You’ve cast your votes and followed the polls…you’ve cheered and jeered at the results…

Now, voting has been officially closed, and that leaves us with one last thing to do.

It’s time to award the Bitterwallet 2008 WCUK prize- the lovely golden poo award to adorn one special CEO’s desk at… (drumroll please).

Setanta Sports, congratulations!  While I’ve never personally had the pleasure of using your disservices, it appears that quite a few others who have had the pleasure have made sure to see you through the rounds.

Maybe you should pay attention when a tidal wave of disgruntled customers leads to a starring role on BBC Watchdog?  Maybe it’s time to fix your crappy picture quality, and start responding to cancellation requests instead of ignoring them.  What’s happened to motto of ‘the customer always comes first’?

But that’s not all.  By virtue of your unwavering complaints and their all-out display of utter customer dissatisfaction, PayPal and eBay get Bitterwallet’s 2008’s worst comments from disgruntled UK consumers award. Well, let’s see how they do this year.

Big props, and thank you for all those who participated!

That’s right folks! The final round for Britain’s Worst Company of 2008 is finally here.

It’s been a blood bath to get here, but thanks to your diligent votes and participation we’re getting closer to decide on the recipient of Bitterwallet’s 2008 Worst Company of the UK award.

So who is it going to be?  Well, the final contestants are: Three and Setanta, after Three beat Royal Mail, Littlewoods and Paypal, while Setanta whooped Sky, Dixons, and Carphone Warehouse’s ass to the finals.

The winner will be entirely up to your votes.

Virgin Media and Tiscali Carphone Warehouse beat BT and Natwest moving themselves into the semi-finals.

Update 30/12/08: Due to technical errors with Polldaddy’s automatica poll closing system over the holidays, the results of this poll has been amended as of 2:53 on 30/12/08.

At the initial vote count past midnight on 29/12, Natwest led by 64 votes over Tiscali. However, Polldaddy’s poll system failed to close automatically as scheduled over the holidays, resulting in some confusion of the end results.

Due to a large number of new votes since, Tiscali has beat Natwest with 1007 votes over 806 votes. 

Polldaddy does not have any in-built timestamp functions to capture actual results at the time when Polldaddy was supposed to close the polls, nor do we have any screenshots at the time of vote count. Therefore, we feel that it is only fair to those of you who put in your votes to go by the evidential end result seen here at the close of the poll. 

And as CPW beat Tiscali previously by a whooping 2138 votes vs 1790, CPW has now been amended as the winner to enter the semi-finals to face off Virgin Media.

On Polldaddy’s behalf, we apologise again for this error.

Also, please remember: polls will now be manually reviewed and closed at midnight as mentioned previously in Round 1, so make sure you vote soon to give your favourite company a fighting chance to enter the finals!

Today, it’s 3 vs Paypal and Setanta vs Dixons.  So who is it going to be?

This should be a great fight. Happy voting!

By popular vote, the final 8 contenders have now come down to:

BT, Virgin Media, Three, Paypal, Natwest, Tiscali CPW, Setanta, and Dixons.

Update 30/12/08: Due to technical errors with Polldaddy, the results of this poll has been amended.

At the initial vote count at midnight on 27/12, Tiscali beat CPW by a number of votes.  Our announcement was made during the manual review past midnight on the day.

However over the holidays due to technical errors, Polldaddy’s poll system scheduled to close automatically at midnight failed to function.  We do apologise for not catching this in time.

And due to a large number of new votes between then and the closing of the poll, CPW has beat Tiscali by votes from an overwhelming majority (CPW’s majority of 54% 2138 vs Tiscali 46% 1790).

Polldaddy does not have any in-built timestamp functions to capture actual results at midnight on the 27th, nor do we have any screenshots at the time of vote count.  Therefore, we feel that it is only fair to those of you who put in your votes to go by the evidential end result seen here at the close of the poll.

CPW is therefore amended as the winner of this round.

And on Polldaddy’s behalf, we apologise again for this error.

Happy Boxing Day!  You will be glad to hear of the winners of round 10: Three and Paypal triumph through to the next round.

Today’’s 2 rounds are with: Natwest vs. RyanAir and Tiscali vs. Carphone Warehouse. Let the Fights Begin!

Update 30/12/08: It came to our attention that Polldaddy did not close this poll correctly on time.  Due to this, more votes have been made from the time this poll should have been closed, resulting in a confusion of who the winner should be between CPW and Tiscali.   

The lowdown: At the initial vote count at midnight on 27/12, Tiscali beat CPW by a close number of votes.  In between that time and now, Polldaddy was scheduled to automatically close the poll but it did not.  Therefore, a large number of new votes were casted by you guys, putting CPW way ahead of Tiscali (CPW’s majority of 54% 2138 vs Tiscali 46% 1790).

In view that Polldaddy does not have in-built timestamp functions to prove results on the day, nor do we have actual screenshots at the time of vote count, we feel that it is only fair to go by the end result of your final votes that you actually see here. This means that CPW is the winner of this round.  

On Polldaddy’s behalf, we apologise for this error.  

Winners of Round 9 came to an interesting conclusion.  BT managed to beat British Gas by just 2% at 347 votes while Virgin Media barely trumped eBay by 33 more votes at 52% to the semi-finals.  

I am sure many of you would have liked to see eBay and BT British Gas (thanks, highguyuk!) both make it through. Bummer. Maybe next year!

Today’’s 2 rounds are with:  Littlewoods vs. Three and PC World vs. Paypal. Get voting!

Winners of Round 8 go out to Dixons and Currys, wrapping up the 1st stage towards the stinky golden poo Bitterwallet’s 2008 WCUK award.  As we hone down to the final 8 contenders, today’’s 2 rounds are with British Telecom vs. British Gas and eBay vs Virgin Media.  

So keep your fingers trigger happy on the mouse button… and start clicking!!

Ladies and Gents, please prepare yourselves, for the long awaited battle is about to begin.

Your initial nominations and votes have been counted, and we’ve gathered the best of the worst companies that you guys would like to watch go down.  Here’s the final shortlist:

The face off begins a week from today.  Make sure you are following us on the feed or bookmarked so that you will remember to vote.  Someone will soon be a proud winner of the 2008 Worst UK Company Prize by your votes: The Bitter Wallet Golden Poo Award.

It’s now time for Bitterwallet’s 1st annual worst British company contest.

Nothing brings a corporation to the ground faster than a Bitterwallet web award.

Do you have any horrible consumer-related experiences with companies this past year?

Is there a company you feel should be dragged through the mud and slapped with mother’s broomstick?

Submit your nomination below, tell us which company you think is the absolutely worst, and why, or email us at bitterwallet at gmail dot com, and we will add it to the list.

We will then round up the baddest of the baddest and start a tournament ladder to decide on the winner by your votes.

Here is the list of current nominations from all of you so far:

(more…)

Photo courtesy of The Consumerist

Last year, The Consumerist played off to find out the worst company in America. We’d like to see what you think is the worst company in Great Britain.

In the American competition, Halliburton wins just about wins over Monsanto, facing off with Choicepoint in the final death-match, only to win by a margin yet again. Dick Cheney won’t be happy.

It would be interesting to do a face off on British corporations, but what companies should be included? Here’s a few ideas:

Alstom – involved in destroying dam projects around the world
Bayer – The UK pharmaceutical seeking to genetically modify fodder maize
BAA – Because “Freedom to Fly” has nothing to do with airport expansions, like Terminal 5.
BAE – Got weapons? Yes we do.
Barclays – Giving money to Indonesians to destroy rainforests certainly can’t be a good thing
Nestle – 20k email complaints in one week. Got Breast Milk Substitutes? Melamine certainly doesn’t help.
Shell – amongst other oil companies. Read more here
Tesco – probably not the only supermarket chain that exploits farmers and producers at the average price of £11 for a basket of food (all kinds of stuff), retailing for close to £40, to make a 300% profit.

Any other companies we should include in the round-off? Tell us in comments below.