Spark has taken top honours in the Commerce Commission’s list of Kiwi companies that we officially complained about in 2015.
I suppose that isn’t really surprising, Spark is our biggest ISP/phone/mobile provider, and glitches with any of those services tend to really aggravate customers. Add to that the difficulty in talking to real people and hold times, and you can see why Spark wins the race to the top in this particular competition.
Vodafone was second on the list (ditto my comments on Spark taking the top spot) and dodgy sellers on Trade Me were in third place. Again, not surprising when you look at the n umber of members on Trade Me. The bad apples make up a small portion of the overall number of traders, and in some ways it seems a bit mean that Trade Me is included on this list of naughty companies when it is actually their customers doing the dirty!
Aussie retailer Harvey Norman landed in 4th place, with more complaints that Air New Zealand or even the much-maligned Wilson Parking. I know the customer service there can be patchy at times but I wonder if any of those complaints related to their pricing glitch last year.
The company cocked up with the prices on its self-proclaimed “biggest ever retail sale”. There was a lot of grumbling from buyers who thought they were getting the deal of the century, only to discover the prices on the website were entered incorrectly, and that three-piece lounge suite they grabbed was no longer priced at $103.
It was all a bit fraught, with Harvey Norman offering a few vouchers in lieu of cheap couches, and talk of the couchless consumers seeking legal advice. In the end, the Commerce Commission didn’t put Harveys in the naught corner, though.
ON THE WEB
- Spark tops the list of most complained about companies
- Commerce Commission takes no action against Harvey Norman price error