Top

Most Hated Companies Facebook

January 20, 2012 by · Comments Off on Most Hated Companies Facebook 

Most Hated Companies FacebookMost Hated Companies Facebook, Customers, employees, shareholders and taxpayers hate large corporations for many reasons. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed a lengthy list of corporations for which there is substantial research data to choose the 10 most hated in America.

Research about companies comes in two sets. One is public research about consumer satisfaction, customer care, pricing of products and services, and brand impressions. Wall St. research takes into account another set of factors, which include present earnings, profit forecasts, product development and quality, and brand valuations.

Some of the companies on this list are widely despised because of the businesses that they are in. In an economic environment where resources are stretched, an airline or retail operation that has millions of customers is likely to make a lot of enemies. Similarly, banks and other corporations with a large number of retail outlets are at a disadvantage compared with businesses with few customers. Some of the corporations on this list also have had to fire significant numbers of employees due to the recession. Downsizing causes poor morale, increases the workload of the remaining staff and affects customer satisfaction when service is poorer.

We examined each company based on several criteria. We considered total return to shareholders in comparison to the broader market and other companies in the same sector during the last year. We reviewed financial analyst opinions on those companies that are public. We analyzed data from a broad array of sources, including Consumer Reports, JD Power, the MSN/Zogby Poll, ForeSee and the University of Michigan American Customer Satisfaction Index. We also considered negative press based on 24/7 Wall St.’s analysis of media coverage and the Flame Index, which uses a proprietary algorithm to review more than 12,000 websites and ranks companies based on the frequency of negative words. Finally, we considered the views of taxpayers, Congress and the White House — where applicable.

Several companies that should have been on the list based on performance and public perception during the financial crisis did not make it. For example, it would be easy to argue that mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be here. The bankruptcy and maintenance of the two by the federal government will cost taxpayers between $224 billion and $360 billion, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. But, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are no longer stand-alone companies in any normal sense. Their shares have been delisted. Each is in effect a ward of the U.S. government with no ability to control its own fate through the actions of management or public shareholders.

The U.S. Postal Service could also be a candidate for the list. It has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and it lost $5.1 billion in its last fiscal year alone. However, the Postmaster General and his staff have little or no control over the eventual fate of the USPS. Congress decides how and to what extent it will be funded. That means Congress essentially controls how many workers and offices will exist, and even — based on funding — how often the mail will be delivered.

It is worth noting that some of the companies on the list may have done very poorly by some measures, and well by others. A few of the most hated companies have had good stock performances. Others may have satisfied customers. All of this was taken into account when the decisions for the final list were made.

The following are 24/7 Wall St.’s Most Hated Companies for 2011, in no particular order.

1. Facebook
Facebook currently has more than 800 million users. Any company of this size is sure to have some detractors. Compared to other leading social media sites, however, Facebook has the lowest customer satisfaction score from the American Customer Satisfaction Index. The site has repeatedly irked users by neglecting personal privacy. Notable events include the introduction of facial recognition software — which spurred an investigation by the European Union — and the Facebook timeline. Facebook received significant negative press for forcing new settings on users that change how their personal information is shared with others. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has only recently said that the company will no longer do this. According to the MSN Money-IBOPE Zogby International customer service survey for 2011, 25.9 percent of Facebook users described the company’s customer service as “poor” — the lowest rating.

2. American Airlines
American’s parent, AMR, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November. That virtually wiped out the value of the holdings of every shareholder. American recently was picked as the worst airline for customer service by the annual Middle Seat scorecard, published in the Wall Street Journal. “For the past five years, American has been among the worst three airlines at on-time performance, a key measure of an airline’s operation since it impacts mishandled bags, bumped passengers and even canceled flights and customer complaints,” the survey’s authors said. The report states the airline was the worst among major carriers last year for baggage handling and canceled flights, canceling 70 percent more flights than United and Delta. With a score of 63 in the American Customer Satisfaction Index section on airlines, American falls near the bottom, well below leader Southwest, which has a score of 81.

3. AT&T
AT&T recently received the lowest score given by JD Power for wireless customer care performance. It also was given the lowest rating for customer service by ACSI. AT&T has been dogged by problems with its 3G network, which are now largely behind it. AT&T was attacked by both the government and press for what many saw as an attempt to set up a monopoly through its buyout of T-Mobile. Consumers feared the combined company would have extraordinary powers to set prices. The wireless carrier also received the lowest satisfaction rating for cell-phone standard service providers, according to Consumer Reports. The MSN Money-IBOPE Zogby International customer service survey reports that 26 percent of customers rate service as “poor.”

Comcast Netflix

November 30, 2010 by · Comments Off on Comcast Netflix 

Comcast Netflix, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) has now presented its plan to stream only the U.S. and 8 for a month after the deployment of a similar program in Canada. In addition, the company also raised prices of its DVD rental plans and DVD streaming. (See details of the new regime on the company’s blog here.)

Netflix is competing with Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) and DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) for streaming and pay-TV services.

In the short term this could increase the number of subscribers with an option for streaming only and given the rising prices for DVDs, it could maintain or even increase the average subscription price beyond our current estimates. Both countries have a positive impact on our estimated price of 106 and Netflix, which is well below the market price.

A plan for streaming only in the United States and Canada could attract new subscribers and drive the overall average prices. On the other hand, price increases for DVD rental plans and plans for TV plus DVD streaming could mitigate this impact.

We now forecast the number of subscribers reaching about 43 million by the end of the forecast period Tref. If this growth to 50 million on a faster growth of streaming services, which adds about 17% to our estimated price?

Overtime we expect that the add-on “streaming service could become a bigger driver based Netflix rental stores and see the possibility for the new pricing plans to grow the subscriber base, while by offering different price plans to avoid a drop in average prices for its service.

Netflix Login

October 21, 2010 by · Comments Off on Netflix Login 

Netflix Login, After about 45 minutes, the Web site at Netflix.com Netflix lowered, and has been down or very slow since then. We have no word on what is causing the downtime, but some people still have limited access to the site. Those who do complain that the site is loading very slowly and do not have access to login to their accounts.

Netflix anyone has not updated until the cause of the slowness and server downtime. It can be caused by a server problem, network problem, or maybe a DDOS attack of some kind.

Has anyone been able to access the site?

Netflix Down

August 12, 2010 by · Comments Off on Netflix Down 

Netflix Down, One of the most popular movie rental service Netflix is said to be down. Well, this is not new, because as we all know such sites sometimes have to be cared for to provide even better service. Netflix’s website is also used to watch movies and TV shows online is why many are sad to learn that is not available for use today. Users are looking extensively on why the sudden Netflix down and when it resumes. Well folks, we can do nothing but wait. 🙂

You can see this message when I go to Netflix.com:

“Sorry, the Netflix website is temporarily unavailable. Our shipping centers continue to send and receive the DVD, so your movies will be processed as usual. And you can still watch movies instantly through your device Netflix ready. Our engineers are working hard to bring the site back up as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience and again, we apologize for the inconvenience. If you need further assistance, please call 1-866 – 636-3079.

But when I tried again, it was fine. Netflix.com guess is no longer down.

Netflix Update: A deal announced last Tuesday that Netflix is paying nearly one billion and over the next five years for transmission line rights to films from Paramount, Lions Gate and MGM. Well, that’s good news. More films, more fun!

Netflix Down | USsPost.com

February 20, 2010 by · Comments Off on Netflix Down | USsPost.com 

netflixNetflix Down | USsPost.com:Popular online movie rental service Netflix (NFLX) is down. The Netflix website is also used for watching movies and television shows online. Twitter search is jumping bigtime on the outage which occurs when many people typically watch movies and have date nights.

I’ve seen a variety of messages when accessing netflix.com including:

“Http/1.1 Service Unavailable”
and
“We’re sorry, the Netflix website is temporarily unavailable. Our shipping centers are continuing to send and receive DVDs , so your movies will be processed as usual. And you can still instantly watch movies via your Netflix ready device. Our engineers are working hard to bring the site back up as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience and, again, we apologize for the inconvenience. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-866-636-3079.”

Update 9:05pm Eastern: Another message is randomly visible noting that Netflix is in a maintenance period, “The Netflix website is temporarily unavailable due to scheduled maintenance. During the maintenance period, you may be able to instantly watch movies on an intermittent basis. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. If you need further assistance, please call us at 866-579-7120.”

Update 10:30pm Eastern: Netflix is back – watch your movies!

I’ve been using the Blockbuster Express machines around NYC for my video rentals. With all of the discount codes Blockbuster sends out, the rentals wind up averaging about 25 cents per DVD. Today I noticed that the machine in Times Square had about 30 newly added popular movies.

Next Page »

Bottom