asking me bullshit questions that don't make any sense. it takes a thousand years to load up in a web browser, and uninstalling it was just a pain in the ass. Just like Windows. I don't miss the days of things popping up on the screen and bugging the shit out of me about things I don't understand. Yeah, I don't miss that. The whole point of computers is to NOT KNOW ALL THE BULLSHIT BEHIND THE SCENES. The point is for it to work for you whenever you need it without being annoying or bothersome. Enter Apple. If the world only knew how much better Macintosh computers are...

-McDonalds - Worst. Restaurant. Ever. Anyone who knows anything about the way McDonalds runs their business knows that it is quite possibly the worst restaurant in the history of mankind.

So the moral is, be wary of big business. The bigger a company gets, usually the worse the experience is. It's the underdogs or the people who were slightly late to the game that usually offer better alternatives.