I boycott Walmart (for all the reasons listed above) , but unfortunately my father and brother care more about the convenience and low prices, and continue to shop there when we're upstate. At the very least they've learned not to expect me to use what they buy (I still can't believe my dad got me expensive earring from walwart, of all places). The fact that Walmart now has a large food section (milk, eggs and icecream included) really disturbs me. It has crossed yet another line on the way to completely taking over. Already many of the mom & pop places in the area have closed down. Luckily, there isn't a walmart in NYC yet....

I try to avoid Zellers - a low end department store, a lot like Walmart. No matter what time of day I've ever gone there, there is always a long line at the cash register - if there are fewer customers, they just put on fewer cashiers. Shelves are messy and poorly stocked. They may be saving money on staff, but they lose it in the customers who never come back.

Walmart moved into our town a year ago. There was a lot of nervousness in the local small businesses, but nobody has gone out of business yet - not even the one overpriced store with snotty staff that I thought was doomed for sure. I don't like their grocery end, and won't shop there. It is geared towards those who cannot cook - huge selection of frozen dinners, ice cream, snack food, etc, but very poor selection and prices on actual *ingredients* - only one brand of flour, only in white, for example. Everything overpackaged, and overprocessed.

I can't stand Zellers. I used to shop there a lot, because it was about a 10 minute walk from my house, as well as from school, but I avoid it at all costs now. It's always a mess and they just don't seem to have very good merchandise anymore. I dislike their newer clothing brands and stuff like that. A lot of my friends in high school worked for Zellers since it was right in the neighbourhood, and they've had more complaints than anyone I've known who has worked at Walmart.

I boycott AT and T - and will be getting phone service elsewhere for as long as I am on Planet Earth! Several years ago, I got a disconnect notice from them for a bill they hadn't even sent yet! The bill was dated April 25, and the disconnect was dated April 21. The previous month's bill had been paid in full, so I was disconnected for a bill that was not even DUE yet!

Oh, the customer service rep was very chirpy and pleasant, agreeing that it never should've happened, and offered to arrange immediate re-connection...as soon as I paid the reconnection fee! I was tempted to give her an anatomically impossible suggestion, but simply said 'no thank you' and hung up. My phone and internet are currently through the cable company, even though I don't have cable TV.

I will never, ever purchase an item from any Quiznos.

Hairdressers - argh - more memories flooding back!

One in Wembley left me in the chair while she went off to chat to her crony about a night out. I'd have walked out except she'd cut my hair on one side only, and it was still wet. Standing over me and telling me repeatedly what a good mate I was didn't do it for me. Or get me back.

Another hairdressers in Bedford was recommended by a friend about nine years ago, because her mother-in-law went there. I accepted the recommendation although I wasn't sure, with hindsight, why I would want to go to the same place as a woman 30 years my senior, with hair like a rollered and lacquered steel grey helmet... but go I did.

After a few visits, I thought that my hair colour was starting to look a bit sad, so Carolyn restored the natural dark brown with Natural Dark Brown out of a bottle. After a few more visits, she said "This is Tabitha. She's going to be looking after you today."

Tabitha didn't return my greeting. Tabitha neither showed emotion nor spoke. It turned out that Tabitha didn't do or know anything very much. When I noticed colour dripping, she had to ask Carolyn what do to. She brought me one whole tissue!

Carolyn said: "This is Tabitha's second day - isn't she doing well?"

Like an idiot, I paid up. (My mood and circumstances at the time were not conducive to my standing up for myself.) Full price even though it had been done by a total novice, and I hadn't been told she was a novice, or asked if I minded being her guinea-pig, or even if I could afford the time - because it took twice as long as when Carolyn did it.

Then I asked to phone for a taxi. Directly above the cash till was a telephone, stuck to the wall next to a list of telephone numbers. No, I couldn't use that, because it's for incoming calls only. "You'll have to use the payphone outside."

At that moment, the owner appeared. He didn't correct the insultingly obvious lie about the wall-phone, but he gave me a handful of coins for the payphone.

I have made it one of my missions to warn as many people off this "salon" as possible. I hope I'm past the 72 mark!

The only other shop I stopped going into was part of a discount chain - low-ish prices and no staff. When I asked if my son - then about two - could use the loo, two giggling salesgirls said no, because he might fall in. I wasn't at all disappointed when the shop closed down.

I dont boycott any shop and i only stop using a product if it doesnt suit me. I just think that if i boycott somewhere that i really like, it's me missing out- the shop isn't really going to suffer that much or beg me to come back, and in the meantime i'm inconvenienced.
xx

When I was a kid we boycotted all kinds of stuff - I especially remember the California grape boycott. I think of a boycott as something political or ideological - like not buying cosmetics tested on animals. If someone is rude to me in a shop and I stop buying there, that 's more of a personal thing.

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I think of a boycott as something political or ideological - like not buying cosmetics tested on animals. If someone is rude to me in a shop and I stop buying there, that 's more of a personal thing.

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I agree though there are some cases where the two overlap.

At the moment I'm very tempted to switch from one fuel supplier to another (because of appallingly bad customer service) but I wouldn't call that a boycott.

I refuse to ever set foot in a Wal-Mart for all the reasons set forth in other posts here.

I also refuse to eat at Bruegger's Bagels due to horrible customer service. I've been in that bagel chain only three times over a three year period, but each and every time I am struck by how shabbily non-regular customers are treated. Each time, I was made to feel as if I were an unwelcome intruder who had crashed a private party. Their food is excellent but they've made it clear to me that my business is not welcome there and so I steer clear of them.

First, I DON'T boycott Wal-Mart for one reason--I get some of the best deals on things there. But, as a rule, I try to do any shopping I have to do there on the weekdays. One thing Wal-Mart does that I don't like is that it allows groups to set up fundraisers right on their doorstep. No offense to the Girl Scouts, AAU teams or the Knights of Columbus--all worthy organizations--but when I go shop, the last thing I want is to have to deal with someone selling me something I didn't come to buy or want to donate to.

So, who's on my no-buy list?

1) hhgregg, which when they sold us a range hood, sent out one that had looked like it had been beaten with a baseball bat. Turns out my wife had seen that very same range hood on their showroom floor. Needless to say, they no longer get any of my business.

2) Dell, because they didn't follow instructions. My brother-in-law asked me to order him a new computer, taking advantage of one of their offers found in the Parade magazine that comes in the Sunday paper. It was bad enough that the website didn't recognize the offer code. What made it worse was, after giving them all the shipping information so that the machine could be sent to my brother-in-law, they still sent the dang thing to me. They took care of it, but that little detail turned me off Dell. The only reason I use Dell is because the company I work for gets all their computers from them.

3) There's a Ford dealership in metropolitan Charlotte (who will remain nameless) that sold me a car that has been more problem than its been worth. Not only will I not buy another vehicle from them, I'll also not buy another Ford. For what is was, the Taurus was a good vehicle. But I've had three of them and that's enough.

4) Beef, which happens to be one of my favorite foods. I recently learned that eating lots of beef contributes to nocturnal leg cramps. I'm not really boycotting beef, which means Whoppers and Quarter Pounders are not off-limits completely. It just means I don't eat as much steak or burgers as I used to.

5) The Geek Squad, as found at Best Buy. If you've got a problem with your computer, you're better off trying to fix it yourself. I took those clowns my wife's Compaq about a year or so ago to have a DVD drive replaced. For some reason, they insisted that they needed my system disk. They got the work orders mixed up, but it took me several tries to get them to understand what needed to be done.

6) There are also two small computer stores in metropolitan Charlotte (again, remaining nameless) that I won't do business with again either. One misdiagnosed a problem with one of my computers (which I was able to solve eventually); the other kept a monitor for weeks trying to repair it, but keeping me out of the loop on how it was going.

I now boycott the school canteen. The government has done something to them so that they no longer sell anything remotely edible. The things that are edible, are too expensive.

Many years ago my mother was reading the newspaper and saw an ad for a dress advertised at a local boutique frequented by the city's elite. Mom walked into the shop and asked the sales clerk about the advertised dress. The clerk looked my casually-dressed mother up and down and said in her haughtiest voice "Oh dear, you wouldn't be able to afford that dress." My mother thanked the woman and left the store. Imagine that sales clerk's surprise when she lost her job for mistreating a very dear friend of the shop's owner. Yes, that very dear friend was my mom. I never forgot that story.

How Pretty Woman! I love stories like that.

Reminds me of a colleague who took his 15 year old Subaru off to the BMW dealer, asked for a trade-in price. Now BMW dealers are reknowned for how polite they are. Unfortunately, this policy apparently hasn't reached the dealership in Tamworth, NSW.

The salesman was exceptionally rude to this colleague, and begrudgingly gave him a trade-in price for a new Beemer. Now this colleague has a reputation of being somewhat tight-fisted. Quite frankly, he would squeeze a 20c coin until the platypus ruptures something. He asked what the discount was for cash. That's right - how much will you take off the price if I pay you cold, hard cash. The salesman looked my off-duty paramedic colleague up and down (as he was wearing his usual off-duty garb - jeans and a pressed check shirt, clean shoes), and took $10,000 off the price. Clearly, the salesman thought there was no way this guy could pay cash for a brand new, drive off the lot BMW. The colleague got the smarmy salesman to write the quote out (so he had it on paper), thanked him, and told him he'd be back in about an hour.

Approximately 45 minutes later, my colleague walks back into the dealership carrying a portfolio filled with the cash required to complete the transaction. To cut a long story short, the owner of the dealership was called in, the salesman made $0 commission, and my colleague drove out in a brand spanking new BMW. Which he parks in a back shed that looks like it would fall over if you blew on it too hard.

Back on topic - I now boycott the FASHION ASSASSIN clothing label, and I would encourage any Heath Ledger fan out there to do the same. I was incensed when a tv crew interviewed the owner of the label on telly less than 24 hours after Heath's death for his feelings on hearing the heart-breaking news, and this (I can't put here what I really feel) schmuck plugs his label. Shameless. While I'm not usually the kind of person who wishes another person ill fortune, I certainly wish it for you and your label. Your pathetic commercialism I sincerely hope backfires. Or, in good old fashioned Aus-speak, I hope your chickens turn into emus and kick down your dunny door.

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Quite frankly, he would squeeze a 20c coin until the platypus ruptures something.

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I haven't heard this one before but I love it!