The 10 Most Hated Companies in America

A company can become broadly hated if it alienates a large enough group of people. It may frustrate customers with poor service, anger employees with unpleasant working conditions or low pay, and fail shareholders with poor returns. Often, these shortcomings are intertwined and it’s usually enough for a company to antagonize one of these groups for its reputation — and even its operations and finances — to suffer.







1. McDonald’s : It was at the center of the most significant labor movement of 2013. The company has, between its owned and operated stores and franchises, hundreds of thousands of employees who earn barely more than the minimum wage. A recent study conducted by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) found that McDonald’s employees rely more on public assistance programs than any other large fast-food company, with an estimated $1.2 billion in costs to the public.

2. Abercrombie & Fitch : Long-time Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) CEO Michael Jeffries is often referred to as the “modern founder” of the decades-old clothing line. But he became the subject of controversy when comments he made in 2006 about who the company wishes to see as its core customers recently surfaced. The comments implied that the teen retailer is looking to attract what he refers to as the “cool kids” and aims to avoid overweight customers.

3. Electronic Arts : Leading game maker EA (NASDAQ: EA) has recently hit some serious roadblocks. The company’s highly anticipated SimCity reboot was by all accounts a public relations disaster. The game servers failed to function for nearly a week after the launch, which meant consumers couldn’t play the game for a week after they purchased it. The company eventually offered a free game to anyone who had purchased SimCity in the early days.

4. Sears Holdings :
As is the case at many of the country’s largest retailers, Sears and Kmart are among the largest employers of low-wage workers in the country, according to analysis by 24/7 Wall St. in collaboration with NELP.

5. DISH Network : Subscribers aren’t impressed with DISH’s (NASDAQ: DISH) customer service. DISH earned a spot in MSN’s 2013 Customer Service Hall of Shame largely because of its aggressive sales tactics. Customers also complained about confusing contracts and unreasonable cancellation fees. DISH is not the only company in the industry that customers despise, however, it reaps additional notoriety because of its relationship with its employees. Based on a 24/7 Wall St. analysis of Glassdoor data, DISH was rated as the worst company to work for last year.

6. Walmart : The company employs more workers who make less than $10 per hour than any company in America, according to an analysis by 24/7 Wall St in collaboration with NELP. According to Glassdoor, Walmart sales associates, who are often part-time hourly employees, earn less than $9.00 an hour, on average. Further, only half of the store’s employees approve of the CEO.

7. JPMorgan Chase : JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) has been embroiled in several major scandals in recent years. In 2012, the company captured headlines with the so-called “London Whale” fiasco, in which a series of trades cost it billions of dollars. As a result, the company’s management and its risk controls were criticized. Yet, as 2013 wore on, the scandals continued piling up. In October, the company agreed to pay a $13 billion settlement related to its actions — and those of acquisitions Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual — in off-loading poor quality mortgage-backed securities onto investors.
JPMorgan also became the focus of a scandal in China and Hong Kong, where it reportedly hired the children of Chinese elites to help facilitate the bank’s business in China. The new year has also started off poorly for the bank, which was fined for ignoring signs that Bernie Madoff was running a ponzi scheme. The mounting negative press has led many to call for CEO Jamie Dimon’s resignation.

8.lululemon : lululemon was once the only game in town for yoga wear, clothing that has become extremely popular in the last few years. But larger clothing brands have begun eating away at the company’s market share.

The company was embroiled in several public relations fiascos last year. After customers began complaining that one style of the company’s pants were see-through in certain conditions, lululemon issued a recall. The problems might have ended there had the company’s Chairman Chip Wilson not mentioned on television that the pants might not work on women of all sizes. In the ensuing fallout, Wilson resigned.

9. BlackBerry : The long and tragic decline of BlackBerry is a good example of how quickly a market leader can go astray. The grandfather of the smartphone industry has lost almost all of its market share to current leaders Apple and Samsung. As recently as 2008 the company was one of the largest sellers of smartphones in the world, with total unit sales more than double those of Apple. Since then, however, the company’s share of the mobile phone market has evaporated.

10. JCPenney : JCPenney has probably made more operational and strategic mistakes than any other large publicly traded company in America. Penney hired Apple’s retail chief Ron Johnson in November 2011 to replace longtime CEO Mike Ullman. Johnson implemented a series of marketing and merchandising strategies that not only failed to boost revenue but actually hurt sales — same-store sales and revenue fell roughly 25% in fiscal 2012. Same store sales failed to meet modest expectations in 2013.
The company then rehired Ullman as CEO in April 2013, despite his poor performance before Johnson joined. Since returning, Ullman has announced plans to reverse most of Johnson’s changes. Because of its sales failures and poor balance sheet, Penney is considered by many to be teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. The stock market has ravaged the stock, pushing down shares by 60% over the last five years.
JC Penney has also done poorly in the critical e-commerce sector. In the Foresee study of online retail customer satisfaction, Penney scored well down the list, a sign that it has an uphill battle to get consumers back.


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Source:   24/7 WallSt