Now here I am not speaking of individuals, but instead companies or retailers that have wronged you in the past and you still remember them. Many are perhaps due to the way you were treated in the pandemic or the way your family was treated at some point. My longest-lasting grudge is against MasterCard. When I was younger, I paid everything in cash. When I wanted a to develop a credit rating for purposes I don't recall over 50 years ago, I applied to MasterCard, Visa, and a number of other credit cards. Visa sent me a card right away, but Master Card turned me down for unknown reasons--probably because I didn't have a credit score. Since then, my credit score is in the top 1% of the country and I have never owned a MasterCard. In recent years when Cabela's was acquired by Bass Pro Shops and they changed their credit card from Visa to Mastercard, I cancelled that card immediately. There are probably more. Some stores are now requiring scanning a driver's license in order to buy "age-restricted products" such as ammo, alcohol, some decongestants, etc. and I have stopped buying those things at stores that require that. Lowe's have begun requiring a scanned driver's license to get a veteran's discount here, so I don't shop at Lowe's often, and when I do, I don't receive a discount. Anybody else?
Oh, definitely; particularly when it's easy to avoid a company. When Target first opened a store in Harlingen, Texas, they refused to accept a check because I didn't have a check record with Target. This was before credit cards were commonly used, and I didn't have a check record with them because they just opened the damned store. This was in the 1980s, and I have never been in a Target store since. I didn't need to, as there have always been alternatives. I haven't eaten at Red Lobster since the 1980s either, and I don't completely remember why I don't go there anymore. I left Sam's Club when they began forcing people into their self-serve lanes by staffing only one of the others. BJ's was only a few blocks away, and I've never had a problem finding a register there. They have self-serve lanes too but they open new registers when the lines get long at the cashier-staffed lanes.
I am pretty much forgiving , live and let live, unless I believe that a company has deliberately tried to cheat me, or been dishonest in some way. Holding a grudge requires a negative attitude, and it just is not worth that to me. However, if they were dishonest, then there is nothing they can do to convince me to shop there or use that service ever again, and I will probably remember it forever. Many years ago, I bought a VW camper bus, and took it to a shop to have the oil changed and such before I even drove it home. When they were done, the bus would barely run, and they showed me filings that they said came from my oil pan, and the poor bus needed practically a whole new engine, to the tune of hundreds of dollars, according to their mechanic. I refused, and had a hard time even getting them to give me back my camper van, because they wanted to charge me for more than just the oil change. I drove it down the road, chugging and sputtering, and there happened to be a VW mechanic near by; so I took the van there and explained to him what had happened and that it ran perfectly before the oil change. Pretty soon, he came out with my oil cap and showed me that a little hole had been drilled in the cap, and was letting air in and this is why the van wasn’t running right. He put a chunk of duct tape over the oil cap, and the van ran perfect again. I was SO mad ! I ended up cancelling my check to the first place, and then going through arbitration because I refused to pay the dishonest mechanic. Since I could not actually prove that they drilled the hole in the cap, I ended up still paying for the oil change, but nothing else, and it took him several months of the arbitration for him to even get that.
I would never buy another Honda. In the 1970s, I had a Honda motorcycle that needed a part. I don't remember the specifics, but I knew then specifically what it needed. However, when I brought it to a Honda motorcycle dealership, they told me they didn't work on anything that was more than ten years old. This told me that they didn't expect their products to last more than ten years. I was able to construct the part that I needed in the mechanics department at Champion Paper while working the graveyard shift.
Not a grudges,but have stopped services with some places, for various = because they " hacked me off once too often"
Sure, but I try hard not to carry grudges against people. Sometimes that's hard but it's worth the effort. Grudges against people hurt the grudge holder more than the other person. The other person probably doesn't care or even know. But businesses, that's different. Target, the NFL, General Motors are a few that come to mind. I've been boycotting GM for decades and they haven't gone out of business yet, darn it. What really irritates me is companies that I would like to boycott but I don't shop there. Budweiser is one but that's hard to do if you don't drink beer. I did read that Sports Illustrated laid off all their employees and that made me smile.
Yeah, did you see that Sports Illustrated is essentially bankrupt. According to reports I read, they first started featuring trans people in swimsuit photos, then moved on to obese real women to fight body shaming. Proving the motto "Get Woke Go Broke". Their entire publishing staff is gone. I guess they could use AI to make the mag.
Nor would I. I had a loan with them by default, as they bought the bank where I had the loan. They gave me a late notice on the loan, so I went into the branch where the payment had been made with the receipt from that branch. The teller recognized me and affirmed that I had made the payment and I had their receipt. They would not accept their own receipt as proof of payment, even with the teller's testimony. I had to bring in a copy of the check (from a different institution) to prove that I had made the payment. I immediately paid off the loan completely and removed any accounts I had there. They are the most fraud-penalized bank in the U.S. and i would never go back. I had totally wiped that grudge from my mind. Thanks for bringing it back to my mind, @Mary Robi .
Wells Fargo has name recognition and longevity, but they have never had a good reputation for ethics.
Two right off the bat, Fifth Third Bank and Brothers Mufflers. Fifth Third Bank repeatedly charged for overdraft fees and apparently I wasn't the only one this happened to because a class action lawsuit was brought against them and they had to refund customers. Of course we had to prove it and I did and got my refund. I went to Brothers Mufflers to get an estimate on a repair and I happened to look back and see a mechanic beating on the catalytic converter. What the?!! I was livid and told them to get my car down and I wasn't quite about it either. The whole shop heard me.
The most recent is the grocery closest to me. They changed the supplier of their products probably for more profitability. Before, I knew what I wanted when I walked in the door and knew where it was, and shopping was a breeze. After the change, the replacement products were in unfamiliar locations and I had to learn the store all over again.Some things as simple as dish washing gloves, they didn't carry anymore so I had to go elsewhere. What didn't change is their large bakery which has it all and is fresh. The deli is good too. That's all that keeps me going back.