What would make you stop/start patronizing a business?
 

This is kind of a spinoff of the Disneyland and "the Gays" thread.

Let's extend this to neighborhoods and schools. I once knew a family from church who moved to another neighborhood because the old one recently opened an adult shop. As for schools, is there anything a school could do that would make you transfer as a student, or stop donating as an alum? Ex. the school denying/supporting certain student organizations.

If I cannot understand what they are saying if and when I want to pay my bill!:mad:

There's a lot, and they don't even have to be big issues for me. And I never worry about it really hurting the business in a systematic way; I just avoid giving it or the person my personal support.

One of the silliest examples is that I haven't watched a Woody Allen movie since the Soon Yi Previn story broke. Does Woody Allen know or care? Absolutely not. Do I really think who he sleeps with is any of my business? Nope, but if he is going to have a relationship with the daughter of his long term partner, I'm think he's sleazy and disgusting, and I'm going to take peace of mind in knowing that nothing I do is going to make him any richer.

Local business with poor customer service get written off pretty easily.

I can't immediately think of any political or social boycotts I'm involved in that are really meaningful, but often times it's a question not of where I won't buy, but why I buy where I do.

I boycotted pepsi. It was hard, but ultimately effective. (Like 5 million other people did too) to get them to stop dealing with Mygmar..whoever took over Burma, and locked their elected leader under house arrest. They stopped selling them soda. I'm still not going drink pepsi though. Just out of habbit mostly. I also am never eating taco bell again. I'm boycotting their nastiness. Same for KFC. Pizza Hut has a couple strikes left.

I don't like to say I'm boycotting something. Boycotts take organization. Personally, I don't eat domino's because I read that the people that started that business gave money to a group that bombed a plan parent hood clinic. I'm not boycotting dominos because I am not encourageing others to not eat there.

Plus, I also don't eat there because of their sauce and their cheese is all processed and stank.

Did anyone see that Family Guy when Adam West broke the Noid's neck? That was awesome.

I haven't had a Rolling Rock since it was bought by Anheuser-Busch and they moved the brewery out of Latrobe. I'm sure there are other people around here who've done the same.

When we had our old ubercrappy Greek advisor, I told Clarion when they called for donations that I wouldn't give $$ until she was removed from that position. And I didn't.

I heart Pizza Hut!!

That is so ture about Domino's. I don't give a crap about the pizza being hot and ready.

I did the same with Pitt, over Dr. Brumble in the English Department. They will NEVER get a cent of my money - I'll send it to the ADPi Foundation instead.

Well I stopped donating money to my alma mater when it was discovered that a hacker had been stealing names and social security numbers of alumni for over three years. I recieved a nice little e-mail about three months AFTER the story broke in the paper. And then the university refused to pay for credit monitoring for those who had their identities stolen.

I now give that money to my HS alma mater for a college scholarship for graduates and to my collegiate chapter for help with their costs.

And I too haven't seen a Woody Allen movie since he hooked up with SoonYi. He gives me the creeps just to look at him.

Oh, and I don't watch Tom Cruise movies anymore. He creeps me out as well.

I'll take Domino's over Pizza Hut anyday. Pizza Hut pizza tastes like ass. Actually I just love the cheesy bread and buffalo chicken kickers from Domino's. They need to bring the double melt pizza back. Then I'll start eating their pizza again.

I like both Pizza Hut and Dominoes. Pizza Hut is just so greasy, I have to be in a certain mood to eat it.

I stoped donating to my alma mater when they changed the name at the insistence of the athletic department. I did that for several years, but did rejoin the alumni association just this past year. I'm still mad, but I just didn't want to donate at first because they spent $350,000 for the name change. The money came from private donors, but still - you could do a lot of things to improve a school for $350,000. Using the money to change signs and stationery just irked me.

They changed the name of the school to please the athletic department? I enjoy college sports, but that one is over the top! And to think I was annoyed when my university changed to logo to please the AD. I can't imagine if they had changed the school name.

ForeverRoses - it really stank. They went through the motions of "We will poll our alumni and see what they think" - I don't know of a single alum other than my ex-husband (and isn't THAT telling) who thought it was a good idea. "Don't Mess with Southwest Texas" became a campaign - but since the AD wanted the name change, they of course got it.
My parents, all my siblings and I attended Southwest Texas State University - which is now Texas State University - San Marcos. I hate, hate, hate the new name.
Now our new logo - I like.

When I saw a employee spit in the food of a drive through customer!:mad:

Buy frozen pizza it is cheaper.:D

I don't like Pizza Hut either. Mr. Tau and I ordered Pizza Hut delivery last week and it took them over an hour (1 hour, 15 minutes to be exact) to get here. And they aren't even that far! Mr. Tau had to call them. And by the time the pizza got there, it was cold! Gross!

We changed the mascot to be PC even though the Native Americans who it "offended" weren't offended by it.

I will not give money to my law school if they give my property professor tenure.

Should have told them You did not want it and why!

Of course you would be hungry!:eek:

Dominos sucks and all or most of them ahve left KC Metro.

They would come by the store trying to sell them at half price because people refused them or it was a ploy!

local pizza places will always taste better than chains.

the guy at the corner might have greasier pizza, but so what? it is pizza. And he's closer than the other people, and takes his time when he bakes it in that old oven.

I don't really do organized boycotts and protests much, I just do or don't do things as I see fit and don't try to force my choices on to other people. But there are definitely a lot of places and things that I avoid, now that I think about it. There is a real estate agency in Savannah that I will never go back to because of their blatant racism (if anyone is interested, I have no problem sharing this agency's name via PM). I don't eat at Cracker Barrel because a portion of the proceeds goes toward pro-life groups (no offense to those who are pro-life, it's just not where I would like my money to go). I don't go to Atlanta Braves games because of the name/mascot. Actually, this is a really long list and could just keep going ... :)

Re: my university, I don't think I would ever give money to the university in general. Most of what they do is military research there, and I want to know that any donation I make is going toward helping the students themselves. I would want to give specifically to things such as my academic department, the archives that I did my research in, etc. Those seem like safe bets.

Ditto. In fact, a Huron chief even went to a Board of Regents meeting to request that it NOT be changed and they changed it anyway.

Stopped going to a favorite restaurant because we paid with a $20 and the waitress insisted we paid with a $10. They told us "If we're $10 over at the end of the day, then we'll call you." My ex-husband (boyfriend then) asked the manager to count the drawer right then and they did. It was $10 over. No apology, nothing. They practically threw the money at us.

Will never buy something from a particular furniture store because they sold me a lifetime warranty on my leather couch stating "It will even cover tears from pets" but when my dog tore the couch, they wouldnt' cover it.

And then there's stamps.com. Sign up for a "free" 28 day trial period. On day 26, I call to cancel, but they do not have customer service on Saturday or Sunday. I call on Monday, which is day 28 and it is Martin Luther King day, so they do not have customer service. I call first thing Tuesday morning and they have ALREADY charged my visa for a full month because I didn't cancel before the end of the 28th day. Oh, and does that mean I get a month from that day? NO. My month started when my trial period did. So, I didn't get 28 days free. I paid for them on the 29th day.

I will never buy another Labbatt product if their purchase of Lakeport goes through.

I will never watch the Leafs again if they continue to suck next year. They haven't won a cup in 40 years! You'd think they would start to realize that what they are doing isn't working after so long, but unfortunately, they still don't get it.

The last time I ate at any of those joints was 7 years ago. And for the exact same reason.

this might be just a rumor...but i heard that taco bell beef isn't all from cows.

Like, they use horses and rats and stuff.

Just a rumor though.

I completely and totally agree with you. Freedom is not freedom if you constantly have other people telling you what you should do. Just because something is right for one person doesn't make it right for everyone else.

I won't ever pay to have my car detailed again. Did it once and totalled the vehicle four hours later. Superstitious....

I won't ever buy a computer that runs only Windows, because I far prefer Mac OS.

I refuse to ever take my car back to the local Toyota dealership for service. They charged me a total of 7.5 hours of labor when the car was there for a maximum of 3.5 hours from drop off to pick up. Plus they told me I needed new brakes less than 24 hours after Midas put new ones on. Then didn't do anything to investigate with the mechanic after I questioned it.

I buy generic everything when available (EXCEPT toilet paper and peanut butter) because I don't want to pay extra for advertising if I don't have to.

I patronize local, independent bookstores when available (which they are not in my town). Being in the publishing industry, I've seen what happens when too few people have too much power over what books are made available to the public.

Four years ago, I took my PC in to Best Buy (where I had purchased it) because the CD-rom drive had died (the disc exploded within the drive!) and it was under warranty for them to fix it. Rather than simply replace the CD-rom drive, they wiped my hard drive clean without my consent. I was young and naive, and I didn't have a backup except for photos and some music. All of my other stuff was gone, and I had gotten rather bad news from my doctor earlier that day, so I was an emotional wreck.

I haven't done business with Best Buy since (...except once, at a different location...because they were the only place in town with a copy of WiiPlay, and I wanted the cheap game/remote combo for a party I was having that night).

In any case, no more PCs for me, thankyouverymuch. I'm a Mac girl now. :)

Since someone mentioned Best Buy and a car dealership...

I picked up a free trial copy of Rhapsody at Best Buy and took it home and installed it. Then my computer started locking up and giving me VisualC++ errors and stuff. So I ended up taking my laptop to best buy and was without it for probably a week or so while they fixed it. Then I e-mailed rhapsody and told them I shouldn't have to pay anything since their software screwed up my laptop. Ha. Never got a response from that.

Another time I took my car to the Chevy dealership to get the power window on the passenger side fixed. After a few hours they called me on the cell so I came back across the street (I was killing time at Borders) and the "fix" didn't even last long enough to get out of the parking lot! The service writer probably sat in my car for five minutes playing with the window trying to get it to work. He suggested I bring it in again and have it re-repaired. So that was $50 and a few hours of my life that I'll never get back.

Screw you, Morse Chevrolet of Overland Park, Kansas.

For the record-never use Geek Squad and never get a warranty at Best Buy. Both are total ripoffs.
There's a really popular coffee shop in my college's town called Rao's. Ever since I found out that it's run by communists (seriously) and they don't serve fair trade coffee there I've refused to give them any of my money.

So what's their deal? You would think that if you were Communist, unless you could get coffee grown in Cuba, maybe, the next best thing would be coffee grown in such a manner to benefit small scale growers and the rights of workers, such as they are in the coffee industry. Are they so anti-trade that they consider any regulation somehow worse because it makes revolution less likely? Are they simply hypocrites?

I've got to say - Best Buy has gone above and beyond for me. I took in my t.v. (under their warranty) and, when they couldn't get the part, I got a brand new television to replace the old one. No hassle at all.

Oh yeah, there's a Chevy dearlership near me that I won't use for service (although I did buy a car there, but I needed one THAT DAY and had to go to the place that I could walk to). They told me I needed a new engine to the tune of $5400 on a car whose Blue Book value was $2000. Uhh sure, right. I took the car somewhere else where they fixed it for $450. It lasted me two more years and then the engine died. I definitely hadn't needed a new engine two years prior. Also, the second place said the PCV unit was SMASHED, as if someone put it in wrong or dropped something on it.

The year my mother had two heart attacks & four surgeries in one month, she had purchased 6 computers (along with printers, faxes, etc) from Best Buy, so she bought their "frequent user" card (I forget what they call it). While we were worried if she would live or die, Best Buy sent her over $200 in coupons to use by the end of the month.

Once she was better - about 5 days after the expiration date - I called Best Buy and explained the situation and asked if she could use the coupons, either at the store or online. They said no. I again explained that, it would have been terribly hard for her to unhook all of her monitors to go to the store to use the coupons, and they still refused. The kicker was when the representative said, "Hey, we've had guys come back from Iraq, and we wouldn't honor their coupons, either!"

I told them that their policy was nothing to brag about, and since then, have done anything in my power to NOT patronize Best Buy.

Besides, jwright25 insinuated, if we only patronize the big stores, there will come a time when we won't have a choice about where we want to buy something!

My Best Buy manager may just be a cut above the rest - I've heard so many stories about other stores, but really, mine has been great.
If I had an alternative here in the middle of nowhere, I'd use it. I've written a couple of columns about the need to support local businesses. And I hate the "strip malling" of America! ARrrggggghhhhh.