Ranking: Bottom Five Companies!

For many years, rankings have been a useful tool to determine the top companies in the world considering their efficiency, customer care, prices, work environment, social responsibility, among many others issues.
It's just a pitty that not every company can be remembered for their positive issues. That's why I bring to you my unfamous rank of the Bottom Five Companies, this time based on their service and customer care:

1. DHL (USA - International Package delivery). For about 35 years, DHL has served its customers by delivering supposedly on an overnight service packages all around the world. My experience with DHL was very sad during the last year: I sent three packages from Mexico to Canada on different dates and from different offices, having negative issues on every time. 1) With the first package, it took them about 6 days to deliver it, arguing that the documents I sent were stopped at the customs and they had "little delays". 2) On the second time, I sent the package once again to Canada (to the British Columbia), and DHL's qualified personnel somehow understood that I was sending things to England, so my documents ended up somewhere in London. It took them about 5 days to bring the papers back to Canada. 3) On the third occasion, they not only took too long to deliver the documents, but they also made me pay about 5 USD above the regular price. Fortunately, after several phone calls and complaints, I got my 5 dollars back. I strongly recommend you to use Fedex's or UPS' services instead of DHL.
2. HOLIDAY 2000 (Israel - Short term apartments rental). This company claims to offer fully furnished apartments, to stay there for a short term. They initially offer you a nice apartment, located in a convenient area near the beach and with full utilities. But after staying there for a week or two, they move you to a nearby suburb (which is less attractive than the initial one) arguing that they "mistakenly" agreed to rent that apartment to someone else (for which I think that the first apartment is only used as a hook for customers). Worst of all, at the end of your stay, you'll be charged for use of water, electricity, and all the utilities, at the price that THEY consider convenient (I had to pay even for the Cable TV Service). So remember, whenever you're planning a trip to Israel, do not consider Holiday 2000 as an option for your accomodation.
3. SHELL AUTOSERV (Netherlands - Car repair). This is really disappointing: Shell is worldwide known for its seriousness in business. But it seems that the employees of their division in Mexico don't think that customer care and satisfaction are relevant to attract more potential customers. I had a 1993 Chrysler Spirit Turbo, which suddenly started to have problems essentially because of its age. I decided to take the car to Shell Autoserv to fix it. I want you to know that not only they didn't fix the car properly, but they ruined it even worse! They used old spare parts (which they charged me as if they were new), the motor's sound was like the one of a 1975 truck, and believe it or not, it wasn't turbo anymore!!!! The employees claimed that the turbo was "just gone", and that they weren't able to fix it so the car could run like a real turbo one. After some time, when I took the car to another place to fix it, I was also warned that the diagnosis of the problem that the "experienced" personnel from Shell gave me about the car was simply mistaken. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time that I had complaints about Shell's service, on many opportunities I noted that the spare parts that they were using were of a poor quality and from time to time I found that some pieces were missing from my cars. I think that Shell has many car repair stations all around the globe, so if you have to take someday your car to be fixed, please avoid taking it to any Shell workshop. Please note: This note complaints only about Shell's car repair service, it does not involve gas stations or any other Shell product or service.
4. TELEFONICA MOVISTAR (Spain - Mobile telecommunication services). Latin America has the disgrace to have Movistar's services offered in the market. Their customer care is virtually inexistent. I'd have many stories to write here to demonstrate the low qualification of Movistar's personnel and the company's miserable service, so I'll write only the most recent one. I called them to complaint about the lack of signal I was experiencing for some days with a mobile phone. Most of the times, the employees that were supposedly helping me just didn't have any idea of what's going on, and instead of taking their time to investigate what happened and to solve my problem, they only cut the conversation by saying "is there anything else that I can help you with??". They didn't give me any opportunity to answer to that question, when they hung up the phone. After trying with maybe 6 or 7 employees and getting the same results, finally a person answered me that Movistar was experiencing troubles with digital mobiles and that they encouraged me to buy a GSM mobile, which should be understood as a polite way to tell me that they were intentionally boicotting the service to force me to buy a GSM equipment, which I didn't want to do. But that wasn't the only trouble of Movistar's service, let me tell you that even their GSM service doesn't work properly! At least, I have had this kind of experiences in Mexico and Venezuela. So if you're in Latin America and you're thinking of getting a mobile phone, don't think of Movistar. Check other companies that offer their services in the market.
5. CABLEVISION(Mexico - Cable TV). Well, what can I say about a company that has made its best effort for customers to lose confidence in them? You should see their customer support offices into malls in Mexico City: The line to receive complaints is much longer than the one to pay for the service. And I have had bad experiences with their service as well on several occasions, but I'll write only about two of them. 1) Among other services, Cablevision offers broadband internet access. I first thought of them to be my ISP when I was willing to get broadband access at home. So I called them and they said that they'd install the service on a certain day. At work, I told my bosses that such day I wouldn't be able to go to work because I had "very important" things to do. As you can imagine, the Cable technician didn't show up at home at the time we agreed, so I called Cablevision to tell them about this situation, for which they replied that he was "a little" late and he'd come 4 hours after the time we agreed!!!. I patiently waited for the 4 hours, and once again, the technician failed to appear. I called Cablevision again to see what happened, and they told me that they had to move my appointment to the next day, without notice!! Obviously I told them where to go and I sought for a serious ISP. 2) We didn't have Cable TV service at home because of some technical problem that Cablevision was experimenting. When we noticed Cablevision about this issue, they told us that they'd send a technician to solve the problem the next day. Of course, the technician didn't come and just like in the lines above, they changed the appointment date for about three or four times, until they finally came and solved the problem. But by then, about 26 days had already passed since we first reported the incident! We logically didn't want to pay for that month in which we didn't enjoy the service, and we notified Cablevision of that. They agreed, but they instructed us to pay for that month's service, and the next month they'd reimburse the respective money. Well, 6 months and a long series of complaint calls had to pass until they reimbursed the money. So please avoid any Cablevision services in Mexico, they suck and they're out of any seriousness.

I hope that this little guide can be helpful for anybody thinking of paying for the services of any of the companies mentioned above... see you next time!