Hasta La Gadget!

When it comes to companies we dread dealing with, we all know who they are. Let’s put it this way, would you rather go to the Apple Genius Bar to fix something with your iPhone or to the Bank of America teller to reverse a surprise interest charge?

It’s perhaps no wonder Bank of America leads the nation in bad customer service. The massive U.S. financial institution has made the Customer Service Hall of Shame every year since 2009.

Click here to see 24/7 Wall St.’s customer service hall of shame:

In collaboration with research survey group Zogby Analytics, we polled 2,500 adults about the quality of customer service at 150 of America’s best-known companies in 15 industries, asking if that service was “excellent,” “good,” “fair” or “poor.”

Those with the highest percentages of “excellent” rankings make up the Customer Service Hall of Fame; those with the highest share “poor” ratings make up our Customer Service Hall of Shame. (See how the survey was done and full results on the last page of this article.)

Many of the other companies with the bottom-rated customer service have earned spots on the Hall of Shame list in the past. Eight of the 10 companies in the Hall of Shame have made at least three previous appearances since 2009.

It is difficult for businesses in some industries to win consumer praise. Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup — three of the largest banks in the country — received some of the worst customer service ratings in the nation.

For banks, the many fees they charge may contribute to a customer’s poor evaluation of a company. “As soon as you take out your Bank of America ATM card you get charged,” said Praveen Kopalle, professor of marketing at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

In addition to unpleasant and repeated charges and fees, these large banks engaged in questionable and often unlawful behavior that contributed to the housing crisis. For example, “[Banks] assured customers that [mortgage-backed securities] were actually good products when, in fact, they were pretty toxic,” Kopalle said.

Cable and satellite TV companies are another segment that has repeatedly received poor customer service ratings. Shep Hyken, a customer satisfaction expert, explained that these companies are often unclear about their service charges. “Customers get shocked when they get their bill,” Hyken said.

In some instances, companies have little incentive to offer good service. “If people really don’t like the customer service that they receive from telecom companies, they don’t have a lot of choice,” Tim Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, explained. Without competition from other companies, “there is just not that pressure to deliver great service.”

Future consolidation in these industries may exacerbate the problem. Companies like AT&T and DirecTV, as well as Time Warner Cable and Comcast, are driving merger and acquisition activity that will likely close this year, pending government approval.

Many of the companies with the worst customer service, however, are still market leaders and manage to maintain impressive profit margins. Seven of the 10 companies in the Hall of Shame dominate their industries.

This is 24/7 Wall St.’s customer service hall of shame:

By Jan Bruce

Imagine you’ve asked your child six times to come to dinner and she shows no sign of putting down her phone. Or your co-worker promised to change the copier toner and a week later, that yellow warning light is still blinking. In either case, you know that this is not really a big deal, but right now, in this moment, you’re as angry as you’ve ever been. You press that anger down as best you can, but you also fear you’re going to end up exploding somehow, because all that emotional energy has to go somewhere.

There’s nothing quite as destabilizing as anger, or other negative emotions like sadness or anxiety. What’s worse, we’re taught to suppress these negative emotions, so when we snap and show our sadness or the depth of our worry, we often feel ashamed, which in turn leads to more anger or deeper sadness or persistent stress. It’s a neverending, ever-tightening loop.

But while these emotions may feel unpleasant, don’t mistake that for pointless. There’s a good reason, evolutionarily speaking, why those emotions trigger the reactions they do. The problems occur not when we have the emotions, but when we’re unable to bounce back from them, or the emotions come up without a reasonable trigger (i.e., you fly into a rage over something trivial, like no milk left in the fridge).

Your goal isn’t to prevent any and all negative emotions (or repress them, which is worse), but to metabolize them the way you would food: Get what you need from it and let the rest go. This means it’s critical that you can understand what’s causing you to feel the way you do, and to manage your response so that you remain in control.

Here’s a three-step approach to meeting negative emotions with more control.

1. Allow yourself to feel the emotion.
It is absolutely normal, and necessary, to feel the full range of human emotion. Each one gives you information about where your thinking is giving you trouble. If you break a bone in your foot, it hurts, right? The pain is your body saying, “Hey, problem down here in the left fifth metatarsal! Ice pack and X-rays, please!” Painful emotions are your very own built-in feedback system.

Anger may get the blue ribbon for most taboo emotion, especially for women. The fear is that if you’re angry, people might reject or, even worse, dismiss your anger as unimportant or irrational. The emotion boils down to one thing: You feel your rights are being violated. And you may be right! This emotion may be clueing you in to a real infringement that calls for action. But if you’ve in a constant state of anger, then your thoughts are likely out of sync with reality. That’s when you need to practice bringing awareness to your thinking. (Read more on anger.)

2. Take a breath between feeling and expression.
This isn’t about repression. It’s about taking a breath before the emotions run away with you. Emotional literacy is partly about learning how to separate from the feeling and consider it with a neutral mind. When you can find this space, you are more able to disrupt the thoughts feeding the huge emotion. (Read more on negative thinking and stress.)

Deep sadness can come on like a storm. You are so suddenly and completely surrounded by clouds that if can feel like your personality is gone. In your mind, you are the sadness. You aren’t, though, any more that you are the pain in your leg when you get a charley horse. The trick is in training yourself to keep those clouds at a distance before your thoughts fully pick up the old sad refrain. Often breathing, stretching, or otherwise becoming aware of your body can help give you a buffer zone. (Read more on breathing techniques for relaxation.)

3. Challenge the thoughts determining your emotions.
Part of regaining control and calm is being able to identify the thought that’s triggering the emotion, and changing it. You may not even be aware that these thoughts are operating beneath the conscious level. They surely are, though, and investigating them is the only way to lessen their power.

Anxiety gets a lot of mileage out of the idea that some threat is coming to get you. It’s vague enough to apply to anything and ominous enough to affect all your decisions, from what you eat to how you talk to your kids. If your mother says something rude to your new boyfriend, he won’t want to be with you. If you flub your words on the conference call, the potential client won’t hire you. But you can test the thought against reality — and reality will win. If there is a threat out there, you’ll deal with it. If not, you can change the thought.

TRY THIS the next time you’re derailed by an emotion:

TRAP IT
When you feel the emotion coming on, flag it. Notice the symptoms, such as clenched jaw, a sinking heaviness in your chest, or the inability to focus.

MAP IT
Identify the thoughts causing the emotion.

ZAP IT
Challenge the thought. Is it true? Can you be sure your son is being rude because he wants to hurt you? Have you lost your best friend because she didn’t return your call? Don’t let the negative thought get off easily. You want the real information, not just the emotion.

The sooner you get honest about the thoughts causing a powerful, painful emotion, the sooner you can let it go or take the action that will truly meet your needs.

Jan Bruce is CEO and co-founder of meQuilibrium, the new digital coaching system for stress, which helps both individuals and corporations achieve measurable results in stress management and wellness.

For more by meQuilibrium, click here.

For more on stress, click here.

Amini Terrell did something that she knew would get attention last week. On Hollywood Boulevard, she decided to strip down to a bikini and strut down the road.

She is 260 pounds and wanted to show others that beauty applies to every shape and size.

While Fox News filmed her there were plenty of comments. One man claimed to have lost his appetite by viewing Amini in a bikini. One man said that she is the definition of sexy. One woman thanked her for doing it and one woman said it was embarrassing.

Everyone is going to have a different opinion on this topic. It just showed me one thing: Everyone has a “bikini body,” and there is no need to shame yourself into thinking you do not.

“Bikini Body” has got to be one of the worst self-image sayings out there. The media makes it out to be a myth. A goal for every summer. No one truly has the bikini body that fitness/health publications talk about because it is not real. It is fictional. Yet, they give you just a few easy steps to get the body “they” want… not the one you want.

It is to shame others to lose weight. You always hear you have to lose weight now because “bikini season” is right around the corner.

And so is Baskin Robbins.

As writer Carla Birnberg says, “If we want a beach body, we put on a swim suit and head to the beach.”

They make numerous sizes of bikinis for a reason. It is not one size. Amini did not have hers custom-made.

So, I agree that every body is a “bikini body.” It is hard to believe it sometimes.

I also believe that if a 370-pound woman walked in a bikini on Hollywood Boulevard, she would have gotten the same reaction. Same with a 110-pound woman. Some would lose their appetite, some would say “that defines sexy,” some would thank the woman and some would find it embarrassing.

That is just how people are.

OK, so I do not wear a bikini, but I know what it is like to want to lose weight. I want to do it quickly for the summer and I find the diet with the most results and then I eat less and then…

Enough.

If you want to get healthy, do it for you. If you want to lose weight do it for you.

Amini just said if you want to wear a bikini, do it for you.

Because if people say you are too fat to wear one, then you will lose weight. Once you lose weight they will say you are too flat-chested for one and then get surgery. Once you have Double D’s they will say you do not have a butt for one so you will have more surgery. Then you will not be tan enough or tall enough or shapely enough.

When is enough… enough?

There is only one opinion that matters. Because no matter how much weight you lose or how defined you get, people will always have their opinions.

The only one that matters is yours.

And today you have a “bikini body”

The 51-year-old woman punched repeatedly by a California Highway Patrol officer on the side of a freeway this month has filed a lawsuit claiming the cop used excessive force and violated her rights.

Onlookers used a cellphone camera on July 1 to record the unidentified cop pummeling Marlene Pinnock as he straddled her near an offramp in Los Angeles. The confrontation has been widely viewed around the world.

“Since Rodney King… videos have been the equalizer for vindicating citizens claims against the police,” said John Burriss, Pinnock’s attorney, who has also represented King. “Although, in this case the CHP claim that video does not tell the entire story, it does show enough of the story to demonstrate that the officer’s punching of the victim was horrific.”

CHP Commissioner Joseph Farrow has said he’s shocked by the video and promised an investigation, according to KTLA. CHP officials have said that before cameras starting recording, the officer was trying to restrain Pinnock from walking into traffic. They also claim that Pinnock ignored their commands and was physically combative.

The officer’s “clear intent was to beat her with such force that could have resulted in her death and is tantamount to attempted murder,” the complaint alleges. (Read the full lawsuit below.)

The suit was announced shortly after officials from the highway patrol subpoenaed and seized Pinnock’s medical records from the Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center on Thursday, according to the Associated Press. Taking her files might violate confidentiality rules too, the lawsuit argues.

“How can you give away files about someone injured… to the very people who beat her?” said Caree Harper, another attorney for Pinnock.

Pinnock, who is homeless, remained hospitalized on Thursday with a head injury, Burris said.

The officer seen striking Pinnock has been reassigned to a desk job, according to the Los Angeles Times. Her lawyers say he should be fired.

The lawsuit lists officer in the recording, other unnamed members of the force and Farrow as defendants. It contends that the department tried to “suppress” information from the altercation.

A CHP spokesperson reportedly wouldn’t comment because of the pending investigation and litigation.

Read the full complaint

Marlene Pinnock lawsuit

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DETROIT (AP) — General Motors knew of ignition switch problems with 6.7 million midsize and large cars for 11 years, yet it failed to warn customers with a recall until last month, according to documents posted by federal safety regulators.

The documents, released Friday, show yet again that the Detroit auto giant was slow to correct safety problems on its older models. And it exposes an all-too-familiar pattern of ignition switch troubles in millions of vehicles, some dating to 1997. So far this year GM has issued 54 recalls covering 29 million vehicles, 17 million for ignition problems. In most cases, the ignition switches can slip out of the “run” position, shutting down the engine and knocking out power steering and brakes. Drivers can lose control of their cars, and if they crash, the air bags won’t work. The list of recalls includes 2.6 million older small cars with faulty switches that GM has blamed for at least 13 deaths.

GM recalled the midsize and large cars on June 26 as part of a top-to-bottom corporate review of safety issues. It includes the 2000-2005 Chevrolet Impala and Monte Carlo, the 1997-2005 Chevy Malibu, the 1999-2004 Oldsmobile Alero, the 1998-2002 Oldsmobile Intrigue, the 1999-2005 Pontiac Grand Am and the 2004-2008 Pontiac Grand Prix. All have the same ignition switches.

The switches can unexpectedly shut off the car’s engine if a driver has a lot of weight on the key ring and goes over a bump, the company says. GM says two fatal crashes that killed three people could be linked to the problem.

In a chronology filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, GM said a Michigan dealership reported a 2003 complaint from a customer about a Pontiac Grand Am stalling. The customer had about 50 keys and a set of brass knuckles on his ring. GM officials saw the customer demonstrate the engine stall by going over a speed bump, and it told dealers in a voice mail about the problem. GM also issued a service bulletin to dealers warning of the problem, but it didn’t recall the cars at that time.

Later that year, GM changed the switch to make it harder to turn on the Malibu, Grand Am and Alero, but still did not issue a recall. Then, in 2004, it fixed the Grand Prix switches in 2004 without changing the part number.

The changes and deaths possibly linked to the problem were discovered in GM’s safety review earlier this year.

The way GM handled the midsize and large car recall is similar to its methods in the small-car recall. The small-car case touched off federal investigations and congressional hearings, and it brought a $35 million fine from NHTSA for delays in reporting safety problems to the government.