Best Customer Complaint Sites
By Seth Fiegerman
We’ve all had a bad customer service experience at one time or another. Now, with the Internet, it’s easier than ever to find a forum to discuss these incidents, seek advice from experts and fellow consumers and, most importantly, to vent.
Every state either has an Office of Consumer Affairs or a section on its Attorney General’s page where you can file a complaint against a local business (and some states have both). There are also several agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the Better Business Bureau and the Aviation Consumer Protection and Enforcement division that solicit consumer complaints. And in a couple months, there will likely be another one. The financial reform package, which has been approved by both the House and the Senate, includes a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, whose main purpose is listening to and (hopefully) acting on consumer complaints.
General Tips for Griping
As a consumer, you always have the option to engage with the company directly, although there is a good chance that you will just end up with a PR response at best and silence at worst. Still, I do recommend that you start by exploring this route, especially when you have a serious issue to take up with the company such as fraud or a failure to deliver the service you purchased.
According to The New York Times, one very successful method is to a write a letter to the CEO or other higher-ups in the company with your complaints. You should write with a civil tone, but don’t be afraid to imply threats, like noting that “you’ve sent a copy of the letter to a government agency, like the Federal Trade Commission.” Alternatively, you can try talking it over with a representative on the phone.in this case, the Times has two tips: Ask the person what they would do in your shoes in order to get real substantive help, and ride out the clock, since the representative isn’t permitted to hang up on you and will feel more compelled to resolve your issue. (Check out GetHuman.com for a directory of numbers to connect you with a real representative.)
If none of that works, you should take to the Internet. Here is our roundup of the best sites to visit if you want to vent and see your complaint have some impact, or if you just want to read the crazy feedback from other consumers.
Usacomplaints.com
Are you not on speaking terms with a particular business? Well, usacomplaints.com essentially acts as an intermediary between you and the companies you hate. Big name business like Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Orbitz and Best Buy have signed up with MeasuredUp to respond to consumer complaints on the site. Consider it a way to get around talking to representatives on the phone. (It’s also worth noting that there are thousands of posts on this site that are actually positive, which doesn’t seem to be the case on the other sites we mentioned.)
Favorite Complaint: [About a Carvel in Connecticut] “They are rude in that store, and use Hershey's chocolate whenever they can. They put it on Fudgey the Whale cakes, in sundaes and sell it in containers if you want to buy carvel fudge. They do not tell you it is hershey's... They pass it off as carvel fudge. I saw the Hershey's container out and questioned them and they denied it. It tastes just like Hershey's but if I wanted Hershey's i would buy Hershey's! ”
Unless this post was typed up by an aggravated child (which is certainly a possibility), something tells me they should probably just lay off the ice cream sundaes all together.
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