VOTING FORM: The Wooden Spoon Awards for the company with the worst customer service in 2022

VOTING FORM: The Wooden Spoon Awards for the company that served up the worst customer service in 2022

Have you been a victim of one of our most complained about companies in 2022? Make your voice heard. It’s your chance to help us name and shame the worst of the worst with the ‘winner’ in the New Year receiving our Wooden Spoon Award.

Read more about why each company has been chosen as the worst of the bunch 

If you’re reading on a mobile app or third party site please vote here  

Here’s a quick reminder of the nominees and don’t forget to add your thoughts in the comments.

British Gas

Inaccurate billing and a tortoise-like telephone answering service saw the company leap to the top of Money Mail’s most complained about energy firm league. Worried customers saw inexplicable increases – one household’s direct debit shot up from £80 a month to £800 – while others complained of being left on hold for almost an hour.

BT

The phone giant that doesn’t answer its phones. Customers calling its faults helpline have routinely been forced to wait on hold for up to 45 minutes and longer as they try to contact the telecoms giant to complain about broadband problems and engineers failing to show-up.

DWP – Department for Work and Pensions

The year has seen a catalogue of blunders – from hard-up pensioners forced to wait months to receive much-needed pension credit and new pensioners waiting months to receive their first payment because of ‘staffing issues’. But the big one was the historical scandal of more than 237,000 women underpaid their state pension with many facing yet another five-year wait for their money.

E.On

Pressured, ‘harassed’ even, to have smart meters installed, incredibly hard to contact, with one customer left on hold for 80 minutes, and sending out pairs of socks to customers worried about soaring energy prices. The firm was forced to apologise for that gaffe in January. It’s not been a good year for this energy firm.

John Lewis

This long-time beacon for customer service lost its shine in that department by forcing its most loyal customers to reapply for their existing Partnership credit card, many of whom were then rejected. It also announced it was retiring its ‘never knowingly undersold’ price match policy, which had been a unique selling point for the company for almost a century.

Passport Office

By June, the backlog in applications ballooned to 550,000 as straightforward routine renewals took months. The delays derailed holiday plans, business trips and weddings as customers struggled to get through on phone lines and book appointments. Long queues formed outside the London office and emergency hotlines were closed in what MPs described as a ‘complete failure’.

Paypal

It’s a fast way to pay — but can be the opposite if you need to get your money back. Complaints typically involve a failure to resolve disputes or process refunds with some accounts being frozen without warning. But worst of all? Almost every customer found it hard to contact someone to get help – often via a chatbot that can take several hours to respond.

Santander

The banking giant slashed the weekday opening hours at hundreds of its high street branches and cut Saturday opening to half-day at hundreds more. On top of that it came under fire for its slow responses to fraud – it has no dedicated fraud hotline and told one victim of a scammer, who stole her Santander bank card from a locker, that the subsequent £8,000 spending spree was her fault.

Read the full report with responses from the company representatives